coming backstage at the Follies and saying, “Here, Will, you and the
Girls take over the Steel Corporation and run it.” Now you have to have
some kind of training to handle something big or else you have to do
a lot of practicing on it after you get it, which is generally pretty
expensive. Most of these fellows were on little Communist Newspapers.
Now America has withstood some pretty rough handling at times, but I
sure would hate to see it fall under the management of a troop of our
Dissatisfied Newspaper men. Put it in the hands of an old hardheaded
Farmer or a small-town Merchant, but deliver it from Editors. They
would have more Theories how to run us than the Communists. So you
got to give these fellows a little bit of the benefit of the doubt.
They are practicing and are trying to do the best they can, but
unfortunately they are practicing on 130,000,000 people that have to
remain the horrible example till these Guys find out themselves just
what it’s all about.
’Course, it won’t be such a terrible disgrace--on them--if they don’t
make it, for there is Nations with men trained from childhood in
government that looks like they were getting practiced on. It’s just
tough on the people, that’s all. It’s no disgrace not to be able to
run a country nowadays, but it is a disgrace to keep on trying when
you know you can’t. ’Course, things look pretty bad there. You see,
this is ’26 and the war started in ’14. That means twelve years that
trains, street cars, Public Buildings, and in fact everything, has not
had a thing done to it since the day the Czar’s forces marched off to
fight Germany; no painting, no streets fixed up to amount to anything.
Most of the streets are, however, kept clean. You see a great deal of
poverty among the people along the streets, a great many ragged little
children begging. ’Course, you can see these things in lots of cities
besides Russian ones, but it’s worse in there.
I never saw a pair of silk stockings on a single lady on the street.
Everything is very expensive. Most all the manufactured things have to
be imported, as their factories, very few of them are operating. The
Factories are there, but the machinery is all rusted and spoiled in all
these years of no usage; and they have to get in new machinery; and it
costs a lot of money to re-equip all those. Food things shouldent be
so high, for they raise everything in the world up there; but it seems
to cost them a lot to handle it through the stores. They have these
coöperative stores; in fact everything is supposed to belong to the
government, but they are changing now and allowing private ownership
and cutting prices over each other.
You see, the Communism that they started out with, the idea that
everybody would get the same and have the same--Lord, that dident work
at all. That has all been changed--the idea that the fellow that was
managing the bank was to get no more than the man that swept it out.
That talked well to a crowd, but they got no more of that now than we
have. I don’t suppose there is two men in Russia getting exactly the
same salary. They get what they can get, and where they can get it.
When the government runs anything, as they do practically everything
over there, there is always about twice or three times as many working
in the place as would be found in private enterprises.
During these hard times they have had so much dishonesty among the
people working where they could get their hands on any money that it
takes about two to watch one, and then four others to watch those two.
There is also an awful lot of unemployment.
Taxes are very high. They have succeeded in stabilizing their
money--that is, inside the Soviet Union. The Ruble is worth 50 cents,
which is the par value of it. The Chervonetz, or sort of a little
pocket Chevrolet, is worth just about five dollars, and compares
with the English pound. Right after the Revolution, when they were
operating their money like a lot of these Countries over here do, on
just a Printing-Press basis, why, they had bootleg money-makers, just
like they do over home with--alleged--booze. If you needed any money,
you would go to your Currency Bootlegger and buy it. Each one claimed
to make Nothing but Prewar stuff. Now they got it stabilized, but it’s
up so high nobody can get any of it.
I asked an official of their Foreign Office how they maintained it at
standard, and he said: “We balance our budget. We estimate how much
will come in during the year and don’t spend any more than that. We
make our exports and imports balance, and that is one reason we cannot
bring in as many things as we would like to.”
But another very prominent man who had been in there off and on for
years, doing a big business in there, said: “They originally started
out with a bunch of Gold that they inherited from the original
Government, and what they had confiscated from various ones during and
after the Revolution, and they took that to England and borrowed its
equivalent in money on a loan against the gold. Well, they took this
money and come back home and issued more currency against what they had
brought from England, saying, ‘It’s all backed by our gold reserve.’
They would issue another batch against the last one, just pyramiding,
all backed up by this original that was in hock to England. But anyhow,
they have kept it steady, and you don’t have to read the papers every
day to see what you have.”
Of course, anyone going in will ask, “Is it working? Is everybody
happy?” Well, they are not. Over 90 per cent of the population in
Russia are farmers, and live out in the country and Villages. The
Revolution was to get the Peasant the land. They took all the land and
everything that the rich or even fairly prosperous had away from them,
and it’s owned by the Government. They give it to the Peasant, but it’s
only his as long as he lives on it and tends it. He can’t trade it off
or sell it. The real deed to the land is held by the Government.
’Course, that beat the old way of being under the thumb of the
Landlord. But now that the Peasant owns it, he has to pay the taxes on
it. Before, it was the Landlord had to pay them. So the difference in
what he pays the Government and what he paid the Landlord is so little
that he can’t hardly see where he comes in to be much better off.
But that is not the real and the serious trouble there. It is this: The
Government tells the farmer what he shall get for his products--based,
of course, on the market value at that time. Well, he is not kicking
so much on that as he is on this: When he sells his grain, he can’t
take the money and go buy what he needs. He can’t buy his plows and his
wagons and his harness and many other things that has to be made by a
factory. They cost him more than his grain brought him; and if he did
happen to have enough, then the things are not to be found to buy. They
have to import most of them and the cost to the farmer is tremendous.
So what does the old Farmer do? He won’t sell them the stuff.
The Russian Peasant may be Illiterate, but he is not what you would
call Dumb. He knows something about this Guy Marx’s theories himself.
He knows what’s the use raising anything if you can’t trade it or sell
it for what you want. So he is just raising for his own use. And living
on what he raises. If he does raise more, when they say, “You have so
much wheat here; you must sell that,” he illiterately replies, “No, I
eat that. My family very big bread eaters, eat lots of wheat. I have
none for sale.”
Sometimes he hides it; but, anyhow, he is not selling it, and that has
got the whole Communistic Party about cuckoo right at this minute.
Their problem is to satisfy him. They have to get him some stuff in
there cheaper than they can afford to, or make it, or pay more for his
grain than they can get for it in outside world markets. Somebody is
going to lose some money on the thing, and it ain’t going to be old
Mr. Peasant. He can set and live on just exactly what he raises. But
the old Boys in town has got to get enough nourishment from what the
farmer raises to make those brotherhood-of-man speeches on. The old
farmer just grinds his extra up into Vodka, lays in a lot of wood and
hibernates for the winter.
If you got that Vodka for a companion you got a mighty ally on your
side when it comes to forgetting your troubles. The old Peasant has
gone through many of these same winters. He knows it’s not going to
make much difference with him who is in. You see, there is only 600,000
Communists in the whole of Russia, and they are ruling over the other
130,000,000. So this 600,000 has got to figure out some way to sorter
half satisfy this small minority.
Look over home the Pheasants out in the West and Middle West are
either hollering for higher prices for their grain or cheaper prices
for flivver parts, phonograph records, Crystal sets, cheaper movie
admission and Government instruction in Black-bottom dance steps. So,
you see, Russia’s problem is about our problem, only Russians can get
along without all these necessities. They can live on what they raise,
and drink the surplus and enjoy it. But you have got to supply our
Pheasants with these essentials, for they can vote and the Russians
can’t--they can vote, but they can’t get them counted.
So, after all, the world is just about the same whether it be on the
banks of the Vulgar or the Potomac. So we are not in a position hardly
to blame the Communists for not finding a solution when we pay 600 men
$10,000 apiece a year and they can’t find out.
So, as I said before, I dident have to go to Russia to find humor in
Government.
VI
We will start in looking the towns over. This is the town they used to
call St. Petersburg. Then when the war come along with Germany and they
got afraid Germany would capture it, they changed its name to Petrograd
so it would fool the Germans and they wouldent know what town they were
capturing. Well, that worked fine. Germany couldent find it, and just
when the Czar and all his board of strategy was gloating over their
clever ruse, why, a fellow named Lenin found out where it was, and he
had never had a town named after him; in fact, they had always kept him
moving so fast that he couldent tell whether the town was named after
him or before him.
Well, he said, “If I take this town, will you name it after me?”
They replied in the affirmative. So he found it and took it, and now
it is named Leningrad. I found it; so if you hear of it being called
Rogerskofsxzy, why, that will be partly in my honor.
From what I could gather from the old-time residents there, it used
to be quite a place; kind of a cross between Hollywood, California,
St. Louis and Chicago. It had the drab night life of Hollywood, the
color, dash and brilliance of St. Louis and the pistol and rifle fire
of Chicago. It is situated at the mouth of the Neva River; and when I
say the mouth of the Neva I am wrong. I mean the mouths of the Neva.
It’s plural, and it’s also singular that it should have so many mouths,
but it has. It just can’t make up its mind how to get out of Russia and
empty in the Gulf of Finland. Nurmi is the capital of Finland.
The ground is very low under Leningrad; in fact, it’s the only town
in the world whose altitude is just exactly 0. There is towns that
are above sea level, and there is towns that are below sea level; but
Leningrad couldent make up her mind which she wanted to be, so she just
split the difference.
You have to move twice a day in Leningrad--at low tide you live
downstairs and at high tide you move back upstairs. It’s built on
poles driven into the mud and clams. Peter the Great settled it, but
that is not why he was called Peter the Great. He lost an election
bet--the other side spent too much money--and he either had to build a
town in some odd place or roll a wheelbarrow around the living room, so
he decided on the former. He got even with all the other Czars, for he
put a Joker in the 19th Amendment of their Constitution, so they would
have to live there. Like our old-time Presidents used to have to live
in Washington in the Summertime. Winter starts the first week in July
and ends the last week in June. Spring, Summer and Fall are not what
you would call long, but they are comfortable--all three days are very
pleasant. But with all its flatness, it’s much the most beautiful City
in Russia. The streets are all laid out straight and cross at right
angles. It has some wonderful buildings and marvelous Churches.
It was the Capital of the Country when the Bolshevikis got it, but
was so close to the Gulf that they got afraid somebody would come up
there with a big Battleship and drop a few shots among the assembled
Senators. You know, Communists like to throw things themselves at
various Governments and prominent people, but they don’t like the idea
of being on the receiving end of anything in the nature of a bomb.
The city is much more modern and European than Moscow. Moscow has more
of the Far East in its appearance, with all of its Mosque-like domes
to all the Churches. It’s really ancient, while Leningrad has been
made to order. The main street is the Nevskii Prospekt. The Soviets
have changed the name to the 25th of October. That’s the date of a
Revolution. They changed the old names on everything that was connected
with the Czar’s régime.
Now when these people took everything over and run everybody out
that had anything, they took most of the Palaces and big places that
belonged to the rich and made Museums and Schools and Clubs and Public
buildings. Of course, they have not been able to keep them up in very
good shape, but you can see what they must have been when the old Gang
were going good. ’Course the main one most everybody is interested in
is the Czar’s Palace, or the Winter Palace. It fronts out on a great
big square, composed of big old worn Cobblestones.
It was formerly called Palace Square, and is the one you have seen in
most pictures showing the Czar’s Armies and Revolutionary scenes; in
fact, just about everything of any importance that wanted to happen in
Russia for hundreds of years back had to wait for their turn to happen
on this square. And it was in it that the present Government captured
it from the Royal régime. It’s now called Uritzsky Square. He was a
Socialist that was killed here. They, as I say, always name things
after the last man killed there on their side. If you get killed on
the side that don’t win, you don’t get the place named after you; but
if you do win, why, you can die knowing you had a square named after
you, provided you are the last one killed. You must always be careful
about that--pick your time to get shot. Get these names: The Garden of
the Toilers another square is called; then there is the Square of the
Victims of the Revolution. One of their bridges is called the Bridge of
Equality.
This Palace was practically the constant home of the Czars. It is now
a Museum. Part of it is given over to what is called the Revolutionary
Museum--more about that later. The Palace has seven hundred rooms. If a
young Czar ever forgot the number of his room, he would be an old Czar
before he found it. The Apartments of Nicholas I, Alexander the II and
Nicholas II are shown as they were as historical memorials, including
all the big rooms of State.
Then you come to the Apartments of the late Czar and Family. It
almost looks as if they had left it that morning. All their personal
photographs of people we are familiar with in these times, with
personal writing on them, are there--a great many photos taken with
King Edward, and enlargements from what must have been snapshots of
various groups of the family. The whole thing looked like the rooms
in any wealthy man’s home with a family--that is, one that has
always been wealthy. Everything was modern and up-to-date. No big
Gold furniture; all things that you could use in a home today and not
attract any attention.
They had a Telephone connection, with a little switch thing on it that
they could connect with the Opera and hear everything.
They had even the Children’s colored Easter eggs, and dozens of
pictures of them on their Ponies and in sleighs. Pictures in all kinds
of little silver and some just ordinary cheap frames.
In the Czarina’s bedroom the ceiling and the Tapestries are covered
with some sort of blue floral design. Her devoutly religious nature
shows very plainly by the fact that the rooms are full of Icons and
many images of Saints. There were lots of little personal keepsakes
that had been given by friends. In the drawing-room is some Louie
the 14th furniture given them as a wedding present by King Edward.
The Czar’s rooms is just about what you would see in a Gentleman’s
Apartment today only a great many Japanese things--gifts received on a
visit of his to the Far Fast.
It looked like these folks, when they got away from the pomp and
parade of appearing in public, tried to live like human beings. It was
so simple and modest that I doubt if any Oil millionaire or a Moving
Picture Star would have lived in it without having it redone.
There is one thing that this Soviet outfit has certainly done, and
that is go in strong for Museums. I think there is some 700 museums in
the various Cities and towns. They are trying to develop Art, and they
have some of the most wonderful art treasures in the world. You see,
they not only have the State but all the private collections of all the
rich nobility that have had it handed down in families for dozens of
generations.
Now I don’t know just how far that Art thing is going to get them. I am
not so strong on art myself as a commodity. I think most countries have
kinder overestimated the importance of our Artists and underestimated
the importance of people that did something to help provide Corn Bread
and Bacon and cheapen the things we had to have. Athens, Greece, was
mangy with Art. Now they ain’t eating regular. Rome had nothing to
recommend it but art and broken columns till Mussolini come along and
made ’em all throw their paintbrushes in the Tiber and go to work at
something productive.
So, after looking over Russia, I believe there is a hundred things I
could think of to improve them with besides Art. Russians need meat
right now worse than they do naked Statues. The thing about all these
Museums is, when you have gone through one of them you have gone
through all of them. You take the Hermitage in Leningrad--which, by the
way, is one of the most famous museums in the World; it’s right next to
the Czar’s Palace and had an entrance from the Palace. You take it and
the Louvre and the Metropolitan in New York, and the big ones in Rome
and London--they give the ordinary man just about all the art he can
digest in one lifetime.
Russia don’t need to develop so many men who can paint or sculpture a
beautiful, well-rounded human body. What they need is somebody that can
provide the wherewith to fill out that well-rounded body. Los Angeles
got the right idea. Instead of having seven hundred Museums, they got
seven thousand filling stations. If you got a big family, art is all
right for one son to indulge in; but you want to have the other 12 to
bring home some revenue and feed him and humor him. It should only
be indulged in by every 13th member of a family, and then only after
unanimous consent and sacrifice of the other 12.
Now we go into the Red Museum, which is part of the Palace. Oh,
Baby, talk about a Chamber of Horrors! Huber’s Museum and Madam
Tussaud’s waxworks would be children’s nurseries in comparison to this
blood-and-thunder outfit. It was founded in 1921 and everything in it
is connected with revolutions; not only Russian Revolutions but anybody
else that happened to have had a good bloody Revolution and had any
old Guns or Bombs or skulls or anything that would make particular
decorative atmosphere.
On account of its short life, they make apologies for the small amount
of material. But I couldent see any need too. It looked to me like they
had done pretty well, and the only way they could get any more horrors
in there would be to get some more people killed. So I think in the
Revolutionary Museum line they can well report Progress. They can just
load up the old Bombs they got there now and blow up half of Europe.
As you enter, there will be a wax-size figure of an old boy with a Bomb
drawn back just ready to shy it at a Czar out on a Balcony. Then there
are big loud-colored paintings all over the walls that look like Movie
Lithographs, showing Cossacks charging Women and Children and cutting
them down. There are dozens of photographs and oil paintings of any Red
that ever got his man; court-room trials; every Pistol or saber that
ever dropped a Czar or a Capitalist in his tracks. One sees all the
episodes of the Dekabrists’ trial. They were the ones to originate
the idea of not letting the Czars sleep too well. It contains all the
scenery and props in connection with the murder of Alexander II. Rows
of special show cases contain bombs to fit any hand.
Rooms were made up to represent cells where revolutionists have been
confined; room after room of somebody either being killed or somebody
getting ready to kill somebody else. One room is devoted to Lenin,
called Lenin’s Corner, where all kinds of material in his private and
political life is exhibited.
Now we went through there on a Sunday morning, and we couldent hardly
wedge our way through. The man with us was an Englishman, but spoke
good Russian, and he described to us what was going on. It was Teachers
taking young children through and stopping and lecturing to them: “Here
is Kzolxsvlozxusz. He had the best record of any of the late bomb
heavers. It’s through him you are enjoying this wonderful liberty that
you are having today.”
Of all the Museums, this Revolutionary one was the one that they were
centering the attention of the smaller ones on. You did not see nearly
as many looking at the beautiful paintings by the old masters as you
did looking at the old guns that had their notches in the handles.
It seems the whole idea of Communism, or whatever they want to call
it, is based on propaganda and blood. Their whole life and thought is
to convince somebody else. It looks to me like if a thing is so good
and is working so fine for you, you would kind of want to keep it to
yourself. I would be afraid to let anybody in on it, and that generally
seems to be about the usual brand of human nature everywhere. But the
Communist has so many good things he just wants you to join in and help
him use some of them.
They start at the cradle with them in Russia. They have a great many
schools in Russia, which seem intended not so much to eliminate
illiteracy as they are to teach propaganda. Political propaganda starts
with their A B C’s. Their statistics prove that they are now operating
many more schools than in prewar days. There is no such thing as a
private school allowed in Russia. They have agricultural schools for
the peasant children in some places. They have craft schools which
give professional education in different branches to over one hundred
thousand people annually. There are 24 universities. The number of High
School students is given as 160,000.
[Illustration: They start at the cradle with them in Russia.]
They are trying to foster art and culture, but all of it is of the
Revolutionary type. If it is a painting, the main character has one
foot on a capitalist’s neck and is punching another capitalist in
the jaw. But the main thing that dominates this whole thing is to
spread propaganda. Talk about some of our states guarding what their
school-books contain--these children never get a chance to read
anything only about how terrible everything is but Communism.
You can’t go to a bookstore and buy any book you want. Every book that
is sold in Russia has to be O. K.’d by the Soviet party. You can’t buy
outside newspapers, and every paper printed in Russia is under the
supervision of the government. So you have got to learn their angle
or you don’t learn anything--there is nothing else for you to form an
opinion about.
They have quite a few community playgrounds and there is bunches of
them out there practicing all kinds of games. But they don’t allow
competition between different teams in Athaletic events. They don’t
have big intersectional games between different clubs or schools; they
claim that is against true communism; that if you defeat your fellow
man it might make him think he was not as good as you, and they don’t
want to leave that impression. If that was the way we looked at it over
home, imagine how poor Harvard would feel. They would be so low down
socially that they would be practically vacant.
VII