Correspondence
A LETTER FROM MOSCOW. [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—The King's Speech made an unfavourable impression in Moscow ; both lzvestia and Pravda commented upon the difference between electoral promises in regard to the renewal of relations with the U.S.S.R. and the "hypocrisy and deceit" of the reference to the subject in the Speech. Both newspapers express irritation at the mention of conditions" for renewal, and declare that it is this country, not Britain, that has the right to demand guarantees against a repetition of the raids upon the premises of Arcos in London and the Soviet Embassy in Peking ("where," Pravda says, "the un- principled action of the Chinese authorities was inspired by British diplomacy "). There are further acid remarks about "British intervention" during the civil war in Russia, and the final sarcastic conclusion that MacDonald is playing the same game as Churchill in a more cautious and cunning fashion." This outburst of spleen is mainly a reaction from previous hopes, but it is probable also that the allusion in the King's Speech to Mr. MacDonald's consultation of the Government of India on the Anglo-Russian question is somewhat unwelcome here. The Comintern has been taking a considerable interest in India during recent months and some rather vigorous articles on Indian affairs have appeared in Pravda itself. As both Pravda and lzvestia once more emphasize, there is no connexion between the Comintern and the Soviet Govern- ment, but. . . . when the subject is mentioned one can hardly say that the latter's withers are unwrung." Whatever Pravda and lzve.stia may say, it would be a mistake to suppose that the Government of the U.S.S.R. would be sorry to resume diplomatic relations with Great Britain, unless the above-mentioned " conditions " were too galling for Soviet prestige. There has been a lot of gossip in Moscow as to a suitable envoy to London. Amongst others the name of M. Kamenev has been mentioned, who was at one time a member of the Trotskist opposition (he is Trotski's brother-in-law), but recanted and was recently appointed head of the Concessions Committee. Another possibility is M. Yanson, now Soviet Commissar of Justice. It has even been suggested that M. Chicherin himself might be induced to accept the post. It is no secret that M. Chieherin's state of health has made him reluctant to resume the onerous duties of Commissar for Foreign Affairs. He is at present still in Germany, where he has spent the last half-year or more under- going treatment for diabetes. Accounts vary as to his present condition, but it is probable that he is sufficiently recovered to act as ambassador, whereas he might find his former duties too great a tax upon his strength.
Harvest prospects have notably improved during the past four weeks, and it is now hoped that the crop will be decidedly better than last year. Although the area sown with winter grain showed a decrease as compared with 1928, the spring sowings have been extended to make the total from five to ' six per cent. greater than last year. A late spring and three weeks' dry weather along the Volga and in the North Caucasus and Ukraine during May and early June caused some anxiety, but there have since been plentiful rains and the general outlook is promising.
An interesting novelty in Moscow has been the visit of the theatrical company of" T.R.A.M." (Theatre of Workers Youth) from Leningrad, with a repertory of half-a-dozen plays on topical subjects, written and acted by members of the Com- munist League of Youth. One of these performances was a musical comedy dealing with the life of a group of young communists in a rural "rest house." It was a robust and noisy affair, doubtless not inferior in quality to the average amateur show in England or elsewhere, but it delighted the somewhat youthful audience, which greeted each quip and topical allusion with roars of laughter and applause. Youth, of course, is no less of a problem here than elsewhere
in the world to-day. The Communist leaders themselves have little real certainty as to the effects upon the younger genera- tion of the prodigious upheaval that has been the Bolshevik Revolution. The organ of the Communist League of Youth, which has over two million members, the Comyouth Pravda, publishes from time to time the most curious 'and conflicting reports of young Communist conduct and opinion. On one hand it states that the Comyouth movement is actively revo- lutionary, eagerly supporting the present "leftward " policy of the Kremlin, co-operating not only in the process of urban industrialization but, often at great personal sacrifice, in the more difficult task of rural socialization. Another day there is printed a dreadful tale of a suicide pact " among members of a Comyouth group in a Ural industrial town, which cost the lives of a dozen Communist boys and girls, "who had yielded to the corrupting influence of Esseninist ideology," as the Comyouth Pravda puts it. Young Communists throughout the country, and their elders, passionately debated the tragic history of Essenin, a gifted young poet of purest peasant stock, who won spurious fame by marrying " (he had two or three undivorced Russian wives already) the yet more ill- starred American dancer, Isadora Duncan. Your corre- spondent was well acquainted with these two victims of their own genius and temperament, and still recalls vividly an evening at the Poets' Cafe in Moscow—the "Stable of Pegasus," they called it—when Essenin, on the verge of delirium &miens, froze a rowdy audience to horror by reciting his own poem, "The Black Man," which described the agonies of a drunkard haunted by some dark creature of his own imagining. Isadora's face grew ashen as she listened, and when Essenin staggered off the tiny stage she whispered: "He is doomed, poor Sergey ; it's his own story that he's telling." A few months later Essenin hanged himself in Leningrad, leaving a melodramatic message of despair written in his own blood. And Esseninism became synonymous in these new days with that old weakness of older Russia, the Asiatic negation of hope, even of Life itself, in the face of difficulty and discouragement—I am, Sir, &c.,
YOUR MOSCOW CORRESPONDENT.
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