"ALL ONE CLASS LIKE IN RUSSIA"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 290, 12 January 1945, Page 8

"ALL ONE CLASS LIKE IN RUSSIA"

To Leningrad Through The Kiel Canal

(Written for "The Listener" by

JAMES

HARRIS

>) VERY now and then something happens to thrust the mind back from the simple scene of New Zealand to-day, to that continent of fear and suspicion, the Europe which feared that Hitler might make war. This particular batch of memories of those days was aroused by a remark heard the other day in the saloon on the Nelson boat. Inevitably such memories are hard to organise into a respectably connected narrative, but chaotic’as they are, they may help a little towards a clearer picture of present events. On the Nelson boat we were living very much in the present, when suddenly amidst the crowd a voice was heard loudly proclaiming that "the boats ought all to be one class, like in Russia!" The mind was concentrated on tea, but its curious file-index system was getting to work all the same, routing out facts about Russian ships and other things. Gradually there came memories of a student party aboard the twin-turbine ship Sibir. She was bound from London to Leningrad, with a cargo of machinetools, tourists, and diplomats, all passing through the be-swastika’d Kiel Canal under the potent protection of the Hammer and Sickle. It was curious to be on Soviet territory in the midst of Nazi territory, and to have a Russian seaman pointing at one’s camera, and saying "Shoot that Fascist!" every time any theatrical looking Brownshirt came within rifleshot on the bank. The emblems of Worker and Peasant did not pass unnoticed through that tidy grass-and-stonework territory either. Occasionally some individual on the bank would look towards our boat’ and pointedly draw his fingers across his throat. Occasionally, too, a man working on the bank alone, and well concealed from all other Germans, would look towards the Soviet ship and raise his right fist to his shoulder in the Communist salute. Submarines in Five Days! It was the summer of 1935, and soon after emerging from the last lock into Kiel Bay and the Baltic, we were surprised enough when we sighted three medium-sized German U-boats sharing that narrow stretch of sea with us. Immediately we all wanted to ask highly political questions and, as we chanced to have a former First Lord of the Admiralty on board, an enterprising member of the party went to seek his expert information. "Excuse me, Mr. Alexander," our man said, "but I believe you were First Lord of the Admiralty in the Labour Government?" "I was, for my sins," said Mr. Alexander. & "Well, then, could you tell us anything about those submarines?" Mr. Alexander indicated that he wouldn’t know anything about that. "It’s only about five days, isn’t it, since the new. treaty permitted Germany to start submarines?" "Yes," said the past and future First Lord of the Silent Service. It had been only a couple of days before we sailed from the Pool of London that the Appeasement Policy towards the Axis had been handsomely inaugurated by the signing of the bilateral Anglo-German Naval Agreement. From the Russian deck in Kiel Bay, Mr, Alexander and the rest of us had a clear view of what agreements with Nazi Germany were

worth, that is, unless they could really plan, build, and commission U-boats within the space of five days! The Baltic is Not So Small On the usual sort of atlas, the Baltic looks a small sea, so it was surprising to us to spend two days without any sight of land except for the low green island of Gottland, a part of Sweden, lying to westwards for most of a morning, while ship after ship passed us, southward bound with great deck cargoes of timber. Later that day there was dead calm, and the prow of the Leningrad-built Sibir seemed to cut into an endless sheet of green glass. Astern, the wake was regular and dead straight, and all around there was nothing but the completely smooth green surface; and no sign of land until a launch crossed ahead of us, taking passengers from Esthonia to Finland. Later, Kronstadt with its strange warships was to loom up ahead, unannounced by previous coast, and then a fleet of sails, the Leningrad Yacht Club, and finally the endless timber-covered wharves of what was then about ‘the busiest port in the world. Other memories of that voyage are of individuals on board. There were the tourists, of course, going for a brief trip to get a preview of heaven, or with the grim purpose of knowing the worst about hell, according to their ideologies*. Amongst them were some with definite purposes. In particular there was a Russian-American returning to his native land expressly to tell the Soviets how to run a cafeteria. That seemed funny at the time, and we used to argue instead of listening to his instruction. The Soviets had more sense, and about a year later Moscow City was claiming *Ideology: the body of prejudice a man has about him when he approaches any practical problem.

to have a fine cafeteria with more choices of this and that than anywhere else in the world. Nevertheless, a cafeteria monomaniac makes a_ difficult shipmate. If only we had listened on the occasion when he cornered us and talked on his only topic, we might now be big-shots on Queen Street or Lambton Quay. But by heedless youth, the man who was giving away priceless information for nothing was just regarded as the ship’s bore. A Russian View of London The crew, which belonged to a different world from ours, we found in those days more interesting than the crazy folk of our own world, and our party rather monopolised the scarce spare time of those of them who spoke English and could interpret for us. We asked one young sailor about his impressions of London. His reply was only four words of Russian, which was a disappointment until it was translated. When we got it into English, though, it proved to be what was once known as a "mouthful." In English it was still four words: "Nice people. Filthy city." When we had seen the clean red roofs of Moscow, we appreciated his remark more, and the smoke of London was not so easily accepted as a normal part of nature. The first impressions of Leningrad, apart from masses of timber, were of masses of people, and of fine buildings which. were in sore need of painting. Our first evening we spent walking about the streets and over the bridges, looking at the buildings and at about a million other people who were also strolling in the endless twilight. We listened to the singing of Red Army detachments marching back to barracks, and wondered when it would get dark. By and by a small boy who heard us talking

came up and said very precisely: "1 speak two words of English." We said in Russian that we didn’t speak Russian, and after that the conversation bogged down, much to everyone’s regret. Just about then we discovered it was 3.0 a.m. There were still plenty of people about, and it still wasn’t dark. We remembered about the White Nights of St. Petersburg, and when we got back to the hotel at 4.0 a.m. people were still dancing. Up there near the Arctic Circle it never really does get dark in summer, and sleeping seems to be considered a waste of time. Leningrad Was on the Alert ' In Leningrad we collected ideas of serious matters, also. When we inquired why they didn’t bother to paint their buildings, we were given to understand that air-raids by Germans, operating most probably from Finland, would soon be making them need a lot more repairs than a mere coat of paint. When we saw the decontamination outfits in blocks of flats, and saw a practice alarm in progress, with the millions disappearing from the broad streets within about two minutes of the siren sounding, we understood that this fear of a German attack through Finland was something they took seriously. The later Russian attack on Finland didn’t come as a surprise. When tough and self-confident people like the three million citizens of Leningrad fear something, it is not long before they are taking steps to get it eliminated. What New Zealand calls the pioneer spirit was much in evidence in Russia. Some Russian Characters Of all the Russian memories though, it is of the ship and her people that the pictures remain most vivid. There was the formidable Captain, who could do everything better than anyone else; could even-beat the cook at ship’s billiards, a curious game that was usually in progress all over the decks. I was to see him show his confidence in his ship by putting her about in her own length in the narrow waters of the Maas on nothing but the opposed twin screws, with not even a piece of string put out to the banks. There was the kindly doctor, and the pleasant Mongolian-looking steward, bringing glasses of clear tea, and after supper bringing round a bottle and small glasses, and saying "Wodka, wodka, wodka?" On the ship on the return voyage, too, was the only occasion on which a Soviet citizen or anyone else has found need to congratulate me on the successful practice of "occult art"! On that voyage back towards London there were 77 seamen and officers, and nine passengers only, for we carried two extra crews, to be transhipped in Holland to vessels which had just been bought from the Dutch. Among this large complement there was a young Navigation Student who spoke English. He came from Central Asia, where his parents, he said, kept bees and were bothered by tigers. It would seem that the rest of the Confucius story about tigers also applied. "The Government was not bad there." For somehow, in that drastically inland home, my new friend had conceived the unlikely ambition of becoming a ship’s officer; when I met him, the ambition was almost achieved, Not So Classless For the benefit, at least, of the character on the Nelson boat, the classes on the Russian ship need remembering, (continued on next page)

* (continued from previous page) too. Our party had travelled tourist, sleeping and eating in the region of the forward hold. The crew’s quarters were astern, and the forecastle uninhabited. There were other passengers who travelled first. They berthed amidships, where there was more chromium plating, and acquired a taste for black caviare for breakfast, whereas we acquired a taste for the red variety. The other difference between the classes was that the firsts were more or less confined to their midships area, whereas we proletarian thirds had the run of the whole ship! "All one class, like in Russia’ is not such a simple statement as it might appear. At my table, as we returned through the Baltic, there was an oldish Frenchman and two pleasing young ladies, who unfortunately could speak French also. The Frenchman, with the best intentions in the world, talked endlessly about love, and what fine times young people could have, and so made progress among us British quite impossible. He was almost as tiring as the cafeteria technician of the voyage out. Also on board were two or three Americans, and our French table-mate struck up a great friendship with one of these. "Tovarish Amerikanski!’ he would begin, and then not get much further, for the only words they knew in common in all the languages of Babel, were about 10 of Russian and a dozen of German, and some of those overlapped! This tongue-tied friendship would have been more touching if the man had not been such an inconvenience. "Occult Art" Second day out, I discovered that a college acquaintance was under the doctor’s care in the sick-bay. Talking to the doctor by means of the Navigation Student’s interpreting, I-told him that if he cured his present patient, we would give him a Frenchman in exchange for him to look after, The doctor liked having a patient, because he had little to do except cure sore throats when the ship lay in the Pool of London, and help decide questions of victualling on the crew’s Nutrition Committee, of which he was an ex Officio member. A day later, as we were approaching Kiel again, the exchange actually took place. My Cambridge friend was up, and the Frenchman was in the sick-bay! His own. explanation was that he thought he’d seen a pretty nurse, but the navigation student had other ideas. When he heard the news, he smiled at me darkly, and murmured "You are very powerful." As we rounded the Hook of Holland to enter the Maas, my young Soviet friend took me up to the bridge to see our course on the charts, and down to his cabin to see his English-made navigating instruments. In the cabin there was further evidence of Russian preparedness in 1935, a personal gas mask hanging over each bunk. In the Maas, he went over the side to join a ship going to Vladivostock. He gave no address, and I would probably not have kept in touch with him if he had. Knowing there are millions like him, though, I do hear from him in a vague sort of way, battling across from Stalingrad to the Baltic and the Danube. But back in those days of 1935, it seemed too much to hope for that in the coming war our countries would be allied.