The Washington times., 1935-01-08


the concluding chapters OF his
series democracy US. Dictator
ship" A personal UtSit to peas.
ant toDn affords one OF the most
DiUid pictures OF Soviet country
life eUer pennedJ
BY H. r. KNICKERBOCKER
Copyright, 1895, by International News
Service. Reproduction in Whole or IN
Part FOrbdden.)
TVANOVO-VOZNESHANSK, Jan.
8 0.NSO They get up before
daylight and work until after
dark and the richest earns
around eight cents day above
his bread and potatoes. These
are the Russian peasants, and
this is why the Russian pro-
letarians, most of them fresh
from peasant homes, consider
themselves happy under condi'
tions intolerable for an American
workingman. All one has to do
is compare the housing and the
food and the life of the Russian
peasant with the Workingman's
to realize the eight million peas
ants who entered industry in
the last four years have moved
up to a level which may mean
penury to westernerS, but means
luxury to them.
We rode to the Frunze col
lective farm in Ford, five miles
from the railroad, 35 miles north.
west of IvanoVo.
Hard to Grasp
This gap is hard for an Amer
ican to grasp because the whole
level of Russian life is still so low
we have nothing in our expert
ence with which to compare it.
The villages we passed each con-
sisted of 40 or so houses, but not
houses, log cabins, mostly with
thatched roofs, mostly with cav
ing sides, leaning drunkenly at an
angle.
American farmers may think
they have suffered. They may de-
plore their lot. But the poorest
house of the poorest tenant
farmer in America would be a pal
ace compared to these lamentable
dwellings.
There are Is million peasant
homes in the Soviet Union. Think
of Is million of these miserable
novels housing a population equal
to that of the United States.
Comrade Venkov met us at the
headquarters of the Frunze collec'
tive farm. We chose this farm to
visit because it was one of the
best. It is as difficult to get an
average" farmer as an average"
worker, but just as it was inter
esting to study the condition of
the best-off workers, so it ought
to be valuable to contrast with
them the condition of the best-off
collective farmers.
This farm embraced 16 villages
and 276 families with 1906 of
what used to be called souls"
but are now called eaters"
without Knocking
He took us through the ad.
jacent village. Without a knock
we went right into one house
after another. They were the
same sort of houses we had
passed on the road. To our
amazement these deserted tombs
were all full of people.
The great brick oven took Up
the center of the house. It
warmed the single room which
served the entire family. All OF
them slept on top of it. 1t cooked
their meager food.
But suddenly the room was
flooded with light. A single elec.
trio bulb glowed. Everybody looked
proud. That was the collective
farm. With the speed of its own
current the electric light had
leaped the centuries between the
old and the new Russia.
It still lit the old Russia. BY
its illumination we examined the
supper on the cooking side of the
oven.' There was poor little pot
of boiled cabbage, and a handful
of boiled potatoes. Nothing else.
The room had a rough wooden
table, two homemade chairs, a
half-dozen wooden spoons and
forks, and that was all. In one
corner hung a cheap old ikon,
symbol of the church that was:
in the other corner a lithograph
Of Lenin, founder of the church
that is