PLEA FOR NATIONALISATION.

Taranaki Daily News, 10 September 1921, Page 10

PLEA FOR NATIONALISATION.

A “BLOODLESS REVOLUTION.”

WHAT LIES BEHIND IT ALL. There is a disposition on the part of our New Zealand politicians to drift in the direction of supporting nationalisation schemes. Do they know where the}' are going? THE BRITISH EXAMPLE. Of recent times there has been a strongly pronounced socialist agitation in Great Britain for the nationalisation of mines, railways and other key industries.

“I think Smillie supports nationalisation for the same reason that the workers’ committee supported the six-hour day ... as a step in the ‘class war’

... if we choose communism Smillie will go there with us.”—-Mr. John Maclean, Bolshevik Consul, in the Clyde Worker).

Bucharin in his “Programme of the World Revolution,” published *by the Social Labor Press of Glasgow, 1920. In chapter 0, on the Nationalisation of Industry, says:—

“A transition to the communist order, which is unobtainable without the nationalisation of banks, is just as unobtainable without the proletarian nationalisation of all large industrial enterprises. . . . This especially applies to the so-called heavy branches of industry (coal mining, metallurgic industry, etc.) It is this heavy industry that must be nationalised first ... after that the whole of big production should be nationalised, together with the transfer of ‘big industry into the hands of the workers’ Government. The less important industries would also become dependent upon the Government. Their appropriation, that is to say, their seizure by the working class and the workers, marks the end of capitalism and the beginning of socialism.’ Communists are going ahead to socialism and communism, and the most important step towards communism they consider to be nationalisation of banks and the nationalisation of large scale production.” THE HOLLAND PARTY IN NEW ZEALAND. At its recent conference the political party known as “The New Zealand Labor Party,” declared for the nationalisation of banking and all the principal industries. That policy was decided upon by the revolutionary congress in Australia and brought from there by Mr. H. E. Holland, M.P., to be endorsed by the Red Party in New Zealand. It must be observed that this plea for nationalisation is the same programme as is endorsed by the communists everywhere. A “BLOODLESS REVOLUTION.” The chairman of the above New Zealand party declared that they were against all violence and wholly devoted to peaceful methods. As political special pleading that may be of interest but not otherwise. The assumed intellectual socialists assure us that they can imitate a new and golden age of peace by a “Bloodless Revolution.” That is theory. WITH THE MASK OFF.

Bucharin says: “It is only through civil war and the iron dictatorship of the workers that nationalisation can be obtained.” If there is onq. man in all Europe who can speak from experience on revolution, surely it is Nicolai Lenin, the Soviet Dictator. He says (the Soviets at Work, published by the Socialist Information and Research Bureau): —

“Every great revolution, and especially a socialist revolution, even if there were no external war, is inconceivable without an internal war with thousands and millions of cases of wavering and of desertion from one side to the other, and with a state of the greatest uncertainty, instability and chaos.”

. That is what Lenin, the man who knows, says to our intellectual socialists—uncertainty, instability, chaos. And he goes on:—

“And of course, all elements of the older order, very numerous and connected largely with the petty bourgeoisie (for the petty bourgeoisie is the first victim of every war and every crisis) cannot fail to ‘show up’ during such a profound transformation. And these elements of decay cannot ‘show up’ otherwise than through the increase of crimes, ruffianism, bribery, speculation and other indecencies. It takes time and an iron hand to get rid of this.” Crime, ruffianism, bribery, speculation, indecencies. There is a picture of revolution drawn by the man responsible for it. Later on he describes the position of the petty bourgeois (middle class man) maddened by the horrors of war, by sudden ruin, by the upheard-of torments of starvation and disorganisation; who is hysterically seeking a way out, seeking starvation, hesitating, between confidence and support to the proletariate on the one hand, and fits of despair on the other hand. THE SUMMARY. So behind all these pleas for nationalisation there is the objective of communism to be reached only by revolution, and those who pretend that revolution is a battle of flowers are lyirig to themselves, if deceiving nobody else.' Lenin’s words, “horrors of war, sudden ruin, unheard of torments of starvation and disorganisation,” deal with actual facts. How long will the workers of New Zealand allow themselves to be misled by the false teaching of the political sophists who paint dream pictures to please their fancy, whilst cunningly planning the use of social dynamite, which, if touched off, will effect, as it has elsewhere, ruin, havoc aud despair. Let our people take warning and sternly enforce a Safety policy of “hands off New Zealand.”

(Contributed by the New Zealand Wei fare League.)