The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1931-09-26
Rv G. YAsuknYKY


English writer, H. G. Wells visited
Soviet Russia. Wells spent IS days
In the RSFSR. He walked about the
streets, went to Petrograd and Mos
cow He talked with Lenin, He saw
q lot and understood practically
nothing When he returned to Eng
land, he wrote a book, Russia in
the Shadows"
AS is to be expected from a bour-
geois writer, he looked down on Rus
STA. Wells was not a vicious writer,
and he goodnaturedly patted the
country on the back and with subtle
and exquisite hunor he sneered at
the "Bolshevik. experiment and in
doing SO exposed his great ignorance.
In one Of the chapters of Russia
fn the Shadows" under the title
"Trhe Dreamer in the Kremlin," Wells
describe his interview with Lenin.
Lenin asked Wells if he knew of
the identification of Russia. Wells
was not acquainted with the matter.
But this did-not prevent him from
nloralisiug on this question with the
confidence OF Ignorance. In his book
he wrote:
For Lentn, who like a good
orthodox Marxist denounce all
"Utopians" has succunbed at last
TO Utopia, the Utopia of the cleo
tricians. He is throwing all his
weight into scheme for the de-
velopment of great power stations
in Russia to serve whole provinces
with light, with transport, and
industrial power. Two experiment
tai districts, he said, had already
been electrified. Can one imagine
a more courageous project in a vast
flat land of forests and illiterate
peasants, with no water power,
with no technical skill available,
and with trade and industry at
the last gasp? Projects for such
an Identification are in process Of
development in Holland and they
have been discussed in England,
and in those dersely- populated
and industrially highly-developed
centers one can imagine them as
successful, economical, and alto
gether beneficial But their appli-
cation to Russia is an altogether
greater strain upon the constructive
imagination. I cannot see anything
Of the sort happening in, this darl
crystal of Russia, but this littlt
man at the Kremlin can; he sees tht
decaying railways spreading through
out he land, sees a new happier Com
nunist industrialism arising again
While talked to him he almost per
suaded me to share his vision"
But it was difficult to persuad
Wells. The author of fantastic novel
took his stand on the firm ground
of reality. He objected to Lenin.
But these are only sketches
and beginnings"
Come back and see what we
have done ins Russia in ten years
bIIIl0 dlloWcI6O 4SlAIL
Ten years have passed. Wells still
doubts, still does not believe, whel
g. single $4,000 horse power turbin
from the Stain factory gives tn
same power as the whole of tn
Volkhov station which the USSR wa
building at that time with such tire
nendous difficulty. Wells doubts still
at a time when the USSR is com
plotting the Dnieper hydro-electrt
station, when new powerful sectiona
electric stations have been built AM
are at work, when about million k
". of new high voltage cables hav
became a regular feature Of tn
Soviet landscape! Even now whel
the Five-Year- Plan is being sur
passed in four years, Wells sti
doubts the practicability Of the Five
'Year-Plan. Evidently the time ma
chine of Wells is going full spec,
nStern.
Wells is going full speed astern.
Ten years later, on the eleventh
year after the visit of Wells to tn
USSR, another prominent EngHs
writer, Bernard Shaw arrived
The revolution is rushing ahead a
full speed. The USSR is a con
struction camp The foundations Q
socialist economy are being com
pleted. A new socialist country
in creation.
"Come back and see what we hav
done in Russia in ten years time.
shaw was able to see what ha
been done, that the words of Leni
had been converted into hundreds c
industrial giants, into Soviet farm
into hundreds of machine and trac
Tor stations, into tens of thousand
OF collective farms, that the countr
s--one-sixth of the globe-was pre-
spering! Shaw was able to see tn
short-sightedness of his friend We'll
Shaw's statement that "my per
sonal feeling when I see your gree
Communist experiment is the sam
as the feeling of many other Poop.
In the part of the world from whic
I have come-a feeling of shan
that England was not the first
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