LIFE IN THE UKRAINE

Evening Star, Issue 22452, 24 September 1936, Page 7

LIFE IN THE UKRAINE

WORK ON A FIFTEEN-YEAR PLAN YOUTHFUL DICTATOR On my first visit to the Ukraine for four years I found a steady recovery progressing in Russia’s “ south-west-ern borderland ” —the name means that, writes A. T. Cholerton, in the * Daily Telegraph.’ The future prosperity of “ Great Russia ” —Muscovite Russia proper—largely depends on how fairly Red Moscow will be able to treat this rich southern land, nearly as big and soon to be as populous as France. It is inhabited mainly by a dark, handsome, easy-going race of a rather purer Slav stock. Its splendid grain steppes (growing over 50 per cent, of Russia’s total crop), its iron and coal (75 per cent, and 50 pfer cent, of Russia’s output), its water power, and ice-free ports are all essential to Russian might. From the slow-moving train the old scars of the famine years, when the Bolsheviks were forcing the peasantry into the new collective farms, and the more recent progress of collectivised farming itself are about equally apparent. One can see the many abandoned dwellings (from 1929 to 1933 the number of rural households declined by about one-fifth), and the still grave shortage of cattle; but also the wealth of new barns, tractor stations, silos, and elevators. ON THE JOURNEY. This remark applies to the “ Great Black Earth Wheat Belt ” proper, so rich as to need no fertilisers ; but not to the lighter land of North-west Ukraine, where the lack of manure, due to cattle shortage, spells a shortage of breadstuffs. The peasants observed on main line stations of this latter area looked at least as wretched as in 1931, and little new _ building work was noticeable in their villages. With its hard realism, the Soviet has wisely tackled the economic reconstruction of the key wheat belt first. There are now only two passenger trains daily from Moscow to Kiev, a “rapid ” timed to do the 540 miles at an average of 30 m.p.h., and a “ mail ” at 20 m.p.h. After two days’ wait—the normal delay is six—l was granted a berth of the latter. Jibbing at an easy gradient, our locomotive had to back miles, and then lost 40 minutes “ piling on steam,” Even if the best engines are temporarily diverted to goods traffic, such a thing should not be allowed to happen in favourable weather on the only direct liny between Moscow and Kiev, the two administrative capitals, and also the two chief military centres of European Russia. I wished to sec what Stalin’s “ Great Bussian ” lieutenant in charge of the Ukraine Ifeoiiblic, young Raul I’etrovich I’nstishef, was doing to “ build up ” again the ancient and charming

city of Kiev, long neglected because “ too close ” to the “ dangerous ” Polish frontier. He moved his political capital there in 1934 from Kharkov, a safe 300 miles further eastwards in the interior. PRIDE IN THE' CITY. One of the advantages of having a resident dictator, or “ vice-dictator,” is the personal pride he takes in his city. Pcstishef’s coming to Kiev, preceded by a caravan of semi-nomad Soviet bureaucrats in scores of special trains, was heralded by a State trial with grim sentences on slackers and “ grafters ” in the local Socialist trading organisations —just to show that in future everything in the new capital has got to be “ P.P.P.,” as the rather slack Ukrainians put it. • This simple, cunning, clever man of 36 is. like most true Russians, an ardent lover of Nature. He seems to have fallen in love with mellow Kiev on her 12 leafy hills, above a grand 500yds wide reach of the full-watered Dnieper, her kinder climate, her semiEuropean character. From his close-guarded official residence in the high, once aristocratic quarter, Posfcishef works to extend the natural amenities of the place—“ open her to Nature ” in his own phrase. He works in close , collaboration with a wiser lot of town-planners than those who turn ramshackle “ Old Mother Moscow ” into a slick, arid, and pretentious pseudo-American town. Kiev will be allowed to keep her easy Ukrainian character, protected against the hard architectural megalomania of • the Muscovites. No vulgar sky-scraping Palace of Soviets „ tipped with a chromiumplated Lenin, like the one Moscow is threatened with, will crush and disfigure Kiev’s skyline. Its tallest building, the Commissariat for the Interior (former Ogpu), will have only 10 stories. For such an old 1 city Kiev has few ancient monuments; hut these are respected. There has been no mass demolition of churches as in Moscow. EXPECTED TO DOUBLE. Kiev’s present population of 600,000 is expected to double itself within 10 years. This alarming growth will be due to influx of new" official and cultural life and development of local trade in the new capital, and not to any artificial stimulation. The 15-year-reconstruction plan which has 'been drawn up for Kiev is the wisest thing of the kind I have seen in Red Russia. Economically, Kiev will be kept a predominantly trading centre. The local food and consumption-goods industries will be enlarged to take the strain olf rail and water transport. New plants will specialise in highergrade fabrics, including silks, and porcelain from fine local clays. But no new “ heavy ” industry will be permitted so near the frontier, and 50 evil-smelling works will be moved out from the congested lower town. 1 ho city will not, however, be extended beyond its present generous limits by now industrial suburbs with vast workers’ tenements grouped round now factories. Kiev’s town-planners strongly disapprove of this practice of

the Moscow Soviet. They promise to “ make up to the workers the extra half-hour they will lose going to and fro by giving them better air in a normal, residential neighbourhood, where they can spend their leisure right away from the factory atmosphere.” Road tunnels will be pierced under the hills for a faster service of buses and trolley buses to replace the trams, still in the same nightmare state as Moscow’s. I visited many new houses, witnessing to Kiev’s good taste, and I noted one new building actually being pulled down because its violent design upset Krestchatik, Kiev’s main shopping street and promenade, where people actually stroll and chat at ease, instead of shambling hurriedly past. Whereever possible on hill tops there will he terraces (one-sided streets) with views of the surrounding country. DECENTRALISATION PLANNED. The river’s brink will be cleared of shacks and an embankment built to check landslides from the steep, wooded hillfront down which escalators will take you straight to the water. Finally, the city will ho decentralised into 12 yards, each for 100,000 persons, each with its own central square or circus, with the district Soviet offices, libraries, dispensaries, cinemas, chain shops, etc. This is mostly “ futures,” of course. To-day, life in Kiev is poorer and (on paper) harder than in Moscow. Tire average “ living (floor) space ” per head—only CO square feet, or 10ft x Oft—is already nearly as low as Moscow’s, and is likely to fall still lower before the now housing schemes matin o. Wages are 10 per cent, lower than in Moscow, but chain food store prices have been standardised at the same high level, so that the Ukraine, while supplying the central Moscow authorities with foodstuffs at nominal prices, is not allowed to enjoy her own fertility, but' must pay the same high. “ taxed ” foot! prices as the poorer rest of R u&’a. H.-wei cr. on Kiev old market, called tnc “ Jew Base,” 1 found present puces slightly lower and quality of vegetables rather better than on similar Moscow markets. Also prices in blate clothing stores wore not quite so fantastic and the wares offered were bettor sewn and in much bettor taste. Two perfectly sound official reasons are given for haying moved the capital of Soviet Ukraine from Kharkov to Kiev; that the Bed Army is now more than strong enough to protect a city within 150 miles of the frontier, and that Kiev, cradle of Russian culture, makes a deeper appeal than mushroom Kharkov. But the urgent need to split up the Government of Ukraine was the real major reason. NAZI AND POLE. The political capital was moved to Kiev, but the administration remains in Kharkov, capital of the wheat belt of the Donotz coal basin, of tbo Krivoi-Bog iron field, and tbe metallurgical industries dependent tlicrcon, all controlled from Moscow through Kharkov. Stalin’s “Nationalities Policy ” I believe to bo absolutely sincere—one of

the hip; ultimate things about the Soviet Union. But, with wild Nazi schemes for “ colonising ” this rich borderland and alleged Polish ones to detach it from poorer Northern Russia, it is now too early—or perhaps too late —to tolerate even a Red “ Ukrainian Movement.” Ukraine is now being treated as fairly as possibly under present circumstances. Her peasants have been relieved from pressure. “ Ukrainian Culture ” in terms of literature and drama can be and is being safely fostered and will some day bear fruit. Young Ukrainians are encouraged to speak and write their national tongue, but they had better not think in it too narrowly just now. All Bolshevists with marked Ukrainianist leanings have been removed from the important local posts. For the moment “ Ukrainisatiou ” is dead.