BOLSHEVIK METHODS.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 March 1921, Page 5

BOLSHEVIK METHODS.

HUMAN SPIRIT OPPRESSED. Perhaps the most crushing 'criticism of Bolshevism yet published is contained in Bertrand Russell’s book “The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism.” The author went to Russia with no prejudice against Bolshevism, but rather with a disposition to hail it as a new and liberating force. But, alas! for “the freedom of the htpnan spirit”—nowhere did he find the human spirit oppressed more than in Russia. He believep that Communism is necessary for the world, but the best he can say of Communism as practised in Russia is that we ought to be grateful, to the Bolsheviks, as they have shown us how not to promote it. When he threw off his guides and went about among the people, he never once, he tells us, met a Communist. No conceivable system, of free election would give majorities to the Communists either in town or in country. But the Bolsheviks have a very simple way of surmounting this little difficulty. The voting is by a show of hands, so that all who vote against the Government are marked men. Moreover, no -candidate who is not a Bolshevik can have any printing done, since the printing works are in the hands of the State. Finally, the non-Bolshevik cannot address any meetings because the hulls al] belong to the State. How fanatically a theory can be pursued by Russians seems to be most vividly proved by a casual remark of Mr. Russell’s, that the produce of allotments is taken over by the State and apportioned among the population generally. The result is, of course, that very few people think it worth while to spend their snare time, when they are free front conscript labor, in tilling a p.it?h of potatoes or cabbages. The owner’s share of the fruits of his toil might be a quarter, of one potato. Yet the Russian towns starve. A hungry man inMoscow pointed to the Kremlin, and murmured to. Mr. Russell: “Tn there-they have enough to eat.”