Polk County news. [volume] (Benton, Tenn.) 191?-1983, 1920-07-29
Shall Chaos or Reconstruction in
Europe Follow the Great
World War?
sovlETS' MISUSE OF POWER
Conditions in Russia Under That Form
Of Government Not of a Sort to
Commend Themselves to
Thinking Men.
Article XVII.
az FRAMK CoMEREoRp.

BY FRANK CoMERFoRO.
Soviet government. has been costly
experiment. Russia is almost sue
cumbing TO the treatment; notwith
standing the Red" army is meeting
with success on the field, back of the
army conditions in Russia are grow.
ing from bad to worse. The soviet
leaders are drunk with power and they
have conducted themselves as drunken
men generally DO Reckless waste, in
tolerant ofBciousness, greed for spoils,
are the record they have made The
political machine is the same plumber
ing graft organization under com
munism in Russia that it is under
democracy in other countries. The
soviet government is a political ma
chine, and communism has not
changed its character or its methods.
1t has simply given it larger oppor-
tunities for Spoils. Greater security
In its corruption.
The "Socialdemocratin" prints some
Interesting extracts from the bolsheyik
budget for 1919
According to this newspaper the
revenue for the first half of 1919
amounted to 20250000.000 rubles and
the expenditures to 50,T03, 100000 ru-
bles. so that the deficit for the first six
months Of 1919 of soviet Russia
aa@ountei To lie enormous sumlof over
.eE fliAles. The acquisition
~ tbodstuffs and necessaries of life
has cbst & deficit of five billion rubles,
and the railways four and half bill
lion rubles; thus half year of boil
shevik rule cost more than the total
outlay on the whole war.
Money Expended ReckIessIy.
The report Of the bOlshevik, Nemen-
sky, on the audit of the central soviet
commission in charge of all textile fac
tories, appeared in the "Sovietskaya
Ekonomicheskay Zhizn" of February
%, 1919: '"rhe finance credit division
of the central soviet commission re-
ceived up to February l, 1919, 3,400,-
100000 rubles. There was no control
of the expenditure of moneys. Money
was advanced to factories Immediately
upon demand and there were cases
when money was forwarded to fac
tories which did not exist From July
to December 81, 1913, the central
soviet commission advanced on ac-
count Of products to be received,
,34S, 619, 900 rubes. The value of the
goods securing these advances re- I
ceived up to January l, 1919, was only
4 Z - h. | z
of doing business may be particularly '
observed from the way the central So 6
Wet commission purchased supplies of t
raw wool Up to January 1, 1919, only f
129, ,SO3 pools of wool was acquired t
whereas the annual requirement is fig t
ured at 100000 pools. II
'The tremendous staff of officials a
(about G,0O0 persons) employed by the "
commission are in the majority of Il
cases doing nothing useful, 1t appears
that there were on the payroll of this
Institution 125 persons who actually
we're not in the service at ALL but who {
we're receiving salaries. There were
,ases where the same persons received
salaries twice for the same period.
rhe efficiency Of the officials is negligi-
,le to a striking degree" V,
Such soviet institutions, Nemensky ~
'ays at the end of his report, are a =
,eautifu example Of deadening bu- \
caucracy and must be liquidated. NJ
It would seem that the idealists in p
harge of the communist program In
Russia are, experts in "graft-ring" e'
Methods. Payroll padding is among
heir accomplishments. An innocent lC
'ystander might suspect some of these
oviet officials of having a leaning 90
oward private property, particularly &c
vhen II is in easy reach. Sc
Their Own Condemnation. II,
Probably it is fair to the bolsheviks
D state their case in their own words. W
he bulletin of the central executive
ommittee of the soyiets, No. 10, 1919. St
nnounces: I'VE have created ex-
raordlnary commissaries and eXtraor-
mary commissions without number.
ii of these are, to a lesser or greater on
egree, only mischief.makers. a,
"The toling population see in the -.
of money right and left ~
Y the commssaries and in their in SET
ecent loudncss and profanity during Du
on,n,ota ahaana % ,,a,,v a,so,ni,no +" da
PEOPLES Commissar Lunacharsky,