The Challenge of Communism
IT has been interesting and sometimes piquant for me to read the joint reviews of Sir Walter Citrine's recent book on Russia and my own. We are personal friends, and have many ideas in common, so that I have sometimes been amused to see our opinions set against each other ; but we had different ways of approach to the subject. I was trying to open the door to the exchange of objective university study. For all academic work, freedom of thought and speech is the air that we breathe. That is why I have com- plained of Communist methods of the past, and that is why I welcome cordially the very remarkable new trend towards conciliation and liberty. My standards of comparison have always been between Russia of various phases in the past and Russia now.
Sir Walter Citrine had every reason for being cautious. A thorough and careful investigator of detail, he was in this case necessarily dependent upon interpreters not of his own choice, which made him all the more insistent in obtaining exact answers to his numerous questions. He was dealing with a challenge ; Communist propagandists frequently maintained that the Soviet Union had left us completely in the lurch, not only in the organisation of social services, which very often they well might claim, but in the achieve- ments of industry, which is infinitely more doubtful. Hence, we find Sir Walter metaphorically, and perhaps literally, tapping the walls of each new institution, and laying bare each defect, which could hardly have made him a popular visitor, and in many cases he himself bears testimony to the good temper and restraint of his guides. Beyond that, he has been the principal opponent to a " Popular Front " of Labour and Communism, and he has probably a wider experience than anyone else of the permeating tactics of Communism ; and he is well aware that this is the question which is going to be raised each time that he is called upon to speak in public. His objective in political life is to build up in British Labour an alternative constitutional Party fit to inherit the succession of government, and capable of carrying it on the broadest basis of national support, in which I heartily sympathise with him ; and in his pursuit of this object he has fought the Communists and defeated them at one representative congress after another. This, I think, dictates the attitude of his book. He does his best to be fair ; but, not unnaturally, he remains deeply sus- picious.
From this, it follows easily enough that, accepting the Communist challenge, he is in general comparing Soviet Russia with England. His traveller's notes return with unnecessary frequency to the absence of a plug in a wash hand basin ; Russians wash in running water, and never used such plugs. Again, time after time, he notes the absence of a carpet, which would never have surprised any Russian. He misses also the rather stuffy paraphernalia of decoration which he might have found in the dwelling of an average British artisan ; but Russians never went in for decorations of this kind, and never crowded their walls with pictures and photographs. But surely the boasters had themselves to thank, and in Sir Walter they met a tough proposition, which must sorely have tried their patience. Still they imperturbably carried through their task of hos- pitality, which is one of the strongest suits of the Russian nature, with splendid consistency, and Sir Walter bears constant witness to the difficulty which he found in criticising them at all. All this makes the book more interesting reading. Guides who have been accustomed to taking round visitors who overcame them with their praise have now to face the bluntest possible expressions of disagreement, where disagree- ment exists, and face up to it with spirit and vigour without ever forgetting that the visitor is a guest.
Very much of the book is an analysis of wages and prices, very carefully made and with reasonable allowances. This is fair ground for criticism ; but with it goes the turning of Russian values into English. Here I do not see how we could get to anything definite without knowing more than we do of the extent of operations on the " black market." Anyhow, the official foreign exchange is, in itself a standing absurdity, which defies all calculation whether the rate be
five and a half roubles to a pound or twenty-five. Its existence is perhaps to be explained, again, by the concen- tration of the Government purpose on " doing first things first," and satisfying in the first place exclusively the internal conditions of life.
Sir Walter's picture of deplorable slums is very painful, and no doubt true, but here again it was all-important that he should have seen Russia in the old conditions before the Revolution. If only such a searching eye as his could have been thrown upon them at that time, when the material for his criticism was far more widespread ! Now that the acutest tension of Soviet planning has passed and that the new plans are to a considerable extent actually taking shape, one who saw that old world will hardly be surprised at the contrast between the admirably clean and well-equipped public institutions, especially for children, and the remains of an earlier barbarism.
In most of our main conclusions Sir Walter and myself are at one. The hardest time is past. Not only the Government, but the country, seriously anticipates foreign aggression from two sides. The Government seeks the fullest support from the country in defence not only of its territory, but of the great experiment which it is conducting to make the world a better place for all. The family is strengthened ; the authority of parents is re-established ; discipline is restored in the schools ; and now we have the most striking bid for our good will which has yet been offered to us in the new draft constitution summarised by Sir Walter Citrine in the last pages of his book, which is based on the principles of universal suffrage, the ballot, a regime of legality and the rights of individuals. BERNARD PARES.
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