Evening star., 1924-08-12
ARTICLE TX.

AHIlCLE IN.
Bolshevism in Russia is doomed
Lenin declared, unless 1t can win
over the peasantry and make its
way from the cities, where it bases
it's power upon a small minority
of the industrial working classes. to
the villages where live the mighty
but politically inert Russian millions
1t has not done so. The opportunity
has passed.
The tide in village life is setting
away from bolshevism and toward
the antipodal system of private own
ership. Not only this but the inert
peasant millions are beginning to
awake to political activity and this
awakening brings with it growing
hostility to bolshevism and the boil
sheyist regime. Will Lenin's proph.
ecy be realized and how soon?
/ need not rely for these conclu-
sions about the failure of bolshevism
to sell itself" to the peasants upon
my own information but upon the ad-
missions of bolshevik leaders, nota-
bly, at the recent congress OF the
party, and upon gloomy reports on
the peasant situation in the official
bolshevist press. The gravity of the
peasant problem is such that it DOM
mated and overshadowed everything
else at the Communist Congress.
The bolsheviSts always have beer
stumped by this question of the mu-
tuaI relations of urban proletaria1
and peasantry in one form or another
Lenin's last articles, written literal
ly with his hearts blood, were full
OF gloomy forebodings about the fate
Of the revolution from failure to solve
the problem. His speeches at his last
Elauonfh Comm NJ
ist Congress were devoted to this
subject. The record of the party up te
the Thirteenth Congress. the officia-
Prayda declared, was one of con-
slant defeat in establishing a unior
between the small ownership basis OF
village life and the socialized state
industry and this years Congress
came no nearer success than it,
predecessors.
Conxress Admitted Errors.
The congress admitted a whole Sc
ries of previous errors in dealing
with the problem 1t adopted a Sc
ries of 19 paper "rules" to develop
hoIsheyism among the peasantry
mainly based upon the cooperative
movement, which is to tow bolshev.
ism in it's train into the villages.
It found, however, that the CO.
operative movement among the peas.
antry was a failure, that its statistics
showing 10 per cent Of the peasants
as members Of the cooperative SO.
cieties were highly padded, that the
co-operatives were selling only u
cents worth of goods per capita tt
the peasants per year and were los.
ing, not gaining, ground in the vii.
lagos, owing to bureaucratic methods
higher prices and poorer assortments
of goods than the private villag'
storekeeper.
why are the peasants turning
against the bolshevists. who gave
them the opportunity to seize th'
land? The government organ, lives.
tia. laments that the peasantry ha!
largely forgotten to whom it owei
this. But gratitude was not unnat.
urally evanescent toward a regime
which, during its early years, seizet
the peasants crops without payment
leaving them to starve, harried tn.
countryside with ruthless punitive
expeditions when they ventured t
resist and led them into the grea
famines of 1921 and 1922. This in tn,
past
Now the great mass Of the peasant,
ara finding out thahlkhey are not mucl
better or with thel lgand. but withou
kfAA A1nan1t&0D T0Asec0mplai1