Great Falls tribune., 1921-08-14
RUSS|ACANN0T
DIE; TOO RICH
IN RESOURCES
French Polish Policy
Will Be Impossible
After Soviets Recover.
Military Commission
Has Been Abandoned;
Peasants May Trade.

BY MAMMALIAN HARDEN,
Germany's Foremost Publicist.
Special Gable to The Tribune.
Copyright 1921, by The Tribune.
In extending international aid
to Russia there must be no thought
that the soviets can be displaced
or that Lenine can be suppressed.
Macmillan Harden declares that
Lenine is held in deep affection by
the Russian people despite all
their suffering.
Berlin, Aug. 13.-Only one who has
listened to quarrel about the prop
erty in one room, as the dying mans
groans come through the hall of the
open door of the next, can wholly
grasp what this week has meant to the
old world. In the front parlor the al
it's disputes, while in an obscure back
room the feeble voice of diseased Rus
sia was audible only to those who lis
tened attentively.
Europe's chiefs act as if Russia al
ready was dead, but when she revives
again, poor and perhaps keeping her
autonomy, she will not be able to hold
sovereignty over the immense terri
tories now claimed by her.
When Russia Revives.
When Russia revives there will be
no possibility of restoring Turkish rule
in Europe and France no longer will
be able to continue her policy of un-
conditional favoritism to Poland.
For q years an alliance with the
Russian empire was the basis OF
French foreign policy. Now she pat
ronizes Poland and Turkey, the oldest
and bitterest enemies of the Russian
people, refusing to heed the melancholy
and angry question:
do you French really believe that
am dead?'
A nation of 14O millions cannot die.
The terrible crisis the Russian people
are now experiencing can be healed it
the world will acknowledge its duty of
solidarity in distress. The Russian
people have often had to starve under
their czars. In a country with great
estates where 80 per cent of the in
habitants lived on agriculture, there
were only six acres for each peasant
After a normal harvest the peasants
still lacked one-third of the food for
proper nourishment.
Subsidies Necessary.
I0e SCdLe Was UUliSCu ~ oPPi oph1
ate S75,OOO,OO0 to feed the peasants,
hut at the same time exported guam
titles of meat, for eggs, fats and sugar.
The bounties and subsidies given to en-
courage exports made Russian sugar
cheaper and more plentiful in London
than in Miscow.
When the bolsheviki came, they gave
the land to the peasants but they took
away the strongest men for the army
and forced farmers to deliver all thelr
produce above the barest necessities,
paying them in paper. rubles. Ioday
it takes $4,000 rubles to equal
thousand marks, or II American dol
lars. The peasants have whole cup
boards full Of the all but valueless
naper money and do not desire any
more. Hence they cultivate only So
Wet land for their family and animals
last summer nearly all sections had
less than half the food necessary for
adults and children. Since then they
have had two crop failures.
Military Communism Stabilized.
As I have already pointed out IN |
these dispatches the period Of military |
communism in Russia has been stab !
ilized and the peasants are allowed to |
trade their excess products. Hereto |
fore. however. the soviets sent as many |
men as could be fed into the factories. |
The result was laziness and the ruin |
and robbery of business. 1t was i'm
possible to expect intensive work and |
absolutely honesty from men long un-
derfed Many sought work while others |
speculated Anybody nowadays who |
still posses something is speculator. ,
earning more in few hours than would
be possible in work shop in month. |
Ill, tbo inducfrIpS working |
now directly for the state and remain
nationaliged Unproductive ones have
been abandoned and small ones have
been leased to corporations. Thus I
state controlled industry has been large
Iy restored to private enterprise.
The state is abandoning free cleo
trio light and free railways and street
car transportation which resulted in
enormous waste. Hundreds of thou
sands of returned war prisoners. while
relating their suffeings, naturally save
the minds of many of the Russian peo-
ple by their stories of how other peo-
systematic labor and modern technical
equipment, even the moujika demand
farm machinery which formally they
called engines of the devil. But they
are lacking-even seed for the next
crop. The fireside industries, such as
delicately colored carpets, bead work
table cloth, shawls, lace, boxes, brushes
and tapestries are stopped on account
of the lack of materials. The only ex
ports possible now are fur and wood.
Enormous Credit Needed.
To import the barest essentials Rus
sia needs enormous credit. But after
q resumption of her harvests and ra-
tional exploitation of her inexhaust-
ables resources, she would be solvent
again.
The reports of Lenine's declining
~