THE HARD-WORKING "FIRST LADY OF RUSSIA."

Dunstan Times, Issue 3148, 18 December 1922, Page 2

THE HARD-WORKING "FIRST LADY OF RUSSIA."

The wife of Lenin, Bolshevist ruler of Russia, is Conimisary for the Political Education of S«viet Russia. She selects the texts from which the Communist children learn 'reading, and directs the activities of the Communist speakers who. by continual propaganda-, strengthen the appeal of Bolshevism among the Russian masses. She its the author of the First Reader used by Russian children, and it Ms noteworthy that the first text in the volume runs: "We are no slaves." •hist now, when it is reported that Russia is raising a conscript army, audi threatens to throw its Aveight'on the side of the Turk in the Near East, Mme, Lenin's power, both past aiitA present, seems to a recent correspondent in Russia to be of particular importance. The writer. Georges JJopofr, introduced by an English editor as "A member of the old Russian aristocracy," has been commissioned by the International News Service to carry out a six months' inveMtigation of conditions in Bolshevist Russia, and, says the London editor, "he has been given, every facility by the Soviets for carrying out his task." Of Mme. Lenin he writes, as quoted by the London Daily News :

This is not an. interview. It is a, plain .matter-of-fact story of Soviet Russia's "First Lady"—-Mme Lenin. No one in Russia ever speaks of her by I hat name. She is not (he type of "the wife of a genius" of which history has so many examples- the kind that completely submerges her own personality and individuality in that of her famous husband.

Lenin's wife, a woman of about 0.'3 years, is known in the Communist party and in public life by her maiden name Nadeshda Konstantinowna Krunshaia. Like Lenin, she is a native of the Volga district. She married the present chieftain of Russia when she was a young student. She lived with him through all the years of the exile in Switzerland, and she belongs to the oldest members o( the Communist Party. Krupskaia—for that is the name by which she is commonlv called —is Commissary for Political' Education throughout all Soviet Russia. This institution is located in a huge tenement house .formerly occupied by an insurance company. All day one caii see. running up and down 'the dark and dingy stairs, all sorts of ill-clad men, young women, and "Red" soldiers of revolutionary appearance. Li this house all doors are at all tunes wide open. Pasted on each door is some sheet of paper with hastily jotted down letters, showing who hold' office in the respective rooms. On one of Ihcso doors, written almost illegibly with ink. o„e reads: "Presidium Glnwpohtproswet"— that is Krupskaia, s office.

First one enters the room of her secretary, a young peasant woman, who looks rather awkward in her modern dress. Ihe room is in a state of frmhtlul disorder. As in all the Russian couinus-arii.is. the furniture looks as it it had been indiscriminately dragged out of hundreds of different'homes. I he girl struggles with a giant heap ol papers and files, evidently unable to hud a certain document. Suddenly she throws the whole business on the'floor and. sitting on her "haunches." continues her search. The glassless bookcases m the room are piled high with disorderly looking files. The walls are plastered with all sorts of Bolshevik propaganda sheets, all of which illustrate the disadvantage of political ignorance.

As I was inspecting this curious room an ok! woman, clad in black, entered and spoke a few moments on the telephone. Tins' woman looked like "a little old mother." Her head trembled' continuously. When she bad dusappoar-i ed I learned that she was Lenin's wile.

A lew minute* later I was called in to her. Her workroom looked just as dingy as that of her secretary. ' Mine Lenin sat at a writing-table covered with papers. She was clad verv poorly very simply; yet one had the' impression that, thfti was not a garb she had personally donned for effect. Her hands showed all the tnuxti of constant, infinite work. Everything about her shewed that her life hail been a hie ol labor. Curiously, a I close quarters she looked much voungcr than from the distance. Partreularlv . when she spoke: her features brightened' up. and from her eyes shone a youthful lire.

She told me: "Jn all Russian villages -about half a million of them wo have o|H'ned Communistic reading cottages. These reading cottages arc constantly and lavishly supplied with literature; and newspai>ers, including non- 1 Communistic publications. The teachers of the village schools have the right to fetch their reading material from these reading cottages, since the vil-' I age schools are uixjcr the jurisdiction el the Commissariat for Political Education. "The Commissariat also has charge of all the agitation centres that have been established at the railway stations throughout Russia, and which have come to he known as 'Agitpunktv.' Jhe-e agitation centres at (lie railway stations distribute literatim" antoiig civilians and soldiers. Nothing is charged for it.

"There, too. Communis! '<r speakers give addresses. Prior to the introduction ol the new economic police food wa'i also dispensed \'rw at ' those 'Agitpunktv.' lint this has changed. Hie number of these centres has beer, greatly reduced. Those which still exist now serve exclusively the propaganda activity within the Rod Army." ' It can he seen from the above thai .Mine. Leii'n's activity is of great, significance since it covers three "main departments: - Political influence in the schools, cultural-political education of the peasantry, political 'propaganda v. itl.ui the Red Aimv. It need hardlv bo emphasised that the tendency ~f her activify upon these three fields'is purely ( omniunistic. .Mine. Lenin told me with much glee hen peasants come to her daily from the I'arthesl regions of Russia beggintj support and telling her enthusiastically oi the favorable development of the political education in the provinces. She lamented to me the lack of means uh'ch made it impossible lor her to carry out the ('omniunistic education of tin l Russian people in the degree that she wished she could do it.