The Wilmington morning star., 1946-10-08
Behind The Iron Curtain

Inc remarkable eyewitness oCoIy VI
"The People Behind the Iron Curtain"
which John Strohm has written for
NEA Service, comes at a particularly
fortunate time and with a particularly
comforting message.
In a period of international tension
it rekindles our admiration for the Rus
sian people, as distinct from their gov
eminent. And it presents in a surpris-
ingly favorable light a government
which allowed Strohm to go where he
pleased in the Soviet Union and to
emerge with story and pictures uncen-
sored.
John Strohm talked and listened and
took pictures without hindrance. And
he has set down what he saw and heard
in a vivid and credibly unbiased man.
ner. The fact Strohm is a midwestern
farmer and farm magazine editor, a
Baptist and a Republican, lends weight
to the assumption that he did not go
to Russia with a load of favorable pre-
conceptions about Communism.
Strohm found a courageous people
fighting another battle against the
wreckage left by a ruthless enemy and
the continuing hardship induced by the
circumstance of their history and form
of government. -
He found an economy set back to pre-
revolutionary levels, with sickles and
fails doing the work of the combines
that the Nazis stole.
He found spades and oxen and camels
where there had been plows and tractors
and horses. He found women doing
most of the farm work under pitifully
primitive conditions.
He found a people living on subsis-
tence r%ations, with supplementary food
costing at least ten times our most in
flated prices. He found the general
level of wages far below ours. He found
hours and working conditions which
would com close to causing a revolu-
ton here at home.
But Strohm also found cheerfulness
and friendliness. In spite of the bitter
anti-American attacks of the Soviet
press, he was met at every turn by ex-
pressions of thanks for Americas help
to the Russian people during the war.
Everywhere he went, and from al
most everyone he spoke with, he heard
assurance that the Russian people do
not want war. That was the message
which, time and again, he was urged to
bring back to the American people. In
turn he gave like assurance of the
American peoples overwhelming desire
for peace.
The Foreign Minister of Byelorussia
gave Strohm a brief but apt summing
up OF the situation. 1T looks like our
job is to educate the diplomats" he
said. Our diplomats are our main prob
lem-they must be shown the road to
peace"
The difficulty of that job obsesses
most of the world today. Here in Amer
lea we may speak our minds in an at
tempt to do that job. But what Of Rus
STA, where criticism of government poll.
cy is a serious offense?
Strohm does not answer that. But
ne gives the strong impression that the
Russian people do not only desire peace
They have a fierce and positive will
against war. Their reconstruction prob.
lem is enormous Their economy is al
a low ebb. Their present existence is
hard and discouraging,. and they seem
to be living largely by sweat and hope
That seems to be the life and the
spirit in Russia today. Undoubtedly the
Russian government is we'll aware that
any attempt to lead the Russian people
into an aggressive war would be {
%perilously unpopular move And M
matter how rigid the controls and how
numerous the police, even the strictesr