Evening star., 1934-11-18

traction for the preletariat is the pari-
mutuel betting system. They are now
breeding polo ponies, thanks to Ameri-
can Ambassador Bullitt, who taught the
Red cavalry how to play the game. There
has been a steady increase in the gov
ernmentS income from the sale of in
toxicating beverages, although govern
ment posters condemning alcoholism are
often displayed at the entrance to gov
ernment brewery. People in Moscow
and Leningrad are better dressed than
they were even a year ago. There are
more motor cars and more paved streets.
Motor cars have been given away as
prizes for good work. The show wind
dows in all the larger cities display a
growing variety of merchandise, prac-
tically all of it Soviet-made.
Government manufactured perfume
and face powder are immensely popular.
Artificial silk stockings are no longer
frowned upon, since they are manufac-
tured at a profit by the Soviet Union.
Tennis, once condemned as bourgeois
sport, has now received the official
blessing of the unions director OF
physical education. At this Summers
national tennis tournament in Moscow
he appealed to Soviet players to develop
their competence so that they might
demonstrate the superiority of Soviet
tennis to that of bourgeois countries.
Up to last year the Soviet government
frowned on public dancing unless it were
revival Of some native dance; jazz and
the fox trot were derided as evidence
of the degeneration of the capitalist
world. Today in the public parks there
is open-air dancing with jazz orchestras
to provide the only kind of rhythm
which the youth of Russia seems to like.
Even Russian radio has become less
seriously purposeful. AS far back as 1926
the director of radio admitted that his
listeners were always asking for pop
ular music when he insisted on giving
them an almost unbroken succession of
speeches on the merits and achieve
ments of Marxism. Government au-
thorities have now learned that propa-
ganda has only limited appeal and
that it is useless to try to force more
than a modicum into the ears and eyes
of Indifferent recipients.
Russian radio programs have become
much more entertaining. Programs for
children also have undergone change.
No longer are the youngsters obliged to
swallow heavy doses Of MARKHAM theory.
The old prewar fairy tales, which once
were deemed improper mental food for
Soviet children, have now become the
most popular part of the children'S hour.
| ESS propaganda, more facts, has also
become the rule in the universities.
The study of history had become ex-
tremely unpopular because, as one uni
versity student put it, I'VE learned prac-
tically nothing about men or events. So
much time was devoted to the MARKHAM
Interpretation of what happened that
there was no time left to describe what
really happened"
The last Communist party congress
decreed a change, and beginning this
Summer, history teaching in all Soviet
universities was transformed. Every
history teacher has been instructed to
give his students full array of facts
about events, the dates when they oc-
CuIIcO dIlO UIOSl pIllCdl lldICI idi COiA-
corning the chief perSonageS. Only
when that has been done is he permitted
to go on with the MARKHAM interpreta-
tions. At Kiev University in the Ukraine
the number of history students has
doubled as result of this change.
Russian nationaliSm has largely dis
placed Communist internationalism. In
the newspapers and in public addresses
there are frequent references to the