APRIL 1925
THE UNITED AMERICAN
Page Fifteen
Folly of Communism and Its Reactions on the Russia of Tomorrow
THAT A REALIZATION of the folly of communism
is dawning in the minds of many leaders in Russia
is clear, but how to untie some of the communistic knots
and re-educate those who have come to believe in the
communistic creed is not an easy matter. Indications
are that Trotzky is one of the leaders in the commu
nism opposition movement which seems to have con
siderable support in the Russian army. Trotzky’s en
forced retirement last year, as head of the army, sustains
the contention that he is no longer a co-worker for com
munism. That those who took the mantle of the late
Lenin, creator of communism, are having “the time of
their life” to keep up the communistic dictatorship is
too plainly seen to be in doubt.
If the communists in America lived more in the
future and less in the past, they would concern them
selves rather with the failure of communism in practice
than with communism in theory, which upon careful
analysis can be seen to be clouded and overshadowed by
superficial foibles.
When the treasures of the old dynasties of Russia
have been spent — and there can’t be much left by this
time — communism is likely to appear to most Russians
as a vapor — a mirage created by a prolific slav mind.
Communism is like a fire in dry grass. It would
have gained no headway had it not been fanned by
favorable cross currents of post-war hatred and desires
for revenge. Its spread became at once a menace like
a forest fire and called for world action against its ag
gressive proponents. Every effort against communism
has been well spent and, as the fire is still raging
fiercely in some sections and smouldering in others, a
careful watch is still necessary if a new outbreak and
the disastrous results of its spread is to be prevented.
Like every other Utopian dream, communism con
tained something facinatingly promising with an appeal
to the simple and untrained mind. The teachings of
the heavenly abode in the hereafter was converted into
a state of reality and named the Communistic State.
But as the Communistic State emerged, the simple-
minded peasants learned all too soon that it contained
little or nothing of the theoretic state of communism.
Passive resistance was the only action the slav mind
could think of, and it became the Russian peasant’s only
weapon against another form of tyranny.
As a result the back of Communism has been broken
within its own domain. The opposition from abroad has
only served the purpose of preventing its spread and
its crude emaciated form, which is still stalking through
the great land of the slav, is gradually shriveling and
shrinking. On the horizon of the morrow are signs of a
new political plan in Russia. It will have a republican
form, with a representative system and popular elections
with equal franchise for rich and poor. There will come
out of the chaos a constitution with a satisfying guaran
tee of individual liberty, and the thrifty will reap the
full benefit of his thrift. The fences of self-protection
will be torn down by the nations of the world, and Rus
sia will open up its vast stores for its starving millions.
It will feed them well and leave enough over, to supply
the world with many needed commodities.
The new Russia that will rise from the wreckage
of Bolshevism and Communism will have a national
spirit that will find the way to economic expansion
abroad as well as for internal industrial developments.
No matter the present “arrangements” and “under
standing” in the Dardanelles, the conditions that have
contributed to changing Europes topography rather
than its geography will not close the door to Russia on
its eastern border where Russia’s temperamental and
commercial potentialities will find an open outlet.
Siberia, the land beyond the Ural Mountains, fertile
as any North American West and as vast and diversi
fied as a latitudinal expanse parallel with that from the
Alaskan Yukon to the midwestern hub of the American
continental mainland at Chicago, will provide the
Russian people the realization of world recognition and
power anew, the power that rightfully will come to a
people when it emerges with a reliable and tolerant form
of political government, built on acceptable principles.
In the comity of nations there is a place for Russia
when her people have cast off the spell of communism’.
On the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea there is an
abundance of oil. The Russian people are entitled to
develop these natural resources from within. The soil is
productive in the vast rural regions in this great section
of the country and the natural resources are plentiful.
Russia has great stores of coal, iron, oil, agricultural
and horticultural lands and an abundance of labor
power.
Contiguous to Russia is Asia with the vast empire
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