The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-12-28

Soviet Union. Ben Field recently
returned from a visit to the U. s.
S. r. where he made study Of
farm conditions, visiting many
cOIIectIYes, as well as attending
the Writers Congress. He con-
tributed while there to Pravda,
Kolhoznik, the Literary Gazette,
and is the American correspondent
for the Soviet Peasants Gazette
and the French 'Voice of the
Peasant"
BY BEN FIELD
CTATISTICS recently published by
y the Soviet State Publishing
House proves once more that the
Russian peasants are swiftly becom-
ing the most cultured farm masses
in all history. Here are peasants
who a few years ago were unable
to read, to whom a pencil was like
plow you had to hitch yourself
to when you had no horse. Now
illiteracy is fast becoming as much
thing Of the past as the wooden
plow. Books like tractor columns
are streaming over the vast Russian
countryside, drumming in the most
remote regions, turning up the stub
bornest soil.
In distant Kazakstan, where after
the revolution less than per cent
of the total population could read
and write, more than 80 per cent
are already literate. Peasants are
becoming not only eager readers,
they are becoming first rate critics
of literature, talented writer's as a
study of the Union Soviet
Writers Congress indicates.
| In 1884, 100000 copies of Maxim
Gorki's books have been sent out to
the peasants. Visit any collective
farm and you will find a book by
Gorky. Who can forget the day
spent at the Ingushan collective
farm in the North Caucasus? Here
are mountaineerS who years ago
lived in tents. Now there is a pic
ture Of Gorky in the shockworkers'
dormitory. The director spent his
prize Of 1000 rubles on two con-
certinas and books for the farm.
Who can forget the group of col
lective farmers led by the woman
chairman at the Writers Congress
giving Gorky as "our collective art"
present Of prize pumpkins, beets,
carrots, cabbage, etc.? In the name
of the collectivists on her farm ask
ing Gorky and the other writers
for even finer products of their art,
asking for stronger books about COL
lectives, for books describing the
struggles of the workers and farm
ers Of the rest of the world.
Dog-eared and Thumbed-over
More than 100000 copies of Sholo-
kov's works have been distributed
recently among the collective farm
,ers. "And Quiet Flows the Don" Is
popular everywhere. But the farm
novel by Sholokov, "Soil Upturned"
is probably next to Stains reports
the most thumbed over and dog
cared farm books on Soviet farms.
More than million copies of this
novel have been published. You
can't buy copy of it in Russian
anywhere in Moscow. 1t has been
translated into French, German,
English.
Karl Radek, the brilliant Soviet
I publicist, has hailed it as MASTER
/ piece and has shown how Sholokov
anticipated certain steps in collect
ization only now taking place on
Soviet farms. The only piece of
fiction with which we can compare
it here in America is Whitaker
Chambers story, Can You Hear
Their Voices" This has also been
made into a play. This has also
| become a farmers guide book which
Is being distributed by the left
wing Farmers National Committee
for Action.
In discussing the influence OF
Sholokov's powerful farm novel, one
can see how literature can become
a caterpillar" which the peasants
put on to help them move forward
in their struggles for decent life.
In one village a peasant woman got
up at meeting to criticize the
chairman Of the collective because
unlike Davidoff, hero of "Soil Up
turned" her chairman never went
out into the fields to give a hand
with the work. In another village
on the Volga with a population of
I,072 meeting of the whole village
took place before the Writers Con-
gress to discuss literature. One
hundred and twenty-seven peasants
rose to discuss this novel which
dealt so intimately with their lives.
Writer'S Work on Collective Farms
The Russian writers feel this tie
with the collective farmers. Gorky
has become the editory of a new
attractive magazine, "Kolhoznik. /"
The first issue was 100000 copies.
This magazine will print the best
OF contemporary literature for the
peasants. Sergei Tretyakov, author
of Roar, China" and "a Chinese
Testament" joined the collective
"CommuI1istic Lighthouse" He
brought type down from Moscow,
edited the collective farm news
paper, built up library, fought the