Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-08-25
RUSSIA SWINGS LEFTWARD
In MULTIFOLD ENDEAVORS
New Ventures Attacked With Energy
and Ruthlessness as Life Becomes
More Difficult.
ny ARTHUR RUHL.

| Y 4 who nave dlppod INTO SOVIET
| Russia this Summer and are
now returning with their impressions
| to preface even the most casual report
| on Russian conditions with the explana-
ton that 1t is still possible, even in this
second decade after the October revolu-
ton, to ind almost anything in Russia
ana facts to fit almost any theory which
the traveller may happen TO take In with
him.
For the Soviet government Is. Of
| course. doing great variety of things
| at once. It Is, for example. trying to
build up country economically
| industrialize a land hitherto predomi-
nantly agricultural; to modernize peo-
pie who in the mass have contrived to
live down into the twentieth century
very much the sort of life the masses
| Of Western Europe must have lived three
or four centuries ago.
Program Pushed With Energy.
It is endeavoring to equip them, not
| merely with all the tools Of Western in
dustrialism, but to change their whole
outlook and temperament; to jam into
| them, somehow, the energy. sense of
/ time and practically of the West: turn
Slavs into Spartans and easy-going, in
| dividualistic peasants into a tightly
| regimented. thinking, aggressive prole-
tariat. And 1t has attacked this inter-
esting and in many ways commendable
| task with all the energy and ruthless
| ness with which it has destroyed lib
erty as the latter has been understood
i in the bourgeois" nations of the West,
| and Is continuing to wipe out the rem
nants Of the former educated and prop
| ertied class.
AS a result, and quite outside the
| circle of politics, as such, and mass
| of complex and more or less contro-
| versial questions. 1t is quite possible to
find almost anywhere in Russia much
| the same sort of excitement, boyish
enthusiasm and high hopes, as are
| found In the brand-new towns of our
own West-or were a generation or
land many of the typical virtues and
moods peculiarly appealing to Ameri-
cans) of a pioneer people.
New Ventures Exacting.
A new ship on the ways. a new roof
in an empty prairie, the first furrow in
virgin soil. crew Of husky girl Com
munists slashing down the river in an
eight-oared shell. a peasant just begin
ming to read and think for himself
(much the same sort OF thing which
happened to the classic immigrant
coming to the United States)- all this
and much else is no less exciting in
Moscow or Sahara than in Montana
or Manitoba.
At the Dom Pisatyil or Writer'S
! House, the other evening, where the
American newspaper men who accom-
panied the American business mems
| delegation now touring Russia were be-
ing entertained by their Russian col
| 1oon
hours in Moscow, was asked for his i'm
pressions.
Il am overcome with the thrill Of 1t
! ALL" he answered.
| He went on to ask his questioner II
| the latter were aware that the govern
ment was building a factory which
would shortly turn out so many bicycles
that vodka would be forgotten, while,
| as near as he could make out, there
would be in another five years a motor
| car for every mouzhik.
Drudgery Lessons Thrill.
Well, it is quite possible to be, if not
| precisely overcome, at any rate genu-
inely stirred, by much that has been
done and more that Is hoped for, al
though undoubtedly one finds it less
difficult to restrain ones transports If
they are diluted tas they generally are
not in the case Of these personally con-
Quoted delegations, which have every
! thing done for thema by waiting for
ones own visa, attending personally to
| all the endless, time devouring permits
and registrations, and in general, SO far
as is possible. undergoing the drudgery,
If not sharing the frequent fear. which
accompanies the mere business of living
for the ordinary native.
| But it Is not RuSsia's thrills or its
show places, old or new, with which
am concerned here. for I have had no
time to hunt up the latter in what is
really visit rather than a trip of in
vestigation; a mere brief return to old
| scenes and to town which the writer
last saw in 1925 and in which he lived
for the better part of two years in 1922
and 1928.
And difficult and dangerous as it is
to generaliZe about anything in present.
day Russia, where there Is dualism
everywhere tas in the perfectly natural
and legitimate aspirations and func-
tions of its government as such. and
! the more or less peStiferous activities
of the Third internationally. and often
a pluralism even more beWildering, a
comparative old hand may at least
safely speak of the differences between
the ordinary day-to-day life of the
present and that of five or six years
ago.
| Living More Difficult.
Sticking to this small and personal
corner land granting readily that there
] are grain factories" extensive electri-
! cal and mining developments and other
wonders to be seen If one had the OPP
portunity to see them the old-timer,
however well disposed, is compelled TO
admit that ordinary life here in Mos
COW (wnere food flows If there is any
available) is good deal more difficult
than it was, for instance, in the Sum-
mer of 1928
There is nothing that could be called
famine, although many Americans
| might think it such; nobody Starving;
but food is scarce, and the most ordi-
nary needs cannot be met without some
ingenuity and much standing in line.
All the main staples are rationed and
! on cards Ito which those combed ont
during some of the recent 'purifica-
tionS," because they or their forbears
| had once owned land or otherwise Of
Tended. are not entitled) and even with
| cards the amounts to be had are often
insufficient.
Tea, AS much Of a necessity in Rus
STA as beer Is in Germany or wine in
France, has almost disappeared, and the
same is even more true of coffee. Even
trade union members are allowed only
| so grams of tea a month on their cards,
when it is to be had at all. and it is
sold BIT the rate of about $235 a pound.
OF butter 400 grams per month may be
had, on cards, which means, of course,
that butter for cooking is out of the
question, unless people go to the private
shops. where it costs SO a kilo, as
against 81 IS kilo in the state stores.
Bread is hard to get enough of, al
though in comparative plenty in the
restaurants-it sometimes seems as II
the government were trying to drive
people to eat in public. People 60 with
NJ A.