IMPRESSIONS OF RUSSIA

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25299, 26 September 1947, Page 2

IMPRESSIONS OF RUSSIA

ADDRESS TO TRAVEL CLUB “My impression of the Russians is that they are a great people, a very kindly people, and very anxious to please. They want to be friends with the democracies, but they can’t understand what all the trouble is about,” said Mr R. R. Livingstone, when he spoke yesterday at a meeting of the Travel Club. Mr Livingstone, who returned to Christchurch recently, served as chief administration officer for UNRRA in the Middle East and in Byelorussia. He was also principal executive assistant to the deputy-director-general, and chief of finance and administration for Europe. “There is no reason for Russia to trust us, and there is no reason for us to trust them,” said Mr Livingstone. “Their government believes in the ultimate fall of democracy, and capitalism, and it aims at the dismemberment particularly of our form of democracy, as much by internal friction as by any other form of aggression. “I found that the people were anxious to talk to us, but they were also afraid, because they remembered that in the purges of 1939 the first people to be put away were those who had had any association with the foreigner.” Moscow was a magnificent city by Russian standards. It had some excellent buildings and some very wide streets, said Mr Livingstone. Radio speakers blared on the street corners for 24 hours a day, giving out political speeches or news of the Russian delegates to the United Nations. A short distance away from the fine buildings and wide streets could be found some of the worst slums in the world. Most of the buildings had not had any paint since before the revolution. Moscow had at present about twice its pre-war population because of the people who had been driven in from the surrounding districts during the war.

The theatres of earned Mr Livingstone’s praise. One theatre he had visited put on the best show in the world, he considered. The actors there were paid to maintain a certain standard irrespective of whether the theatre was full or empty. Theatre seats were cheap, but difficult to obtain. The shops were thronged with people. The people were not in the shops to buy anything, however. They just wandered round and looked at the goods, which they could not afford to buy.

Mr J. Wyn Irwin presided at the meeting, and the hostesses were Mesdames C. Shaw and H. A. Young. Songs were sung by Mrs E. T. Hill, and the accompanist was Mrs R. S. Storie.