LIFE IN RUSSIA

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVIII, Issue 4608, 11 October 1934, Page 3

LIFE IN RUSSIA

STARVATION AND TERRORISM. CONDITIONS UNDER SOVIET. A country whose people face the twin perils of starvation and military terrorism in everyday life, where propaganda is dinned incessantly into the ears of the six and 60-year-old alike, and where no man may speak his mind —that is the picture of Soviet Russia to-day, painted by officers of the Bank Line motor-ves-sel Alynbank, at present discharging Nauru Island phosphates at New Plymouth.

The Alynbank picked up a cargo of sugar at Odessa, on the Black Sea, in May of this year. The cargo was for discharge at Vladivostock, so that the ship's officers had an opportunity of seeing life at both ends of the Soviet Union.

"Conditions were far different from what we had been led to believe," said the chief officer, Mr. S. Morris. "Instead of a people working voluntarily for an ideal, we found coercion and terrorism. Except for soldiers the people are unkempt and filthy. .The whole of the ship's company heaved a sigh of relief when they were clear of Russia."

Intercourse with foreigners at Odessa and Vladivostock was forbidden, and the regulation was strictly enforced, Mr. Morris continued. Several had tried to do so, but they w'ere dealt with summarily, the inevitable sentry driving them away at the point of a bayonet or punching them in the face. Sanitary conditions were appalling, the people as a whole being nothing less than filthy. Starvation appeared to be rife; on several occasions the officers of the Alynbank were treated to the sight of people fishing scraps out of the harbour waters, drying them in the sun, and then eating them.

"I believe that Moscow and Leningrad are all they are stated to be," said Mr Moms, "but then they are the show places—the ones which are shown to visitors from foreign countries as evidence of the progress of Russia under the Bolshevik regime. Odessa and Vladivostock are not show places, and no official needs to worry his head about them. The result is the conditions which we witnessed."

Vladivostock was run entirely by the army. There were 70,000 troops in the city, and everywhere the visitor went there was a sentry. Churches were defaced and defiled, Stalin having replaced Christ. The army seemed fairly well armed and equipped, and at the time the Alynbank was at Vladivostock there were unmistakable signs of war preparations. Clothing and food for the army were pouring into the city.

Foreigners were under the strictest surveillance, being kept to certain routes in the city and being forced to show a pass before they were allowed to land. They were not allowed to use Russian money, all dealings being through a Government store on the "chit" system, by

which they were fleeced right and left. Russians themselves had been given some peculiar ideas regarding foreign countries. For instance, they believed that England was a country where all except the capitalists were ground down to a worse standard of living than even in Russia. The foreman, of the Russian loading gang at Odessa had been incredulous when he learnt that working men in England could keep a home and dress well, said Mr. Morris. The foreman's wages were a pound a month. Wherever the people turned they could not escape from Stalin and Bolshevism. Morning, noon and night, at their work and during their meals, they were forced to listen or read propaganda. The whole Government seemed to be an organisation to preach this gospel and drain the people of any thought which did not deal with it. No one dared say anything against it; if they were not whisked off to the salt mines in Siberia, they w'ould be refused food cards and would starve to death.

Russia's policy even went as far as organised interference with foreigners, said Mr. J. Woodman, wireless operator, who had made several previous visits to Russian ports in another ship. For instance, after eight o'clock in the evening when the Government station closed down a Morse interferer was put on to drown stations from other countries. The people were never allowed to learn from foreigners what was going on in other countries; all their conceptions came from the Russian Government themselves. In Odessa he had been entertaining some of the ship's officers with wireless music, when a sentry leapt up on deck and proceeded to seal the set. "The whole system of military surveillance is a farce," stated Mr. Woodman. "Most of the soldiers are illiterate and yet as part of their duties they have to examine the passes of seamen who want to go ashore. Once a sentry examined my pass—upside down. Again, one day I set out along the docks to visit another ship and got off the regular path. Suddenly I was confronted by a soldier with a rifle and bayonet. He prodded me with the weapon and backed me on to the path again."

On another occasion a Russian on a passing ship hailed the Alynbank. He was badly knocked about by a sentry and then was ordered out of sight, going as white as a sheet when he received the order. Ashore the environment was one of filth, vice and suspicion. Outwardly everyone tried to be a good Bolshevik, but underground many illegal things went on. For instance the chits issued to foreigners on the basis of six gold roubles to a pound could be exchanged in some dark alley for 180 paper roubles—making articles very cheap. All this was done with elaborate precautions and with evident fear of the consequences. An old woman might nod to a foreigner in a street, and he wtould follow at a good distance behind to some remote hovel where bargains would be displayed to him. The purchase made, the old woman would leave, to be followed a quarter of an hour or so later by the foreigner. Even beggars plied their business furtively, fearing more than a prison sentence.