RUSSIA AND FRATERNITY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 356, 18 April 1946, Page 12

RUSSIA AND FRATERNITY

ere TLY J. B. Priestley gave a series of three talks from the BBC under the general title of "The Secret Dream," with the sub-headings of "Britain and Liberty,’ America and Equality," and "Russia and Fraternity.". We print here Priestley’s third talk on Russia, which was rebroadcast by the NBS. It approaches the subject from a rather unusual angle and covers sotne new ground.

LEASE don’t imagine that I’ve in "Russia and Fra- ~ ternity" to round off neatly this association of the three great powers with the three terms of the old revolutionary cry. In point of fact, I thought of Russia and Fraternity first. The notion came to me as the direct resylt of a personal experience, and if I hadn’t had that experience, I wouldn’t have given these talks. Last September when I went to Russia I was feeling like millions of other folk-tired, stale, depressed. When I came away from Russia I found myself much heartened and refreshed in Spirit, so much so that other people noticed the difference. And this wasn’t simply because I’d had a much-needed change and a holiday, and had received some flattering attentions, for I think I'm old enough and sufficiently selfcritical to make allowances for all these. No, what heartened and refreshed me was something I soon discovered — and discovered for myself (not expecting it) -behind the outward drabness and occasional discomforts and inconveniences of Russian life. And it wasn’t something that could be artificially created-specially laid on for a visitor -for no government could put that warmth into people’s voices, that light in their eyes. Glimpse of a Dream I went as a friend, and all these people treated me as one. They were

being their natural selves. This atmosphere was theirs, and ever since we said goodbye to a group of poets and playwrights, seeing us off as our train for Finland waited in the Leningrad station on a bitter black midnight, I have sadly missed that atmosphere, and have felt that my own world is socially too cold and calculating. I had, you see, caught a glimpse of the dream of fraternity. I noticed, too, in Moscow that many foreigners whose duties compelled them to be there (people who saw the worst of the Soviet system and so were sharply hostile to it) came under the spell of this atmosphere. Often while announcing their dislike of the system, they admitted that the place and the people fascinated them. And many of them declared that while they would be heartily glad to be done with any official relations with the Soviet authorities, they would be sorry to leave Moscow. They attributed this charm to the Russian character itself. To them, everything that was good there was Russian, everything bad was Bolshevik. / Literary Legacy It's a convenient distinction which many people have found very, handy. As a judgment, however, its weakness is that it overlooks the inconvenient fact that Bolshevism itself is very Russian, that the Russian Revolution was made by Russians. Indeed, it overlooks many facts that simply can’t be ignored. Take, for example, the attitude of the Soviet

authorities towards pre-Revolution literature. Now you can easily discover the Russian dream of fraternity in the finest and most characteristic Russian literature, through which there rings the cry that men are brothers, that we are all members of one family. It’s there in the romantic, passionate Pushkin and Lermontov. It gives an edge of despair to the satire of Gogol. It blazes like a beacon on the mountain-summit of Tolstoy; it glimmers in the twilight of Turganev. It cries in agony in Dostoievski, it gives depth to the pathos and tender humour of Chekhov, and is still triumphant among the wastrels and grotesques of Gorki’s underworld. } Did the Bolsheviks silence, as they easily could have done, these noble and prophetic voices? On the contrary, with the utmost haste, they taught their people to read, and then gave them the works of these masters by the million. The figures are stupendous. Over 31,000,000 copies of Pushkin, 24,000,000° copies of Tolstoy, and so on. In other words, instead of silencing this Russian cry for brotherhood, the Revolutionaries amplified it until it rang from the Arctic to the deserts of Southern Asia, and they did this because they believed that they were creating a society that fulfilled at last this desire for fraternity. Matriarchal Society | In this society; the Communist Party accepts the role of the Great Mother, played by the Church in the Middle

Ages. Both societies have, in fact, the same matriarchal character, like a family ruled by a vast all-powerful mother who is quick to reward or console, and equally quick to punish any body who threatens the unity of the family. The Russians themselves are anything but a cold and vindictive people, and are indeed, more easy-going in many matters than we and the Americans are. But something deeply emotional and feminine in the spifit of Russian Communism makes it often counter opposition with great severity. This vast Soviet family is still comparatively poor and hasn’t enough clothes and carpets and _ bathtubs, but this fact -- about which so much fuss is made-doesn’t seem to me very important. Clothes and carpets and bath-tubs can soon be manufactured if the family is working with a will. What is much more difficult, as some countries will soon discover, is to pull your family together to defeat frustration, and give its members a common purpose. Indifferent Propagandists A Russian factory may not be as efficient as an American one, but it’s a more human organisation and contains less unhappiness. And here the Russians, instead of being the im- mensely cunning propagandists they are reputed to be in capitalist circles, have, to my mind, shown themselves to be very indifferent propagandists. They’ve talked too much about tractors and not enough ~about states of mind. They’ve often exaggerated small material gains, and almost ignored gigantic psychological victories. After all, the final test is not how many things we own, but what kind of people are we. The dream of fraternity, with which the story of the Russian Revolution begins, hasn’t been lost inside Russia — or so it seemed to me, when I found myself refreshed by this atmosphere of simplicity, warmth, and affection. Nevertheless, like Britain and America, Russia has its dilemma as well as its dream. The Russian dilemma arises from the fact that the Revolution wasn’t welcomed by the world and didn’t spread as was originally anticipated, but instead was continuously and bitterly attacked and so had to mask and armour itself and turn the country into a national fortress. This check met a free-flowing and expansive spirit of fraternity; barriers, all the more rigid because they were so artificial, were erected to keep brotherhood in one place. The very people who cried out that we were all members of

one struggling, suffering, human family had to be careful to whom they talked. The men who instinctively wanted to share everything with you, now wondered if they could share anything. Generous givers had to learn to be tough, hard bargainers. The most friendly and expansive people on earth, longing to have a roaring good party and talk all night, had to pretend to the world to be supremely watchful, cautious, reserved, silent. The whole rich, warm stream of fraternal feeling had to be dammed up, covered over, thickly camouflaged and kept a secret. Fortress Russia The Russian, -who is both a born host and a born guest,-who is equally delighted to act or to be in the audience, who loves to show you what he’s

done and to see what you’ve done, had to cut himself off from the world which now denounced him in the very name of the fraternity he was trying desperately in his own new society to preserve. And it’s this dilemma that haunts the representative Russian abroad and may make him seem reserved and ill-at-ease. Bring him clear of that shadow because you're a friend and the warmth of his welcome will be astounding. He need no longer keep his name a secret. Now, it seems to me that we outside Russia must accept some responsibility here, for we refused the helping hand in the critical early years of the Revolution and we believed-and often acted upon-most of the Bolshevism poured into our minds before the war. And we can do most to end the situation. But we can’t end it by snarling "It’s about time we were tough with those people" — because those people think we've been tough with them all along, except when we were in danger ourselves. It is toughness and suspicion that have done the mischief. Open friendliness and an affectionate interest are what are needed now. To these Russia will respond-must respond-because then the appeal is to that spirit of fraternity to which Russia is still dedicated,

as Britain is dedicated the idea of liberty and America to equality. And the best response that Russia could make, and I believe it’s the one she would make, would be to appeal in return to our particular dream of liberty, widening the narrow Soviet entrances, pulling down the high walls and declaring the fortress of Russia an open city; for her people long to see the world, and to let the world see them. We Need Each Other Much then could be taught; much be learned. So far we’ve had only half of it taught. We’ve merely destroyed the negation of all our respective dreams of liberty, equality and fraternity, have crashed through the dead end of fascism. There’s daylight ahead but as yet no clear road. Each people, cherishing its own dream, has precious seed ready to be planted in the soil of the other two. Each people, facing its own peculiar dilemma, needs some assistance, if only by way of example, from the other two. Each people, in fact, stands sharply in need now of borrowing ideas and aspira-tions-spiritual munitions-from its two Allies. For we need a broad highway for a world civilisation and not three separate and partly-blocked paths. The liberty of Britain’s dream is at present too empty, and its air seems rather devitalised. There’s a great deal of old junk that we British ought. to burn, warming ourselves by the bonfire. Here, the Americans, who owe so much to their old dream of equality, with its liberating force, its quick opportunities for the right man to get on with the job at once, can help us. But Russia, with its colossal sense of common purpose, its large, bold planning, its high seriousness, and freedom from the immense entangling trivialities of capitalist society, can help us still more. The Broad Highway Again there’s much about collective living that America can learn from Russia and much about individual living, based upon a genuine and not an assumed liberty, that America can learn from Britain. And, when Russia drops her fortress tactics, propaganda’ gun answering propaganda gun, when she feels secure in a friendly world, Russia will admit that she has much to learn from Britain and America and will in my opinion proceed to learn it at an astonishing speed. In the light of mutual understanding and help, we can create together that broad highway for a world civilisation which should know the blue air of liberty, and the twinkling and glowing white and red stars of equality and fraternity; and what was once a dream, often a dream that had to be a secret, can then become a clear shining purpose to which all good men and women can dedicate themselves.