Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-11-09


pendent and competent eye-witnesses,
many of them leading bolshevists. our
lamentations still literally refuse 10 re-
tain the fantastic picture and our minds
refuse to credit the incredible evidence.
Literally we do not believe our eyes.
But the time has come when we must
accept the following well established
facts or suffer the consequences:
1. Civilization. as developed by every
one of the more advanced nations
through centuries, has been in large
measure deliberately and effectively set
aside
People of Russia Are Slaves.
2. The people of Russia have been
made literally the slaves mot being al
lowed even the right to leave the coun-
try) of the state and the state Is COM
pletely in the hands of a small group
of leaders who are determined TO use
all their power to destroy existing civili-
cation in the rest of the world as they
are destroying 1t in Russia.
OF course, there Is no danger what
ever that they will succeed. All con-
tiguous peoples who have had chance
to know them are increasingly hostile
to them and scornful of their alleged
achievements, while the number OF their
disciple Communists among the masses
of other more distant countries Is stead
at the present moment and may remain
for years in firm control both OF the
helpless and backward peasants and
workers of Russia and of Russia's vast
resources-and they have mastered the
art of enslaving and exploiting this kind
of population. With these 160,000,000
serfs, by military threats and subsidized
revolts they may not only continue to
raise serious disturbances among all the
hQnkUQTd a.
lions within their reach. but they may
create grave economic difficulties even
for the largest and most advanced ma
tions.
Constitutes Standing Menace.
BY such methods as they are now in
Producing in their factories to advance
their boasted "five-year plan," they
may so increase their industrial capital
that in 5 or 10 years it may be equal
to that of Spain or Belgium; in some
Is years they may bring up their peas
antry to the level of backward South
Italy, In 10 or 20 years their exports
and imports may equal those of Canada
or the Argentine. Such possibilities are
not diSturbing-but they are not the
question that confronts us. Long before
Soviet Russia can have risen to the po-
sition of q Second-rate nation eco
nomically she will constitute a standing
economic menace to every democratic
nation. For no democratic nation can
compete with her economically on her
own level of economic servitude.
Soviet Russia is practically nation
of robots. That is the deliberate and
expressed aim of the Russian dictators.
1t is a nation utterly ignorant Of any
but Soviet facts" and incapable Of any
but Soviet reasoning" It Is q nation
on wartime rations in order that CAPT.
tai may be piled UP for the "nve-year
plan" and for military supplies and
propaganda machinery for use against
more pacific and more advanced ma
as "militarist," "imperialist" and "en-
slaved"-and so regarded by the be-
nighted victims of their censorship.
Soviet Russia Is to be a nation not
Of developed individuals, but, as they
themselves say, of collective men" all
trained alike, not to think for them
selves but to accept Slogans" to obey
orders and to bow in terror before the
Observation-Disclosures with power not only
of life and death, torture and Arctic
exile, but actually possessed by q
monopoly of legality'-to use one of
their own phrases, incredible as 1t may
be-as well as an open monopoly also
, of public opinion, Of jobs, of food, Of
manufactured goods, of transportation
and communication, information and
education.
Escape Is Barred.
There Is no escape, as have said,
for leaving the country has become q
crime-except for those who by leaving
serve some purpose Of the dictators.
These declared purposes and prac-
tees Of the SovietS are not merely con-
fessed, they are boasted Of. Their in
De IN a. va
that is, to discard man as the various
civilizations Of the world have made
him and to begin again under the speci-
flcationS Of the almost illiterate group
Of fanatics Of the Kremlin.
How Is mankind to deal with this
wholly new and anomalous international
phenomenon We are familiar with
chattel slavery-the system that re-
duces human beings to the level Of do
nestle animals owned by individual
masters. II any government had been
set up anywhere on that basis. no doubt
we should have met the problem and
solved 1t by now. But the problem Of
a society wherein all are practically
slaves Of the state, and that state in the
hands of a group of fanatics over whom
civilization has no power, this prob
lem is so utterly new and fantastic
that we have now confronted 1t for
tude-beyond the point Of having no
oficial relations with it.
Non Recognition insufficient.
The policy Of non-recognition was
and Is effective-so far as it goes. But
it Is not sufficient. Nothing more Is
needed with the supposition that the
Soviet system cannot last. But 1t may
last long enough to present a problem
hu
tive action-just as we cannot solve 1t
| land would not attempt to solve it, by
any form of attack on the Soviet.
In some respects the Soviet is growing
stronger. Compared TO other nations,
1t is steadily falling back. Every year
new industrial capital Is added to the
United States, amounting to 10 or 20
times that which is added to Russia
under the "hve-year plan" OF the
Soviet, Every year Russia is further
behind the other great nations. But
internally her organization Is being
steadily improved and we are faced by
a nation Of 10000, 900 economic serfs,
a larger and larger proportion OF whom
are effectively organized on the robot
level
There is no ultimate economic danger
that a regime based on a population OF
robots can compete with nations OF free
and varied and developing individuals.
But neither is there any possibility OF
fair competition with such a regime.
All compromises or dealings with them
necessarily involve more or less accept
ance Of their perverted practices
practices by which they have doomed
the Russian people TO huge losses, fall
lacies and errors.
II we become dependent TO any con-
siderable degree on the Russian market
It would mean. first, that we should
become involved to that degree in the
failures Of their experiments.
| Second II would mean co-operation