THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, SATURDAY, JANUARY 11, 1947.
THE FIRST OF A FASCINATING SERIES OF ARTICLES FILM By "CANDIDUS”.
016323
ZBW Should
THIS IS HOW RUSSIA Wake Up!
REALLY LIVES
HOW DO THE ORDINARY RUSSIAN MEN and
WOMEN LIVE?
We have all read the mysteries of Moscow; the inside stories—told usually from the outside. But these dips into the so-called diplomatie world are not Russia-the ordinary, everyday Russia which has to get on with its business of living.
To-day the Hongkong Telegraph' begins 'a series of articles which toll you how people really live there. The author was British Press Attache in Moscow from 1942 to 1945. Ho edited the British Ally, a daily paper printed in Moscow.
by JOHN LAWRENCE
Formerly of the British Embassy in Moscow
FAMILY relations in the Soviet Union nowadays are not so different as one might suppose from family relations elsewhere.;
Young people dream of romantic love and like to read love stories. The ideal set before them, both by the State and by public opinion, is to marry and] live faithfully and to bring up a family.
It is considered good, if mon and wife can lick through life with their Örst chalce, but allowance is made for the frailty of human nature, and if two persons cannot gel on together publig opinion does not condemn them for separating.
The State
they were immediately surrounded The very old women can knit, but by groups of marvelling Russinhs.
not the young ones. Though they can drive tractors.
But there is also another zlde: the woman with there than average Russin to take up a profession on nbility bas tho opportunity in terms nearer to equality with men than would be usual in a Western country,
Food
FOR a few years before the war there was no food rationing in the Soviet Union. But, of course, rationing had to be reimposed very Room after the outbreak of The system is different from ours, and is often misunderstood.
war
First, in the countryside there is no restriction on the consumption of In the lowUN locally produced food. at frat maintained
everyone la rolioned, but there is no neutral attitude, but has now begun standard which applies to all. What to take a hand. Stuce 1014 it has
one gets depends on the work one been impossible to ret u divorce
are doing Is doing. Those who without going to court, and the cost more valuable work get more, and of divorce is substantial,
those who nre past work or engaged in housekeeping receive a very small ration.
Good Parents
The most effective discourage- ments, it seems to me, lay in the everyone seeking a
provision that
There is nothing like our "points" system, but it is legal to buy extra food, including rationed food, in the open market. The prices are high many times higher thun the prices
It makes all the difference if you
are registered at a good shop and are entitled to buy up to a high "limit." for not all customers are permitted to make the same purchases.
There is no system of rationing for clothes and goods other than food comparable with our system of clothes rationing, but the same re- sult is achieved in another way.
The amount of goids you can buy and, in some cases, the discount ut which you buy them-is fixed ac cording to the work you are doing. Further it is usual for the employer to supply the employees with at least sume clothes, so that your standard of dress depends on the organisation you work for as well as on the work
you do.
Russian queues are longer and move more slowly than ours do, and Russian officialdora has the vices of bureaucracy in a very special de- Kreo,
THEN twiddling the knobs of my radio set the other night, I suddenly came upon a station in English which, at the conclusion of a refreshing There was always enough food musical item, in the country to have enabled the closing down for the night.
announced ita towns to live a good deni better than they did, but the peasants did not feel the need to undertake long ud difficult journeys to town to sell their products in exchange pocketful of roubles with which nothing could be bought. This is announcements would be broadcast well-known type of crisis which oc-
Before signing off, the announcer gave particulars of the following Apart from t for day's programme.
[t
well-assorted selection of items, he announced that news and other
curs whenever there is a famine oflation was Singapore.
In seven or eight languages. The
goods.
Rush, then-
What an opportunity Hongkong lớ missing!
An
our
I am, of course, assuming that A situation was developing with Zaw can be heard for a
low very Large potential purchasing hundred miles; and taking such to the case, what a lot of good power in the hands of the public be particularly the peasants but with might be done by putting on the no way of absorbing this purchasing air programmes calculated to foster power into circulation. Prices of more friendly relations with uncontrolled goods soared, and the neighbours. A few heart-to-heart peasants saw all less object in talks by tuent speakers, stressing bringing food into market.
the better and happier things in life. The Government solved both
effort to make the other fellow problems simultaneously by putting to realise that the wider his know- understand our point of view, and a limited supply of goo's
Bule a ledge the commercial shops at p
of world affairs, the .cs fixed by the ordinary process of supply and kely he is to discover what weak-
pursuing may lie in As a result, it takes a long time demand-that is to say, at commercial. to get anything done, and the decalling these shops commercial shops.
Isolationist policy. prices. This is what is meant by pendants are generally very busy standing in queues and drawing sup- piles for the household. In addition, they have to do any buying on the open market.
Serious Crime
Lises
***ners
лого
on
At Orst the prices were fantastic by our standards, but the shops were the overcrowded from the start.
voice of Hongkong can as the
" reach Japan, there is vory As soon
first
wave of particular reason why it should ho buying was over the prices fell, and heard in that country. To give the These markets. which exist every have continued to fall.
Japanese a pleture of what Hong- where, are ordinary open-air markels
verybody
the kong was when they were driven with stalls, and anyone is allowed to
shops
to some extent, out--to what a state their militarints trade there. You can sell the proure able to use them more.
of course, privileged people had reduced it--and to tell them duce of your own work for whatever
Army how, under a resumption of British you can get. For instance, if you officers and those whose work is rule, justice and sanily again reign. grow vegetables on your allotment considered important receive you eats sell them for the best price discount of up to about 20 per cent. being heard in the Wor you can get, so long as you and your family have done all the work.
But ᎥᏝ you employed somebody glse to work for you and then sold the produce for a profit, this would be "exploitation," and you would be In serious trauble if found out.
Similarly you buy somebody else's produce for resale--that is, if you act as a middleman--you ure guilty of speculation, which is one of the most heinous crimes in the Soviet calendar.
By the strict letter of the law it is forbidden to exchange producta (as opposed to selling) at the markets. But a good deal of burtering does go
j
.. "Commercial
A few extracts from the evidence
restaurants" were
Courts soon after the commercial effect. shopa and by the end of last year it was possible to have a good meal with drinks for about the same price as one would pay in a London restaurant.
in
Crimus should have A profound
I should like to see reciprocal radio talks between Hongkong and Canton and other Chinese cfties. We should then learn a lot about our There is nothing like
each other, and from this we might timate Soho restaurants, but it in well go on to interport quiz con- always possible to get A small tests. We sometimes feel that private room for a party.
Chi wishes to remain an enigma, but feel sure that mutual regard mig... well be encouraged by means of a medium which is at the dis- posal of both aldes, and which can be highly entertaining and Instruc- tive.
Advertising
divorce must publish his intention of uncontrolled foods in Britain-ft | on, and the police sometimes wink some Western advertisers to exploit does not earn high praise
in the local newspaper.
everybody uses the open market.
canteens in factorles There are und an-,
at it.
Prices
are
DVERTISING does not play the exaggerated part that it does in capitalist countries, and one is free from the unscrupulous attempts of human failings and anxieties.
for its programmes, and it is But, none the less, placards exhort about time that it took a little more in Ioscow there
was only
It is possible to get mest kinds you to subscribe to State loans, and pride in its work in the interest of and offices, and every Important of foods at the market, including paper which accepted such
of the one
the Colony generally. best advertising spaces in nouncements, and it limited itself to organisation is obliged to set up a bread, milk, butter, vegetables, pota-Moscow is occupied by an enormous three a day, so that there was a
"workers" supply department (Ö.B.
I often listen In to Manila, be- long waiting list.
picture telling you to insure your life cause the programmes are appealing S.) to supplement the ratlon and to toes, and even good quality meat.
while there is yet time. help with clothes,
und have the saving grace of, Advertisements in the newspapers originality. I wonder whether from factories trying to Manlia listeners And Hongkong as obtainly from
special types of worker, but exhilarating! .From the spring of 1944 the
cinemas and publle lectures theatres, "commercial shops" began to re-
I don't grouse just for the sake are advertised just as they are here.
In the Soviet Union there are no of grousing. In fact, I consider that These are State-owned rle- partment stores. The biggest in Mos-small tradesmen: the prohibition on what Hongkong needs above all cow is officially known as the Mos-speculation and on employing labour things is some really constructive criticism-call it grousing if you torg, but is often called by its old makes it Impossible to keep a small of course all this is useless,
shop.
It is open to a group of craftsmen if us usual one is saddened in call (This chop was founded by ato go into partnership as an artel, to mind the water and Scottish family before the revoin- which is a simple form of producers duck's buck. tion, and is not the only case of a "co-op" traditional in Russia. There alop that has been talien over by are for instance, many artels of the State still being called by the watch-makers. name of its former owner),
Soviet citizens do not attach any importance to having their "mar- ridge lines," and it is up to any couple to decide, whether to call themselves man and wife or not
On occasion a girl will refer to a man as her husband; soon after she may deny that she is married. Nobody minds.
The efficiency of the O.R.S. differs widely in the various organisations. At an important factory I found the workers in the canteen eating ade- quate helpings of meat and mashed polatues off olicloth-topped tables.
Better Bread
The amount of the ration has One meets none of the sex-starved varied from time to time, but at the people to common in our own so end of 1945 the picture was some ciety, but there are plenty of thing like this neurotic people of other kinds in The higher category worker "Ruscia. ́ ́ ́To'do justice" son of the miners, motor drivers and the more extraordinary life-stories i have responsible professional workers- been told would need the qualities got a little over ten pounds of bread of Chekhoy and Edgar Allan Porn week on their ralion--that is, about combined.
five ordinary English loaves, half of it rye bread and half of it wheat.
open.
name "Muir and Mirrlees.”
Skilled workers often cara extraj money in their spare ume, but The polley of diverting practically generally the little man does not all factory production to war needs flourish as an economic unit, And After making allowances
got the country through the military I say the Soviet Union is the poorer. IG The quality of bread differs, but crisis, but in turn produced problems vagaries of the Russian tempera-
Russian bread is generally one does
more which required an urgent remedy. ment, unduly high percentage of psycho-forms the staple food of most of the household necessities begin to wear nourishing than what we get. It Not merely did people's clothes and logical casualties. I leave it to wiser heads than mine to say what people, and keeps them in remarkably out, but the food shortage became
Good health. part in this is due to overcrowding,
seriously aggravated.
come acrosa un
In addition, the first-category
and to the hardships and uncertainty worker would get about 14 ounces of of a revolutionary period and what Wor to too much sexual licenco.
butter and other fats every week, one and a half pounds of meat, and one Taking the good with the bad, the and a half pounds of cereals, which Soviet code of sexual ethics has he uses for making "kasha"-a sort worked out fairly well of porridge that plays an important
were too Ilax.
prices.
NEXT SATURDAY:
ARE YOU SURE?
ANSWERS
the
(Questions on Page 4) 1. A. Blamey Castle near Cork, Ireland. 2 Halibut. 3. Rain. 4. On the west coast. 5. Norway, U. The
The Birth of A Baby tuba, 7. In Athens, Greece. 8. 20
In Russia
9. Jess Willord. 10. Haiti. .11. China. 12. In 1780 by Klaproth.
NO ADVANTAGE IN
BEING 36
terms of human happlaess. The pari in Russian food. He would get Russians are excellent parents, but about a quarter of a pound of sugar, it is sad to see so many children The rations are generally available with step-parents. Everyone now 'punctually, und at moderute seems agreed that in the past things But eggs or fish are often substituted for the meat ration. I heard of one worker who got 64 eggs all in one Abortion is now forbidden under issue in place of her meat which was Mwrites a delightful article severe penalties, but it is
very getting in arrears. prevalent.
Lower-category Industrial and in the Spectator on the occasion workers get roughly four-fths of his sixtieth birthday. "I see of the first category rations.
The Women
WHAT
about the
in Moscow-
women
once
HAROLD NICOLSON
At the bottom of the scale are the no advantage in being 60," he dependants-housewives, old people, says. "I wish I wasn't."
or and anyone who is out of work, And yet I envy him. Who
Russia? This is the verdict of They got a pound of bread a day, a (like me) would want to be born Kay Oakman, a member of my slatt quarter of a pound of fats each in the early years of this cen [week, and a small ration of every-
thing else.
tury? It was too late. Women in Russia
At Arst sight the higher-category do a lot of
First we had war, followed by heavy work-for instance, taking up ration appears good, and the depen-rationing and high prices.
dants' very meagre. But a depen- After that we had o depression,
G
By ALAN
aris
Nothing comparable in the has happened since then. This is an age without clegance or wit There are scarcely half a dozen first-class playwrights working for the English stage, not a dozen first-class novelists in the world.
The only really sociologically Ira- portant thing that has happened in my lifetime—the discovery of penicil- lin-doesn't seem much to put against the vast explorations with which the 60-year-olds grew
up.
01
To say that genium thrives poverty seems to me to be the purest bunkum. Whether it is an opera star,
to
a poet or a cricketer, you have feed them up on steak and eggs to get the best
Icave resulla. (Let us Bernard Shaw out of this).
redundant tramlines and repairing which packs down hard-sometimes one else, and what happens in that and then war everywhere all over
reads, clearing the streets of show. dant is normally a charge on some-wars in China, Abyssinia and Spain, MOOREHEAD heard and and
I think the position of women may
alter now that the war is
over
partly because there will be morn men to do the heavy labour, and
the family 'rations are shared so that agala. And now more ralloning,
pendants ration.
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MOTHER'S CHRISTMAS WITH DYING SON
•
Mrs. J. A. Smith of 25, Albion Street, Dunstable, Bedfordshire, thinks herself England's luckiest mother be to a depth of nearly a foot
was this homily from the lips of a
cause her most remoto Christmas wish came true, recently, the husband in work does not get More than half my life has been] 'No wonder the parents of my West End maltre d'hotel, who Russian women are mucis tougher quite so much and the grandmother spent under ralloning, war and de- generation used to pine for their lost worked in London under Escoffier in than ours. They are short and is rather better off,
youth and tell us that boyhood was 1013 or thereabouts?--- pression.
As a result of a chance letter;
Year in Hosptial very sturdy, but it seems to me that The position of old people with no Now the sixty-year-olds had a fine the happiest time of life. It wasfor "When you ordered turile soup R they are allowed to do nearly all relatives to support them and too old time. From their birthday in 1080 them. But not, I submit, for us. was made from real turtle. Every to Lady Louis Mountbatten, she At Changi, Pie Edwin Smith Listen- the hard graft yet are not in the to work is sometimes very hard. untu 1014-time enough to grow up least exempted
abundant arrived in Johannesburg. by ed with his pals. For the last year We never had the joy of riding in thing was genuine and from the normal They have to make do on the de- and get married and have children a hansom cab, of drinking prewar Then after the first world war the luxury plane in time to spend British war wounded still languishing Smith has been among the six hundred household chores.
they lived in an era' of prosperity of cycling placidly in straw boaters land collapsed. By 1939 # had still Christmas with her dying.son beer, of fingering golden sovereigns, quality of food and cooking in Eng-
In Baragwanath Hospital, Just out- side Johannesburg. A few months ago and reading Marlo Corelli.
not recovered. Now the quality has
"I was in at the start of this most medical. officers indicated that Smith alumped all further. I shall never NO doubt some of the more carthy
We can only remember a world
seo turtle
again.” soup
human, story fifteen, months ago was sinking slowly through tuber- characters spolled it all by deafened and bedizened by the multi- ties realize the necessity for Women DRAWING rations is done in much drinking too much
the when British troops entered Singa culosis, with little chance of living. port; and the plying noises of the airplane, the know you will argue that same way as in Britain. worker, maddened by his living con telephone, the radio and other high 60-year-olds have had to suffer all pore," writes Frank Rosiron, Daily
"His mother started trying to come Everybody is attached to a particular dilions, was driven into the gin shop explosives-none of which has con- then as well as 1. But at least they Express reporter in Johannesburg.
got off with a good start and they
to South Africa to zoo her son before This is shown by their recent de-shop or shops, where you have to (I bellove the advertisements used tributed much to human happiness.
have their memories, XX ́anything "One of the first women to follow he died. She was willing to travel elaion to separate the education of island in the queue or get someone to to run: "Drunk for a penny: dead boys and girls.
good comes along now. I doubt us into the liberated areas of the by cargo boat, cattle ship, any way-- go for you.
drunk for tuppence.") What shop you are registered with
whether my generation has either Far East was Lady Mountbatton. She hut In vain. At inst a couple of But sober, pensible, fortunate
England the taste or the constitution to enjoy raised the morale of liberated pri- brainwave and wrote to Lady Mount
Edwin's hospital-word 'mates had-a to-day are deficient in
was a place of talent when the It, the art. of customer's choice.
world at leisure, consumed the finest 00-year-olds were coming into their home-making. Very few can
"I shall tell my children that old counts of war tremendously when she betten. She arranged immediately for now As foreigners, we had a special foods, studied at the best acaderales, prime. At the turn of the century age is the best time of life, since visited them in their camps. I ro- Mrs. Smith to fly to Johannesburg. well enough to make their own diplomatic shop, and likewise the entered on successful careers and clothes, Hardly any can knit
men like Shaw. Bonnett, Sutro, things ought to be improving arq pd
"I met her in Edwin's Christmas- | staff of the Moscow 'Opera and Ballet never, never, never stood in a queue, Barrie, Galsworthy, Wella, Hardy, 1000. In the meantime I can ach member her finishing her talks with: When any of the British girls, have their own shop, Officers of the obliged to walt somewhere, took out Red Army are attached to one of the spent in a world of security, sanity, Cosse had either arrived or were wam't. I wish I were 00. Or 90. do don't hesitate to let me know. mask to say: "This is my luckiest More than half their lives has been Pinero, Maugham, Kipling and advantage in being 30, I w"Now, boys, if there's anything I can festooned ward quietly reading to him. Edwin himself removed his” oxygen their knitting to occupy the time biggest and best shops in Moscow. progress and plenty:
[about to spread their wings.
Or yet unborn,
break of the war.
partly because the Russian authori
in the home.
the
It le a fact that women in Russia depends on your work and not on the people like Mr Nicolson roamed the We lost in other ways.
And I mean that."
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