There is a Premium on Ability in Russia

New Zealand Herald, Volume 78, Issue 24135, 29 November 1941, Page 15

There is a Premium on Ability in Russia

I THINK that next to the popula- 1 tion's vouth, what impressed me , most "in Russia was the class . structure, for Soviet Russians do not believe that all men are created free and equal. Quite to the contrary. The endpoint in the evolution of their State is a classless society, but mean while they not only practise but preach a high degree of discrimmation. . Whole classes are disfranchised while other groups get special privileges. Blood lines are involved, because it your parents were members ol an exploiting class you yourself may be under suspicion'all vour life, and you may even find it difficult to arrange for the education of your children. . At the top of this caste system is the famed Communist Party of Russia. I had read before I left America that there were only 5,000.000 or 6 000,000 Communists among a population oi 180,000,000. , A , , Before the war the party s ranks were purified every year. I urifled by expulsion. Not, purified of traitors so much as purified of the unfit of laggards,, of men not deemed- worthy, to The" Communists in Russia will tell you that the aristocrat of the State is the proletarian worker. I found much evidence that this is not true. . The Aristocrat The present aristocrat is the Sovietborn engineer. Contemporary Soviet society puts an enormous premium on j ability of any kind, but particularly in the engineering field —on _ ability to make any kind of a machine work. . The Soviet worker who can only run a pick or shovel may be called an aristocrat on the books, but he does not lead an aristocrat's lile. He may get paid only 200 roubles ( £ll 13s *kl)_ a month, which isn't quite enough tor him to live on. even if he's used to eating only cabbage and black bread. Other members of his family will have to help support the establishment. The Soviet engineer, on. the other hand, mav get up to 2000 roubles (£ll6 13s 4d) a month—with certain otlfer emoluments which come to him as the result of special honours. For instance, the Soviet Government awards decorations for civilian accomplishments, as well as for heroism in war. These medals are enormous, ■ and are worn on the breast. There is a reason for valuing them. They entitle the recipient to a 10 per cent reduction in rent lor lile, to an annual all-cxpense-paid trip to any part

if Russia lie cares to visit, and free transportation on trams and buses. Fhey also entitle.him to the deference ( ind respect of his fellow citizens, who ivill give way to him in a railway compartment, look admiringly at him as tie passes on the street. With his 2000 roubles he wi.ll rent a charming little suburban house, for week-ends and vacations. His wife will have her hair waved, and she will spend much time shopping in second-hand stores for foreign or prc-revolutionary-made goods which have found tlieir way on to the market. She will buy furs, and she wilt around with other women who have bought furs. Success Emphasised You see deference paid to ability everywhere you go in Russia. The last great super-colossal Soviet movie completed just before the war had success, with a capital S as its sole theme. It's about a peasant girl who gets a job in a textile mill, and works her way up to the title of Engineer of the Soviets. The Soviet engineer is at the top of the scale. The Soviet actor has > a special niche close by—and not far away are musicians, writers, artists, and-others'in the artistic or entertainment field. Soviet actors and actresses are real national idols. Audiences demonstrate for five and ten minutes between the acts and at the end of a .play. These artists, too, are decorated by the Government, and in the cast of characters in a Soviet theatre programme the I initials of the actor's decorations are .printed after their name —like a British general. Composers and Writers do not get as much public adulation, but they are apt to make more money. This is because the State pays generous royalties, and an author whose work sells well or a composer whose compositions are longlived may collect several thousand ! roubles (a rouble is worth 1/2) a month. The superior status of the proletarian —the workman who works in a factory —entitles him to special rents, and his rent varies according to his earning capacity. The worker on the farm is a. cut below him. The bureaucrat stands apart from all these and keeps score. Below the peasant one comes to the partially or wholly disfranchised classes. The Kulaks, the rich village farmers who resisted collectivisation, are the most famous of the disfranchised Russians. They have wholly disappeared. I do not know where. It is onlv fair to introduce a qualification here. If Soviet yard-sticks were applied to life in America, everyone in trade would be liable to lose his citizenship.

By RALPH INGERSOLL, editor of the New York newspaper P.M., who was recently in Russia ' . . - „ ii» \ J 4

it, woniu ob h iidi v< in" '"""" v "° technically, but if there were to be a Communist revolution in America, probably more people would lose their franchise as citizens than would gain it. But in Russia the Revolution had a verv different effect. The middle class was verv small, the aristocracy smaller. Thus, the Revolution started with an overwhelming majority ot peasants, who were almost slaves. . If the success of the Soviet Revolution is to be measured by these standards there's no comparison between the number of those who were given equality or opportunity and those from whom "it was taken away. Scores of millions of Russians were set free for hundreds of thousands whose opportunities were curtailed. ~ Tliis is the real secret of the strength of the Soviet State, the primary reason why it has been able to withstand the shock of war. But it doesn't make the perpetuation of class distinctions in the Socialist State any less curious to a foreigner. Special privilege is at its most dramatic when one travels with an N.K.V.D. bodyguard. The N.K.V.D. is the secret police. In Moscow the American Ambassador had 12 in attendance. What was spectacular about the privileges such a guard entailed was this. When an Ambassador and I went to the theatre and arrived a few minutes early, one of the N.K.V.D. men went ahead of us down the aisle, picked out two seats in the second row, and simply tapped the occupants on the shoulder. " They rose immediately and left. As soon as the Ambassador and I were seated, the three N.K.V.D. men —they had left one on guard outside—picked out seats for themselves, usually a seat or two away from us in the third row, and suggested that their occupants leave. British Officials This is not an isolated example. I ' wanted to see as much of the theatre] as I could, and when U.S. Ambassador Steinhart- accepted my invitation I ! got his N.K.V.D. guard along with him. Sometimes we would see the British ; Ambassador (Sir Stafford Cripps) or ' the head of the British Military Mis- ! sion (Lord Beaverbrook) in the theatre. " Each had his own escort. They got the same attention. \ The procedure also worked in resj taurants. Not Jong before the war the Soviet opened a Georgian restaurant in Moscow. When I was there it was the only restaurant (except those 3 in the Intourist Hotels) to which . foreigners went. It had a three-piece s string band, and sometimes a soprano sang. It was in a cellar, and was

always jam-packed with Soviet officers, and there were always others waiting upstairs for tables. When I was lucky enough to have the American Ambassador as my gnest —or to be his—an N.K.V.D. man went down the stairs ahead of us, picked out a table for two for us, banished the occupants,'then picked out a table for four lor himself' and his companions, and banished whoever was sitting at it. One of the interesting things about this process is that only once can J remember the N.K.V.D. men being, asked for their credentials. That was in the Caucasian Restaurant, and a youuer major, about to be ejected, pro-, tested until the N.K.V.D. man showed him his little red book. His little red book was his badge. The major did not protest after he saw it. But every other tii'ne the institution of being tapped on the shoulder by an unidentified young man and removed from the scene of your pleasure seemed to be taken for granted. The American Ambassador said that the onlv time he had seen it not work was just before I-got there, when he and his guards drove down the Smolensk Road. When they were pretty near to Vyazma, 140 miles south-west of Moscow" they were stopped and surrounded by armed villagers. The N.K.V.D. men flashed their little red books, but the villagers only pushed j aside. They said: "We have been told

that papers may be forged, and that we are only to pass people whom we know by sight. We do not know you." The American Ambassador and his four guards were detained for several hours until the N.K.V.D. district; leader could arrive to identify them. I like to remember this Btory when I think of Germans dropping parachute troops behind the Russian lines. Jf guarding Ambassadors is the saintly side of the secret police, what about the seamy? It used to he the O.G.P.TJ. It is now the N.K.V.D., which-is pronounced En Kar Veh Deh. The initials stand for People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs. Americans jin Moscow referred to it as the Y.M.C.A. But it is not a joke to Russians. There are many grim and wellauthenticated tales oi its harshness. To understand it, to make it consistent with the Government's enlightr ened policy on literacy and racial tolerance and social service, you have to understand that to a Russian it seems better for 10 innocent men to be punished than one guilty one escape. Bub no matter how well you understand it, if you are British or American, you will go right on hating it and being shocked and appalled by it. I was very curious about tlie 193» Army and civilian purge, in which many ol" the Soviet's leading generals and high officers were ruthlessly wiped out, but I thought it would be a delicate subject, and so avoided it in my first conversations with Soviet citizens. When the subject did come up. I was the only one who found himself embarrassed. ' I said I was sure we were misinformed, because wc had the impression that many innocent people had been punished. My new friends were sad. They said: "But, of course, many, many innocent people. Everyone agrees now "that it was carried too far. But bow else can you get rid of traitors?" The best-informed foreign military observer I know, a man who speaks idiomatic Russian, spent many months after the purge interviewing soldiers about it. Other foreign observers who had not his knowledge and intimacy with the Russian people disagreeed with him when he reported that the morals : of the army had been improved hy the purges, not damaged. The history of the last few months has shown he was right. It is not wise to jump to hasty conclusions about the significance of things,like X.S.V.D. and purges in other people's lives. Most Americans would disagree with a foreigner who saw America exclusively as a land ruled by Chicago gangsters and Ivnch mobs.