Evening star., 1924-08-13
RUSSIA SINCE LENIN
The truth about lat today, series Of onsored
studying
BY SEYMOUR B. CONCER.

notes to the capitalistic powers, is a
sham, as none knows better than the
Russian peasantry.
Workmen Lack Representation,
The workmen of the towns have
almost no place in the government
Only II per cent of the delegates to
the bolshevist congress, as I men
toned in an earlier message, could
show the callouses of toll and only
two of the Big Seven" Rykov and
Tomsky, are workmen, with five in
tellectuals as colleagues. But the
peasants have not the slightest rep
resentation or influence in the gov
ernment and are considered as sec
ond-grade material, if at all, for
party membership.
In proof l need only mention the
rule which closed the doors of the
party for six months this year again st
any new peasant members while the
Lenin drive for factory members was
on. After the party congress, it was
asserted. the rule against the admis-
sion of peasants might be relaxed.
but only slightly, because the peas
ants were not really proletarians.
Close restrictive regulations were to
be applied to prevent such undesir-
able classes ever becoming more than
a small minority in the party. This
in country of which the population
is 80 per cent peasant.
Not only are the leaders Of bolshe-
vism densely ignorant on the peasant
problem. but their work in getting
their case before the peasants has
been completely Intellectual. They
have tried to reach the peasants
through newspapers supposedly adapt
ed to the peasant mentality, but the
peasants do not read them.
A typical provincial farm paper,
the Krasnaya Znamya, which came to
my attention, claimed a circulation of
more than 1000, but I found it had
only 2S6 actual peasant subscribers.
All the rest went to bolshevist Off
cials and emissaries or to exchanges.
The same percentage, and 1 believe it
is fairly representative, applied to
the total circulation of 376, 900 claim
ed for all the peasant papers. That
would indicate that bolshevist news
paper propaganda is reaching only
an utterly Insignificant part of the
peasantry.
Truth About the Drought.
The "Gosisdat," the euphonious til
tie applied to the state publishing
house, also tried to reach the peas
ants through a series of books and
pamphlets written specially for their
consumption. A brutally critical re-
port to the party authorities on the
scheme asserted it had been a COM
plete waste of time and money. as
the publications were written way
over the heads and understandings OF
their intended readers and had not
reached the peasants at all.
The newspapers are full of contra
dictory reports about the prospects
of another great crop failure this
year. owing to extreme and protract-
ed spells of hot, dry weather. If the
drought, as Premier Ryko says, has
only burned out the crops in three OF
four provinces of the Ukraine (among
the most important of the grain belt
he failed to add it is going to make
the collection of the 100000 ruble
grain tax, which the ministry OF
finance insists it must have as the
extreme minimum to keep tho budget
deficit within uncalamitous limits
more than ever oppressive to the
other provinces.
II, as other reports intimate, the
crops are also a failure in several
Volga provinces, including the Ger
man Colonist Republic and elsewhere
an attempt to spread this huge bur-
den of taxation, amounting to 80 per
cent of the value of the marketable
surplus of an estimated good crop
may precipitate an agrarian explo-
sion in the regions unaffected by the
crop failure. Not in the famine dis
trict. One of the first lessons 1 learn
ed in Russia before the war was that
the starving peasant Is not the source
Of agrarian disorders. He submits In
apathy 70 his fo&o.