LIFE IN RUSSIA

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21990, 22 December 1934, Page 13

LIFE IN RUSSIA

GERMAN'S IMPRESSIONS " DIRE POVERTY EVERYWHERE " "If Australian Communists could but see the appalling conditions that Communism in Rusisa has brought in its train, they would appreciate to the full the advantages of their own democracy and comparative freedom," said Mr. Ulrich Wolff, fourth officer of the new German ship Neptun, which was at Sydney recently. Mr. Wolff recently journeyed through Siberia and Russia, and was held for three days a prisoner by the Ogpu on the Polish frontier. "The standard of living throughout the Soviet is uniformly low, and the people seem to be existing on the borders of starvation," said Mr. Wolff. "Beggars surround the traveller at every statiou along the Trans-Siberian route, the majority being small children, dressed in rags and tatters, who appeal, not for money, which is valueless from their point of view, but for bread. All looked starved and wan, and fought with tooth and nail for the food flung them. "In Moscow the most common sight is long lines of suffering people waiting resignedly for their turn for rationed goods to be issued. Everyone is extremely poorly dressed and dirty and depressed.. There is no animation in life in Moscow nowadays." When Mr. Wolff reached the Polish frontier, he said, at Niegorieloye, he was taken from the train by the Russian police. At Manchouli, in Manchukuo, where he boarded the train, he was given a receipt, for all the money he was carrying. On the Polish border this receipt had to be returned and checked before any money could be taken out of the country. He placed his in his passport for safe keeping, and during one of the numerous passport examinations, it was removed. Mr. Wolff's money was then taken from him, and ho was taken to a Russian police station for interrogation, under armed guard. For three days he was closely guarded, and was not permitted to move without an escort of two soldiers. Water was scarce in the town, and even when he waded into a shallow stream to wash his feet the two soldiers, one on either side, stolidly marched in beside him. His money was confiscated, and he was ordered out of the country, after he had been closely interrogated by tho Ogpu.