Evening star., 1937-02-13
By Mary.Carfer Roberts.

By Mdry.Carfer Roberts.
= VISIT THE sovIETs. BY e. M.
Delafield. New York: Harper g.
Bros.
i The lively Mrs. Delafield writes
here a humorous book on Russia and
In her dealing with the vast sacro-
sanct citadel of social perfection,
strikes one of the few notes OF sanity
and cheerfulness which one has been
privileged to hear concerning it. Or
course, her book is lamentably triv-
olous. The comrades themselves Will
not have to take 1t seriously, for, by
confessing to certain human weak
nesses, she places herself beneath
their notice. She is in no sense con-
troyersial. She has not insulted or
assaulted the institutions Of Musco-
vite governmental self-esteem; she has
not even expressed wish to see them
altered. But she has found them
somewhat ridiculous, and she went
about through the dreary regimenta-
ton Of an Intourist-conducted trip
quietly chuckling to herself, and In
this mood she wrote her book.
She compares herself to Mrs. Troll
lope visiting America, but that is
libel She Is nowhere near SO stern
as that indefatigable lady. - the
same time she avoids the much COM
moner error of the modern Russian
visitor and does not fall into pas
sion of admiration for all things
-f~k hat &I%s,ry ho HiUOTFa
courts, creches, collective farms or
cabbage soup. Consequently, her
book is better reading and more be-
lievable than most Russian dithy-
rambs,
She was told by her publisher that
he wished she would go to Eussia Tor
six months and write something hu-
morous about 1t, as, in spite OF a vast
volume Of evidence to the contrary,
he felt that something humorous must
have survived. She went because, she
tells us, she did not want to. She
was reared in q convent and had early
acquired a conscience which made 1t
obligatory for her t do most Of the
things which she preferred to leave
undone. (But, arriving in the Soviets,
she wisely did not explain the relig-
ious grounds of her presence
Instead, she managed by accident
and luck to get a berth on state
collective farm-but not one OF those
which are run for exhibition pur-
poses. On the contrary. she was as
signed to an out-of-the-way institu-
tion which, for reasons that she never
understood. was under q certain de-
gree of governmental disfavor.
IT WAS grim spot, primitive as to
living arrangements and gruelling
as to working conditions. However,
the regulations were not inflicted
from above, as she makes clear, but
were Of the inmates own choosing.
There was O certain integrity about
this place which she respected. 1t
existed not for show, but for itself.
The people who were there had come
Of their own choice. They were main
ly middle-aged and had seen life in
other countries. They did not pre-
tend that their collective farm was a
paradise; 1t had no arrangements for
individual or even family privacy, it
had no medical care, 1t had no school
except for very young children so
that the older boys and girls ran
Wild" 1t had no manner of recrea-
tion and its isolated position made 1t
impossible for the workers TO get away
on visits. It was unimaginably crude,
poor and dreary. Still, 1t offered its
inhabitants certain kind of inde-
pendence. Beyond being obliged TO
pay a percentage of their crop TO the
government, they were unmolested-in
their grim and joyless desert. Some
thing Of genuine pioneer spirit Is de-
tectible in Mrs. Delafields account Of
this place, and more particularly so in
that she relates that the people of the
farm were friendly and kind to her
But when she left there and started
On her Intourist excursion. she lost
touch with any manner Of genuineness
and found herself surrounded by these
propaganda devices about which such
q plenty has been written. She was
hustled from show spot to show spot,
ehe was assured that she might see
anything she chose, and then taken
exactly where her guide had been in
structed TO take her. She was
harangued about the superiority Of
everything communistic to everything
not communistic. She was Snubbed II
she spoke and brow-beaten when she
did not. And she became a good bit
more ike Mrs. Trollope then. She
found that Russian manners partake
Of the complaint which used to be so
commonly brought against the man
nerS Of Americans-that we were so
nervouSly conscious Of our national
shortcomings that we seized on ag-
gressiye self-assurance TO bolster us
up. She thought all this comic and
often very dull, but she was good
natured about It.
&HE gives the following dissertation
as fair sample Of the sort of
talk which has to be endured from
1ntourist guides, and which brooks
neither interruption nor even tenta-
tive questioning:
There Is no unemployment"
There Is enough food for every
body"
Everybody is happy. % Nobody
wishes TO go away. They are free, II
they wish, TO go-but they do not
wish"
Everybody is equal" am
OF these interminably repeated re-
marks. she says she really was able
70 believe the first one, after using
her own powers of observation. But
that did not prevent her from having
TO listen TO the others whole hours on
end.
The guides, she observes. are alb
solutely despotic, and permit no
manner Of question from the harried
foreigners whom they condescend to
induct into the wonders Of their
paradise. She herself once dared TO
put question after having been taken