Evening star., 1932-12-11
A Wood Cut by Use Bischo1.

four or five hours in line at the co-op-
erative store to purchase a ration OF
black bread.
They did not follow her plodding
through the streets or clinging precari-
ously to an overcrowded street car,
bound for her one-room home that Is
at once living room, bed room, dining
room and frequently kitchen. Or, II
she is using the community kitchen.
they did not see her jostling, pushing
and elbowing her way about, cooking
her meager dinner on kerosene stove,
swearing and crying in vexation be-
cause some one, she knows not who,
had taken her potatoes and onions.
They did not foreSee this woman, who
wants now to have her clothes washed,
trying desperately, and often IN vain, to
obtain piece Of soap; or. obtaining
the soap. unable to find laundress.
Women Work Nights.
The position of the Soviet woman at
work is not less difficult than in the
home. During the Cars regime laws
prohibiting night work for women and
children we're passed and enforced. The
enforcement was seen to by the politi-
cal and labor leaders Of the time. These
laws were carried over into the Com
munists' statutes, but they are laws in
theory only. Women now are working
nights-in candy factories, knitting
mills, coal mines and other Soviet en-
terprises-to speed up the F1ve-year
plan.
The peculiar conditions of the So
ciety in which she moves have created
a new classification of "eligibles" in
the mind of the Soviet girl. II her fam
lily is a large one and she has been sub
jected to the goading intimacies Of one
room existence with 1t for long time,
any man with a room Of his own be-
comes desirable. She knows that she
can divorce him without undue diff
Guilty (although in recent years the diff
ficultieS have increased), and she knows
by experience that the courts, in set
Ting the question of possession Of the
room, will be likely to side with her.
If this man with a room Is Com
munist and an engineer, so much the
better 1t is likely to be larger room,
and there will be better shop In which
to buy food and clothing. IT, in addi-
ton, the man with the room is not only
an engineer and Communist but an
o. G. P. U. or any high government Of
fetal, then the girl can turn up her
nose at her friends.
Foreigners Most Eligible.
But II the man is a foreigner with
"valuta" (foreign money, then she has
made the best possible match. For the
foreigner can purchase for her things
she could not otherwise obtain had she
all the rubles in the U. S. S. r. And
her heart is filled with the hope that
some day, in some way, she may obtain
permission to leave Russia for more
free and bountiful country. Tanya, a
friend of mine, who had married an
American engineer and had received
permission to leave the country with
him, was the happiest girl I met in
Russia and she was the talk OF the
town.
The privileges and pleasures afforded
the wives of political leaders and high
government oficials are increasing
daily Nine Kuybisheff, wife of the
chairman Of the Central Economic
Committee, who lives in the new gov
ernment house in Moscow, said to me:
We'll, I have everything. Do look SO
badly dressed Every Summer I go to
the Crimea." The wife of the Governor
of the state of Mogileff is not unhappy.
She has no children, lives in govern
ment house, rides around in an auto
mobile and has the best of food and
clothing. Nine. Menjinksky, sister
Of an ex-official Of the o. G. P. U. in
Moscow, Is adviser in q school for for
eign languages. If at times she Is con-
scious stricken by the fact that she
knows no language but Russian, she
need only lie back little more luxuri-
ously in the automobile which carries
her to and from her home, the Krem-
lin, and she feels much better.
Yet even the great have their trou-
bles. Nine. Nazaroff, wife OF an
o. @. P. u. official, was forced to Of
fer an equivalent of $62 to buy pair
of gray stockings to match the suede
shoes she had purchased at an o. G..
P. U. store.
Can Buy Best Goods.
The Communist officials wives have
every reason to be grateful for the sac
rifices made by the average working
woman of Russia. The very best the
government stores have IN stock are
available to them. They have their
own bright model schools to which to
send their children, their own movie"
houses, their own beauty parlors, the
best In housing facilities. Alone Of the
mass Of Soviet women, they are manag-
ing to some degree to Keep the charm
and femininity which the Soviet man,
unimpressed by the governments the
ory of equality. still wants In bis
woman.
But, apart from this growing sris-
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