Frank Scott Travel Diary Transcription (Jpeg 46)

Saturday July 6th 1935

Spent a harried morning at Intourist, CPR and American express. Mrs. Somerset’s visa had not arrived, though she had been promised it months beforehand, and a special cable had been sent to Moscow. But [Shannon?] (?) I [intourist] head after consulting the embassy seeing a letter I had got from [K]ing written by [Miaisky] the ambassador said he would overstep his authority and have the visa ready for the boat. So we prepared.

At 3 pm we went from the Ivanhoe Hotel to Hays wharf and after an hour-and-a-half delay boarded the [RUSSIAN text] (my first words in written Russian!). I had bought a 2nd class ticket, but by the good influence of [Shannon?] was put in a first class cabin with young [Zimbatsky?] son of the violinist. A clean, 2 berth cabin, large porthole on upper deck, 2 large [narrow] cup-boards, a reading lamp that doesn’t work, a totally inadequate wash basin with a thin stream of cold water, and a bunk made like a sleeping bag. [Not as] good as 3rd class Empress of Britain but comfortable.

At 7.00 we had an excellent dinner – caviar, soup, [squash salad], breaded cauliflower, strawberries in whipped cream, coffee.

Before dinner, as we left the dock, the crowd of visitors sang the Internationale with great gusto in English[and] were answered by most of the passengers.

In the evening visited the Red [Corner], [aft] in the ship. This was my first taste of the real new Russia, and in a short half hour one felt a deep stirring of some underdeveloped social instinct . . .

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Continued . . . in oneself. Coming fresh from the Empress of Britain made the experience the more impressive. On that luxury liner everything was done to make life easy for the passengers. The first class lived in splendour the [xxxist] class in luxury (except for the vibrations of the propellers, the 3 rd in crowded comfort. But there were no other human beings aboard. Seeing there were about 900 passengers and 600 crew, the omission of consideration for the latter was a pretty big omission. The stewards led lives of slaves. They worked about 16 to 20 hours a day. The boat is no sooner in port in port than it has to be turned round sent on the next voyage. The men get no time off in the week at all for long stretches. The wages of one steward were [monetary symbol followed by 5 – 16 – 6] a month. They live down below in crowded quarters, and have no recreation facilities of any kind. They dress in stiff collars & uniforms, must always be at everyone’s beck & call. At the end of the voyage they wait like an inferior class (as they are thought to be) for the tips that are grudgingly given.

On this boat the men and women had two recreation rooms on the same deck as the 2nd class cabins. The first room had benches and tables the tables had fresh flowers on them. On the walls were mottoes, pictures, photos of the U.S.S.R., and of course the Wall [Sheet]. The latter contained caricatures of humorous, unpleasant or inefficient features in the life of the boat. One cartoon was of a slovenly sailor who stayed on snoring in bed instead of getting up to do his physical [culture] exercises;

another depicted the excessive heat of the engine room where the [cooling] fan out of order. A cheery sailor . . .

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Continued . . . described the incidents with much amusement & his comments were translated by a girl whom I had met on the Empress - miss [Lyle Maeth???]. He was sturdy self-possessed and with a most attractive smile: He works 8 hours a day only, in 4 hour shifts. In his spare time he follows a regular course of technical education. He has 7 months on the boat and 5 in the [Technician], at theoretical work (with a stipend of course). He intends to be a marine engineer, though he is now acting as [fireman] – and he knows that the state will give him every opportunity to realize his ambition if he has the ability. Long hours and inadequate pay will not be barriers to cross.

In the inner room was another table and a long bench, with a piano, radio, musical instruments, games of various kinds, and Russian magazines. A large bust of Lenin dominated the room, and pictures of Stalin, Marx, etc.. [hung round?]. A sailor was playing the guitar and others were joining in the songs.

The ship is the worker’s ship. They go where they like on her. They care for the passengers well, because that is their work, but they do not become mechanized slaves in the process. They are co-equal with the people they carry. Their rougher dress implies no inferiority.

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Sunday July 7th

Blot out this day entirely. Mere transport on a rough north sea.

Monday 8th

The calm of the Kiel Canal revived everybody. Enjoyed the air [&] sun & green fields of the close banks. Bought [cheap] cigarettes & brandy at the Baltic exit, Holtenau.

Two events struck me today. One was a conversation with two film workers of the USSR – Vassiliev (who with his brother, also aboard, directed [Chapeyev]) & [Griessler]: the boy & girl [Z] [imbalist], Mrs. Dodge their[cicerone], & a young friend Miss Anderson being present. The Russians were saying how to understand Russia you must live there long enough to sense what the people were after, & that they were not to be judged by their present achievement. [In French] Ca commence,” they said (we spoke in French). They made a point of the absence of wealthy individuals; even if a man made much money there was little I could do for him. There was no danger, they felt, of anyone returning on an accumulated fortune; public opinion was so strongly against this that it could not be conceived of.

The other event was described to be by [Mr. Leschenhart?]. He had been invited to attend a meeting in the Red Quarter, where the other Vassiliev was giving a lecture to the crew on the [aims] of Russian film art. There was no limit to what it [might] do for humanity, he felt, since it was not materialistic.

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CONTINUED . . . It had no commercial ends to serve.

One group of workers on the boat does slave till all hours – that is the stewards or cooks who look after the first class dining room.

Tuesday July 9th

A day like any ship’s day. Waiting for meals, then eating too much, then pretending to take exercise.

It is true that the officers and men mix and play games with the crew at all hours. There is real camaraderie, as far as one can see. A favourite game is a sort of pool played with checkers which have to be pocketed on a small woken table.

Wednesday July 10th

Tonight we had the ship’s concert. It was essentially a communal affair, the audience being drawn [into] many choruses. Folk songs, accompanied by guitars, predominated; then came dancing. A small playlet dealt with two men and one girl – and a baby. There was no collection at that the end – why should there be? Old sailors in Russia do not depend on charity.

A girl on board sprained her ankle. She has been wonderfully cared for, the doctor paying her every attention. Her roommate tells me that coming over on the [Aquitanic] . . .

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CONTINUED . . . a similar accident occurred, and the ship’s doctor was so afraid the woman would sue the company that he paid little attention to her, trying to make out that the damage was very slight.

Thursday 11th

11.30 A.M. Just arrived at my room (241) in the Hotel Astoria, Leningrad. Was up by 7.30, breakfast at 8:00, off the ship by 9.45, [& all] through now. Very efficient handling in every way. And a most comfortable room, considering we are Tourist [or/on?} 2nd class. Really hot water [running] in large [basin]: comfortable chesterfield & table, writing desk & telephone, large wardrobe, four chairs, reading lamp at bedside, rug, all very clean. Good for the USSR!

The first town was a bus-ride [round] the city. Despite a certain lack of fresh colour and paint on the buildings, the general impression is one of great distinction and style of architecture, and of skillful planning – all, of course, pre Revolutionary. The [Unitsky] place is particularly fine. The details of the 1905 Bloody Sunday and of the October revolution were [neatly] explained by the guide – Lenin figuring largely & Trotsky not at all. The Decemberist revolt was described as an attempt to free serfs in order that they might . . .

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CONTINUED . . . become good toilers in the factories of their liberators – no liberalism was to be attributed to the rebels. Thus [do] innocent tourists absorb their Marxist interpretation of history.

The modern apartment house for the former political prisoners released from the fortress of Peter & Paul, with library, restrooms etc., was pointed out, and gave us a thrill.

Then drove past new [dwellings] for workers. We did not enter but [even] from the outside we could see much that was impressive. Houses [on] window sills; courts laid out with grass & young trees; two attractive girls waiving smiling from a window. And [going] in front were these poorly clad workers looking much more drab and depressed than inmates of such buildings should be. It gave an impression – confirmed many times – of squalor fighting a losing battle against the incoming tide of comfort and decency.

The clothing of the people certainly suggests a very low standard of living. But all wear reasonably good shoes and are decidedly not in rags; here & there are persons dressed much better than average.

Women doing physical work everywhere – shoveling sand, laying pavements, sweeping streets. And streets spotlessly clean. Much tidying being done, fronts of homes [scraped], scaffolding [up] buildings, & other signs of improvement.

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CONTINUED . . .

At 12.15 A.M. the [Astoria] produced a good hot bath without difficulty – and if I did have to dry myself in a tablecloth, who cares?

Went to a movie tonight. While waiting for the show to start, we were played to by a 12 piece orchestra – all plucked string instruments then the [horns?]. First the pictures of last May 1 demonstrations. Most impressive. The militarization was technically grand, but where are [socialists?] going? Masses of men marching with fixed bayonets thrust forward – is this May 1st? Boys marching with bows & arrows at the draw. The only symbols were discipline, mass movement, and military strength. Yet at the end the perfect touch – a child [kissing?] its hand to Stalin, who lifts his cup and laughs.

Next came the comedy of Alexandreev. “Good Fellows.” Three rollicking farces in one: first part, entry of live (stork or stosh?] into dining hall, live pigs being carved, cows in bed with fainting women – all most plausibly connected; then a magnificent scene of the comedian involuntarily and [unwittingly] conducting a symphony orchestra; then a dust-up amongst the band in the friendship collective. A Hollywood chorus at the end.

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CONTINUED . . .

Friday July 12th

This morning (miss [Ron] having arrived &Tamara [Ulanova] being attached to us) we visited the [Skorshed] shoe factory, employs 15, 000, produces 13 million prs. per year (before the Revolution, only 3). Some facts about it are: 1. Workers work 7 A.M. to 9.00 then have 10 min. rest, & so on for a 7 hour day with 1 hour for lunch. Runs 2 such shifts & is closed at night.

2. The whole factory is highly mechanized with modern machinery. I noticed a fine instrument from helping in the testing laboratory.

3. The average minimum wage is 200 rubles for ordinary workers, 600 for engineers, but both may go higher – and usually do – with piece work. But engineers and workers may get 2 000 (all per month). But we were told that an old woman, about whom we asked, & who was sweeping floors, might get 100-120.

4. Price of canvas shoes was 25 rubles per pair & of small child’s leather shoes 50 rubles – an average price for typical shoe. This represents a lot for many workers. (compare price of [$} 1.00 for Canadian shoes with workers getting 3 & 4 per week)

5. Each shop has a manager who suggests promotions.

6. Every worker must study (about 3 nights a week) if he is going to improve his technique sufficiently for promotion. This necessarily adds to their working day though the work is not compulsory. Great emphasis is laid on technical training [strongly?}; on one . . .

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CONTINUED . . . floor of a shop we saw Lenin’s words that Labour is the most important part of production, & on the next floor Stalin’s words that [Technic?] will solve the problems of labour.

7. 96% of the workers are unionized.

8. The factory has a house of culture & rest some distance away. It has its own restaurant on the grounds, which we visited: looked very nice, with lots of small tables. The [Shock [brigades] were eating in a special fart fenced off from the rest with either better food or lower prices, we were told. There is also a hospital attached to the factory, with 12 doctors in attendance. We saw clean beds in first aid rooms, and what particularly interested me were charts on the walls (quite natural like) explaining the nature and effects of venereal disease.

Four other points I noticed were?

1. Workers showing cards & photos as they entered & left. A worker being searched by a guard on going out, in case he should be stealing something.

2. Charts in the factory explaining the insides of rifles and air-bombs, to instruct the workers in military training.

3. Numbers of state [bands?] winning prizes, posted up.

4. Nice soft-drink {counters?] – but not free.

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CONTINUTED . . .

July 12th

This afternoon we visited Detskoye Selo. For sheer magnificence, its series of rooms cannot be surpassed by anything in my experience. Tamara was surprisingly detached about it all; her descriptions were not coloured until we reached the Alexander Palace & the rooms of Nicholas II, where she would insist on the execrable taste. It was bad, admittedly, but seeing the simple – minded Tsar merely wanted comfortable living quarters, seeing he was born in that century, [the] taste can be explained without imputing utter decadence to the line.

Coming back [AxxxxxT] stopped the bus to take movies of some of the peasant’s rude shacks. All went well till a solitary trooper came along and inadvertently got into the picture – or thought he had. Then Tamara had to do some tall explaining as to why she allowed this photographing to go on. Ashley. has come across queer restrictions – no railway trains or stations, nothing military; the wings but not the [front] of the Admiralty were permitted!

Food excellent, but without fruit. Fortunately we imported [scribble could be a cross out] our well packed baskets.

The walk to the [Uritsky] square in the pale twilight of 11.30 – 12 midnight was memorable. How fitting that the great revolutionary scene should be set in surroundings that express planning, control and man’s power to create beauty.

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CONTINUED . . .

July 12th

Tonight we saw another movie called the “Festival of St. [Turgend].” [indiscernible] a religious satire, showing how legends may grow and be utilized by the church for its own – principally pecuniary – purposes. The first scene showed two priests supervising the filming of the legend of St. Turgend. The picture of the walking on the water had to be redone because a rowboat full of peasants came accidentally into the foreground. Much by play of priests and actresses, angels removing wings, etc.. Then the feast day of St. Turgend comes along.

& vast celebrations are arranged: masses praying and praying. Shekels going to bankers. In [come] two thieves, who get involved in the celebrations, some of them [has] to impersonate St. [Jurgend decide] to

escape arrest. The people cry “ Miracle! Miracle!” & the priests do a deal with the thief to avoid a scandal; his “resurrection” is arranged in the form of a swift motor car to the border. All very well directed, very funny, and very good indeed for the Province of Quebec – if only its people might be shown it.

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July 13th

Took a walk in the late afternoon along the Nevsky Prospect. Walked round one church, which seemed totally abandoned. The next was open, and I went [it]. Some service was going on; a choir was chanting in the distance. No lights or candles; all looked run down & drab. Almost 100 people were in the pews, 90% women, mostly old. Two small boys were in two of their mothers. A few old & rather distinguished looking men were there. A servitor stood at the door with a plate: poverty stricken women dropped in roubles. It was rather pitiful.

Men are we, and must weep when even the shade

Of that which once was great has passed away.

I was glad to feel it was pass, as I saw human beings crouching to the floor in obeisance before – what?

Coming back I passed a window and looked in; there was a small machine shop, half below ground, with [about] [&] men at work. It was dark, cramped and inefficient looking. No amenities for workers in that factory.

We left for Moscow at 10.00. A mass of tourists piled into a coach without lights, & attempted to sort out themselves & their baggage. Pandemonium for 15 minutes, then a few bourgeois women were astonished to find men were in their compartments. But why not?

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July 14th “I do not know what Sunday means” said the Intourist girl.

Moscow.

Even driving from the station one could feel a change from Leningrad. That was faded grandeur with beginnings of a new order. Here was bustle, activity, an existing confidence. People walked faster, were better dressed. More – many more – cars on the streets. And construction going on everywhere. With numbers of fine modern buildings.

To the National Hotel. Nice room again, excellent service. “When I was here in 1932: began Mrs. S., sensing a new audience: “Madame,” said the hotel manager “forget 1932. Moscow has entirely changed since then.” The command drew silent echoes.

A sightseeing drive in an open Lincoln, with, as guide, [Yalla] (?). Everywhere were signs of achievement. Institutes, libraries, factory kitchens, metro stations, aerodromes, and closed churches. A big city forging ahead. Leningrad is aristocratic – this is popular.

In the evening, found my way (even asked it once) to [Telegraphic Pesionlik 6, Apt. 2], where I had a most interesting conversation with Carter & [Eric Godfrey]. The former is a technician in the communications department; the latter, a party member, is consultant to a factory. We [ranged] over . . .

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CONTINUED . . .

1. General improvements. Since 1932, things had developed immensely, they said. [how or now] nothing is rationed, except living space. With [roubles] you can buy anything. Motor cars are just around the corner for the private buyer – some workers have been given cars as bonuses. The heavy industry problem is solved, & light industry is coming along nicely.

2. Refinements & pleasures have been introduced. A person who can teach dancing can make 50 rubles an hour, they said (Carter’s normal salary is 600 a month, but he rises through extras to 900 frequently). Every factory has dancing classes; at one time it was made compulsory for persons who might be sent abroad & who would be wall-flowers at bourgeois balls otherwise. Jazz is here. Workers are buying ties where before they would have despised them.

3. The principle of better pay for better work is fully accepted and practiced. Class distinctions being based on the power to exploit through ownership of property, once the latter has been socialized there can be no class distinctions, even though rewards are different. I said that man’s ways of exploiting man were various, and that to think you had eradicated them because property was common was an illusion. They would have none of this. Stalin’s child goes to the same school as Carter’s, and has no better chance of rising to the top.

4. Self-criticism really from [actions] as a corrective to inefficiency & graft in the factory. If some worker gets a prize to which he is not entitled, or some director idles at his job, someone is bound to raise the matter in a party or non-party meeting. Above all the newspapers assist this process; they have investigators who follow up complaints, & they make a point of collecting letters from workers. Carter read me out a paragraph from the paper published by his department, in which an engineer criticized & name a number of his own superior officers.

Apropos of inefficiency, the Moscow news today carried an item stating that a certain director had been sentenced because he had failed to introduce a rationalization process that one of his own workers had put forward.

“You can’t live here four years & be neutral, & you can’t live here four years and be anti,” said Carter . . .

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CONTINUED . . .

We argued a good deal about the question of equality. Godfrey kept answering me by chapter & verse read from Stalin on Leninism. He was well versed in it, as a party man should be. It said that it seemed to me the period f transition would be long if this principle of unequal payments were being stressed so much, & if it were only to be abandoned when material productivity had reached an adequate point. The determination of how much is enough is qualitative rather than quantitative: men will always have wants beyond his possessions. Godfrey replied that the [end] was not being lost sight of. It was reorganized that what was being built in Russia now was Socialism not communism, which must come later. The stages, he said, were well marked, first the distinction between town and country must be abolished. At present Stalin favours Artels, where payment is unequal & individual land in small degree can be owned to communes. Communes will grow out of Artels, when the peasant & wife realizes it is better to use the communal kitchen & laundry instead of doing cooking & working herself. The next stage is to abolish the distinction between [hand] work & brain work. This will happen[when or where] all workers are engineers – a process rapidly going on. In his [shop], he said, there are 4 engineers but 50 workers are learning to become engineers.

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CONTINUED . . . [I think this is next]

Weinberg, from Toronto, told me that on entering at Leningrad the customs officials

I Objected to his 2 flashlights, but eventually allowed them

II Refused to allow him to bring in his Tuxedo

III “ “ 3 pairs of shoes & 2 prs. of slippers. Eventually he paid $ 1.00 for the 3 rd pr. of shoes & sent one pr. slippers back.

IV Refused to allow him to keep two catalogues of shoes manufactured by his company in Toronto.

Godfrey suggested it was because he was a former Russian returning (though he had emigrated long before the Revolution).

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July 15th

To the Park of culture & Rest in the morning to see the children’s City. As we entered the Park we saw a group of people dancing. They were casual visitors to the Park, being taught folk dances by a young girl. Her appearance, her assurance, and her dancing moved me more than almost anything I have yet seen here. She was creating beauty for and with the common people; she symbolized the best that is coming to be in this new social order.

Then to the Children’s City. Here again we saw the ideals for the new generation being provided and practiced. There was the program of [activity] for the child’s day, complete from 10 A.M. to 8 P.M. At 10, registration, medical examination & washing; 10.30, gymnastics; 10.40, breakfast; 11 - 2.30 various kinds of play and activities such as painting, modeling, etc; Any one may leave children there, as often as they like, though parents are encouraged not to leave them too often, but to care for them themselves. A charge is made per day proportionate to the income of the parent who brings them. Those getting 100 r. or less per month pay 3.25 for a full day. The daily average is about 300 children, & there are 3 such cities in Moscow. Most children thus have to go to crèches, playgrounds, camps, or else stay at home or in the street. Trained teachers look after each activity. Ages here are 4 – 7. All sorts of equipment for outdoors play.

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CONTINUED . . .

For children of school age (8-15) there is a somewhat similar arrangement. Everything here except meals is free. Boys work rooms, laboratories, playgrounds etc. We [saw] about 50 children attending a free lecture on birds. A nice library is provided. Political training begins in this group. A special theatre plays only to the children,

In the late afternoon our guide took us to see [Chapeyev] A little disappointing, I felt: a good romantic tale, but little more. The theatre crowd clapped loudly when the Red Army came to the rescue, so the picture obviously did what was intended of it.

Dinner being over by 10.00, we gathered in my room & talked about conditions here with Sylvia [Tartakower]. She represented, I suppose, the class of professional people who were very well placed before the Revolution, who have fallen in line enough to be reasonably well placed now, but who have felt the transition years very keenly. Her husband is a doctor, head of a hospital w. 700 patients. He gets 300 r. (before the war 3000) a month, and 50 r. as the beginning of his old age pension. When he retires he will get only 160 a month according to her, which will only be enough to buy food. “There are no old age pensions,” was her comment.

She described the present system of shops, providing various books of tickets as exhibits.

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CONTINUED . . .

There are 4 prices for all commodities. The lowest are paid by government workers in their special shops; the next by specialists, third come all the rest, such as clerks, white collar people, etc. at these stores people are allowed to buy so much of everything in a determined time. [She] could buy now ½ kilo of butter every 3 months – butter still being scarce, though we tourists have plenty.

In the open stores where everything is available for everybody at high prices (Mostor[Russian letter], viz.) there is a general tendency for prices to come into line with the other stores; prices are

falling all the time, she said. All the best goods go to Torgsin – hence no Russian women wear wedding rings.

Since the derationing of bread there has been less consumed than before. Formerly, when workers got 2 lbs. per day, office workers 1lb., every member of the family would get his ration & the bread that could not be eaten would be traded with peasants for milk or other foods, many people not getting enough on their rations. Bread became a form of money. Now people pay for what they want only, & there is less waste & no speculation.

She said (- and here, on Sept. 2nd, I continue my account of this evenings conversation as best . . .

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CONTINUED . . . I can) she said that everything in Russia was in a state of continuous flux. People must live in the moment, for no one could tell what new development might occur next. All articles in the press of course are written to order or else express the official attitude: today you can read articles saying things for the writing of which the authors would have been imprisoned or shot a year ago. Two weeks ago there appeared an article urging respect for the old; it was only a short time ago that it was the craze for children to write to the papers publicly denying their parents. (Incidentally, my friend Charpentier’s explanation of the revival of respect for age is that the important Bolshies are getting a little bald, and rather fear the young men who are coming along.)

This capacity to live in the present and let the future take care of itself was the reason why the population could put up with their discomforts, and was not weighed down by fears. By nature the Russian is light-hearted and easy-going. (To my mind one reason why the Russian tolerates his present standard of living is his idealism; he creates a mental five year plan and then begins to live, mentally, amongst all the good things that will be in existence when the plan is completed. It seemed to me that everyone was thinking forward, and was looking over the nearby obstacles to the bright, attainable future. This idea appears, perhaps ironically, in the following story that was going the rounds. A peasant, leader of a Kolkhoz, was brought to Moscow to have Communism explained to him. “It is like this,” said the teacher. “Do you see that hospital over there? In five years we shall have ten of those. Do you see that shoe factory? In ten years there will be six of them. Do you see that school? Next year there will be three more like it.” The peasant, much impressed, returns to his village, gathers the people round him and begins to explain what he saw and learnt. “Well,” he said, “It is like this. Do you see the potato field over there? In five years there will be twenty more. Do you see that new barn we are putting up? In three years all our hay will be in new barns. Do you see that flock of crows eating the crops? Ten years from now there will be twice as many. Do you see that cemetery up on the hill? Soon we shall all be in it.”)

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CONTINUED . . .

Further S.T. said that the new men who made their way to the top in the USSR were not always the best and the wisest; they were frequently the strong and the cunning. The life was hard, and the battle went to the strong. It was easier for the young, the new generation. They had known no other life, and were tough. They had the new morality, and knew what was right and wrong. The older people bore the brunt of the suffering. Their religion had been taken away, and they could not find comfort and guidance in the new ideas.

People are afraid of one another, she went on to say. No one quite knows what his neighbour is doing. They have to be guarded with each other; they dare not speak their minds freely. Living in such close proximity as they do in Moscow, every person can see what the next is doing. There is no private life left to the individual. It is not wise to complain.

All who are not with us are against us: that she said was the principle on which the system worked What does it matter if one generation is sacrificed, so long as a beautiful new society is built for our children? So any cruelty may be justified.

(After Sylvia had been talking for about an hour, in a voice none too quiet, she suddenly said to me “you might open your door and see if anyone is listening.” I went to the door, opened it. And sure enough one of the hotel attendants and quickly stepped back. “I want some water,” I said. He disappeared and never returned. Silvia did not seem to mind, but something of a hush fell on the rest of us. Later I learned to joke about that sort of thing, knowing full well that the tourist would never be molested unless he were doing something pretty serious.”

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July 15th

To St. Isaacs Cathedral. A vast ugly mass, green malachite and lapis lazuli pillars. Anti-religious propaganda most skillfully done. Some of the most effective exhibits were ecclesiastical pictures themselves, such as representations of the Tsar as semi-divine, the church & state. One picture showed the priests & tsar standing together, blessed by rays from heaven, while lightning descended upon the massed reds & revolutionaries. The diagrams showing the % of atheists for different age & sex groups in the villages, the largest number of believers being amongst old women. Figures of Galileo & Bruno persecuted, beside a fine working example of Toucault’s experiment showing the revolution of the earth. Science glorified. Also propaganda against Hitler. They dry corpse of an [undecomposed] saint, next to similar peasant.

Tamara told us the cathedral cost 23 million rubbles.” For that we could build three Dnieprostroi,” she said.

Much emphasis on the wealth of the church & its ways of raising money.

Tamara’s story is that the Soviets [newly] decreed the separation of church & and state & church & school; that the churches were given to the believers; that the Latter in 19 28 came & asked the govt. to take back St. Isaacs as they could no longer keep it up.

We saw the silver plates with names of the policemen who were killed during Bloody Sunday which were . . .

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CONTINUED . . . ??????

placed in the altar. Pictures of the priests following the funeral of policemen.

I asked Tamara who killed Kirov. “Mensheviks,” she said: “Trotsky was of that party, & he has been plotting against the revolution.”

Outside the Hotel I was interviewed by a press representative. He asked me how Leningrad impressed me. I said it was beautiful & interesting, but that the people looked very poorly clothed. “That will come,” he said. He was anxious to know whether people in America were interested in the USSR. We assured him they were.

Then to the Hermitage. With the first Venetian rooms I was disappointed. Good examples, but not the best, of all the great names. But some few masterpieces had had been lent to an exhibition in Venice. I must remember [Titian’s] [Damal], two fine Canaletto’s, and a Carrevaggio. Amongst other Italians were a splendid B. Luini, & a nice [Filippino Lippi]. The Rembrandts gave the first taste of real greatness. Certain portraits, & his[Danae]. What most pleased me however was a collection of modern French masters, recently required in exchange for modern Russian work. Matisse (Blue striped pyjamas, some designs) Picasso (some cubist nudes, two simple portraits, one blue period) Henri Rousseau (one jungle, & figures strolling by . . .

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CONTINUED . . .

. . . Chopin’s statue in Warsaw) Cezanne (man with pipe, & magnificent still life) [Van XXXXX?] (a hard boiled wench)) two grand [Derain] landscapes, four Gauguin Tahitian scenes, and Van Gogh – a curious picture called The Circus, unlike his excited paint, and one green quivering mass of bush.

I find that the Intourist only take tourists to certain factories, insitutes & museums, with which previous arrangements have been made. We could not see Smolny Institute & Lenin’s room through [them]; they could take us to children’s rest homes in Leningrad, but not in Detskoye-Selo.

Extras here are expensive. All rubles are quoted at .90[cents] each; we cannot buy rubles unofficially. The result is that to send a letter home costs 15 [cents]; to enter the movies apart from Intourist costs about [2 or. 50K Russian monetary?] or $2.25. To get into St. Isaacs costs $1.35. We cannot buy a cup of coffee or a glace of beer or kvass on the street, having no rubles & those places not taking valuta: all shops except Torgsin are closed to us.

And how we do wait after ordering meals!

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. . . CONTINUED . . .

. . . many other studio buildings were in process of construction in the same block. A garden was being laid out. A similar group of cottages was being built in the country outside Moscow, we were told. “Living together has its drawbacks,” our friend told us on leaving. “An artist picks a nice spot to paint, and other artists crowd round wanting to paint the same think.”

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July 16th.

Mrs. Somerset, Aileen Ross and I were picked up by young Harkoffsky of the VOKS office, placed – with difficulty – on a tram, and taken off to see the House of the Painters. It was a modernist building in a remote suburb of the city. Walked through the muddy streets; women were drawing water from hydrants and carrying away two pails at a time on a yoke. Reached the House, and were met by a painter who could speak French and who acted as guide. The building was of simple modern design. Five stories high, with plain wash colours on the walls. It belongs to a painter’s cooperative of some 350 members. The artists have studios and rooms; there is a kindergarten for the children and a restaurant. A committee sets the rules, judges the worth of pictures and fixes the salary of the artist; its membership consists of six artists and two persons representing the “administration,” as our friend called it.

The average salary of the member artist would run from 1000 to 3000 rubles a month. This income is fixed by the committee, and forms a contract between the co-op and the artist. There is no obligation to paint any certain number of pictures; the artist decides the subject and the amount of his work. The pictures when painted are exhibited and sold – to trades unions, factories etc. – the popular artists fetching high prices. If the value of the individual’s output is greater than the amount of his salary, he receives the surplus; if it is less, he is not obliged to make up the deficiency. Of course the committee would not go on overpaying him for long. The artist buys his own supplies, but they are cheap.

On the walls of our friend’s quite attractive studio were three still-life pictures, two landscapes, on interior of a factory and one study of a group of heads – mostly bad. I asked about freedom to experiment in painting; he said there was freedom, only the painter naturally wanted to paint pictures which would sell, i.e. which were popular, and this induced a certain conformity to social taste. Painters interested in abstract painting mostly went to the theatre. (I never saw any abstract painting anywhere in the USSR, except the modern French.)

At first the young painters wanted to be politicians. Now they are learning to be painters. Fierce arguments rage in the co-operative about the function of art.

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CONTINUED . . .

We were shown a studio where several painters worked together. A number of posters were brought out for us, all dealing with some social problem. Peasants shown gazing in anger at crows in the sky while their pockets were being rifled by Kulaks; cleaner and better dressed peasants rooting up weeds and Kulak; the bureaucratic train that ran so slowly the eggs had all hatched out. A group of artists made these posters as part of their work.

All the time we had been seeing these things there had been a small, unshaved and dirty individual trailing round rather sheepishly after us. He was undersized and cowed; an unemployed immigrant from eastern Europe we should have said had we met him on Vitre St. in Montreal. But he was a sculptor, and he was waiting his turn to show us his studio. So we went downstairs to a corridor with bits of stone and plaster lying about, and he opened the door of his room with great eagerness. No wonder. In the middle of the studio, on a table stood one of the most beautiful statues I have ever seen. Perhaps it was the unexpectedness, or the contrast between artist and creation, which accentuated the sense of beauty, but I have never been more instantly aware of that sudden exhaltation which art alone can give. The figure was a life-size clay figure of a girl standing with a ski against her shoulder. She had the well-proportioned solidity of the peasant woman, standing with firm ease on the ground, but here face had that slightly upward look of fearless confidence that the revolutionary art had evolved to symbolize its new womanhood. I looked round at the sculptor again, and then I felt I understood Communism. He was the actuality of today, a creative soul embodied in an ugly frame; the clay figure was the new social order that will certainly come into being.

In the room was a sickly looking girl. Who was she? The sculptors’s wife, whom he had used for a model: Of course, he explained, he had had to change her somewhat to make his clay figure; she was not very strong.

The sculptor’s name was Simonovitch.

As we left the House I pointed to a large bust of Stalin at the foot of the stairs. Why have Stalin and not some Artist? Because, said my friend, he have us this House. (Nonsense; the House was the result of social cooperation, not of one man’s work. The money for that building was saved from the wages of Russian workmen.)

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. . . July 16th continued.

This afternoon we spent at the Pedagogical Institute talking about education to Bubnov (?) and Dworin. We entered a large office and sat at one end of a large table while B., at the head of the table,

answered the questions. Two other officials sat through the interview; occasionally B would refer to them on some special point.

I will only note certain points of our conversation. There is plenty of literature on the school system of the USSR.

From the age of 3 to 6 the child is in the pre-school stage. He will go to the kindergartens, where he will receive appropriate training. At present about 75% of these children are so cared for. (I cannot quite believe that figure, remembering the appearance of the villages in the Crimea.)

The school education proper begins at 8 and continues till 18. It is compulsory. There are ten grades in the schools. But at the end of 7 years the student may pass into one of the Technicums, which may be technical, musical, pedagogical, agricultural, etc. After leaving a Technicum he will have a profession. Beyond the Technicum, or beyond the full 10 years of school, there is the university. Every engineer must finish the university.

It is intended that every worker in the USSR should have the basic education up to 18 years of age. Trades and professions have to be learnt outside the school or at the Technicums. There used to be many and still are some factory schools, but these are to be eliminated, the schools of course employ manual training as part of the curriculum and give the student practical training.

Boys and girls have an identical education. The choice of professions and occupations is absolutely free.

Students receive pay, in the schools exceptionally but normally in the technicums and universities. The minimum income would be 90 rubles a month. Children of poor parents would be entirely looked after, even free lunches being provided.

J PEG # 78 . . .

Adult education is also being vigorously developed. Special schools for illiterates have been opened through out the Union. Adults go to the higher educational institutions. Many factories have schools for workers. And now a complete system of correspondence schools has been developed covering all branches of education.

At the end of the questions from us B. said he wanted to ask a question. He said he had read that in America school and university teachers were paid much less than directors of factories. Was it true? In Russia the director of an educational institute would receive more money, and be more highly regarded, than a director of a factory.

Yes it was true.

But in Russia an engineer will get more than either the educationalist or the factory director. The latter is frequently a party man and so restricted in his income.

Over against this description of education-for-all-till-18 must be set what we heard about the schools in Moscow; there are so few buildings still that pupils are taught in three shifts, one in the morning, one in the afternoon and one in the evening. Hence the boys and girls are improperly cared for 2/3 of the day; hence juvenile delinquency and the attempt to revive the family unit.

After our interview we saw an exhibition of sculpture done by a contemporary group of sculptors, at the Museum of Fine Arts. I was disappointed. No sign of originality or freedom. Some small groupings of figures symbolizing collective farm work were mildly impressive.

In the evening we went with Sylvia Tartskower to the Hermitage park (Sad Hermitage). Watched the crowds of respectably dressed people strolling about; examined the amusing caricatures depicting the stupidities of Moscow pedestrians and the difficulties of riding on trams; noticed the interest in a display of women’s fashions; checked myself from throwing away matches and cigarette . . .

JPEG # 79 . . . CONTINUATION

. . . butts and so dirtying the immaculate paths. Watched part of a performance in the open air theatre; good acrobatic dancing, violin playing by a woman in evening dress (the only one I saw on the whole tour), introductory remarks [with French accent grave] [a] la Balieff to each turn, by a man in dinner jacket.

Danced at the Metropole about one a.m. A few Russians sitting about; about two couples dancing. With our bootleg rubles, which Sylvia had supplied to me at 25 to the dollar, we could treat ourselves quite well. We would not have dared, or been able, to use rubles at the National were we are staying; there everything is free or paid for at the gold ruble rate of 1.13 to the $.

Coming back across the Red Square in moonlight, clouds drifting aver the sky, Lenin’s tomb somber against the Kremlin wall, we felt the vastness of the project, the colossal daring of the directing wills. Cruelty seems puny amidst such magnitudes. (It is not, of course.)

Under the new plan for the reconstruction of Moscow, which has been announced recently the Red Square will be four times as large. A huge Avenue of Lenin will lead to the gigantic Palace of the Soviets. Demonstrations will be thunder. Very fine. Meanwhile children have three shifts because there are not enough schools, and workers live in smelly, lice-ridden hovels because there are not enough new houses. Is this bread and circuses, or does the Russian really prefer a hovel and more drama to clean sheets and less?

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July 17th.

At breakfast, looking onto the street and waiting to be served my [omelette], Compote and coffee, I noted “It is strange to look out of the window of this hotel and to know that everything about the square outside is public property; the Kremlin, the street-cars, the office buildings, the automobiles – and this hotel.”

This morning we were taken (because we insisted on it: Intourist not particularly liking the idea) to see the new homes for workers, attached to some factory on the outskirts of the city. Came upon these four storey tenement houses, arranged in parallel lines with simple gardens in between. Crowds of healthy children swarmed round while our guide went to find a flat we could enter. One particularly active and dominant youngster we named Chepayev at once. Entered our first worker’s “home.” It was a small apartment, two rooms and a kitchen. Three beds were in each room, and six people lived there. Eating would have to be done in a room with three beds – but a fairly large room. There was a feeling of packed furniture in narrow halls. Quite clean in appearance. Nothing wrong, except complete absence of privacy and elbow room. Another apartment was similar.

No wonder they need easy divorce laws. No wonder you see no dogs about Moscow.

Then went on to the nursery school and kindergarten, also part of the same factory organization. Entered a new two-story building set in a nice playground. We were made to put on white coats (a common practice, intended to impress visitors). Were shown rooms with groups of children, about fifteen in each, looked after by a woman in white. Songs were sung for us. The children looked like prize babies, healthy, happy and unafraid of us. None were being scolded or slapped or obstreperous. About 120 children are kept for five full days here, their parents, all workers in the factory, coming for them on the free day. In winter the children are only taken in during the daytime. Not all the children are thus provided for; the selection of favoured ones is made a the local committee of workers from amongst those whose parents apply.

Here one could see the real revolution taking place. These children are scientific products. Here too one understood how usefully the home can be broken up. No home could supply this care.

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Were taken next to see the factory kitchen A special building devoted to serving meals for the workers: it provides about 60, 000 a day. We inspected some dishes; they looked like good, substantial food. There is no doubt that these hot meals served in large restaurants must be a vast improvement on the old dinner pail. Yet in the shoe factory at Leningrad we saw workers taking food out of paper packages and eating it on their work benches. Too poor to pay the restaurant price even? For the restaurant meals are apparently not free as a rule. In the Odessa bread factory the meal cost 75 kopecs, i.e. about five street car tickets.

In the afternoon we made an expedition on the Metro, having failed to find the museum of Modern Western Art open after four o’clock. The trains were clean and smooth and rode easily. There were few people travelling, though the trams above would be crowded; probably because the metro costs fifty kopecks a ride and a tram only fifteen. The stations, each designed by a separate architect, were very fine. Escalators good. I have a picture in my mind of an old peasant woman, kerchief round her head, cautiously approaching the top of an escalator, becoming suddenly enmeshed, and sailing downstairs. Technique moulding antiquity.

The VOKS office provided us with free tickets to Madame Favard at the Hermitage theatre in the evening. It was a bright and cheery show, well enough sung and acted. The best performers of course are away from Moscow at this time of year. Sitting next to me was a woman who looked as though she might be a floor sweeper in a factory; doubtless she had cheap or free tickets. When estimating the workers’ standard of living, good theatres and music must be taken into account. Our workers have little enough of them.

Later Sylvia took us to a Caucasian restaurant and night club on Gorki Street. Downstairs, past a commissionaire, checking coats and hats, into expensively furnished rooms crowded with people at small tables. Rugs on walls. One jazz and one Caucasian band; Caucasian dancer. Wealthy Russians about us; few tourists. Had one dish each, coffee and one bottle of Tsinandali. Cost for three of us 77.50 rubles. (half a months salary for low paid worker). Tipped cloak-room man, Socialist (?) luxury service. Difference between this and factory kitchen like difference between Ritz and Northeastern Lunch.

Home at dawn. Sylvia almost enthusiastic about USSR.

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July 18th

Had an interview with Moscow Daily news at breakfast time. (not published, though I connected the typed copy & have my picture .)

To St. Basil’s. Quaint rather than beautiful. No room inside for architectural effects. But room for [?]: He who connotes the slave, instead of aiding him to rebel against slavery, is an ally of his oppressors. Then to Marriage & Divorce Bureau. Just like what it should have been like: i.e. A simple room adapted to registration & nothing else. A registration (not a marriage, for under this system, unlike our own, the marriage itself is a personal & private ritual of the parties) was taking place while we were there, but we saw no divorces, though our guide had advised us to go on a free day when there might be greater activity. We even went a bit late, because she said people slept in on their holiday & would hardly get married or divorced early.

The guide said that there were women’s consultation bureaus in various districts where free legal & medical advice was given. Here matters concerning with divorce were often amicably settled; only if this failed was resort to the courts necessary to make provision for the child or children. Age of marriage 18: no parental consent necessary. Today they are discussing making divorce somewhat stricter, & requiring at least the presence of both parties – i.e. doing away with post-card notification.

Most marriages are now registered, & births . . .

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CONTINUED . . . must be.

Divorce rate is 10% of registered marriages.

[This statement of Aileen’s is inaccurate:]

The went with Aileen Ross to the Museum of Western Art, to see the modern French masters. It was overwhelming. Gauguin’s room & Matisse room, wall of Derain[.] Picasso’s blue period, especially memorable.

Lunch with Ralph Barnes of the N.Y. Herald Tribune. For a [sic] (Hearst’s)? newspaper man he was the most sympathetic supporter of the USSR imaginable. He talked on agriculture, schools & the church particularly. The agricultural situation is now, he thinks, well in hand, because of the concessions to the instinct of private property in the peasant. The present system of artels is a compromise with socialism. The peasant has his 1 hectare of private land & home, with 1 cow, 2 sows & litter, unlimited chickens & bees. Outside this he contributes work – days to the collective (and collectivization is now 85% complete). The state estimates the crop (perhaps highly) & fixes each year the amount of its tax in kind. For this it pays something, usually in manufactured goods. The peasants divide the rest according to their work-days. This product together with their own they may sell on the open market. Hence the profit motive operates together with the collective.

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CONTINUED . . .

The school system Barnes had the greatest respect for, unquestionably, he said, the Union was making great strides. On a journey to a remote part of the country, far from a railway, he had suddenly come upon a group of adults one evening studying together in a small room by the light of an oil lamp. He thought the picture was typical.

Religion he prophesied would be dead in Russia within a generation. Only 35 churches remain in Moscow. In Georgia he found them empty. Mohammedanism he thought was more alive than [Xty] – possibly because of the policy of “going easy in the east.”

He thought there was a genuine desire on the part of Stalin now to do more for the individual, to free him from bureaucracy, & to put him above the machine.

Later went up Gorky street shopping w. A. Ross. Book shops numerous & good. Perfume stores, athletic goods, & poor attempts at fine dresses for women. Went to find [Bessie Hurst,] through [old] and smelly doorways. These ancient dwelling houses can hardly have been touched for 20 years.

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This evening Carter came in for a talk to my party. He described how as a young engineering graduate he had left the USA and gone to work for an American corporation in South America. There he had helped his company overcharge its customers and underpay its staff. In 1931 he decided to clear

out, wrote to the USSR and was given a job in the department of communications. He was sent from Moscow to Leningrad on foot to check the telegraph line. In Russia he found what he felt he had been looking for all his life – some reason for living, some religion in fact.

The foreign experts, he said were being Gradually dispensed with. The USSR now has enough of its own. He and other foreign engineers were asking themselves whether it would not be better for them to go home and start working on the political front. From this point we went on to discuss, or argue, certain issues. He had the straight party line about western politics. Social [democratics] were fascists; the Socialist League in England was a diabolical scheme on the part of the bourgeoisie to bamboozle the workers with radical phrases, etc.

He described the situation in the Soviet Union as being still somewhat akin to civil war. The class enemies and counter-revolutionaries, particularly amongst the peasants, had to be eliminated. His attitude toward any people who obstructed the governmental plan was the attitude of any engineer toward any obstacle which stood in the way of his new road or telegraph line: cut it down or blow it up. I have never heard such utterly cold-blooded planning before, and I have talked with many Communists. Obviously he was prepared to deal with masses of men as though they had no rights of any sort, so long as, by definition, they were enemies. The inhumanity of the blue-print.

This attitude of mind must have cost millions of needless lives, and greatly retarded the development of socialism, since the revolution. It can explain the resistance of the peasants which caused the famine of 1933, and the concessions now being made to appease the smouldering bitterness. It explains why their system of penology is vitiated by the common use of the death penalty for light crimes, whenever the criminal is defined as “unreformable.”

Scratch the Communist and you find a Tartar.

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July 19th

People’s Court.

The court-house was an ordinary building with rooms large enough to hold fifty or sixty people. A simple table and chairs were all that the judges were furnished with. Of course, no wigs or gowns.

The first case we tried to see interested me; a trade union was suing the management of a factory for not having used protective devices around its machinery, as a result of which some workers were injured. Penalties were being demanded; not compensation, that that would come from the workmen’s compensation fund. The accused however never turned up. We waited fifteen minutes and then went into another room.

Here we found the seats filled and a case in progress. At the table were seated two young girls (about 25 years of age, I should say) and a young man. The presiding girl judge would be elected by the Moscow Soviet for one year. (I believe they have night schools for judges). The other girl and man would

be the “juries,” as our guide called them, appointed be the local committees of workers of the district, and sitting for a short period. At the side of the judges table was a young girl secretary.

The first case called was that of a [divorced] woman who was asking to have her alimony paid by her former husband in court, so that she could collect it more easily, and not to be obliged to go directly to him. She had two children, and was receiving 250 rubles out of his salary of 579 per month. She was present and presented her own case; he was absent and unrepresented. The court took about ten minutes to hear the case, retired for ten minutes and then returned and rendered judgment in her favour. We all rose for the reading of the decision. The ceremony was simple, dignified, and obviously cost the parties nothing but time.

After this three other cases were called, but in every instance the accused was absent and the case had to be postponed. We had a general impression of unreliability in the process of summons or else lack of respect for the authority of the court.

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Leaving the court we stopped at a bank to cash some travelers cheques. The process took more than half an hour. This gave us an opportunity to examine the wall-sheet in the bank. It had nothing to do with criticism of the running of the back, as I imagined all wall-sheets must do, but was taken up with a description of some collective farm that the workers in the bank had “adopted.”

We then visited the Tretyakoff picture gallery. In it are housed a large collection of icons, pre-revolutionary Russian pictures and the modern Soviet painters. I only looked at the icons, which were like a collection of Italian primitives and very fine, and the Soviet painters. The latter were not nearly so impressive as I had hoped. Much of it was plain dull, particularly the political pictures – Workers Burying a Dead Comrade, etc. The portraits of leaders like Voroshiloff, Gorki and others were orthodox portrait painting, and differed from the portraits of King George at the London Academy only in the absence of colour and pageantry in the décor. But here and there on saw glimpses of a new spirit, not so much in the technique as in the faces of the persons painted. Especially was this so in the work of Deineka; his women had the ease and freedom of the new generation.

In the afternoon Sylvia took us to see the Museum of the Revolution. It was a clear and comprehensive portrayal of every attempt at revolution in Russia, form the day when the first moujik threw a stone at his landlord down to 1917. My impression was one of admiration for the excellence of the presentation, and of accumulating brutality as the background to social change in Russia. Death and torture seem to have been the midwives to humane ideas.

Thinking over the display afterwards, I realized that to the communist “revolution” means any display of violence with a political end in view. Historical characters who worked for and achieved great social change without violence just don’t appear in the museum of the revolution. Further, there is no Trotsky in the whole gallery of portraits. He does not exist in the official history of the revolution. This is another of those large gaps in the “science” which is so much worshipped here, which make it clear that in the social sciences the communist is religious rather than scientific in his attitude.

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It was interesting to notice that effect of the museum on Sylvia. She does not like the present regime, of course, yet s she explained the great events to us she warmed to her work and became almost enthusiastic in her description of the ideas and struggles of the revolutionaries. She suddenly changed, however, when she saw a miniature model of two rooms, one showing the luxury of the aristocrats in the pre-revolutionary days, and the other a worker’s room of the same period. “There’s many a worker today would be glad to have a room like that to himself,” she said. But did they have rooms to themselves in the old days?

Took the evening train to Kharkov, a dusty and dirty journey, very hot. Helen Gordon, our Moscow guide, is accompanying us for the trip south, and a waiter has been attached to the second class coach to help serve our picnic meals. All dining cars have been removed by Tov. Kaganoich in order to relieve the pressure on the transportation system. But with cups and plates, cold chicken, sandwiches and canned apricots, many bottles of Narzan and Helen to tidy up, we are very comfortable. And there is always the samovar.

Travelling through this countryside makes us see how suitable the land is for collectivized agriculture. The great rolling fields seem made for large scale operation. We pass a mile of unbroken potato patch, stretching over the horizon and out of sight. Vast areas of wheat, oats, sunflowers. It would be stupid to have fences, and stupid not to plant by aeroplane and reap by tractor if the machines can be obtained. And yet the scarcity of machines must still be very great; we saw peasants reaping by hand with sickle and scythe. I did not see one tractor from the train anywhere in the USSR.

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July 20th

Have just driven round Kharkov. After a dusty train journey, and a rather smelly hotel (Red Hotel) we were not expecting much. What we saw annoyed us. Here is a town where the creation of the good life for the masses is more easily visible than anywhere we have yet been. The Dzerzhinksky Square is like a dream city of the future. Masses of tall buildings in modern glass & concrete forming a great circle round a huge open space. Nearly are houses for workers [arranged] in great blocks. We went on to the park of Culture & Rest reserved for Trades Unions. Everything for sport rest & culture is provided inside. Last night we were told the Russian Ballet from Moscow danced in the open air. We saw tennis courts, outdoor & indoor bath houses, a fine football stadium, Restaurants & flower gardens. Then on to see the industrial section. Here were piled groups of factories, in great number and in an around them hospitals & sanatoria. A fine children’s home that was for [3oo?] workers children, a fine new school, & a beautiful clinic where every sort of treatment can be given to workers in adjacent factories. Our guide, a fine woman had an enthusiasm that we too caught. “How do you remember all the [or these?] statistics.” . . . . TO BE CONTINUED

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. . . CONTINUED . . . we asked her. “Because we are so proud of them,” she said*

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. . . CONTINUED . . . *A propos of this our guide told us proudly that Kharkov had 850, 000 population – “and only 4 churches.” Later a Frenchman on the train said he doubted if it were more than 300, 000, & that figure seems more in time with our impression of the city.

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. . . Her own two children were spending 3 months of this summer in a [rest?] home in the [country]. She sees them every free day. Could our tourist guides in Montreal hope for as much?

The Shevchenko monument was fine: the man on top of the marble pile, & at his feet figures represent the gradual liberation of the Ukraine, beginning with a bowed peasant woman, her face full of despair, & ending with a healthy woman facing the future with confidence and assurance. The progress one feels is no exaggeration, after seeing the town itself.

Clothes & appearance of people in the street much better than Leningrad & even than Moscow. Children in [scanty short & brown chains, bare headed & well dressed girls, ???] in shirts & blouses that are clean. {need to fix] /???

These atheists, practicing Christianity, [humanely?] brutal, and creating freedom through their ruthless dictatorship, are certainly a challenging paradox.

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July 21st

This morning drove out to the Pioneer camp & Sovkhoz. The camp was large: 350boys & girls. We saw first the rest home, with private & semi-private rooms. Looked clean and comfortable, with wide verandahs all round. Then to the camp itself. A park with low scrubby trees laid out in streets called after famous Communist leaders. Numerous s sleeping quarters were provided in the shape of wooden floors canvas tops to roll back, & 4 beds in each. The boys get up at 7.00; maids make their beds & clean up; they have physical culture exercises, a wash & breakfast. Each 50 boys is a detachment with a leader. After breakfast there are 2 hrs ”culture,” which may be reading or art work. After dinner they rest two hours, have more food & then join “circles” which spend 2 ½ hrs., dancing playing games or doing other things. This work is voluntary. At no time in the day do the boys go off on their own.

Once a month relatives visit them. Every ten days they have a bonfire at which old Bolshies come and talk. Then at monthly intervals they have military games – we saw them rehearsing for Chapeyev, marching in forms & lying down, etc. Afterwards they had songs & dances, [mass] games they called them, to a guitar. Boys wore trunks, girls bathing suits, all looked healthy & brown. The camp has 14 teachers, 2 doctors, 1 trainer for physical culture, laundry, Kitchen and maids.

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CONTINUED . . .

Then we drove to the Sovkhoz nearby. It is 1000 hectares in area, with its own common kitchen & dining hall, Kindergarten & rest home, doctor and nurse. It supplies the Pioneer camp. We saw the horses down with rides of the short street the common barns, & a group of some 40 people threshing with reasonably modern machinery. Dinner was brought out to them in the field. All around were wide fields, & orchards with potatoes between the fruit trees. It looked prosperous but still close to the primitive. All the women were barefoot.

Left at 2.00 for Sevastopol Intourist put two in a first class wagon-bit, so we were comfortable. Interesting to see that most of [the] fellow travelers were Russians. The difference between the comfort of this and 3rd class is greater than it would be in many capitalist countries.

No diner is on the trains now, and [Rajanovich?] is determined to make the transportation fulfill the plan. Passenger traffic has been reduced 50% to make goods more easily moved. My [French] friend says that ordinary people wanting a ticket now may have to wait48 hours in queues at the stations.

We were provided with a good picnic meal of cold chicken, cucumber, brown (not black) bread and canned apricots: [hazam?] of course.

Our guide Helen Gordon is agreeable & efficient.

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CONTINUED . . .

Late that evening had a long talk with my French companion. He said many startling things, & claimed to know the situation from2 years in the country with a knowledge of the language. Stalin, he says, needs the support of the peasants in case of war. Peasants want land, the family & religion. They now have their 2 ½ acres (even in the Sovkhoz, [if] they [many]), there is a movement against divorce and abortion& he thought religion would be seen again. “you will see Stalin singing the Te Dem,” he said.

He described how whole masses of people had been moved out of cities. The police came to a person, take his passport, & write an order on it prohibiting his living within 40 kilometres of the town – or it maybe within any of the 4 largest towns of the union (-40). Such people must pack and leave within 3 days. The brutality of the process was obvious, so too was the govt’s policy of exchanging wheat for machinery when the Ukraine was starving in 1933.

Yet he seemed to think the system might deliver the goods in a material sense. Prices are falling rapidly, he said.

In regard to the Comintern, he thought USSR was now patriotic & nationalist, & that there might have to be a 4th International removed from Moscow.

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CONTINUED . . .

To sleep in a stuffy compartment with 4 proletarian looking Russians. Windows are not allowed by law to be open. & the top ventilator works poorly.

[Charpentier, the Frenchman from the Moscow Embassy, by bribing the trainman was able to sleep in his compartment, which was fitted up exactly like the others in the car. As a punishment, he was bitten by fleas!]

[Two American girls took pictures of a Kharkov market. They were arrested.]

A breakfast in the hotel we could get no milk for our coffee! There just wasn’t any.

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July 22nd,

Arrived Sevastopol 9.30. Our trains so far have never been more than15 minutes late in arriving, even after journey of 18 hours. Though we were once ¾ hour-late in starting.

At once on leaving the station we realized we were in a new country. Here was an old, southern town, like southern Italy or a bit of Spain, but showing no signs of the kind of industrial development so evident in Kharkov & Moscow.

After breakfast we walked into a park & looked at the people bathing. Beautifully browned bodies. Later in the afternoon I went down to a public bathing beach & saw men & women bathing nude on the two halves of the beach separated from each other by a slight partition ending at the water. Natural and decent.

Went for a drive to the battlefield. Saw the Panorama of the attack of the Allies & later the Malakhoff Redoubt. A stupid war unnecessarily commemorated. The guide said nothing whatever to us about social developments under the soviets, though we saw some workers apartment homes in the distance, & passed a park of culture and rest.

Primitive trams, cabs, old men carrying huge bundles on their backs. Old habits still strong. [Russian scripted name] ms. Aileen Ross.

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CONTINUED . . .

Drove to Yalta at 5.00 o’clock. Glorious sea coast & cliffs; interminable curves taken full speed with horn full blowing. Church on rocky promontory made good restaurant.

For me, large private room and bathroom (hot water not working), a verandah overlooking the sea.

Masses of toilers parading the street. Air of proletarian ease and possession. Oleanders in green boxes; a beautiful flowering mimosa, flourishing & scenting the air. The walk by the sea spotlessly clean, with blue cans for refuse every 20 yards.

Cleanliness, as we have seen it is – like so many other things – very good in spots. Streets and hotel rooms have been very clean. The Baltic boat & the Armenia on the Black Sea were very clean (in our quarters). The people look well washed for the most part, but not always shaved. (Sylvia says razor-blades are unobtainable). The food has been clean, except for ice, which is usually dirty, like water, shich we don’t drink unless boiled. Clothing of poorer people seems poor& often dirty, & table cloths in hotels & restaurants are always dirty. We have seen remarkably few flies about anywhere, even in the Crimea. But nippy bed-crawlers we met on a few trains. I was not bitten till the last night in Russia, but others of the party suffered more.

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July 23rd

To visit the former palace of the Tsar at Livadia. The buildings were of no importance. But the setting, view & arrangement were magnificent equipment for their present use as sanatoria & rest houses. Large numbers of workers on holiday were about the grounds & in the rooms. We questioned several , always with the aim of discovering what class of worker they represented. In every case they turned out to be leaders of a some sort: either engineers, Trades Union leaders, heads of collective farms or udarniks. “Those who give most must receive most,” said Helena. “We are training & building the new intelligentsia,” said the guide.

Walked along the cliff edge to the small temple of [?] enjoying the views.

Then to the “Golden Plaza” for a swim in clear green water of an ideal temperature. Sunbathing on the pebbles. Our chauffeur sat a short distance off, naked. Later he showed us a piece of rock with marble & diorite combined: He knew his geology.

Did some shopping. A piece of soap for 2 rubles, [chars?] men for 14. Charpentier told us tales about Russia at dinner. Three stories the Russians tell of themselves: 1. Rabbits crossing the Polish border II. Peasants crossing the river. III. Leader of Kolkhoz returned from education in socialist construction of Moscow.

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CONTINUED? . . .

I walked along the street dressed in grey shorts and shirt. My shorts caused so much comment that I felt most uncomfortable. Others were dressed in white duck trousers & Russian blouses, or else in scanty

bathing suits; these were normal, but my shorts were out of the ordinary. Charpentier overheard a passerby say to another “Look, the little father has cut all the bottom of his trousers off.” I was glad to get back to the hotel and to dress respectably again.

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July 24th

To Aleipea, & palace of [Vorontsovs], in the morning, a “strike” of the tourists having produced this in this in lieu of the botanical gardens. The conviction of gothic & [Moorish?] is not happy, & the interior taste is vile, but the [bedchamber] doorway is good, & the parties of men & women now enjoying their holidays, much better. The selection of workers for these sanatoria may be unfair to the ordinary Toiler, but at least the buildings are serving to make large numbers of people happy & healthy.

Visited an open market place, & watched the old Tartar women bargaining, cigarettes in their mouths. Here is a survival of the picturesque.

Bathed at the nearest public beach in the late afternoon. Same system as Sevastopol: mixed nude bathing, in effect. Two women attendants came unconcernedly along the men’s beach. No nonsense anywhere.

To the theatre in the park in the evening. A series of turns, mostly rather heavy. A good [Zylophonist]; a good voice for the[ Volze & vet]? song; a coloratura soprano, & timing ; Two amazing acrobats, & plenty of monologue which seemed political. A well dressed & pleased audience sitting in the open air, hedged by cypresses.

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July 25th

Aileen Ross & accepted Charpentier’s invitation to drive with him to Bakhchysarai & {Russian writing}, the deserted Jewish village.

Ready to start at 7.00 AM; off at [7.30]. Road went hairpinning up the face of the rock wall behind Yalta, 1200 metres high. Though beautiful pine forest, then sheer rocky zig-zags. Views crowded about us. Stopped at sanitarium & meteorological station at top: boyish intourist guide (girl) sat on cliff edge, looking like symbol of new society. She told us of walking along the coast with the “proletarian tourists” organization.

On over barren rolling downs, till we dropped by wiggly road into another deep valley. Through tartar collective farm & village, on along road winding under more rock walls. Wet ½ [brown?} solid soft dust where road was being remade & at the curb a man throwing water on it from a rain-barrel with bucket. Then into Bakhchysarai, looking quaint, old, dusty and pre-revolutionary. Many friendly curious people; old tartar men & women.

Khan’s palace gave touch of orient. Beautiful minarets, no longer used except for beauty. Rooms of palace [banner] with some shabby old furniture, but decorations interesting. [Harem], rooms raised for no-shoes: coffee; back room of Khan & Catherine II; museum rooms with life like figures in working posture; young woman’s bedroom with all her raiment & embroidery hung from ceiling to impress suitors; illuminated Korans with Arabic script, very lovely; peasants room, ill-equipped but with tasteful handicraft utensils, & next it, shown us with great . . .

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CONTINUED . . . pride by the guides, a modern peasant’s room with all the revolutionary improvements, namely a steel bestead & a [gin –rack] washstand ugly as hell. “Taste,” I said, “is a comfort too.” The lovely fountain of Bakhchysairai, tears still slowly dropping (would have dropped better if piping had been cleaned). Garden, enclosed, with slow bosoms of water the sun could warm, now dry. Bath of stone where Khan bathed with favourite wife.

[Sons?} physician’s room; he tasted all food, (or made some one else do it) before Khan ate. “How long would Khan wait to see effects?” I asked. He was more patient than tourists at hotel meals” – from guide. “I think the hotels must taste all our food,” I countered.

On through narrow streets, out into rising fields, along road that became a mere general direction though strong field, bumping us about & creaking the old Fiat car. Reached edge of gorge, caves of [Russian name] on opposite side of chasm. Driver insisted he would go on over what seemed to us impossible ruts & rocks, Bumped round top end of valley down into its centre; incredible trip. “This must be the way Russia did her five year plan, We said it was impossible, and yet it has been done, and the poor travelers have had a hard time of it.” “Yes,” said Charpentier “and the simile is the more apt because we are in a foreign car.”

Had a picnic lunch, a young tartar boy eating our scraps with great relish. Then climbed into the village . . .

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CONTINUED . . . by streets that were mule tracks up to hillside; at best they widened to one cart’s width a deep with ruts. Saw the old prison, [c?] beneath a cave, hewn out of solid rock, windows spanning out over 500 foot deep valley. Tomb of Kan’s daughter who threw herself down from cliff for dear love’s sake. Synagogue, women & [screened off], place for shoes outside. Some old coins found by our guide, belonging to time of the Golden Horde, she refused to sell though tempted.

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July 26th,

Boarded the Armenia at 9.00 o’clock. Great crowds of Russian passengers were lined up on the wharf, & swarmed onto the boat after us. They sat in groups all over the decks allotted to them, & slept there at night. Lightly clad men, women and children were lying under benches & stairways.

We were well housed: my cabin had two berths, the other being occupied by a Chinese Tourist from Shanghai. Wash basin, writing table, etc. food lounges, no 3rd class people came to the upper deck.

Beautiful views of the Crimean coast on the way to Sevastopol, but it turned rough & we were uncomfortable. At S. we landed & bought brioches & refreshments. Unpleasant afternoon, some bridge not helping, but by evening the sea was calmer. Stopped at Eupatoria. Fine stars, on which I expatiated.

I never asked whether there was a Red corner on this boat, as on the Rudzutak on the Baltic, but I doubt whether there could have been, with that crowd of people on the decks. The difference in classes here is certainly more marked than on the Rudzutak – presumably because the third class here is Russian.

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July 27th

Arrived Odessa 8.15. To the London hotel, where I had the grandest room I have yet had, very spacious & well furnished with shower bath. Good breakfast – actually had ham and eggs, with usual compote brioche & café au lait.

Sight seeing tour. General view of the town, which had a certain dry drabness characteristic of southern cities. Visited a modern mechanical bread factor; we put on white coats to visit it, everything very clean, & interesting to watch the processes. Saw the showers where workers bathe before & after work, putting on special uniforms. Restaurant, where their midday meal costs 75 Kopecks – their average wage being 150 r. per month.

On to a sanitarium in a villa of a former merchant, now living in [?funnier] parts. Plenty of electrical equipment, rays, lamps, baths etc. It looks after 210 invalids in summer & 170 in winter. Nice grounds, men playing chess under trees; neat restaurant with substantial menu. Passed by many such places & rest home, mostly former villas. To a fine park by the sea, with crowded bathing beaches.

Saw also an apartment house for technicians. It was rather shabby on the outside, and poorly built; plaster cracked, window frames . . .

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CONTINUED . . . ill fitting. Our guide knocked at several doors trying to find one apartment we could see; most flats seemed empty, the others refused to let us in. At cost we were allowed into an apartment consisting of three living rooms, a bathroom with bath, & kitchen, belonging to an engineer receiving about 600 r. per month. Five people were living it. There was plenty of furniture, and the place was clean enough; a two-ring gas stove w. oven was in the kitchen. It looked crowded, however, and would rent furnished in Montreal for about $40.00 a month, I should say. The difference between this and the workers flats we saw in Moscow was not very great in appearance.

By afternoon train to Kiev. Slept in a tightly seated compartment as usual.

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July 20th In Kiev

Another attractive and flourishing city. Very comfortable hotel. Was visited by somewhat bedraggled professor, who had been told by VOKS to look after me. When he discovered I had no time for anything except a little sightseeing he was most anxious that I should inform VOKS of the fact – I got the impression he was frightened that he might be thought to have failed in his duty by the Moscow authorities.

Visited the Lavra monastery. It seems to be used chiefly as an anti-religious museum, every opportunity being taken to expose the wealth of the former monks and the fraudulent traffic in fake relics by which it was acquired. Rather gruesome catacombs with pockets full of bones. Many bodies are well preserved in their coffins; to show that this can be explained by chemistry rather than by sanctity an Egyptian mummy was displayed next to an ancient saint. The whole monastery is of great historic interest; but the USSR somehow makes one less interested in past history.

In the afternoon we paid extra for an excursion to the Hammer and Sickle collective farm. Drove for hours over bad roads. Passed many tanks, army camps and signs of military preparation – this is about the only place in the Union where such things have been evident. Through peasant Ukrainian villages; thatched roofs (often with radio aerials on them), and women in embroidered blouses suggest a rural life not yet much affected by revolution and its externals.

We reached the farm, got out of our car, and were instantly surrounded by a group of interested men, women and children. The head of a farm, a cheery and intelligent-looking man of about forty, took us in charge. He have us some statistics about the collective: 800 workers, 650 cattle in the common herd, 1400 hectares of arable land, 650 cattle in the common herd, an orchards, some wooded land. The individual holdings of the peasants vary in size. They raise 160 centners of potatoes per hectare, 18-20 centners of rye, and produce 1800-3000 liters of milk in 9 months from 27 milch cows. They hire their tractors from the tractor station. Collectivization took place in 1929.

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CONTINUED . . .

We looked over some of the buildings. The church was closed, but might soon be used for a circus they said, laughing at the pun and the idea. A house we saw was spotlessly clean, and held four adults and a child in two large rooms. The big stove had sleeping space over the oven. Icons were still in one corner, and political pictures in another. Nearby was a special dormitory for the 14 homeless children who were quartered on the farm; it looked clean and tidy. Most of the Kolkhoz took care of some of these children, we were told. Further on was a kindergarten, where some 30 children can be looked after while their parents work in the fields. There was no common eating house, the meals being eaten in the homes except when taken in the fields during the summer.

The new cattle barns looked very efficient. They were long close together, whitewashed with electric light. There was a special heated room where the calves were born. Scales for weighing milk, etc. A general appearance of scientific management which pleased even Ashenhart with his knowledge of American farms in Indiana.

I did not see any private barns or individual farms, but I cannot believe they were ever as well planned as this place seems to be. I never saw any uncollectivised peasants, but I cannot believe they would be any happier or healthier than these looked. I can well imagine though that the business of co-operating in the general work of the farm, the apportionment of labour, the computation of work days, the arriving at decisions in the meetings of the management committees, must call for a high degree of intelligence, good-will and patience that may take some years to develop. A certain form of social democracy must work itself out here on the soil, in the day to day decisions by which plans are executed.

We hurried back from the farm to see the ballet, which our guide assured us was playing in a park in Kiev. Fortunately before I bought gold-ruble tickets from the hotel I enquired at the box-office. There was no ballet. This was not dishonesty on the part of Intourist – merely incompetence.

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CONTINUED . . .

In the evening we sate late over the dinner table, talking to Charpentier and his friend I.N. Baseches, Moscow correspondent of the Vienese Neuen Frein Pressex who has been 14 years in the USSR. Heard tales of attempts at censorship of newspapermen. Baseches said that in the days when the telegraph had to be relied on, or the mails, the censorship was fairly effective. The now form of telephonic communication, however, is more difficult to control; the voice from Moscow is translated into printed words in a foreign city, so that if the conversation is interrupted the message is already in part at least beyond recall. Much more can thus be told. In consequence telephones are apt to be found out of order at critical moments, as after the assassination of Kirov. If an article appears abroad which the government does not like the correspondent will be reprimanded or even dismissed. He was once told he must leave Russia for an article on the famine of 1933, then officially denied existence but now admitted to have been true. He had an interview with Litvinov, with many Soviet officials present. He told Litvinov that if he was expelled he would tell the world just what “the Caucasian bandit was really like.” At these blasphemous words the lesser officials melted away. The order for his departure was cancelled.

In the midst of these stories a window creaked behind us. Instantly Charpentier and Baseches jumped up from the table and began searching behind some canvas screens that protected us from the wind. They found no eavesdroppers. “We get accustomed to that sort of thing,” they said. It is not quite so bad as it used to be. Our rooms in Moscow are periodically searched, of course, and our cooks and maids are probably members of the OGPU.”

Charpentier was overjoyed to find some STARKA, a rare vodka made by old nobility, in a local store. He bought 35 of 54 bottles. It came from Prince Sangushko’s estate, and was dated 1877. We made good use of one bottle.

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July 29th

The break up of the party began; A. Ross and the Ashenharts departed west for Poland. It was ad to reach the end of a successful journey, but I think we all felt that we had absorbed about as many impressions and our systems could stand without a bad attack of mental indigestion. Another week or so would not have altered our general attitude toward the USSR – though none of us could have formulated that attitude very clearly in words just yet.

I saw Weinberg again for a moment. He was a very subdued man, with non of the enthusiasm for Communism he had shown on the Rudzutak. He had been visiting relatives near Kiev, and had run across typhus and some other unpleasantnesses. “I know now what it is to go into a private room and to disconnect the reading lamps before you begin talking,” he said. He would not relate what he had seen – he was keeping quiet until he crossed the frontier. A reasonable precaution, for the relatives’ sake.

We took the morning train for Moscow. The long trip was relieved by the usual mass activity at the stations. We walked about during the stops, looked at the crowds in the waiting rooms, examined the varieties of uneatable foodstuffs offered for sale. Boiled cray-fish and some cherries were our only experiments.

I joined Charpentier in the Wagon-lit, and we had an interesting talk with an American engineer named Berdeshevsky, and a lawyer from Odessa. Berdeshevsky had left Russia when he was four, and was coming back to see his two brothers. They were both engineers. He was quite shocked at the conditions he had found them living under, but I suspect he had not done much reading about the country before coming over. One brother he said had to work in the evenings and on is free day to make enough to live on; he hat no holidays at all. His sister-in-law had stopped work after her first child was born; nine months later she had been told that if she did not return to work she would be expelled from the trade union, and this was equivalent to an order to resume. Ten percent of their pay was deducted at the source as a contribution to the state loans; this is a general practice obligatory on all workers. The trades unions make similar charges for their fees. Every now and then, as after the Maxim . . .

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