WESTERN EYES LOOK AT RUSSIA

Chronicle (Levin), 7 May 1947, Page 8

WESTERN EYES LOOK AT RUSSIA

(Special" Corfespondent.) . j

f V ^ IGNORANCE OF C0ND1T10NS OOTSIDE SOYIET . UNION

Beceived Tuesday,. 7.0 p.m. . _ . / : LDNDON, May 6. A Bumber of British newspapef correspondents wiio attended : the canfeyenee ,of Fore^gn Mihisters,. are new busy recording their l life in Moseow. and those parts of :ihjssia they w.ere able to- visit. ! Baianced1 against.each otlrer, these impressions fo-rm an interesting pieture oi" eonditions in the Russian'capitai and of the ,opmions of ; observers from newspapers of different political views, watehing ; the conference and seeing somethihg of the Kussian- seene at first ; hand. . . • : " * - Witliout exception the . correspondents who have already sum- ^ maifsed their views, ;express the opinion that there is 110 cKseerii- ■ ible desirefor war among ordinary Russians with whopi they eame in contact. They likewise agreed, however, that there is a general ignorance of conditioiis outside Russia and that the views and opinions of the ordinary RussiaiB are la-rgely, if not entirel'y, dominated by the views of the Govermpent, press and radio.

Tlie correspondent of the Daily Telegraph speaks of the ' ' stupendous mass huiid up" of Lenin as the founder of the Soviet state ;and deseribed the • ' wideyed, spellbouhd listeners who attend lectures xn the Lenin museum where every possible artiele of pers.onal pnssessions, fiirniture or clothing connected with Lenin* is dispiayed. ' After pointing out that Lenin 's words "Religion is the opium of the people/'" are still dispiayed in, thi-s-niuseuin above the spot where the ikon svas toru frorn the wall, this correspondent says it is true there is reasonable;; freedo.ni' of religions worship in StaiSi's Russia but that this worship is under close surveillance. lt is,. moreover, freedom of worship only — religious instruetion and proselytising is forbidden. This means that though many of the oider genera-. tion of Russians renn.in devoted to the ehureh, the younger geheration eannot be taught to carry on the faith. It is also true that while there is freedom of worship there is als.o complete freedom to Sndulge in anti-religi-ous propaganda. * i;The correspondent said that he himseli saw a » man, descrihed as a police spy,. photographing people entering the Moseow ehureh and found that police spies regularly attended Roman Catholic services and reported upon thein. In the Roman Catholic ehureh of St. Loiiis, all sermo.ns, must be preaehed in English, Freneh and Russian and must be reaxl from! inanuscript in case there is an argu.nent about the text. The correspohdeht 6f t^ie- JNews Chronicle says t]|^t while $ all Aigns seemed to him to ih^ieate fhht thefRus siari people drcadea and d^etested tna thought of another war, there was no doiibt it- was not what the people wanted "but what. the rdglme;' wanted which would prevail. There was' also /" v.

ao douht that the means existed by which the regime could persuade the people to- reach almost any conclnsion offieially decid,ed npon. The ehief preoecupation of the Go.v ernment, however, hndoubtedly was the progress of the present ilve-year plan and its determination to make up the grcfund lost as the resnlt of war. While the 'present sense of emergency lasts in Russia, it was probably useless to ex peet'the Russian Government to care very niuch about what was happening in countri'es outside . the Boviet Union. Lhter when Stalin ,had been relieved, the regime might be more anxious to make friends in the west. The correspondent • comments upon the earnest convielion of the inajority o'f Russians that nnanimity is the most desirable state of niind. He was fre quently assured that the most wonder ful" thing about Russia was that there were no difEerences of opinion anywhere. Evidence Fdinted Otherwise. The Daily Herald correspondent, who visited Moseow last, 20 years ago, said that although he was frequently assured there were no soeial classes in Russia, there were eertainly a lot of people who were appallingly ill-housed, and, obvionsly under-nourished and equatly obviously were a few who were very well fed, well housed, well elaid and able to eat, drink and ainuse themselves in extremely expensive restaurants. He found the divergenee of incQmes astonishingly wide yarying be-t-weeir 275 roubles monthly for- a woman slreet worker to 40,000 roubles inOnth.lv . for . a lawyer or do.ctor with a good practice. The old ideas of levelling ineonies was regarded as anthema in Russia. A recent artiele in the official i paper Bolshevik deseribed "it as a "petty burgeois notion of soeialism."