CLASSLESS SOCIETY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXI, 21 June 1937, Page 9

CLASSLESS SOCIETY

DISAPPOINTED IN RUSSIA

Deep disappointment at what he found in Russia is recorded by M. Andre Gide, the eminent Frenchman, in his book, ‘Back from the U S.S.R.” He admits he went to Russia to praise, but found it “like an ant-hill of scurrying, depersonalised, happy, self-satis-fied, ignorant ants hidden from Europe by long tufts of rank grass.” During the summer months, he writes, almost everyone is dressed in white. Everyone is like everyone else. In no other place is the result of social levelling so obvious as in the streets of Moscow classless society of which every member seems to have the same needs as every other. I exaggerate a little, but not much. There is an evtraordinary uniformity in people’s dress; no doubt it would be equally apparent in their minds, if one could see them 1 visited several dwellings in this highly prosperous kolkhose 1 wish I could convey the’queer and depressing impression produced by each one of these “homes.” the impression of complete depersonalisation. In each, the same ugly furniture, the same portrait of Stalin, and absolutely nothing else, not the smallest object, not the smallest personal souvenir. Every time you talk to one Russian you feel as if you were talking to them all 1 doubt whether in any other country in the world, even Hitler's Germany thought be less free, more bowed down, more fearful (terrorised), more vassalised,