1937-11-05 — Page 21

THE CHINA MAIL FRIDA SUPPLE

IS THIS THE

THE REAL TRUTH ABOUT SOVIET RUSSIA?

F

Tis dificult, in these days of propagandists, conscious and otherwise, to decide what are

the facts about Russia. The

in

age of the detached observer- if, indeed, he ever existed

to have gone. Those wheems

write

about Russia to-day are parti- sans, and one cannot help feel- ing that their descriptions are coloured by their feelings about Commmunism.

Lion Feuchtwanger, whose “Moscow, 1987” (Gollancz, re- view copy from CNA) must rank as one of the most import- ant of current books on Russia, is frank enough to admit it.

He says in his foreword: "Since I am fully aware that the con- clusions I am setting forth are entirely personal, I am at once. indicating the hopes and fears which accompanied me on my visit to the Soviet Union, leav- ing it to the reader to assess how was coloured by far my vision my feelings and preconceived ideas. I set out as a sym- pathetic visitor. I sympathised inevitably with the experiment of basing the construction of a gigantic State on reason alone,

He tries to justify these

Feuchtwanger's Survey From trictions Russia, he points out,

The Left

and I went to Moscow hoping that the experiment was succeed- ing.

The Gide Book

But, he points out, his sym- pathies were mixed with doubts, and these were confirmed by a little book by Andre Gide. He came back, having found in the Soviet "more light than shadow. And his book is a strong and well-written, and, in many as pects, fully convincing, denial of Gide's findings.

These he attempts to explain: "In Moscow one could quite easi- ly be led to an unjustifiably ad- verse opinion by the many minor discomforts which make daily life difficult there and be blinded to the important things.

that

"Very soon I realised even so eminent a writer as An- dre Gide had had his judgment warped by petty annoyances of this kind. And I, too, found it

dificult while in Moscow to

mpartial and prevent the amenities or annoyances of the moment from influencing me un-

the duly in one direction or

The Stalin Worship”

Feuchtwanger found much to praise. He found a lack of some of the amenities of Western life, but at the same time he found a people tremendously enthusiastic, proud of their achievements and filled with a burning energy to achieve more. He found all the evidence of careful planning, 30- cial, economic and industrial.

On the other hand he found a vulgar worship of Stalin, an idol- atry that many carried to extremes. He found the Russian theatre and literature suffering under restrictions due to the de- cision of the authorities that the public should be fed on political and martial propaganda.

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is faced with the threat of war It is looked upon as inevitable. The State is threatened by sabot- age and subversive activities in many quarters. Rightly or wrong- ty, t the State has decided that the people need propagands, and that the immediate danger out- weighs the claims of unfettered

As for Stalin-worship, he as- sures us that Stalin himself dis- approves strongly of it, and does all he can to discourage it. One appreciates Stalin's difficulty. It is difficult to kick a fawning dog, even when his fawning is bad for him.

Those Trotskyist Trials

The most interesting chapter in the book is that which con- cerns the Trotskyist trials and the confessions on which a num- ber of men were sentenced to death. Feuchtwanger goes to a great deal of trouble to explain these confessions, which, clares, were perfectly

He himself was present at the trial of Pjatakov, Radek and their associates, and he understood: them in Moscow, he says, in a way which was inconceivable in Western Europe.

The accused men, he explains, were first and foremost revolu- tionaries. The trials were not ordinary judicial proceedings but a form of court martial, Badek and the others were not unwilling to confess, because they knew that there was a clear case against them

Their confessions took the form of a sort of debate with the judges on the pros and cons of Stalinism and. Trotskyism.

"A Sporting Interest”“”

Here is Feuchtwanger's im- pression The prisoners them- selves were well-groomed, well- dressed men of a careless, na- tural bearing. They drank tea, had newspapers in their pockets and often looked towards the public. The whole thing was less like a criminal trial than a debate carried on in a conversa tional tone by educated men were trying to get at the and explain why wha pened had happened.

Indeed, the impression one received was that the accused, prosecution and judges had the

I might almost say spo ing, interest, in arriving. satisfactory explanation of what had happened without omitting anything."

The Soviet, he says, depended

on the confessions, and did not produce its documentary dence, because it wanted, even at the risk of

dable little

the student