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Gareth’s Valedictory Letter
Daily Express April 11th 1933
GOOD-BYE RUSSIA
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BY GARETH JONES
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FOR years young men
in Britain have been bewildered. The capitalist system seems to be on the
brink of a precipice.
Nationalists have run rampant
in all countries, waving their banners of cheap patriotism.
Everywhere the cry has been,
‘‘Put up more tariffs,’’ and the world became tariff mad. "Pile up your
armament shriek others and the armies of the world mount in size and
attacking power.
Men have lost their jobs in
every town and village in Britain. Seeing this many young men have said,
"There is something radically wrong. Perhaps we can learn from the Soviet
Union.’’ I was myself one of those millions who thought that Russia might
have a lesson to offer.
Being a Liberal, I had no
patience with the Diehards, and was not bound by traditional ways of
conservative thinking.
The idealism of the Bolsheviks
impressed me before I went to Russia. Here was a country where the rulers
sought to build an industry for the benefit of the workers. Equality was in
time to rule and classes were to disappear. The injustice of capitalism were
to be no more. Education was to be spread to the humblest peasant, and
everything was to exist for the good of the masses.
The courage of the Bolsheviks
impressed me. They tackled their difficulties like men. They sought to build
vast cities where once there were bare steppes. They planned the great
factories in the world. They wished to do things and not stand idle without
a plan as in England.
*****
The internationalism of the
Bolsheviks impressed me. They set aside all petty prejudices between races.
They abhorred pogrom. They gave rights to the smaller nations to speak their
own languages. They were not guilty of the narrow nationalisms of post-war
days.
Then I went to Russia.
There I had every chance to see
the real situation, for I traveled alone, walked through villages and towns,
and slept in peasant homes. The Soviet Foreign Officials were on every
occasion, courteous, and spared no trouble in their
efforts to help me. I liked
personally most of the Bolsheviks I knew. Lenin’s widow, for example, was
one of the finest women I have met, and she commands my deep respect. I was
able to go about free1y without hindrance.
What did I find? All was not
black. Much work was being done to care for the working class children in
the towns. Many new houses for working class people had been built in
Moscow. The problem of the homeless boy had in 1930 and 1931 been tackled
with vigour. The art galleries and the museums were among the finest that
exist.
In industry also the Russians
were building rapidly. I saw the torrents pouring through the Dnieperstroy
dam. The motorcar factory in Nijni-Novgorod went up with a speed of which
even the British Ministry of Munitions during the war would have been proud.
The Kharkoff tractor factory was also an
achievement about which the Bolsheviks might rightly boast.
On the human side, the
Bolsheviks had some admirable features. Many of them showed in 1930 and 1931
great enthusiasm and heroic self-sacrifice. In foreign affairs I was and
still am impressed by the policy of peace which the Soviet Government is
carrying on. Soviet Russia will never attack.
Such is the credit side. What
of the debit side?
*****
THERE is first the rapid way in
which the standard of living has fallen; 1930 was a bad year, but now it
seems even prosperous compared with the spring of 1933. Famine stalks the
land. Surely the building of vast factories is no compensation for hunger.
There is the savage class
warfare, which is no literary slogan, but a real programme of terror.
Class warfare has led to the
crushing of millions of innocent people whose only sin was that they were
not of working class parentage. It has led to domination by the Ogpu and to
visitations of torture.
It has led to justice, which
should be above class, becoming a weapon
of the Communist Party to crush
those who are not of working-class origin. "Art is a weapon of class
warfare" was the notice over an art gallery in Moscow. Every thing is
subordinated to class warfare. The oppression of religion, which is no myth
but a definite fact, is another black mark to be put against the Soviet
régime.
Hypocrisy has been bred to a
greater extent than ever. Communists dare not criticise the policy of the
party, and, though they know that famine is there and that the Five-Year
Plan has wrecked the country, they still speak of its glorious achievement
and of the way in which they have raised the standard of living. But the
idealism of 1930 and 1931 has disappeared.
*****
FEAR has become the dominant
motive of action. The party member fears that he will be turned out of the
party. The peasant fears that he will die of hunger. The worker fears that
he will lose his bread card. The professor fears that he will be accused of
counter-revolutionary propaganda in his lectures. The town dweller fears
that he will be refused a passport. The engineer fears that he will be
accused of sabotage.
But the greatest crime of which
the Soviet régime is guilty is the destruction of the peasantry. Six or
seven millions of the better-off peasants have been sent away from their
homes to exile. The treatment of the other peasants is has been equally
cruel. Their land and livestock taken away from them, they have been
condemned to the status of landless serfs.
*****
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