LIFE UNDER THE SOVIET.

Taranaki Daily News, 31 December 1920, Page 9 (Supplement)

LIFE UNDER THE SOVIET.

MR. WELLS' IMPRESSIONS.

STATE REARING CHILDREN.

London, Nov. 20. Jn a further article in the Sydney express dewribing conditions in Soviet Russia Mr. 11. (;, Wells says:—''The work of the Government offices is shockingly carried out. The slackness and inaccuracy are indescribable, and everybody is working in a muddle of unsortP a Frs and cigarette ends. The counter-revolution has not changed this tor 't is inherent to the present situation.

'Jintire towns are sinking into slum conduions, and the Government has to play the part of a gigantic Dr. Barnardo. Mr. Wells visited institutions where children were taken from their parents and brought up bv the Government Iliey are healthy and contented, and the Bolsheviks are getting the very best people to control these homps. ( The writer amusingly deseHbes. a home of rest," where workers are sent tor two or throe weeks to lead a lite of refined ease. It is a beautiful country bouse in magnificent grounds. Meals arc served in the manner of a "cntK man-s, home but the obligation is on the 'V c ac ' similarly. ,If he spits on the floor an attendant draws a circle round the spot and forces him to dean it up. I

JMvs. C'aro Sheridan, cousin of Mr. Winston Churchill, has returned after two months in Russia, where she went, 'it the invitation of Kamenefl', to oxccute busts of Lenin and Trotsky. She praises her treatment most highly, and extolls tlic wit and intellectuality of the leaders. Food and comforts are lacking, however, and the faces of the people, are blank and expressionless. 1 am not a Bolshevik, and did not try to understand Bolshevism." she ••■ays, but 1 have seen the lenders working IB hours daily, with hardlv any load and no stimulant,, and ]' know ihem for idealists, and not devils I have come out feeling; that 1 have seen the crucifixion of a, nation, not by the Communists, but by the Allies,"