LIFE IN RUSSIA.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 182, 4 August 1930, Page 7

LIFE IN RUSSIA.

LIKE A NIGHTMARE.

A Wash a Month, Five Meatless

Days a Week.

COMMUNIST FANATICS.

(United P.A.-Electric Telegraph-Copyright)

LONDON, August 3.

"Coming from Russia is like awaking from a nightmare," said Mr. Hessell Tiltman, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald's biographer, in an interview after his return from a month's travelling with Mrs. Tiltman through Russia.

"Thero are only two kinds of people in Russia," said Mr. Tiltman, "the Communists, who arc fanatics, and all the others who are apathetic and hopeless as they always have been.

"Wβ were greatly honoured to witness the production of the first tractor in the world's greatest factory at Stalingrad, which was erected on what was virgin country two years ago.

"Great Soviet aeroplanes swooped overhead. Innumerable speeches were made and songs were sung, but there was nothing to cat. The crowd failed to understand us when we demanded something to eat, the Communists being perfectly satisfied to sec the tractor.

"It was most difficult to procure a square meal in Russia. Although telegrams asking tho authorities to grant us every facility had preceded us everywhere we invariably discovered that there were no facilities to give to anybody. "Tho Stalingrad factory is run by Americans, who are highly paid. They say Russia is a good country if one is satisfied with one wash a month and five meatless days a week. "Tho teaching of English is Moscow's best paid profession. Young Communists are eager to learn our language in order to 'spread the light' in the outer world. Wo saw many classes of Communist youths learning English with the object of going to Australia, South Africa, America and England.