The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1931-11-17
Communists Need Dollars With
Which to Pay For Foreign
Machinery
Editors Note: This is the last
Of q series of stories dealing with
Soviet Russia.
By JULIA BLANSHARD

BY JULIA BLANSHARD
copyright, 1881, NEA Service, 1nc.)
If you were an American living in
Moscow, you would discover that pro-
letarian Russia knows how to treat
a privileged class.
You probably would belong to that
class. Only foreigners do. There are
approximately 10000 in Russia today.
You would find that you could buy
the best Russian cigarets which Rus
SLAMS themselves cannot buy. You
could stay at the best hotel, travel
on the best trains, and trade at Torg-
sin, the only well-stocked store IN
Moscow. This privilege comes from
the might of your almighty dollars.
For Russia needs foreign money to
pay for the millions Of dollars worth
Of machinery she has bought in Eur
ope and America to forward her Five
Year Plan. She needs it, too, to pay
the American and European experts
she has hired to help install this ma
chinery. One good way to get dol
lars is to exchange goods with you
for them. All Russians understand
why you are privileged, and do not
resent it.
How you live and what you eat de-
ponds largely on what reasons you
have for being in Russia. Down at
Dneiprostroi, I was amazed to find
a little American colony that looked
exactly like a New Jersey suburb.
There was a charming six-room brick
bungalow for each family, built &C
cording to American specifications
with bathrooms, fireplaces, tinted
walls and the only screened porches
the length and breadth of Russia.
X X X
Colonel Hugh Cooper got all this
in his contract. He also got his men
the privilege of shipping in American
canned goods. For dinner down there
one day we had a delicious five
course meal, all out of American
canned goods! Colonel Cooper also
specified that his corps must receive
pay from the Soviet government IN
dollars.
At Karkov I visited the homes OF
three American mechanical engl-
neers whose companies had had no
such foresight. They lived in two
room and bath apartments in the
regular Soviet apartment houses and
couldn't even ship in American Gig
arets. Moreover, they were paid IN
rubles. Today in Russia the ruble is
officially worth half a dollar. It often
will not buy a tenth of that, because
the best goods in Russia can only be
bought for dollars now.
If YOU were an American in Mos
COW you would belong to n OF the
three Official divisions of foreigners
/. You might be an electrical ex-
pert or an insulator specialist. II
so YOU would hold a government 1000
card emitting you to trade at the
store for engineers and specialists.
2. You might be a journalist anc
hold a food card on the Journalist
and embassy store. :.
3. You might be a transient bust
ness man or salesman and come UNI
der the category Of tourist. They
hold no food cards and usually live
and eat at a hotel. Last summer
there were 10000 tourists.
X X
The specialist group in Moscow
have quarters assigned them by the
government. One electrical GROUP
has a whole apartment house to it.
self, with all the electrical equip
ment they want to bring in. They
even have mechanical refrigeration
in a city that has no ice to sell indi-
vidualS!
This group seldom mixes with thu
other groups. While the men trave
or are attending to business in thu
capital, the women find time rather
heavy on their hands. They are
little closed corporation that visits
back and forth, plays bridge with eact
other, and reads the home papel
much more carefully than they eve
did here.
II you are a journalist, you do no
fare Sc well in some ways. The Sow
let government makes no living pro
vision for you. You cannot affort
to take a room for long at the Metro
pole hotel at Sc a day and around S
a day to eat there. Apartments ar
next to impossible to find.
The Metropole hotel, which charge
dollars for everything, kept its ma
jestic dining room open for servic
every night until 2 a. m. Sometime
it was a saddening spectacle, tn
huge room, built to accommodate
800. with its vaulted dome Of glas