-'- Jr this description of the Russian peas - ant is as
true as from internal evidence it seems to be, I3ioken Earth is a volume of no little interest and importance. The writer is a Russian born and bred in an isolated village, who, having become an American citizen, revisits his old home after an absence of nineteen years in order to gather from the talk of the people the general outline of the effects of the revolution. Mr. Hindui tells us that he uses the word " people " " not in the English but in the Russian sense, meaning the dark masses ; that is, the nnuzhik, the peasant. In the last analysis he is Russia." The impressions which the reader will gather are distinctly 'subversive of much that we have read of revolu- tionary. Russia: For instance, the real oppression seems to be-the impesition of a high rate of taxation to which the peasant opposes a feigned poverty. Indeed, so high is the amount-charged-that- it is impossible for the village-tradesmen- to continue in business, and in many villages the blacksmiths' shop is shut and going to ruin, and the windmill is taken down ; so that, although the Communists vociferate that the whole matter is being looked into, the state of rural communities seems distinctly worse than under a good landlord of the old regime. Of course, the landlords were not always, good, but in Soviet Russia any estate is liable to be turned into a Sovkhos, a government model farm, and the manager of this farm stands to the people practically in place of the landlord. Mr. Hindus gives an attractive account of such a manager, whom he calls " The Red Landlord." He, poor man, is doing his best to work the land for the benefit of the villagers and is constantly baffled by their stupidity and carelessness. This official complains to the author that the peasant thinks that as the Government operates the place,; he can steal and plunder with impunity. In the end the Government manager is compelled to be as strict with the peasants as was the old landlord, as otherwise cultivation of the land would cease. Yet with all the misery of ravaged forests, holdings too small to support their owners, there is what the Americans would call a spirit of " uplift " in Soviet Russia which gives hope for the future, while the Standard of sexual morality appears to be almost puritanically high. The lot of the Russian intellectual and of the older generation is, however, indeed piteous. " They do not. count. They do not belong. They are only in the way." The sordidness of life in Russian villages will seem incredible to English and American readers ; for this, however, the revolution is net responsible. The book should be read by everyone interested in the fate of Russia under Bolshevist rule.
NEW WORLD VISTAS. By James Wood. (Routledge. 7s. 6d.) A BOOK with this title and with a picture of Master Jackie Coogan on the wrapper looks exciting, but the inside is a sad disappointment, for it is a collection of essays with a mere mention of the adorable " Jackie," whom the author once saw in Whitehall, watching the changing of the Guard. What the rest of the book is about it is difficult to say and not worth while to puzzle over.
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