THROUGH SOVIET RUSSIA

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20598, 24 June 1930, Page 6

THROUGH SOVIET RUSSIA

BX. MAX MDHRAYm

LIFE IN RED MOSCOW.

STORIES OF INTRIGUE* REMARKABLE CINEMA FILM. FARM TRACTOR AS THE STAR*

(Copyright.) No. 11. To-day's article is tlie eocond of a, scries written by Mr. Max Murray, an Australian journalist, wbo has lately visited Russia. Tho writer describes tho conditions of Libour in/Moscow and shows how the people look to farm tractors to restore their fallen fortunes. People -who work in Moscow offices do so in shifts, because there is not enough ofiico room. The ono coming to work on (he later shift takes the desk of ono who lias been on tho earlier shift. Those who aro asleep aro awakened by those coming home from work. Because they work four days ono day off, and bocause they tako tho day that best suits their convenience, there is never any change in tho appearance of tho streets, such as there is in the appearance of another city on Sundays. Week days and Sundays aro banished altogether. They know tho dato and not tho day of tho week. Here I have been told stories of spying and intrigue. I neither believed them nor disbelieved them. They aro stories of children employed to spy on their parents and servants on employers and friends upon friends. It may be that they are a legacy from the old regime. I was taken to a trial. Four men were accused of conspiring against the Stato. Most of the audience was made up of soldiers. The judge smoked cigarettes and took the attitude of Crown Prosecutor. The men were represented by men appointed by tho State. The accused must tako the first counsel on the list, in the same manner that we tako tho first cab from a cab rank. Since I have been in Moscow I have not been interfered with in any way. Once while I was sitting in one of the squares a man cauio and began to talk to me. Ho told me that he was an American, and that he was teaching English in a school. I was surprised to hear him say so. Then lie asked me what I was doing, and if I had seen this, or that, or the other, and added that if he had time lie would show me. The man then asked me about my passport, and finally he said ho must go back and teach some more English. The same afternoon I saw him sitting at a desk in one of the passport offices. When he told me that he was a teacher I did not believe him. If ho had told me that he was a police spy I. would have done so. Methods, as I am told, are of no importance. The end will justify the means. Here in this Communist country there are fewer Communists per head of the population than in France or in Germany, or. very likely in England. In Russia they number 1,500,000, 1 per cent, of the population. But they'have no rivals in Russia, and the great army which is raised to protect Russia against her enemies abroad is at their beck and call. Overcrowding and Hunger. A few minutes ago I walked through the Red Square, by the walls of the Kremlin. Armies of cheap-jacks were selling wretched clothing and beads and knife-sharpeners and whistles on the pavements. There was barely room to movo. Two vivid impressions have formed themselves in my mind. Ono of them is of overcrowding, and the other is of hunger. I did not come here to praise the Soviet Government, nor to blame it, and I have, no wish to do either. The party says that tho end will justify the means. Heaven help Russia and the party if it fails to. Iu 50 or 100 years the truth may be told about these present days in Moscow. Outside the party, I havo met nobody who pretends to know the truth. The Party gospel is of infallibility, and the people cheer when the Party tells them to, and look hungrily to the vast vague future. The Party is perfect, and the Plan is perfect, nnd as 1 see it, the most perfect of all the:-c is the p'ropaganda. There aro no half-measures about it. Everything that comes within its scope is either bad, or perfect. Propaganda occupies so big a place in the life of Moscow that, instead of criticising the state of affairs it deals with, the people criticise the propaganda itself. It is more real than the things it aids or condemns. Propaganda Against Religion. At Easter 1 went to a film called "Earth." It was propaganda against religion, in favour of collectivised farming, against the rich peasants, and in favour of tho use of farm tractors—all that in one short film, and the star was the tractor. A rich peasant was shown rushing out to kill his favourite horse when he heard that collectivisation was coming, which proved what a villain ho was to try to 9 kill his horse because it was to be taken away from him. Then the young Communists of tho village decided, at a protracted meeting, that they would have a tractor. They all walked off to the town to get it. Serious men with beards at the Party headquarters of the town and the village were shown ringing on tho telephone every few minutes to know what progress the tractor was making toward the village. With its arrival a new ci'a was ushered in.> It ,was as if (ho nation wero saved. That was good propaganda. Tho people who saw the film with me did not know anything about farming; but they wero hungry, and no doubt they wero wondering whet, there would bo more bread to eat. The film did not leave them iu doubt. It departed from its story and showed the tractor ploughing at a tremendous rate, and immediately afterwards leaping, and the wheat pouring into tho silos, and flour being made, and then bread—all in the twinkling of an eye. Villainies of the Rich.

Then, having shown how simple it would all be, the picture went back to tho villainies of the rich peasant. His son shot tho tractor driver whilo tho driver was dancing for joy in the'street. The Communists then held another meeting and decided that at the funeral there would be 110 priests, but that they would bury the young man in the new wav, singing songs of tho revolution. During the funeral the son of the rich peasant ivent mad, and was seen running about the fields, standing on his head. Nothing ;was overlooked. This film was propaganda, and I have mentioned. it because there was a great deal of propaganda against it. The critics said that the rich peasants wero not shown to bo nearly bad enough, and the film was calculated to malio tho weak sorry for thcin. The people in tho audience were, so far as I could observe, moved neither one way nor tho other by the plight of tho rich peasants. There is nothing novel in seeing a man losing his homo. Most of them have experienced the loss them selves. - .Arid they are so accustomed to propaganda that it no longer moved them as it should. I have been astonished to sco tho use (hat has been made of a farm tractor for propaganda purposes. It is tho new God, arid a thing that is sot up on posters literally for worship. [ counted on one bookstall 12 different illustrated periodicals, and on tho covers of nine of them there wero pictures of farm tractors. Somo wero hauling ploughs, sorno were surrounded by admiring throngs, and on ono a little Communist was sitting on tho bonnet. (To bo continued.) fc;/,.