Evening star., 1924-08-06
ARTICLE w.

|
l.. What Of the bolshevist future? or
what material Is the younger element
of the party composed which is to
carry on the work Of ruling Russia
under the Dictatorship of Cor over)
the proletariat? What of the new
men in training for the places of
| Stain, Zinoviev. Kameneff, Bukharin,
Rykov ct al. when these leaders of the
old guard of bolshevism have passed
away. like Lenin, or been shelved by
the machine, like Trotsky?
The outlook Is admittedly discour-
| aging. More than SO per cent of the
| members of the party were classed, in
a report to the recent party congress,
as politically illiterate," in other
words, as communists without any
real understanding of the principles
of bolshevist communism. The pro-
portion Is steadily increasing. as the
| ,Lenin drive" for new members from
the factories and the party purge"
to weed out non-proletarian eleme nts
continue. 1t will rise, it Is figured, to
more than so per cent through these
| two operations this Summer. Many
OF the new recruits are actual, as well
|
| or write. and the party machinery is
creaktng and groaning under the bur-
den of assimilating this great unedu-
Gated mass. instructing it in the re-
| ligion of Leninism and teaching IL in
many cases the actual B C's
No new leaders are coming up
from below. Little capacity for
| leadership is manifested by the Rus
sian workmen, the actual proletarian
| tollers with callouses on their hands,
| with whom the party is by deliberate e
| policy being filled up. Recruits of the
class which produced the Lenins,
Trotskys. Stains, Dzerzhinskys and
Zinovievs, inteliectuals who espoused
the cause of the proletariat without
themselves being actual workmen,
from admission to the party while
the Lenin drive for workmen re-
cruits is on, and will in the future
| be admitted only by exceptional pro-
cedure. The intellectuals already in
| the party are being vigorously pruned
out as mon -proletarian.'
New Leaders Not Wanted.
| Nor is the development of a new
crop of leaders encouraged or per-
mitted by the old guard. The recruits
| of the Lenin drive were this year
given the vote for the party congress.
to meet the outcry of the Trotsky op-
| position against the hidebound bu-
reaucratic dictatorship OF the old par
| ty machine. Some hand picked now
ices appeared as delegates. The pre-
revolutionary old guard was, however,
| in full control of the congress. fur
| nishing 48 per cent of the delegates
| and running every detail of the con-
vention with the practiced ease of
veteran political manipulators Few
ht
| the bolshevist revolution, to say moth
| ing of the newer recruits, were given
chance to speak at the congress. All
the reports were made. all the policies
formulated in advance by the veter-
| ans. who jealously guarded all the
prerogatives Of power.
The steadily sinking intellectual
level OF the party the measures of
exclusion and expulsion against the
type of "proletarians" who have
nor and major leaders, are the result
of deliberate party policy. The Lenin
drive and the party purge were de-
cided on to meet the criticism that
the Russian Communist party was
not an organization of the actual
working class proletariat, but one
run and dominated by workers in
name only, big and little leaders alike
alien to actual manual labor. That
the criticism was well founded can be
list of this years political bureau and
central committee of the party and
picking out the few white ravens"
who have ever engaged in manual la
Dor from the university men and in
tellectuals who dominate the party.
Or by checking up on the delegates
to this years party congress, where
So per cent registered themselves as
"workmen." but only IL per cent came
from the factories, railroads, etc, the
others being soft-handed strangers to
manual toll.
The semi-religious enthusiasm kim
died by Lenir's death facilitated the
task of obtaining the desired recruits.
When the congress met 5000 toll
ers had been admitted. The figure
usually employed at the congress was
100000, it being assumed that the
drive would yield tnat many before
the enlistment rolls were closed. The
recruits know little of communism
and must be educated from the bot
tom up. Fired by the success of the
Lenin drive. Zinoviev and other en-
thusiasts are talking of going after
a half million or more members from
the factories, among whom the $780,
600 Communists on the rolls at the
beginning of the year, the only ele-
ments knowing anything about pol
shevist communism, would be COM
pletely swamped.
simultaneously an extraordinary
commission has been conducting the