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# 5. Russia (continued)Vera Figner: A great Russian revolutionary and a militant fighter for freedom. Also a woman of extraordinary beauty and moral integrity. She was known in the Tsarist fortress prison where she spent most of her life, as the "Uhionka of the Schlusselburg."When President Garfield was assassinated, Vera Figner and her prison comrades addressed an open letter of sympathy to the American people in which they condemned this act of terrorism. They said that the use of terror against the elected representative of the people was just as immoral and wrong as absolutism's use of terror against the Russian people. They explained that they were forced--against their will--to combat despotism with force, but intended to discontinue its use as soon as a representative democratic government existed in Russia.Vera Figner lived to be liberated by the democratic revolution of March 1917. She delivered a great speech in a Petrograd theatre on the meaning of freedom, shortly after the fall of the Tsar. Because of her age and exceptional moral prestige in Russia, the Soviet government let her die in peace. Her name stands for all the noble ideals that the Soviet dictatorship seek to eradicate from the Russian conscience and consciousness. Yet her name as such--robbed of its moral content--is known to most Soviet Russians. Soviet textbooks never speak badly of her--nor do they tell her great story. Here is an opportunity to restore her name to the Russians --alon-side of the Decembrists. Would he difficult indeed to find a better symbol to stand together with such names as Danton, Jefferson, Garibaldi, Heine.This is not dramatic corn; it is psychological warfare with atomic power. By restoring Vera Figner to the Russians, from the steps of the House of East European Freedom in Berlin, we start the chain reaction. Whether this becomes an atomic explosion of test-tube or of operative intensity, depends on how much is done on other fronts to win the Russian people. But clearly here', a way of reaching them (and the "them" includes high officers of the Soviet army and officials of the Soviet government as well as the rank-and-file) through a POSITIVE APPROACH to which they are acutely susceptible after over 30 years of spiritual and moral starvation.# C) ACCOMPANYING MUSIC, THEATRE, ETC1. Music for the Congress should be of two general categories (a) a special concert by the Berlin Philharmonic, if possible with an outstanding internationally conductor. She ideal would be Arturo Toscanini (he practically spit in Mussolini's eye). If Toscanini is not available, the next best would be Serge Koussevitzky or Max Isor Stravinsky. The reason is obvious. I think that of the German conductors, only Bruno Walter would be right for our broader moral purposes. To use Furtwaengler would be a mistake. If we did, we'd no longer be on the side of the angels. I think the Beethoven Ninth with its closing hymn on the brotherhood of man (Schiller's Ode to Joy) is just right. Could be proceeded by the Prometheus or Egmont Overtures, both of which are perfect in political content--and are exciting music to European ears as well. This concert could be given in a hall, broadcast and then portions of the tape recording could be used again at the Reichstag. The concert should precede the Reich stag ceremony.b) More popular stuff, including the stirring folk songs and