LENIN’S MISSION.

Taranaki Daily News, 7 January 1922, Page 10

LENIN’S MISSION.

COMMUNISM THE CAUSE OF COLLAPSE. THE RETURN OF CAPITALISM. (By Michael Farbman.) When, at the tenth Congress of the Communist party in March of this year, .Lenin, made the sensational pronouncement of revising the economic policy of the Communist Government, there was a widespread feeling that he left something unsaid. Those who have carefully watched the controversy between Lenin and the so-called left wing of the Bolsheviks, that had been raging in the Communist party previous to the March Congress, have been aware that Lenin had in reserve a something, which lie obviously thought if revealed might give a shock to the Communist rank and file, who thoroughly believed in the unceasing proclamations of the Bolshevik Press that Communism was marching from victory to triumph. After the March Congress, in a series of articles and Lenin has been gradually disclosing the extent of the failure of Communism. But only just recently, in a lengthy speech to the AllRussian Congress of Political Enlightenment made in Moscow on October 17, Lenin announced candidly, and without aqy reserve, the complete breakdown of the attempt to establish Commuhism in Russia. A FULL CONFESSION. “There is no doubt left that we have suffered a defeat at the economic front, and a very heavy defeat, too. Before we have yet been finally crushed let us now retreat and rebuild everything anew and more firmly.” This is the leitmotif of Lenin’s speech, and, delivered to the Political Enlightenment propagandists, it was surely meant to be spread wide-cast all over Russia. ' Since March, 1*921, on several occasions Lenin let out hints that the chaotic economic situation in Russia was due, at least partly, to the Bolshevik attempt of establishing Communism “at oneb.” But in his recent speech he frankly and unreservedly stated this to be a fact. “We believed that we would be able to obtain from the peasants through requisitioning enough grain to distribute amongst the workers in the factories, and thus shall we get Communism production and Communist distribution. I am not saying that we had so definitely and concretely sketched out our plan, but this is the spirit in which we acted. Unfortunately, that is a fact. I say fortunately because our not very long experience led us to the conviction of the mistakenness of this. conception, which contradicted all that we had previously written about the transition from Capitalism to Socialism.” And further: “The requisitioning in the villages and the direct Communist approach to the economic organisation m the towns hindered the development of the productive forces and turned out to be the fundamental cause of the grave political and economic crisis which we had to face in the spring of 1921.”

There are at least half a dozen more of such plain and candid statements Ly Lenin that just that fallacious attempt to establish Communism “by decree,” “by' frontal attack,” etc., has brought about the economic disorganisation of Russia. “DISORDERLY RETREAT.” The new economic policy of the Bolsheviks is, in plain language, but a reinstatement of capitalism. As for instance, the recognition of private ownership of the produce of agriculture, the permission of carrying on trade for private profit, denationalisation of industry and running it on individual principles, the reintroduction of purely capitalist ■finance, the creation.of large capitalist syndicates, etc., etc. Yet Lenin pleads that there is more of the orthodox Communist doctrine in this new economic policy than there ever was in the policy just now given up. He reminds the Communist propogandists, to whom he is ..delivering his speech, that originally the (Bolsheviks did not intend to establish Communism at once, but only in the turmoil of civil war they were forced to have recourse to the kind of “military Communism” based on wholesale requisitioning and all-round compulsion. The new economic policy is a return to the theory of evolutionary Socialism, since, according to Lenin, < ven the very beginnings of Communism cannot be achieved without a long period of transition. It follows, however, from Lenin’s speech that this transition period will be in Russia considerably longer than in any other industrially developed country, because, as he points out, the proletariat, who- disappeared in Russia as a result of the disorganisation, will only reappear with a newly and highly developed capitalism. When Lenin pronounced in March his new economic policy, its sincerity was doubted, and it was looked upon as a new strategic move for a kind of “breathing space.” In reality it was a definite retreat, and, as Lenin now admits, “a panicky and disorderly retreat.” Now after seven months Lenin states that capitalism in Russia is pushing in through many doors which the Bolshevik Government was forced to cast open for it, and “through many such doors of which we are unaware and which are being opened in spite of us and against us.” And, indeed, capitalism is coming back in leaps and bounds. Everyone in Russia is now conscious that the capitalist form of -producton is a reality and is come to stay, and nobody cares whether the Bolsheviks in reversing their economic policy were sincere or not. On the contrary, the Bolsheviks are now facing the alternative of either organising State capitalistic production so competently and well as . to make it possible to exist parallel with private capitalistic production, or to be swept away by tne rising tide of private capitalist enterprise. And as Lenin points it: The whole question is who will be first in the race; if the capitalists succeed m their organiation before we do, then thep will drive out the Communists without much ado.” INDIVIDUALISM AND RECOVERY. People recently returning from Russia attach much value to the fact that shops of every description are now being re-opened in the cities, and that one can buy now in Moscow the finest meats and'drinks. These, of course, are only outward signs of capitalistic revival The real significance lies in the fact that, in spite of superhuman difficulties, small industries are growing on a miraculous scale, managing somehow or other to supply the new shops and market with the prime necessaries of life. When I was last m Russia I frequently came across P eo P*® who expressed, what seemed to nfithen, in the midst of misery and run, tlie absolutely unfounded opinion that lha moajaui. whan Uie ''diwowab*ation

of the will” should* arrive, that very moment the revival of trade and industry would become a fact. “Let the Government only unfasten the energies of the people and there will be plenty of everything,” was the refrain of many a talk I had with various people. And what seemed then sheer optimistic self-delusion has become now a reality. Amidst the chaos and decay of the large industries there sprang up, almost in\ iceptibly, without any outside assistance, the kustai’ (home) industries that supply the unprecedented demand for goods of all sorts. And all this is due to the freed individual stimulus and spirit of enterprise. It is still too early to prognosticate the influence of the new policy in regard to agriculture, especially remembering the disaster of famine on the Volga. Yet from the reports I have seen I am inclined to believe that the disastrous diminution of the areas under cultivation, which has been steadily going on from 1917, has now been arrested, and there is noticeable a tendency among the peasants, at least in certain parts of Russia, to increase their areas under cultivation.

However portentous Lenin’s last speech may be, it would be greatly mistaken and misleading to interpret the Bolshevik confession of failure as aj capitulation, and to treat the Bolshevik Government as bankrupt and only too ready to bargain for erms of surrender. " There is. for instance, a noticeable tendency to look on Chicherin’s last note concerning the recognition of the Tsarist debts as a palpable sign of surrender. -Without doubt ithe sudden Bolshevik conversion on the question of the recognition of the debts of the former regime is a peculiar compound of weakness and manoeuvring. Yet mistaken and fatal on the part of the outside work! would be the inference that the Bolsheviks having come, to this pass can now be brought by threats or counter-manoeuvring to the complete renunciation of their power. NO ALTERNATIVE GOVERNMENT. It must be emphasised that the Bolsheviks themselves are perfectly confident that they are not yet played out, and no amount of diplomatic or military pressure will compel them to change their views on themselves as fulfilling the great mission of establishing the new order. Evidence thereof is manifold, but it is quite sufficient to refer to Lenin’s article in “The Pravda” on the occasion of the fourth anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution to realise how confident the Bolsheviks are of their framing the destinies of Russia. And what is more significant is that the masses of the people in Russia do not believe that the end of the Bolsheviks has yet arrived. In spite of the great discontent, of local revolts, peasant risings, of warlike activities of nationalist chieftians or of pur® banditry, it would be erroneous to suppose that the Bolshevik regime is breaking down through revolutionary pressure from below. The most definite impression I carried away from my last visit in Russia was that of all political parties and groups, except the Bolsheviks, nothing remained but shadows. Since then this impression that there is no alternative government possible in Russia has been repeated by almost every serious observer of Russian affairs. And yet a. great many people outside Russia obviously continue to believe that the shadows of the political parties could come to 'life again if only the Bolsheviks could be forced to step aside. ' Perhaps in countries of high political development such a view is only natural. And it is indeed very difficult to convey an adequate idea of the pulverised state of Russia, where disorganising and disuniting tendencies have always Ibeen defying the attempts of political organisation and stability. As matters stand at present there is only this alternative: the Bolsheviks or anarchic chaos.