RUSSIAN BOLSHEVISM HAS REACHED A TURNING POINT

In the countryside, agitation is becoming more and more evident against the Moscow government, which is deeply concerned by this state of mind.

The leaders of the Soviet party have formally admitted this.

Moscow, February 18 (From our private correspondent). The awakening of the Russian countryside, where there is growing agitation against the regime that oppresses the peasants, is now the essential fact of the political situation in Russia. It also constitutes the main current preoccupation of the Bolshevik rulers. They do not even think of hiding it, and at the conference of the Russian Communist Party that has just ended, this question served as the theme of the speeches of all the leaders.

The peasants, Kameneff declared, are seeking to act on the power outside the framework of the Soviet system. There are two extremely serious indications of the increased political activity of the rural world, the speaker asserted: first, the insurrection in Georgia, then the systematic attacks on Soviet representatives, which have assumed quite large proportions in the countryside. Finally, the idea of ​​creating an autonomous peasant union is spreading rapidly in the countryside.

Stalin's fears

The other member of the triumvirate that governs Russia, Stalin, the real dictator, in his statements on the same subject, went even further than Kameneff. According to him, the situation has worsened to such an extent that, if the authorities do not give more freedom to the peasants, they will rise up in masses against the regime.

"Or we will allow the rural population to criticize us freely. he proclaimed clearly, or, with growing discontent, it will criticize us through insurrections"
To support his assertions, Stalin cited examples, which were quite edifying: "the Georgian insurrection was criticism; that of Tamloff too, and the revolt of Kronstadt, if not a criticism par excellence".

For Stalin, the peasant question is all the more acute because the Russian Bolshevik party cannot expect "direct and decisive help from the Western proletariat" in the near future.

It is in the same sense that the official organs Izughia and Pravda are now expressing themselves.

Towards concessions

We must therefore expect concessions from the Bolshevik government towards the peasants.
What could these concessions be? Kameneff gave a kind of outline of them in his speech.
It is necessary, he said, that the peasants should see in the local soviets the weapon of their influence, that they should become their own organs. But alongside this reform, it is also necessary that the party hold the reins of power even more firmly.
This amounts to saying that a certain freedom will be granted for the elections of the village soviets, that Bolshevik candidates will no longer be imposed as obligatory, and that the peasants will be able to become the masters of these local organs. This, Kameneff explained, will open a valve in the Soviet system.
But at the same time, in order to ward off the possible consequences of such a measure, the central power should become even more absolute and the dictatorship regime more rigorous.

Freedom for the rural masses in their local affairs, strengthening of the "monopoly" of the Bolshevik party in the conduct of state affairs - such is the meaning of the planned concessions.

It is, however, very doubtful that this will satisfy the countryside, which is agitated.
Zinovieff himself has just written in the Petrograd Pravda: "New times have come, the peasant will no longer allow anyone to joke with him."