The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-10-26
Proletarian Democracy PerVades
All Sphere of Life in u. S. S. R

just keep on going to see the mon
tage' in Aida and Eugene Onegin,
she said across the room to Cher
panov, and the first thing you
know Verdi and Chaikovski will get
you, tool"
Two Views
These were two extreme views.
Most spoke as follows: 1--WE are
mastering metallurgy, as tribute
to the stubborn fight our fathers
and these old men among us waged
to give us the Soviet state, and free
us from capitalism, and we are in
creasing production for our own
good and that of our children. Be-
cause of the workers victory we
now know Wagner and Beethoven,
we can hear them in the concert
hail. or we can hear them at home
over the radio. Our fathers had
neither theatre tickets nor radios.
And We need Wagner and Chaikov-
sky in the service of Socialism. But
we need more. We need to preserve
the old songs; we will ourselves
play not only accordeons but pianos,
or at least some of us will. And from
the Radio Committee we expect
new songs. We want stirring new
marches for the celebration of the
Seventeenth Anniversary of the Boil
Shevik Revolution. We want songs
of victory, songs of production"
Criticized Radio Group
Others criticized this particular
radio group for never having come
to the fine big new Sickle and
Hammer" factory club house to play
to the workers there, for never hav-
ing come to visit their steel mill.
The radio stars plunged into the
discussion, reciting all the other
club houses they had played in,
pledging that Sickle and Hammer"
should not be neglected. They prom
ised to come and teach in music
circles in the factory, those free
classes for workers who wish to
learn music.
The Steel Workers Poem
Whereupon a young steel worker
who had been reciting his own
poetry, to the applause of the gath
ering, got UP and recited another
poem, about the victory of socialist
construction, about the fulfillment
of the plan by his own department
in the mill, and about the beautify-
ing of the department Gin a steel
mill, rememberD with flowers. The
poem was entitled: 'Lilacs In Our
Department. He challenged the
radio musicians present to set the
words to music, and they accepted
the challenge.
In all the argument for and
against, or rather over the correct
proportions of, classical music,
there was one musician present
whom everyone praised. He occu-
pies unique position, is very IA
nous all over the country. He is
Syeverski, the gusli player. The
gusli is an old instrument of the
Russian troubadorS or wandering
Ministries, used by them since the
middle ages Or perhaps earlier. 1t
looks like two Zithers placed to-
gether. Syeverski was one of the
last of the MINISTRIES, and before
the revolution walked from town to
town, from tavern to tavern, over
all Russia, playing usually for a
place to sleep and for food. He had
no education, but on his way he
made a collection Of the folk songs
that were fast dying out.
After the revolution he placed this
accumulated fund at the disposal of
the department of education, and
secured not only host of pupils
who will never let gusli playing die
out, but secured an education for
himself-he is now student in the
Moscow University, taking all kinds
of political and scientific subjects.
Syeverski is 50 years old, and rep
resents in himself not only the adj