SOVIET RUSSIA

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 94, 22 April 1933, Page 17

SOVIET RUSSIA

NEW POINT OF VIEW

Too many people, of all walks of life, have been to Russia, have- seen what they have been allowed to sea on a short trip, and have, written a book as soon as they have got back. Tho result hag boon that it is very difficult to formulato an adequate conception of how matters really arc in that much written about and discussed country. Sir James Purvcs-Stewart, however, strikes a somewhat new note in what he writes about Russia in,"A Physician's .Tour of Soviet Russia" (George Allen and Unwin,: Ltd.). He went there during last summer with no preconceived notions, and lias come back to write impartially of what he saw. Tho pictures ho gives of lifo in Leningrad, Moscow, and elsewhere aro provocativo both of s^jculation and of depression. They leave one with a queer mental medley of agricultural tractors and weed-ridden crops, of electric light and impossible sanitation, of science and sordidncs" Tho social'activities and tho institutions which aro specifically and solely concerned with hygienic problems seem to bo efficient to a degree rarely attained in Western countries. Sir James tells us of his visit to "a beautiful prophylactorium," of which twenty-six specimens of similar type exist in Leningrad alone. Each of these prophylactoria corresponds with a local population of about 80,000 workers. These institutions aim at the prevention rather than the alleviation of disease.' "Every worker, healthy or sick, is examined four or fivo times a year, and, if signs of disease are found, the patients aro sent on to a hospital for treatment." One of these hospitals is enthusiastically and admiringly described. There is an amazing description, too, of a model prison in which it would seem a joy to be- confined. For all these amenities Sir James Piirves-Stowart gives Russia full credit. Tho ordinary industrial and domestic lifo of tho people, however, strikes him —a singularly .unprejudiced Western observer —with melancholy and mild horror. He is sceptical as to the organic incorporation of science with Russian industry. Tho roots of Communism seem to bo still veiy near the surface. In their personal lives his* conclusion is that "Russian citizens arc now reduced fo a condition of utter serfdom, dominated by a ruthless and fanatical despotism labelled as democracy." Ho sums lip by pointing out that Russia is neither the Heaven of which Communists' shout so noisily, nor is it the Hell painted by the capitalist Press. Rather is it • a purgatory of gloomy, drab uniformity, in which freo speech is strictly repressed,1 and where thcro is a conspicuous absence of adequate stimulus or reward for thrifty or ambitious'citizens. Time alone, he says, will tell the upshot of the ex-' neriinent."