HE CHINA MAIL, APRIL 4, 1939
E PURGE IN RUSSIA
ine, still loudly cheap in Moscow, it is impossible for sonal differences were exploited, rivals has in practice a worker to rent more than a few feet denounced. But, in estimating the ngonious whip of floor space. Sometimes several effect of all this on the minds of Rus- o the tempo of families share the same room. One sian people, we should remember that engineer is far girl who was asked why she didn't the methods employed on this vast et Industrializa. divorce her husband replied that since scale during recent years are an ex- rty_man. The the law forbade her to eject him from aggerated form of the traditional sys st Party, there their living quarters she was afraid tem of government in Russia.
There he might get married again thereby has always been Siberla. adding an extra person to an already crowded room.
GINIA ES
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y Times"
d' the minimum
PRIVILEGEN CLASSES
· CONCENTRATION, CAMPS Tho Soviet newspapers are filled with stories of unemployment in Eng- capitalist land and America and ruthlessness. Most Russians seem to believe, indeed, that they are better off than the people of other countries; even some with whom I talked, whose re- latives have recently been imprisoned | or exiled, appeared to accept the view.
. How
camps many concentration there are I don't know: I saw three when looking out of the train window.. One I particularly remember in the infinity of snow-the barbed wiro shining in the moonlight and the dark outline of a box with an armed sentry. Shortly after this I had a conversation with a G.P.U. agent who followed me into a station restaurant. I invited him to sit down and have some tea. Ho was a small man in a dark blue suit
The bureaucrat' or important Soviet police official is far better off. It is not merely that he carns more money than an ordinary worker: his position usually enables him to secure a room declining, until or a flat for himself, to get vegetables than a vast and meat without standing in a queue. to "sell" the to have a car and chauffeur at his orkers.
disposal instead of waiting long for LOGAN
overcrowded buses; and when
manu hváluable to the factured goods come on the market munist slogan, he has the first and usually the last his ability, to choice. Since official positions in the needs," has be Soviet Union carry with then some ling to his abili- privileges that in other countries are his worth." This considered the common rights of life, ity of Soviet it is easy to understand the fierceness re not paid fixed of the struggle to enter the
e rates. The bureaucracy. bis estimated at Although members of the Communist and grey cap with a broad peasant face. He spoke only a few words of Party play an important part
English, and as he searched for his 130 roubles. Stalin's salesmen, they have
words his forehead screwed up in A of the rouble is power in running the country.
painful expression. d., so that 240 rules, but he rules by means al to about 15s, secret police. G.P.U. 'agents are an
integral part of every town and vill kers and pea- age, of every factory, almost of every hich is kept at house. Any dissatisfaction with the cabbage soup, regime is conveniently labelled as "anti- ugh rents are Communist.' Although the constitu- tion of the Soviet Government proclaims freedom of speech,; a volume issued a few weeks ago, entitled "The His-
I interrupted him here to ask him tory of the Communist Party of the
if he considered Germany's Govern- Soviet Union" explains that disagree- ment bourgeois. He replied that
in- ment equals diversion, that diversion deed he did, and when I further asked equals dissension, and that dissension him how he reconciled his theory with equals sabotage.
the lack of unemployment there, he lifted his hands in consternation. "Ger- very bad country," he many
said. many concentration camps."
With this we shook hands and said aid good-bye,
the sands
Flaher
eir homes mer Dun ilway, 40
RS little Stalin
of the
SLOWING DOWN The network of bureaucracy and es- pionage, and the fact that in the last few years Soviet production, despite the vast sums spent on it has shown little increase, go far to explain the purge which reached, its climat in 1937-38. The Soviet Government is ruthlessly industrializing the country at the expense of the people. The turnover tax exacted by the State is so large that it is estimated that sixty për cent," of every rouble spent by the consumer goes to the Government. Most of this revenue is ploughed into heavy industry; very little is allotted to the production of goods sold in the shops.
to
The great trouble of the Soviet Gov- ernment to-day is that production in heavy. industries. which..went forward hy leaps and bounds until two or three years ago has since shown an increase of only one-half to two per cent. Foreign engineers attribute this to the inability of many of the workers handle complicated machinery, to was- tage, bureaucracy, and a general lack of co-ordination. These conditions are the inevitable result of the attempt to force twentieth century industrializa- tion on a people unprepared for it--to force it from above rather than to let it develop gradually from below.
There is little doubt that many of the old Bolshevists had strong dia-. agreement with Stalin about all this. There may even have been plans to take Government control into their own hands. Lenin's old guard could not possibly have been "liquidated" for polifical heresy: and the methods adopt- ed are now well known.
In successive waves, the Purge swept through Soviet political life, through the army and navy, through industry and into the humblést homes. Envy and ambition nlaved their part. per-
orge McManus
EAT AT
This is the conversation we had: asked, "Yes"
"Unemployment in England?" he
"Ah! Bourgeois government."
Then. "Unemployment pause. - America?" - "Yes."
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