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The Times
October 14th 1931
THE REAL RUSSIA
- - -
THE PEASANT ON THE FARM
- - -
1.-INCREASE
AND ITS COST
In October
1930, “
The Times “published a series of articles under the
heading “The Two Russias.” The same writer, who has just returned from
another visit to Russia, now contributes further impressions of the country,
the first of which follows.
From a Correspondent (Gareth Jones)
The cities and towns of Soviet
Russia are isolated oases in the vast extent of the Russian countryside.
Inhabited by a small minority of the population, they are not the real
Russia. Nor do the proletarian Communists who greet the foreign visitor,
and impress him with their enthusiasm, represent the masses of that union of
races, nations, and tribes which stretches from the borders of Poland for
6,000 miles to the Pacific. The real Russia is to be found in the distant
villages never, or rarely, seen by the traveller. The peasant is the
central figure of the Soviet Union and must remain so. Not only do the
peasants form the overwhelming majority of population, but also it is upon
their production of grain that the Soviet regime depends. The peasant
problem will always be the most important in Russian affairs.
During the last
two years the Russian village has been stirred to its depths. The
Revolution, which in 1917 uprooted the workers, the nobility, and the
middle-class, has at last swept across the Russian plains and transformed
the lives of the peasants as 13 years ago it transformed the lives of
town-dwellers. The Bolshevist Revolution strengthened the feeling for
private property among the peasants, and in 1927 capitalism was more firmly,
entrenched in the villages than it had ever been. The disappearance of
large-scale farming, the splitting up of the land among 26,000,000 small
households and the re-emergence of a kulak class which employed the
labour of others, were a danger to the Communist power. With energy,
ruthlessness, and confidence that it would overcome all obstacles,
the Communist Party launched its policy of collectivization. For two years
this policy has been pursued. How does the peasant react to
collectivization? What methods have been employed in, this unprecedented
attack on private property? How far has it succeeded? How will it
affect the industrialization plans of the ‘Government? The following
observations on these questions are based on unconducted visits to
collective farms and to State farms. The writer, who had no difficulty in
travelling wherever he wished and wandered on foot to whatever farms he
pleased, was able to gain the confidence of a large number of peasants in
different parts of Russia. The unanimity of their views was striking.
HARRYING THE KULAKS
The Stalin
kolkhoz (collective farm) was in a district of complete
collectivization. Since 1929, when it had its beginnings in the village,
the kolkhoz had been in the turmoil of class warfare, but now, in the
autumn of l931, all was calm again. The president of the Village Soviet, a
keen, energetic young Communist, before whom the older peasants bowed low
and bared their heads respectfully, explained with pride how they had
achieved unity in the village. “We had 40 kulak families and we sent
them all away. It was not enough to send the men only, because we must
pluck up all the kulak elements by the roots. So we sent the women
and children too. They went to Solovki, or to Siberia to cut wood or to
work on the railways. In six years, if they have shown themselves on our
side, they will be allowed to return. We leave the very old kulaks
here, because they are no danger to the Soviet power. Now the fight against
the kulaks has ended in our victory for the last kulak went a
month ago. He was the ringleader of a religious sect in the village. He
collected a number of peasants in his house and told them in meetings that
the Communists wished to starve all the peasants. He prophesied that war
would come and that the Pope that Rome would visit the village and would
hang all the Communists. That was counter-revolutionary agitation, so now
that ringleader is in Siberia doing hard labour. He is working as hard as
those farm labourers he used to hire.”
The
dekulakization “ which the president of the Village Soviet of the Stalin
kolkhoz described has been vigorously pursued throughout the country. As
the steamer on which I travelled was going down the Volga, a hundred
peasants, men, women, and children, with all their goods and chattels, could
be seen sitting motionless on the bank, staring at the river in hopeless
despair. A woman on the boat turned to me and said quietly, “Do you see
those? They are kulaks, being exiled, just because they have worked
hard throughout their lives. The peasants have been sent away in thousands
to starve. It is terrible how they have treated them. They have not been
given bread-cards or anything. A large number were sent to Tashkent and
were left bewildered on the town square. They did not know what to do and
very many starved to death.”
THE
GERMAN COLONISTS
The German
colonists have suffered equally. The president of a German collective farm
informed that in his village of 600 inhabitants, six families with women
and children had been exiled. In the same village a woman described how the
kulaks had been banished. “ We received letters,” she added,
“telling us that from the German colony of several villages in the district
90 kulak children had died on the journey to Siberia or on arrival
there. We are afraid of being sent away as kulaks, because they
might say you were a kulak for political or personal reasons. We had
a letter from one of the kulaks saying that they were cutting wood
far away in Siberia, that life was terribly hard and that they did not have
enough to eat.”
This
fear of being exiled as a kulak has been a powerful factor in drawing
into the collective farms. In the Stalin kolkhoz, upon which I
stayed, a sharp-eyed, dark-haired peasant approached me in the Village
Soviet hut in the presence of the Communist president. He spoke to me of
the successes of the kolkhoz, of the enthusiasm of the country for
the collective farm movement, amid of the affection of the peasants for
their young Bolshevist leader. This last statement was accompanied by a
friendly slap on the back of the president of the Village Soviet. Next
morning, however, when far away from any of the Communist members of the
kolkhoz, the same peasant, who to all appearance was an enthusiastic
supporter of the Soviet power, approached me and whispered: “It is terrible
here in the kolkhoz. We cannot speak or we shall be sent away to
Siberia as they sent the others. We are afraid. I had three cows. They
took them away and now I only get a crust of bread. It is a thousand times
worse now than before the Revolution; 1926 and 1927 were fine years, but now
we dare not oppose the Communists or we shall be exiled. We have to keep
quiet.”
Dissatisfaction with the treatment of the kulaks has spread to the Red army
and to the towns. A village girl working in Moscow described how her
cousins had fared: “The peasants have been forced to join the collective
farms. Take my two cousins. They worked night and day, day and night.
With their own hands they built fine cottages, and what happened. They
refused to join the kolkhoz and they were sent away to the Urals,
where it is very, very bad. And there is my other cousin. He had two cows,
two pigs, and some sheep and he owned two huts. They called him a kulak
and they forced him to sell all he had. Only 300 roubles did they give for
everything – cows and huts and all. The other peasants in the village were
told that if they did not join the collective farm they would be sent to
Archangel, or the Urals or Siberia. So, of course, they joined. They had
trouble with some peasants. In my village they murdered two Communists.”
In
such a way were the kulaks liquidated and scattered throughout Russia
to work in the forests, in mines, and on the roads. The period of the
liquidation of the kulak has almost ended. The policy of the
Communist Party has triumphed for they have crushed their enemies in the
villages and 60 percent of the peasant households are now members of
collective farms. The day of the individual farmer is over, and pressed by
high taxes fearing lest his house be taken away from him or dreading a
hungry exile in Siberia, he becomes a member of a collective farm. He is
dazed, his old life is shattered and he does not know what the future has in
store. It would be premature to draw final conclusions for collective farms
are in their infancy; but the reactions of the peasants can be concisely
described. Throughout Russia on hears the same tale: “They took away our
cow. How can it get a better if we have no land and no cow?” The cry of
the Russian peasant has always been “Land and Liberty”, and it is the same
cry today.
ONE COW AND NONE
In
many collective farms the peasant is allowed to maintain one cow in his
courtyard. In the Stalin collective farm where I stayed, the socialisation
had made greater strides, and all cattle, pigs, and sheep had become the
property of the community. The dvor (farmyard) was empty, and this was
tragically strange to the peasant who from his birth had been accustomed to
his animals in the farmyard. “Our dvor is empty,” says the peasant sadly,
and he cannot reconcile himself to the ghostly silence behind his hut. He
bewails also the lack of food and clothing on the farms. On the Stalin
farmwomen receive ten pounds of black bread a month and cabbage soup, while
those who remain at home receive nothing at all. In the Ukraine, in one
collective the ration was 20 lb. The peasants complain: “Come and see the
grain, rotten grain: that is what they keep for us. All the best grain is
sent to the nearest town for export, and we do not get enough to eat. Poor
Mother Russia is in a sorry plight. What we want is land and our own
cows.” In some villages the government seizure of grain has lead ton
fighting between the peasants and the Communist authorities.
To the
peasant accustomed to till his own strips of land and milk his own cow
whenever he wishes, the system is irksome. The collective farm is divided
into a number of brigades, each commanded by a brigadier, who in general is
young Communist. The kolkhoz administration decides how many worker
shall take part in the threshing, how many in the ploughing, or how many in
the milking. One peasant expressed his feelings towards the system in the
following words: “It is like being in the army when one is sent out with the
brigade.”
PIECEWORK
The
brigadier has the task of deciding how much work each peasant has carried
out, for much stress is now being laid upon piecework in the villages.
Equal pay proved a disastrous failure in the collective farms, for there is
no incentive to work, and there was difficulty in persuading the less
conscientious peasants to go out in the fields. Since piecework was
introduced the work has been more satisfactory. Each collective farm worker
has a book in which the brigadier inscribes each day the amount of work he
has done. Upon this book is printed the following rule from the Sixth
Congress of the Soviets held in March: “He who works most and best shall
receive the most; he who does not work at all shall receive nothing; this
should be the rule for all collective farm members and collective farms.”
Each collective member has his task to perform. If he carries out the task
his day’s work counts as one working day. If he exceeds the task by 20%,
then his day is 1.20 working day; if he only ploughs half the average set,
his work for the day is inscribed in his book as .50 working day. At the
end of the year the amount of work he has performed is reckoned and the
profits of the collective farm are shared among the members according to the
number of days they have shown in their books. Throughout the year the
peasant receives a monthly advance. This piecework system, while
imprisoning the worker in the shackles of bureaucracy, leads to better work
than the system of equal pay. It demands, however, good accountants, who
are not numerous in Russia.
Among
the poorer peasants the kolkhoz movement has keen supporters. In one
collective farm one old white-haired man bowed deeply and groaned: “Have
pity on me! My courtyard is empty. Three horses and three cows have they
taken from me and now they are getting thin and scraggy because they are not
well kept. How can I get enough to eat? It is a dogs life.” A woman was
passing and stopped to shriek at him. “Its little pity you deserve! You
had your horses. You had your cows and you had little pity for us poor
peasants then. I had no cow and no horse. I am better off under the
kolkhoz.”
MODERN METHODS
To
what extent the happiness of the peasant may be affected, there is no doubt
that production will increase. The old methods of tilling the land in
Russia are giving way to the modern methods of science. The introduction of
machinery, although the tractors may now be wrecked and left out in all
weathers will in time lead to more grain and this would have been impossible
without the ruthless suppression of the strip system. The influence of this
upon the regime is inestimable. In the future the peasant will not be able
to menace the towns without withholding his grain, for Communist control
over the collective farms is supreme and whereas until two or three years
ago the task of the authorities in the collecting of grain as a formidable
one, it is now simplified by the concentration of the grain into collective
farm stock. Having won the battle against the peasant, the Soviet regime
finds itself in a stronger position than it has ever been before, and
assured of a stable supply of bread for the towns, for the Red Army or the
G.P.U, it is able to devote its energies to its plan of industrialisation.
* * * * *
October
15th 1931
THE REAL RUSSIA
- - -
THE OUTLOOK
FOR THE PLAN
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II. – FROM THE FARM TO THE FACTORY
From a Correspondent (Gareth Jones)
Bread
is not the only produce of the collective farm. Labour is almost of equal
importance at a time when there is a grave shortage of workers menacing the
fulfilment of the Five-Years Plan. The collective farm has the duty of
supplying the factories not only with grain but also with men. The urgent
necessity of obtaining labour supply from the collective farms was the first
point in Stalin’s speech on June 23. The use of machinery and the better
organization of work upon the farms will, it is argued, liberate for
the factories many millions of workers who will not be needed in an
agriculture so mechanized as to cut down the number of hands required.
These surplus peasants (otkhodniki) are to be recruit for the
industrial areas. To some factories the peasants go willingly, eager for
travel and new experiences. But such districts as the Donetz Basin, where
living conditions are pitiable, where there are insufficient houses, and
where epidemics are rife, have an evil reputation in the villages.
Strengthened by supplies of bread and labour from collective farms the
Government, assured of stability, has fair greater chance of success in the
field of industrialization than it had when the central figure in Russian
agriculture was the individual farmer. The “Third Decisive Year of the Five
Years Plan” has seen great progress in many branches of industry. There is
a distinct increase in the quantity of goods produced and a large number of
new factories are scheduled to open this year. The oil industry is
making rapid strides and Soviet Russia has become the second oil producing
country of the world. The exports of grain last winter, although they were
less than one-half the average pre-War exports, far surpassed the figure
expected. The Soviet Union has become a cotton-growing country. New
mineral and chemical resources are being continually discovered beneath the
rich Russian soil and will be rapidly exploited by the construction of new
metallurgical bases in the Ural-Kuznetzk, area in Magnitogorsk and in
Central Asia. Vast works, such as the Stalingrad and the Kharkov tractor
factories, the Autostroy in Nizhni-Novgorod, which is to produce 140,000
motor cars and lorries annually and the Dnieprostroy, area which will
provide power for a industrial area of a million inhabitants are being built
under the supervision of foreign engineers. New housing schemes, including
“Socialist cities,” are being executed. Russian industry is moving eastward
with the opening up of Siberia. Excellent new roads are being constructed
in the leading towns, and the streets of Moscow have improved beyond
recognition. These are indeed achievements, although attained at the
expense of profound suffering. Most striking of all is the absence of
unemployment. In Russia the beggars who plead for alms are all of a dying
generation and are a striking contrast, to the workless youths who beg in
the streets of Berlin and other capitals.
HUNGRY WORKERS
Nevertheless, there are
grave difficulties confronting the Plan of Industrialization. First and
foremost are the strain of living conditions and the disillusionment of the
workers. While the proletarians have benefited by shorter working hours, by
the setting up of clubs, by educational facilities and by longer holidays
there is yet grave dissatisfaction at the shortage of food and of goods and
at the lack of liberty. The workers who are not politically minded and they
form as in all countries, the great majority, state that before the
revolution everything could be bought at cheap prices, whereas, now the
cooperative shops do not provide enough for a man to live. They are forced,
they complain to buy on the private market at exorbitant, prices and even
then they remain hungry. Among the general workers there is little of that
faith in the future, which is so striking in the Communist.
Disbelief in the newspapers and in propaganda is widespread. On being
confronted by some figures showing that the Five-Years Plan was being
completed in two and half years, one factory worker replied: “You
cannot eat figures. The Five-Years Plan is on paper. You see that tree
over there; it is no apple tree, is it? But the Communists say. ‘Tomorrow
that tree has to grow apples.’”
To mention the word “voluntary”
must rouse the anger of the average Russian. A young Moscow factory worker
surrounded by three of his fellows, best expressed the Soviet significance
of the word. “In our factory we cannot say a single thing. They say that
everything is voluntary. Voluntary indeed! The party cell decides
everything before hand arranges a meeting, where resolutions are passed
unanimously by the questions being put, ‘Who is against?’ Nobody, of
course, wishes to get into trouble and put his hand up for fear he might
disappear, as many have disappeared.” Another Moscow factory worker, who
was indignant against the Soviet government for sending food abroad,
expressed the wish, “If only we could vote secretly.” The way in which
workers were ‘voluntarily’ obliged to pay one month’s wages to the various
loans, such as the “Third Decisive Year Loan,” has also left bitterness
among the population. The practice of obliging workers from one factory to
devote ‘voluntarily’ their free day to labour as ‘subbotniki’ in
another factory or in constructive work, or in road building, deprives
factory hands, clerks, teachers and others of their holiday. But it is,
above all, the nervous strain caused by under-nourishment and over-crowding
that makes the life of the average Russian a misery. He blames not only the
export of food, but also the bad distribution and delays, which result in
the food supplies arriving in a decayed state.
DEARTH OF SKILL
The food and housing conditions
have had a serious effect upon the industrialisation schemes. Not only are
the workers unable to devote all their energies to their machines, for they
suffer from a great dearth of fats, but they fly from one town to another in
search of better food and better houses. The labour turn over has thus
become alarming and no factory has a stable number of hands. The exodus
from the Donetz Basin has led to crowded stations and disorganised transport
and coal plans and to countless miseries for the masses who flee from the
hunger and disease of that ill-famed district.
Bewildered by the fight of
workers factory manager find their plans also menaced by the dearth of
skilled workmen and of engineers. The problem of the future is how to
prepare the technical specialists in sufficient numbers to run the
factories, which are now being constructed. The reliable works manager and
the foreman with authority and initiative are also lacking, for it is
difficult to produce such men under a system where freedom plays no part.
This shortage of labour, of skilled mechanics and of foremen with initiative
does not augur well for the future. Organisation has been extremely weak
and there are few countries in the world where ‘muddling through’ has been
as common as in Russia.
The system of dictatorship of
one party has lead to many defects in the running of industry. There has
been a tendency to concentrate the leading industrial positions in the hands
of the Communist members and although there are many outstanding posts in
the Soviet factories, mines, works and ships which are held by non-party
men, politics have too often entered into the purely economic sphere. The
desire of party members to obtain triumphs and victories, to claim for their
factories a ‘Bolshevist tempo’ or to beat their rival factories in
Socialist competition has lead to high figures being obtained at the expense
of quality. A childish wish to break records leads to the construction of
giant machines, whose size makes a dazzling impression in the newspapers,
rather than some small essential part whose dimensions may be insignificant
but which is none the less vital for production.
The inferior position of the
engineers of the old school has until now been prevented them from
interfering with hot-headed schemes of party enthusiasts. The fear with
which they were inspired throughout last winter, when many were arrested for
sabotage and many were shot had a serious effect upon their work. Some
preferred to escape their responsibilities and to join the ranks of the
common workers, lest they should be arrested later for mistakes, which might
have occurred. They were treated as a class apart, as bourgeois and
although their salaries were high it was difficult for them to obtain as
much as the ordinary unskilled worker, for the latter was in the second
category. The privileges, which were given to the children of workers, were
denied to the children of the bourgeois engineers.
The result of these conditions
has been a serious situation in the three basic points of Soviet economic
life, coal, iron and steel, and transport, which will affect, other parts of
the Plan. There are breaches in the coal plan and many factories will have
to remain idle on account of lack of fuel. The situation in the coalfields
was the subject of a decree issued by the executive committee of the
Communist Party on August 15th. This stated that, despite its
growth, the coal industry was lagging behind and that the non-fulfilment of
its plan created a menace to the pig-iron programme. Today the coal problem
occupies the same position as the grain problem a few years ago, and has
become the most important task before the country. A new mechanisation
scheme was proposed and the plan of coal production was raised to 14,000,000
tons for the year 1933.
On September 8th
Izvestia published a decree of the Supreme Economic Council upon the
grave situation of the iron and steel industry. It drew attention to the
extremely unsatisfactory fulfilment of the Plan, to bad economic and
technical direction, to the neglect of the factories, to the rubbish and
dirt scattered in the courtyards, to the deplorable shortage of labour, to
the intolerable equalisation of wages and the absence of piecework.
Drastic changes were proposed to improve the
situation. It is, above all, in transport that progress of the Five-Years
Plan is being checked. Transport has become a danger spot in the whole
Plan. Large quantities of ore, grain, food and other supplies are lying
idle because of the disorganisation on the railways.
These defects in the basic
industries are common to most Soviet factories. They call for a drastic
remedy and for a change in policy if the Five-Years Plan is to progress.
This remedy and this change in policy are to be found in Stalin’s speech of
June 23rd, which now guides the economic policy of the Soviet
Union. Its six points are daily being drummed into the public mind by
newspapers and wireless.
******
October
16th 1931
THE REAL RUSSIA
---
YOUTH AND THE FUTURE
---
III:- A
BLESSED WORD
From a
Correspondent (Gareth Jones)
Among some young peasants
there is an enthusiasm for socialisation in which a love of machines plays a
great part. This is a favourable sign for the future of socialistic
agriculture in the Soviet Union. It is being developed by the spreading of
education on Communist lines throughout the country. The fight against
illiteracy is being taken with admirable energy. Campaigns to encourage the
peasants to study are carried on by the Communist Pioneers and the
Komsomoltsi (young Communists), and pamphlets and books are spread by the
million. The electrification of the villages will impress youth. The clubs
are rallying points for young people of the villages and by radio and
visitors from the towns, by films and lectures, their minds are being
moulded along Communist lines. A battle royal is being waged for the mind
and heart of the young peasant. Will he cling to the “Land and Liberty”
ideal of his parents and grandparents or will he fit himself into a
socialistic system of agriculture. Will the peasant be happy as a cog in a
great agricultural wheel, or will he always yearn for his little patch, his
own cow, and freedom to buy and sell as he wishes? The next few decades
will show.
The collectivisation of
agriculture, which, at the sacrifice of happiness of the peasant gives the
government control over Russia’s grain, and the businesslike programme
outlined by Stalin in June, are two factors which point to a coming
improvement in the industrial situation and to a strengthening of the regime
itself. A third factor is the springing up of this new generation, which
has it’s schooling in the Soviet State and has no recollection of life in
pre-Revolutionary days. It is upon the youth of the country that the
Bolshevist leaders set their highest hopes; and it is upon them that
powerful influences are working which in time will result in the emergence
of a new type of citizen. The main influences are Communist education the
worship of the machine, anti-religious agitation, militarization and the
propaganda for world revolution.
“PRODUCTION”
Communist education now lays the greatest stress upon the part,
which the future citizen must play in production. Three years ago the
“polytechnical” school was introduced. Under the “polytechnical “system
each school has an agreement with a factory or with a collective farm which
the pupils visit regularly to study methods of production. It is remarkable
to note what importance is attached to the word “production”, a word, which
is surrounded with a halo of respect. At an early age children are
introduced to factory life and learn to handle machines. An enthusiasm for
technical things is engendered, and the knowledge, which children have of
machinery, is surprising. As it was the ideal of the Prussian child to
become an officer, so it is now the ideal to become ideal of a Soviet child
to become an engineer. At present a widespread campaign is being conducted
for compulsory education for all and the cult of the machine will thus be
extended to the farthest parts of the Soviet Union. Processions of children
are seen marching with banners bearing such inscriptions as “Obligatory
education is the basis of the cultural revolution”; “Give us technical
power”; “For a seven-year education”; “Let us fight for the Plan, for the
speed, for the carrying out the Plan in four years.” Technical and
political toys are encouraged among children. In shop windows one can see
“A Mass Political Toy according to the resolution of the 16th
Congress of the All-Russian Communist Party” called “To catch up and surpass
the Capitalist Countries, the carrying out of the Five-Years Plan in
Industry.”
Political education is
given in schools along the lines of the principle “History is the record of
class struggles.” Such an education is a narrow basis for the rearing of a
new generation, especially when one considers that music, art and literature
are all subordinated to a political aim. “Art is agitation” such is the
teaching that guides the Communist thinkers. It is inconceivable that there
should not be some day a reaction against this limited conception of all
branches of learning as weapons of class warfare.
Anti-religious propaganda
is carried on among youth and is achieving distinct success, for the
children readily believe what is taught in the schools. A religious
Leningrad mother bewailed the fact that her 10-year-old daughter had
recently returned from her class and had demanded: “Show me God! You
cannot. There is no God.” Throughout the country posters proclaim:
“Religion is a weapon for oppression”, while cartons lampoon the priest as
the tool of the Capitalist and a friend of the interventionist. The
Communists try to establish a close connection between drink and religion.
Posters frequently to be observed are “Alcohol is the friend of religion”
and “The man who makes home-brew and the illegal trader in spirits are
allies of the Pope.” This bitter propaganda often produces an effect quite
different from that which it intends. Adherents of religious sects are
numerous and among the Communists themselves there are many who pay lip
service to atheism but who at heart are believers. On priest told of the
Communist in his village who on his deathbed confessed his belief in God.
There are many thousands of Christians enrolled in the Young Communist
League. “I am a believer,” said a schoolteacher, “but I cannot repeat
Communist speeches as eloquently as any Commissar in Moscow. If I do not
become a Young Communist I shall not receive a good education, so I pretend
to rejoice in their long-winded foreign words like ‘industrialisation’, but
what my tongue says my heart does not believe.” Never the less, among young
people religion is now losing ground and together with the lessening of the
religious basis, stable family is in the towns also losing its importance.
WAR AND PEACE
An alarming and potent
influence upon youth is the extreme militarisation of the country. A
jingoistic spirit is being fostered in the Soviet Union and the firm belief
in the inevitability of war, which is to result in the inevitability of the
war which is to result from the clash of the Capitalistic and Communist
system leads to an intensification of war training. It is difficult to
escape the atmosphere of war-scare. In the theatre one reads the appeal in
large red and white letters: “Be prepared at any moment to defend your
Socialistic fatherland.” In the interval between two acts of a brilliant
performance in an opera house a gas mask demonstration may take place.
Dominating the militarisation of the Soviet Union lies the fear of foreign
intervention, and its guiding principle is the quotation from Lenin: “No
revolution can last unless it can defend itself.” Lenin’s study of
Clausewitz is today bearing fruit in the stress laid upon military science.
Members of the Young Communist League are urged to be leaders in the task of
spreading military knowledge. A powerful instrument for the training of the
civilian population is the Ossoariakhim (Society for Aviation and Chemical
Defence), which now numbers 11,000,000 members. This has numerous branches
in factories and collective farms, where men and women alike receive
training in shooting and in the use of gas masks. In many factories regular
military exercises are obligatory for party members and the young
Communists. Communists share this keenness on preparedness for war in the
villages and even peasants living thousand of miles away from the borders
have received anti-gas practice. In one collective farm the church, which
had been closed, was to be turned in to a house of Culture, a section of
which was to be devoted to military purposes.
In spite of the thorough
militarisation of Soviet Russia, there is no feeling of aggression, but a
keen desire for peace, based on the necessity of good relations with the
capitalist powers, essential for the industrialisation of the country.
Nothing is less desirable to the Kremlin than a foreign adventure, which
would threaten the fulfilment of the Five-Years Plan. Moreover the Soviet
Union is now concentrating upon her own affairs and eager to realise
“Socialism in one country”, a policy, which Trotsky condemns from afar as
“National Communism” and a betrayal of Marx and Lenin. It is true that the
inevitability of world revolution and the ultimate formation of a World
Union of Socialist Soviet Republics are convictions as unshakeable as ever.
But in spite of the world crisis they are no longer represented as imminent
realities. As a consequence the youth of Russia is encouraged to devote
itself to the economic tasks of national construction and the prestige of
the Third International has suffered a sad decline. No longer the
headquarters of the leaders of the Government, it has become the resort of
nonentities and it has to subordinate its revolutionary ardour to the cold
common sense of the Foreign Office, which prefers not to risk valuable
credits and machinery for the sake of a weak revolution in Germany. Serious
disturbances abroad or revolts, which the Russian Communists would be
morally bound to aid would be a setback to their plans of industrialisation
and are depreciated until the time when the Soviet Union will be stronger.
Such are the outstanding
influences to which the younger generation in Russia are exposed. The power
of the Communist Party to mould youth along the lines they desire is
increased by the unity of the party, which has been achieve after a bitter
struggle against right and left opposition. Rarely has there been less
dissension within the ranks as to the policy to be pursued. Never the less,
the movement in Soviet Russia to transform men and women into the cogs of a
great productive wheel and to crush all thought which clashes with the
official philosophy is faced with two insurmountable barriers. These are
the originality of the Russian mind and the human passion for liberty which
is intensified by tyranny and which will increase with the spreading of
education.
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