My First Russian City

People and the City

The first thing that commanded my attention was the appearance of the people in the city of Leningrad. All the side walks and street cars on the main thoroughfares were crowded with them Some even walked in the streets as the side walks were too congested in places. They were all poorly dressed and most of them wore clothes of. the peasant type. Where were they all going and what did they do were the questions which came to my mind Had all the peasants moved to Leningrad l No, they were workers going to and from their labors or bent on shopping expeditions.

The hurry, rush, and unconcerned attitude of all gave the impression of a busy war-time city like we experienced in our industrial cities during the World War. Nowhere could I see anyone who would be called a well dressed person. There were no rich bankers or members of the leisure class riding around in automobiles. This was a city of workers.

But why should they be dressed so poorly if, all were working? I looked again for indicationsof starvation, but could find none. Some were lean, of course, but not with the sort of shrunkeness that lack of nourishing food indicates.

Through a later inquiry I learned that thousands of peasants had come into the city for factory work. Some of them had never seen a machine in their lives and were even frightened when they entered a factory filled with humming machinery. The government needed workers-all kinds of workers, so as to complete the Five Year Plan. The government's only immediate source of labor supply was from the farms for almost eighty per cent of Russia's population belongs to the peasant class. So from the farms came these peasants bringing with them their old customs. I wondered why such a class of people should be selected and trained for work in the factories when there were so many experienced idle men in other countries nearby. The government wanted to use what was in its own country first, so the tedious task of training and education had to be undertaken in order to fit these new workers into the new industrial life. The poor dress of most of the people in Leningradat least it was the most conspicuous fact-was due to this shift in population.

One of the busy squares of Leningrad
The new building is the October Hotel named in honor of the October Revolution of 1917.

As for the appearance of the city itself it made a rather bad impression on me. The streets in addition to being crowded were dirty. The buildings, especially those on the main streets, were battered and poorly cared for. Yet clean up work had been started, some buildings had already received their first coat of paint, and where major repairs were needed on the exterior, scaffolds had been erected. One reason for the condition of the buildings can be traced back to the days of the Revolution for some had suffered shell fire which was quite evident in places. In' the first most strenuous years of organizing the new government and in the hardships it endured during that time, no doubt these sorts of things were passed up as being insignificant. Even my hotel had received its first exterior cleaning about a week before my arrival. It must be remembered that in 1924 there were disastrous floods and in the same year a fire broke out destroying some of the luxurious palaces and public buildings. All this, without doubt, was a great hinderance to the new regime.

Little did I know that on the second morning in Leningrad I was to meet at my hotel a Russian engineer who was to offer me a position. Just after breakfast while standing outside the hotel entrance out stepped one of those six-footer Russians, as American in his attire as any of our business ' men. He nodded to me and said good-morning in Eng.lish. After being established as an American, questions began to pour out. When the Russian engineer learned I was once an electrician our friendly conversation finally wound up by him offering me a position as such. I was tempted for the moment and realized the opportunity thus afforded. And I had come expressly to study the social and economic conditions of his country. Still my time in Russia would not permit it. He was kind enough to say he would be in Moscow about the same time as I had planned on and, if in the interim I had changed my mind-to see him at the Metrople Hotel. This I did, but not for a position.

The Hermitage

In the Hermitage is an art gallery which was once the private gallery of Catherine II, but is now a public museum for the workers. To my surprise in every corridor and in almost every room were workers and students. Since when did the Bolsheviks become art minded? And what of those manufactured American articles which said they were destroying all the art traditions of their country in the interests of communism?

For the time I forgot what I had come for and gave my attention to these enthusiastic people. Most, no doubt, were seeing things they had never been permitted to before, to say nothing of even gettingwithin the halls of this building. Those who did not have a pass were charged twenty kopecks (ten cents) for admission. However, special groups of workers and students, escorted by instructors, are admitted free or at a lower price. Quite a contrast to our museums at home which are mostly free and yet generally empty. Here, even with the charge of twenty kopecks, they were crowded. I might also add that in all the art institutions and museums which I visited during my travels throughout the U. S. S. R., everyone was found to be crowded just as this was.

In the Peter Paul Fortress

At the present time in the Peter Paul Fortress is the mint of the Soviet Union. The large church within its walls still remains and in it the tombs of the old Czars and Czarinas.

When another better situated fort was constructed on the Baltic Sea, or more correctly the Gulf of Finland, to give old St. Petersburg a better protection, this one was turned into a prison for political prisoners.

The old lightless dungeons which it contains must have been a "hell hole" in those days. Many early agitators went blind or lost their health after a few weeks of this torture. Ivan Possoshkov, the author of Poverty and Wealth, was one of the politicalprisoners who met his death in such a place, but in the Alexeyevsky Ravelin, another torture prison of old St. Petersburg.

It is said that in order to keep limbered up in these "slow death cells" they would run around until they grew weary. Some prisoners committed suicide by bumping their heads against the wall of the cell.

To prevent any communication from one cell to another the walls were constructed so that no sound could be transmitted to the adjoining one if any tapping was done. There were other better located and ventilated compartments with a small window near the ceiling to let in light. The prisoners in these were considered not quite so detrimental to the Czar's society and were allowed an open air recess in the outdoor court one period a day.

What Happened at Smolniy Institute

The Smolniy Institute was formerly the Institute for the nobles' daughters. During the period after the October Revolution, 1917, until the capital of Russia was moved to Moscow, in March, 1918, Lenin selected two rooms in the same building for his living and political headquarters. They were furnished simply and it was here, with the aid of his wife, that his revolutionary work was carried on. Trotsky, his colleague, lived in another suite ofrooms at the other end of the building, about a block distance from Lenin. Many times during the day or night when it was necessary to converse with Trotsky, Lenin would, use a bicycle to go to and from his colleague's quarters.

At the present time the headquarters of the Communist organizations of Leningrad are housed here.In one part of the building is a large room called Congress Hall. This is where the Party has its seasonal meetings and conventions. Inside of this great hall on each side of the entrance, on the wall, is the Constitution of the 17. S. S. R. carved in marble. The First Section, which, is the declaration regarding the formation of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics, is as follows

"Since the time of the formation of the Soviet Republics, the States of the world have divided into two camps : the camp of Capitalism and the camp of Socialism.

"There-in the camp of Capitalism-are national enmity and inequality, colonial slavery and chauvinism, national oppression and pogroms, imperialist brutalities and wars.

"Here-in the camp of Socialism-are mutual confidence and peace, national freedom and equality, a dwelling together in peace and the brotherly collaboration of peoples.

"The attempts of the capitalist world over a number of decades to settle the question of nationality by the combination of free development of people with the system of exploitation of man by man have proved fruitless. On the contrary, the skein of national contradictions is becoming more and more tangled, threatening the very existence of Capitalism. The bourgeoisie has been incapable of organizing the collaboration of peoples.

"Only in the camp of the Soviets, only under the conditions of the dictatorship of the proletariat, mustering around itself the majority of the population, has it proved possible to destroy national oppression at the roots, to establish an atmosphere of mutual confidence and to lay the foundation of the brotherly collaboration of peoples.

"Only thanks to these circumstances have the Soviet Republics been able to beat off the attacks of the Imperialists of the whole world, internal and external ; only thanks to these circumstances have they been able successfully to liquidate the civil war, to secure their own existence and commence peaceful economic reconstruction.

"But the years of war' have not passed without leaving traces. Desolated fields, closed-down factories, destroyed productive forces and the exhaustion of economic resources, remaining as a heritagefrom the war, render insufficient the individual efforts of separate Republics in the field of economic reconstruction. The restoration of the national economy proved impossible under the condition of the separate existence of the Republics.

"On the other hand, the instability of the international situation and the danger of the new attacks render inevitable the creation of a united front of Soviet Republics in the face of Capitalist surroundings.

"Finally, the very construction of Soviet authority, international by its class nature, impels the laboring masses of the Soviet Republics to the path of amalgamation in one Socialist family. ,

"All these circumstances insistently demand the amalgamation of the Soviet Republics in one united State able to assure both its eternal security and internal economic prosperity, and the freedom off' the national development of the peoples.

"The will of the peoples of the Soviet Republics recently assembled at the Congress of their Soviets, and there unanimously accepting the decision to establish the Union of Socialist Republics, serves as a reliable guarantee that this union is a voluntary union of equal peoples; that to each Republic is secured the right of freely withdrawing from the union; that entry into the union is open to all Social-ist Soviet Republics, both now existing and which may arise in the future; that the new united State is a worthy crown of the foundations laid in October, 1917, of the peaceful dwelling together and the brotherly collaboration of peoples; that it serves as a trustworthy bulwark against world capitalism, and a new decisive step along the path of the union of the workers of all countries in a World Socialist Soviet Republic."

The most outstanding feature in the first section of the constitution and upon which the whole constitution is based is the specific fact that the exploitation of man by man must cease. In addition yo this a great many of its parts pertain strictly yo economics. When it speaks of equality it means economic equality and not that of birth and mentality. The Russians did not tack on a Bill of Rights to their constitution like we did, buy began with those rights. Their idea of a constitution is a new one yo the world-stressing economics, the abolition of human exploitation for the purpose of individual profits. This is quite different from our constitution which allows exploitation to be conducted by the "financial interests." Even those countries which have had successful revolutions in the past years did not attempt to eradicate exploitation as it exists under capitalism, buy, giving it a softer tone, continued it in writing a constitution patterned after ours. '

My readers may say, "What about the other section of the Russian constitution?" That is pertaining yo economics, also, and too long to be included in this writing. However, it is available in any good reference library and proves interesting reading for those who care yo tackle it.

The Leading Industry of Leningrad

Textile manufacturing is the leading industry of Russia's second largest city, Leningrad. A trip yo one of its large textile factories, which was formerly owned by an English capitalist, showed much remodeling and extension work going on. It now employs 7,500 people, fifty per cent being members of the Communist Party. Most of the machinery used in the plant is of English make, buy all the cotton was grown in the Soviet Union. In several of the different departments banners were placed indicating a group of workers in one of the departments had fulfilled their production quota, for the month or period outlined in the factory plan, before the alloyed time.

A great number of married women made up the personnel of this plant, Those who have infants leave them ay the nursery on the factory grounds. The babies are cared for by trained nurses while their mothers are ay work. The nursery was a large old house badly. in need of repair. It containedrooms for sleeping and play. One room where the youngsters who were old enough to brush their own teeth and make their toilet, had tooth brushes placed in a rack above each wash basin and labeled. Rooms for nursing, where the mothers came during certain hours of the day, were also included in this building. Each mother who had a nursing child was paid for the time consumed and did not have her work day extended because of this. On nearly every wall throughout the nursery were educational posters.

Not far from this place was a factory restaurant. The furnishings, which consisted of long wooden benches and tables, were like those of our war time canteen lunch rooms and the kind which exist in some American factories today. The workers could purchase their meals there for forty kopecks (twenty cents). The meal is the customary Russian type consisting of cabbage soup, black bread, a large dish of meat with vegetable% and tea. My first Russian city was sufficient at least to further pique my interest.

Chapter Three