WHAT I SAW IN RUSSIA.

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXIII, Issue 11539, 16 January 1932, Page 9

WHAT I SAW IN RUSSIA.

INTO THE UNKNOWN. Our party of twenty-two consisted of eleven American women, nine American men, a Glasgow engineer, and a German professor. We had almost.-the feeling of being explorers of unknown lands, for the great cot-ton-growing area which we were about to visit was until last year F virtually inaccessible to the ordinary traveller. Nine days of hot and intensely dusty journeying lay between us and Tashkent, the main objective of our tour. Tashkent is the centre of the most vital service which exists in Old Turkestan, for it is tho seat of the great Irrigation Institute,’ which teacHc-s the rising. generation of 'Russians the art of irrigation, without which no cotton could be raised on the dry steppes that stretch without a break into tho distance. The institute is well equipped with every sort of hydraulic engineering device, and the building is full of model irrigation plants. But the pride of Old Turkestan is Ibo "huge cotton farm at Pacbta Aral, which means in English “C'otlon Island.” The farm is two-thirds irrigated and covers 27,DU0 acres. jj Seven years ago it was barren steppe, but to-day it grows cotlon of quai- ! itv equal to the best American Sea f Island variety. At tho height of Lhe picking season 1,800 workers are employed, whose pay varies from £6 to £ls a mouth. They live in villages of onestorey bouses, and. draw-their supplies from the local Soviet co-opera-utive store. LIFE OF MONOTONY: 'Their ' working hours are seven or eight daily, according to the law which is general throughout Bolshevist Russia. Life is of unremitting monotony for them, and the only diversion of the .workers is the wireless, which is an. article.of. standard equipment throughout the whole ot Russia. Whether it can be classed, however, as an entertainment is

doubtful, for the broadcast programmes consist almost exclusively of pol-

itical propaganda. The inspiring genius of Russian cotton cultivation is Professor Zolotov, who conducts the experimental i-utton-gTowing station near !FerjLna. It is thanks . to liis efforts that Russia’s production of cotton has increased from 1,000,000 bales annually before the war to 2,000,000 bales to-day. Though shaking with malaria, as were also bis wife and family, through living in this mosquito-infested district, lie insisted on showing ns his methods of increasing the yield of cotton per acre'and improving the quality of the product by his ingenious irrigation devices.

Ho displayed to us Luge fields of cotton of first-class Egyptian quality, the plants so tall as to be bending over with the weight of what he calls the- “white gold”. Professor Zolotov has produced as much as d,ooolb. of marketable cotton per acre. Tt is the enthusiastic claim of all Russia that, he, possesses the secret of injecting the earth with new life. ... A GRUESOME HINT, if Characteristic of Soviet labor-con-trol methods is the largest cottonseed oil factory in• Europe• at LcrJpana; which produces' over 400 tons of. cottonseed oil every day. It came rather aS a'shock to'us to find at tlio entrance to the plant a small cemeteryv- Wihen we remarked on the incongruity • of’ the situation', our Soviet guides laughed. • It was, they explained,'a graveyard in'effigy only. Here are sham graves’inscribed with tlio names of lazy or drunken' factoiry workers.' 'The wooden 'headboards /i'Hearing their names are kept-at the heads of 'the graves until they; have improved' th<eir work' or to tlio required standard. ■■ For efficient' workers corresponding rewards areT provided. 'Tlio .best of them' are promoted to' wliafc us called a “shock - brigade,” ’ ; aiid are encomraged to compete*s with' otlioi workers’ ’brigades’ to*'win possession of tlio “shock brigado banner’-’'of-the factory by 'showing' the highest record of output. -The system of the .Soviet Union is -to reward its workers rather with praise than with cash/ Crude thoug i these devices of commendation or condemnation are, they seem to produce the required results,, and-1 them 'universally employed

SOVIET’S BIG COT TON EXPERIMENT, ’V■ ' ■ 27,000 AC RE FARM. TOMBSTONES .WARNING TO LAGGARDS .. \ _ ' In tluj principal station of Moscow on the first day of last mouth a large throng of shabbil y dressed Russians were starhm at a tram tho like of which they had never seen before, writes an American traveller ip the “ Daily Mail”. It consisted of three intern ational sleepiim-ears a dinimr. car, a refrigerator-car, and a ear . for the train Attendants In no European railway station outside Russia would the public have given it a second glance, but to the eyes of Moscow it represented unheard-of luxury. - - - This train, equipped with a picked crew of cooks, guides, waiters, a doctor and a barber, was setting out on the first conducted tour of Old Turkestan, the southernmost province of Russia, which, the Soviet Govern meat has yet permitted to be made.

throughout my 11,000-miles tour of Russia. If I were asked what is the main inducement offered to the Soviet worker, I should say that it was hope. By intensive propaganda the idea is kept alive that after only a year or two more of dull and monotonous labor, progressive improvement will set in. .Soup and black bread form the staple part of the workers’ diet. I do not think that anyone is actually starving, but I doubt whether the average Russian lias evetr, since the Bolshevist regime began, enjoyed a single appetising meal. PE ASANTS’ SQ UALOR. Some idea of the vast size of European Russia is conveyed by the fact that it is possible to make a seven days’ steamer journey through tho heart of it. The steamers start at Nijni-Novgorod and run down the Volga to Astrakhan It is'an overnight railway run from Moscow to Nijni-Novgorod. N'ij.ni-Novgoirod was in pre-war days famous as the scone of the annual fair to which goods from all parts of European and Asiatic Russia came. Soviet suppression of private trade has abolished this ancient institution and the city lias 'correspondingly declined in importance. Here, as in so many places, one finds a new Soviet settlement existing close to tho 'old town, which is being allowed to fall into decay.

The main feature of this new Nijni-Novgorod is the huge Ford motor car works, staffed by Russian workers under U.S. engineers. The bifildftng is entirely covered with glass, and was erected to Mr. Henry Ford’s plans by the Cleveland engineering firm of Austin and Co., at a cost of over £20.000,000. ROADS TO RUIN CARS. The sight of this vast modem works, stretching for hundreds of yards over ground where until eighteen months ago the young men of Ninji-Novgorod were trapping rabbits, makes at the first glance a striking impression. But a moment’s reflection gives one the right view of this imposing industrial achievement. Even a superficial acquaintance With Russia is enough to convince one that, however many motor cars the Soviet succeeds in producing, their utility' will be very small. The country is almost entirely without roads, and even the best of those which do exist arc so abominably bad that tlio strongest car would very soon be shaken to pieces over them. Everywhere the same contrast presents itself—between the lavish development of material equipment and the heartless neglect of human beings. The riverside qua3-s along the Volga at which the steamer that I took next day. stopped every two hours or so were packed with human beings in the last degree of squalor. They were dressed in rags," For shoes they had cotton cloths wrapped round their feet, with home-made sandals tied on to form a sole. Their luggage consisted of coarse sacks containing provisions for the journey in tlio form of water-melons, salt, fisli, and loaves of sour black bread. Many of them seemed to be carrying the whole of their miserable possessions, including bedsteads, wireless ,loud-. speaker . horns, ‘ and live , chickens.

’ The filth of the Russia ll , passengers in these Volga’ steamer is unspeakable, . and the smell in the steerage quarters of the boat, which I visited, was not to 'bq borne. .Contrary to general l bcliqf the difference between classes of the travelling public -is .quite as sharply marked , in Russia, us in any other country. FIRST-CLASS QUARTERS. \ We first-class passengers in the Volga, steamer vhad clean singleberth cabins and'a private diningsaloon, where good quality, food was 'served while the peasants and workers ,were herded together under conditions of iinbelievabjq discomfort. Even in the. first-class. quarters, lxowover,, tlio sanitary , arrangements were of‘tlio most revolting charactel’.- . -i > ' ";r- 1 .■Vfhcn -we. came to-a.railway bridge ’over, the,riv^r,• all -passengers .liad to leave the steamer’s *deck, the • object of ..the . regulation apparently being to prevent the possibility of any attempt, to damage the structure by throwing a- bomb. The .sajne rule, I .found later, applies, to., passengers -by

train, who are acquired to keep the | windows shut while crossing bridges. | CHURCH A’GARAGE. Stalingrad is a riverside town of some 70.000 people where I spent the night in an hotel that was alive with vermin. One of the most attractive buildings in the place looked like a beautiful golden-domed church. I entered it to find myself in a motor garage, where motor-lor-ries were parked in rows under the ikons and holy pictures that still hung on the walls. Here in Stalingrad is another great motor works nearing completion. It is to manufacture tractors, and contains 1,1.00 modern U.S. automatic -maichines under fonje roof. Soldiers with fixed bayonets patrol among the workers. I was told that they were thorn to see that nobody stole anything. Baku, the centre of the most fertile oilfield. in the world, is a very rapidly growing town. The reason is that it is one of the greatest sources of Russia’s exportable wealth. These oilfields, almost entirely developed by foreign capital, wore “nationalised’' during tho Revolution.

The refineries in which the crude oil is separated into petrol and various grades of lubricants are of the most up-to-date type. They are largely run by U.S. engineers, who arc very Well paid, partly in dollars and partly in roub’es. T hese foreign employees of-,the Soviet have special living quarters, much more? comfortable than those of any. Russian, and special food and clothing stores are maintained for their benefit. •

Yet. with one of two exceptions, I did not meet a single foreign specialist in Baku who was not counting the days, and oven hours, to the expiry of his contract. Tito dingy monotony of life in Russia. combined with the entire absence of social intercourse are almost unbearable for a man of Western culture.