Evening star., 1933-10-01

part the present Russian state satisfies
the Russians, however much 1t must trk
and agonize Americans. Russian civil
iZation today as going concern Is
probably going at about the same tempo
that it went $50 years ago under
Catherine There is a reasonable pre-
sumption that the tempo will not
change in another century.
Individual Merely Cog.
Each race or division of mankind is
entitled to work out its destiny accord
ing to the genius of its people. Forms
of government come and go; rulers rise
and fall. but the genius of people for
living together in society under gov
ernment changes only slightly with the
centuries.
The Russian sense of justice under
the Cars set up the secret police. The
Communists maintain the secret police;
under the Gar there was no right Of
trial by Jury, no Magma Charta, no Bill
of Rights. The individual was nothing.
Under Communism, according to Lenin,
the individual is nothing save cog in
the machine. Democratic government,
the rights of the majority, count of
noses establishing such rule, meant
nothing to Peter the Great or Nicholas
II. and they mean just as little to
Stain today.
Russia faces east. not west, in her
quest for political institutions, and in
her aspiration towards justice. She is
not a revolutionary country. Russian
institutions under the Gar led revolu-
tionists to Siberia and to the grave.
RevolutioniSts against Stain 60 the
same way.
The Russian grumbles, but he does
not call mass meetings. pass resolu-
tions, form an executive committee,
draw up a public bill of wrongs and
go to the ballot box with slogans and
banners. He sublimates his anger in
grouches, tightens his belt and pro-
ceedS to change his environment with
out changing his attitude toward the
cosmos.
Some homely critic of the SovietS
has said that Russia is the SOW that,
having lain on the right side in mud
and squalor squealing for 800 years.
has now turned on her left side and
still squeals in mud and squalor.
Government Seen Stable.
1t is well for America to know these
things, that she may make up her mind
about her future relations with the
Soviet Union In one form or another
the present government of Russia, with
its dictatorship of the proletariat
seems about as stable a government as
there is in the world.
The Russians are not volatile peo-
pie as the nations around the Mediter-
ranean are, or as their Mediterranean
children are in South America. The
Tartar blood in China and in Russia
is sluggish. 1t has a high boiling
point and certainly in Russia things
are not near the boiling point
Communism may be modified by al
lowing some broader rights for private
property and private trading among the
peasants. The government this year
appropriated 60,00o,000 gold rubles to
buy cows to give the peasants in re-
turn for the food shortage last Winter
which came because the government
took from the peasants a larger share
Of their crops than was wise. These
cows will calve and the calves, becom-
ing heifers. will calve, and the pigs
will increase and the chickens multi
ply, even on the collective farms. and
in few years the government will
have to decide whether this natural
increase of barnyard live stock belongs
to the state or to the owners.
But the decision will not provoke rev.
olution. If the government decides ad-
versely, and takes the farmers increase