RUSSIA TO-DAY.

Taranaki Daily News, 13 June 1925, Page 7

RUSSIA TO-DAY.

LIFE UNDER TERROR. PATRICIANS OF THE PROLETARIAT TRAINING THE NEW CITIZENS. (By R. S. Scholefield?) (Copyright.) NO. V. Under Bolshevism, the “Worker” takes the place vacated by the Tsar. Not the Worker in the broader sense of those who live by the fruit of their own labours, but in the strictly narrow and defined sense of one who’s toil is directed towards preparing the world for th« “Dictatorship of the Proletariat.” If you are a foreign business-man or journalist, or a Russian subject trading or writing independently, you do not form part of this elite, and are classed as a “ tool of the bourgeoisie,” “a wage-slave of the capitalist,” “an exploiter,” or one of the hundred terms which are always on the mouths of the Bolshevists; and your work possesses no value or dignity, but is the. task of an obedient serf of Capital. Under Bolshevism, also, Russia possesses a most efficient and well-organ-ised secret police, to whom everyone’s activities are known, and who are quick to suppress any signs of nascent independence; and they have a tradition of centuries of tyranny to work upon. No doubt these facts form the background, but, in any case, everyone in Moscow seems to emulate the “Worker” in his dress, and to take the tone rather from the dirtiest than from the cleanest of that class. The unshaven chin is the rule rather than the exception among the general public and in government offices, and the blouse and peaked cap are seen everywhere. This cult often leads to the most ludicrous hypocrisy among those who are Communists for interested motives. I knew one member of a government sub-department, who on one day would be clad as a “bourgeois” and complete with large cigar; while another day—when he was going to attend a meeting of the Party —he would be seen with soiled blouse and chin-stubble! I do not know how he managed the question of his facial adornment, when he had, on two successive days, to impress a bourgeois and a Communist audience, but no doubt this is one of those minor problems which are all in the day’s work. WOMEN . POORLY DRESSED. It is rarely that one sees a smartlyclad woman in Moscow nowadays. Firstly, the cost of 'such luxury articles as female finery is prohibitive; and, secondly, a well-dressed woman would be too noticeable for perfect safety. The class which formerly prided itself on its chic is now the one for which it is most difficult to obtain the better-paid p’ftsts; and should a merchant of standing in the old days be doing well in private trading now, he certainly does not wish attention drawn to his prosperity by his wife’s elegance. Seeing how a woman will sacrifice almost anything to keep up her appearance, it is pathetic in the extreme to see women, once so smart, clad in old blouses, skirts and shoes—fished out, probably, from some cupboard where they had been discarded in the days of affluence. The upper classes of Russia in pre-war days may have had their faults, but this form of requital, pressing as it does upon so many of the old and of the innocent, seems somehow wrong. (Communist supporters among the female sex pride themselves upon being “freed from the thralls of bourgeois fashions designed by the capitalist to keep the workers in serfdom” . . and all that &ort of thing. Man, who—in the dictionary sense, of course—•embraces” Woman, is conventional in Revolution, as in everything else, and so the “Bonnet Rouge” of 1792 has its modern counterpart in the red kerchief worn in lieu of headdress by these ladies. It is almost “uniform” for female government employees. The wearing of a man’s tweed cap also denotes the woman Communist. With her hair cut to man’s length, and the peak of such a cap pulled out, a young and pretty girl can look quite chic, but Belcher alone could picture the effect it produces when worn by a “mother of eight.” CHILD WELFARE. In summer, crowds of little children are to be seen wearing nothing but a pait of bathing drawers; but the custom, granted the summer climate of Russia, is not unhygienic, and the kiddies look happy and healthy. Regard for child welfare is one of the few of the ideals of the Revolution which seems to have survived, and which one can freely praise. On the banks of the Moscow River there is an enormous building, built by one of the favourites of Catherine IL, and covering several acres. A large portion of this edifice, and several “datchas” or wooden chalets in the country, are devoted to the care of Moscow's foundlings. The most modern methods are used, and tfie children, many of whom are diseased when they arrive, look splendid. What is very much less praiseworthy is the manner in which Bolshevism is attempting to bring up the children of Russia in the schools. Communist theory distinctly lays down the break-up of the “old-fashioned” family life as one of its tenets, and this point was stressed by that arch-priest of doctrine. Tovaristcli (Comrade) Boukharin, at the Communist International Congress this year. The idea is presumably that the child, relieved of all outside ties, will devote his whole soul to the furtherance of that epoch-making ideal, the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, of the beneficial results of which Russia furnishes so illustrious an example. Children are taught to despise their parents’ authority, and to take their moral lessons from Communism. In view of the fact that scores of school children are cocaine •fiends, and hundreds of girls under 15 are on the streets in Moscow alone, the lessons would appear to be of a somewhat original character. WAR ON RELIGION., The campaign against religion is another phase of Communism’s fight for the soul of the child. Scarcely a day does one go into the streets of Moscow without passing bands of the veriest babes, their childish trebles raised in anti-religious songs with the vilest possible words. The soul of the child seems to receive an attention equal to that bestowed upon its body, but to what different ends! In summer in the Moscow River you can now see thousands of both sexes, at all ages, bathing entirely naked. One cannot associate morality with clothing, of course, for reports from savage countries would

seem to indicate that the less the clothing, the higher the morals; while in the Crimea and in other parts of Southern Russia, covering for the body was never thought of when bathing, and morals were no lower than elsewhere in the country. But in these eases use had sanctified the custom, Which was spontaneous; whereas in Moscow its allowance is a

new departure (the pun was not intended!) and is portion of the campaign against ordinary (or “bourgeois”) morality, which the new regime has brought in. Before the war- it was forbidden by the police. Now the activities of thfe body are restricted to defining the section’s of the river to be used by each sex, and occasionally to moving on the

bodies of onlookers. Rather an incort* eistent procedure! The sight is aesthetic enough in the case of youth, perhaps, but it is certainly a bit startling, to the visitor, to emerge suddenly upon the river, and be greeted by the naked forms of members of both sexes, at what one might describe as the “Karlsbad” stage of life.