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"I have spent this last year working under all the dictators of Europe, except one, and the contrasts of my experiences in Russia and Italy are most interesting. In Italy you have one man and the police facing the entire population, which, beneath the surface is hostile to them, and in Russia all three forces work together."
R. N. Baldwin '05, Chairman of the Committee of Political Prisoners in Europe, of which there are 200,000 according to him, made this statement to a CRIMSON reporter as he was waiting for his train to New York at the South Station yesterday. Mr. Baldwin has studied the various methods of political repression in Europe, and the forces resisting them; and he has attempted to bring aid to the persecuted from the United States.
"Russia is a very easy country to find out about," he said, "as the government authorities are anxious to have you see their experiment. The difficulty lies in the facts themselves, as you will discover so many contrasts in them. The reason is that Russia has a primitive culture; there is much ignorance, drunkenness and superstition. On the other hand the new regime, consisting of a small minority of the population, is trying to infuse life with the most modern problem of politics. It is discouraging when you see what an enormous task the people have set themselves, because they are so far ahead of their times."
Turning the conversation to his experiences in Italy, Baldwin said that he had had a complete surprise when he had reached Mussolini's country. "I had expected to find Fascism generally supported or at least to find its opponents so cowed that I would be unable to discuss the situation with them. Instead, everyone was willing to talk. The people are very discontent with the present regime; this is because of the high price of living, the low wages and the growing unemployment."
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