REALIST CITY

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 281, 27 November 1941, Page 13

REALIST CITY

MOSCOW CONFIDENT

ULTIMATE TRIUMPH

AMERICAN WRITER IMPRESSED

A striking word picture of Moscow in wartime is provided by Quentin Reynolds in Collier's. This now-famous war correspondent, incidentally, shared in the adventure of M. Litvinoff and his party in the air race against a snowstorm over the Caspian Sea. The article was written just before the Russian Government left the capital.

Moscow is far different from the Paris of June, 1940, he writes. Paris was apathetic, indifferent. Thousands mumbled this false, self-deceiv-ing phrase: "They'll never take Paris." Moscow reads the war news carefully, consults its maps, and is grave, but not grey with fear. Moscow is confident of the ultimate triumph, but Moscow knows that months, maybe years, of suffering lie ahead. Moscow is a city of realists taking its cue from Stalin, the greatest realist of them all. She has tasted the cordite flavour of German bombs; she has seen her buildings wrecked; she has buried her dead, and her heart has been made heavy by the news that thousands of her fathers and sons have been killed at the front. She hides her pain and wears a look of grim, determination. The germs of hatred dropped by the Nazi bombs have spread over the streets of Moscow, infecting the people, and one can see this grim hatred of Germany showing on the faces of those who pass on the streets. Moscow knows that her suffering so far has not been particularly heavy. She has not taken the beating that the people of Kiev and Odessa and Leningrad have taken, but she expects that the full force of the Luftwaffe will soon 4 be hurled against her and she is ready.

Meanwhile, life goes on with some semblance of normalcy. That is, during the daytime. The ballet is open and crowds argue as to the relative merits of Ulanova and Lepeshinskaya.

The opera is open, too: the moving picture houses are crowded with the showing of the Russian-made "Masquerade," and the picture "London Can Take It" is being shown here for the first time. It is true that audiences are usually 80 per cent feminine. The men of Moscow are at the front.

Yesterday Moscow took a holiday from the war to watch its own world series. At the big Dynamo Stadium the two best Soccer teams in Russia met for the championship. It was Dynamo against Spartak, and the spectators behaved just as our own football fans behave. Nearly all of the players were in one service or another. Those who were not army or air force men worked in factories and had been given the Sunday afternoon off to play. They made 15,000 citizens of Moscow (and this temporary citizen) forget the war for the afternoon, which made their temporary holiday well worth while. Our Kind of People It is impossible to live long here without coming to love the people of Russia. They are decent, homeloving people, and you could take a slice of them and drop them in our Mid-west and within a few weeks you wouldn't be able to distinguish them from our own decent, lawabiding citizens. I haven't been in Russia long, but I've been here long enough to learn that these are our kind of people. The other American and British correspondents feel as I do. I am no nearer to being a Communist than are you who read this, but I defy anyone to remain objective and impersonal when he is with the people of this city. No matter what your political convictions, these are people who only want to go their own way; who only want 10 solve their own problems, and to-day they find the greatest, most horrible battle of the ages being fought. I find it impossible to be neutral in this struggle. So far food rationing here in Moscow is not severe. One can get as good a meal in a factory kitchen today as one can get in a London West End hotel. There is no clothing rationing, but most of the mills are busy making uniforms and the shops have not a great variety of goods in them. But the people of Moscow are not clothes-conscious. As long as clothes are warm they need serve no such frivolous subsidiary purpose as to be ornamental. One may still buy -furs, and there are tailors who will make you fur coats or wraps at London and New York prices. Except for tne uniforms one sees on the streets during the day and some queues in front of food shops, one might forget that the most terrible war in history is being fought less than an hour's flying time away. Occasionally muddy uniforms and bandaged heads remind one that Moscow is at war. It is at night that the war comes to Moscow. Blackout is at 6 o'clock now. It is a more severe blackout than we know in England. The buses and tramcars keep going, and their lights and the occasional flashes from their overhead charged electric wires, the headlights from automobiles, and the street lights make one accustomed to the London blackout a bit dubious as to what effect the Moscow blackout might have. But when the sirens scream even these lights fade. The (buses and trams crawl back into their barns. Automobile headlights are extinguished. Traffic and street lighting die and Moscow prepares a black face to welcome her uninvited visitors. Once the raid commences one does not see a single light in the centre of the city. Although to date Moscow has not had one raid which would compare in severity to any one of 50 London raids, this city takes raids far more seriously and perhaps more intelligently than London does. When the sirens sound, the two best hotels in Moscow and the restaurants immediately stop serving food. Guests are ordered, not asked, to go into shelters. The city fathers know that

foolish courage is a cheap commodity; people are beginning to have a dangerous contempt for bombs. The Soviet rules are terrifically realistic. If citizens wish to get themselves killed by their own foolishness, well and good. But the more people injured and killed the more work for air-raid wardens and firemen. There are only a limited number of these and they have more important things to do than to attend the wounds of

1 citizens who had no business being out of doors. No casual pedestrians walk through the Moscow night when ao-aid is on.

There is a 12 o'clock curfew even on raidless nights, and only those with special peonits are allowed out after that hour. The correspondents here receive the precious nocturnal freedom of movement. But then there is nothing for even the most indomitable stayeivup-late to stay up for in Moscow. Even on quiet nights the hotels and restaurants close at ten. There are no night clubs and no hideaways where the convivial may gather. Fleet Street would be shocked to see some of its former celebrated nighthawks retiring meekly to bed each night at ten. Life for the correspondents was fairly endurable until yesterday, when both the Metropole and National Hotels announced that there was no more vodka. Whisky, of course, can be obtained only if one has a very special friend at an embassy. Beer is non-existent, nor are there any British or American cigarettes to be had. It looks as if circumstances, having already forced the correspondents here to what is virtually a compulsory early-to-bed policy, will now force them to become teetotallers and non-smokers.

But Moscow is girding for battle. The tastes and feelings of individuals do not count. The invader is not far away and, if he approaches Moscow, so far as is humanly possible, will be ready. Moscow has a great example to lend her courage. For a year she watched London going through her Gethsemane. London was equal to her destiny. My guess is that Moscow, too, will not be found minting. We should find out very soon.