RUSSIA’S MRS NOBODIES

Evening Star, Issue 20054, 20 December 1928, Page 5

RUSSIA’S MRS NOBODIES

NO FEMININE LEADERS LADIES OF THE REVOLUTION DISAPPEAR FROM STAGE. Where arc the Red Women of Moscow." Where arc the notorious Ladies of llio Revolution, “Cruel Katya,” ‘‘Merciless Maria,” and “Straightshooting Sonia?” V hero are all the women who helped to establish the “ Dictatorship of the Proletariat ” by their audacity and thirst for blood? asks Dr Edouard Luhoff, the loading authority on Soviet Russia. These women in the early days of tho revolution “executed boorjooys ” with their own hands; they shot down helpless men and women, sometimes at “tho bidding of tho Soviets,” and sometimes for tho satisfaction of their own brutal appetites. Rut when the supply of victims gave out, these fled women vanished as suddenly as they had come, and to-day there arc few who know what has become of them.

Some fell by tiny way; they lived by the sword, and died by it. Others became the chiefs of the numerous bands of highway women that infested Moscow and its environs. They captained such gangs as tho “Grey Grows,” tho “Red Roses,” and the “Skirtless Shrews.”

Many are languishing behind prison bars for daring to start little revolutions of their own. LENIN’S “COOKS.”

And so Lenin’s “cooks,” all of whom were to become Soviet “Governors and Rulers,” are no more. Whether they have returned to their kitchens 1 do not know.

But the revolution that brought forth so many notorious Red Women has failed to produce one outstanding woman in the political sphere. After ten years of Bolshevik rule there is not one female Chief Commissar (Minister of State), or even one Under-Secretary. In spite of_a system of “ full equality,” there is not a woman in the “ Politbureau ” (Moscow’s Inner Cabinet), and no women at all on any of the real Soviet executives !

Women have not only iailed to become rulers in the national sense, but they are not even to be found in responsible positions in Moscow’s local government. The official ‘ I’ravada ’ bewails the fact and pleads for “less mistrust of women by men,” while urging the women on their part to cure themselves of their “indecision,” lack of confidence, and entire absence of initiative.”

Meanwhile, of the 25.000 I’cd Women of Moscow, all fully fledged members of the Communist Party, not one is considered fit to bo entrusted with a “governing” post. There arc, it is true, a small number of Soviet women M.P.’s, but tho group is composed entirely of mediocre personalities and semi-literate peasant women. They arc “elected” to give tho Assembly an atmosphere of “sex equality.” As regards personalities, only a low, are worthy of mention. Lenin’s widow —Madame Krupskaya—she lias retained her maiden name, is an official in the Commissariat of Education. I have collected all her speeches on education and all tho reports of her activities, and .vet I fail to sec in any of them cither originality or constructive thought. Site is in her own way a competent minor official and nothing more. JOBS BY INFLUENCE. Madame Kolontay, tho Soviet’s first and only woman ambassador, owes her appointment much more to patronage than to ability, f have no desire to repeat rumours concerning this Bolshevik lady, but 1 do know that when the Bolsheviks wanted to conclude a treaty with Norway they took the precaution of sending Madame Kolontay away from that country to Mexico. And when she created unnecessary difficulties there they kept her in Mexico until tho treaty was an accomplished fact. Then there is Madame Kalipin, the wife of tho President of the Russian Federated Soviet Republic. She is a simple peasant woman, and owing to her husband’s position lias been entrusted with the management of the department dealing with Russia’s vagrant children—the orphans of the revolution. It would bo both ungenerous and unfair to suggest that her management is responsible for the terrible plight of these youngsters, since the evil is undoubtedly inherent in the Soviet system itself. Nevertheless Madame Kalinin lias achieved little success in her department, and it would seem that she finds the problem impossible of solution. Madame KamenefF, tho wife of tho Bolshevik who brought a pocketful of diamonds to London in tho hope of buying up a certain newspaper for Soviet propaganda, is another incompetent in charge'of maternity homes, those overworked Soviet institutions that cater for the unwanted child and the deserted mother.

Mine Trotsky, now banished with her husband to the wilderness of Turkestan, was formerly tho chief of the National Museums. Mme Ziuovieff is not known to have done any work for the State, though she is in the fullest sense a Red woman. She has .always worked with her husband in a secretarial capacity, often preparing and correcting the famous orations that sometimes took two and even three days to deliver. This exhausts the number of Soviet ladies who owe their prominence to their husband’s position, since Stalin and ‘Bukharin are officially bachelors. And so we come to the second line of Red women, the managers of State factories, State creches, State shops, and State restaurants. There is Mine. Koluyeff, the ablest of them all, entrusted with the management of the State Textile Trust, in

which position she controls a number of textile mills.

TTio other lactory director is Mme. Kudnaxtscva, a typical Communist—the genuine product of the revolution. With her close-cropped hair and masculine features, she looks what sho is, a woman who joln-sd tho mob in the early days of the revolution and roso from the ranks by political patronage. Unco sho ■was an illiterate and unskilled worker. To-day sho is a figure of some importance, attracting attention not only through her managerial position, but because of her fame as the best woman shot in Moscow. DIVORCED FOR, POLITICS. Moscow can also boast of four women magistrates, two women public prosecutors, and about half a dozen lady barristers. None of them is brilliant or outstanding. Next comes a fairly largo number of women employed by the trade unions as “ instructors,” the Soviet designation for organisers. It is interesting to note that nearly all those women are divorcees with no family tics whatever. They divorced their husbands because, in their own words, they woie “anti-Soviet ineiined.” Apparently to such women marriage is entirely subordinated to politics, and a husband soon becomes an unnecessary encumbrance. Little is heard of Soviet women doctors, though some are said to be doing good work in the research laboratories. There arc no women engineers or architects or chemists. NO WOMAN GENERAL. Finally, much emphasis is laid on the women’s battalions, both iu the regular and the territorial armies. These young women apparently make lino and enthusiastic soldiers, they are good shots, clever telegraphists, adepts with poison gas, and they show np well on parade. But even here, strange to say, the women have to ho led and commanded by men, for up to Dm present tho military schools have rot produced one outstanding woman ea]»* able of taking command in tho field, 'There is obviously a dearth of reaj “Rod women” in Moscow, hut whether this dearth is due to the aftermath of the revolution or whether the male revolutionaries prefer the theory of sex equably to the practice of it, it is difficult to say.

On the other hand, it is possible that, in spite of so many opportunities for throwing off “the, yoke of tho kitchen,” the Bussian woman, being at heart entirely feminine and conservative, is not at nil anxious to bcconio “a governor and a ruler.”