Correspondence

A LETTER FROM Moscow. [To the Editor or the ScucT.vrou.] Sin,—The annual electoral campaign for renewal of all Soviets, from the small village or factory council up to the All-Union Soviet Congress, is now in progress throughout the Soviet Union. As might be expected, Russian elections differ considerably from the systems in vogue elsewhere. To begin with, they are not held simultaneously, on one or two days, but extend over a period of nearly ten weeks. Each province, or important city, has its own campaign which lasts for a week or ten days. All adults over the age of eighteen have a vote, irrespective of sex or race, but private employers of labour, persons engaged in regular service of religious cults, " unproductive elements " living on invested funds, and lunatics and criminals are disfranchised.

It is thus clear that the doctrine of " class-warfare." which remains so essential a tenet of the Marxist faith, finds direct expression in the electoral process. This year the newspapers announced triumphantly that everywhere the number of dis- franchised has been increased greatly to include so-called " kulaks " (richer peasants) and " nepmen " (private traders), who are regarded as social enemies. It is not surprising, therefore, that electoral returns to date show an overwhelming preponderance of " proletarian " candidates returned and a sweeping approval of the Kremlin's policies.

Inasmuch as elections are held on a " guild " basis, each group of peasants or workers or soldiers, or professional men, or State employees, voting together by open ballot (show of hands' for a selected list of candidates to which, quite often, there is no opposition list at all, the blanket approval thus given by the electors may not seem of great value. On the

other hand, the ruling Communist clique has found that, however passive the final verdict, it can glean in:1mb useful information as to public sentiment from electoral 'campaigns, which thus act as a kind of vast sounding-board to echo mass opinion. Furthermore, the Communist Party frankly admits that in its present stage of development this country is not yet ripe for true Democracy, and that elections serve rather as a lesson in self-government than anything more positive: An interesting feature of the present campaign is the growing proportion of feminine electors voting and woman candidates returned. In the Province of Kaluga, for instance, over a quarter of Soviet members, high and low, are women. The president of the provincial central executive committee, whose position corresponds to that of the governor of an American State, is a woman, Lubeemova, and no less than 140 village Soviets have women as presidents. So great was the interest of the feminine electorate that in many cases votes were p011ed by thbfull hundred per cent. of women voters.

For all its satisfaction with the electoral results; the Soviet Press has made no secret of the fact that there is discontent in the villages and, to a lesser degree, in the towns, against which the weapon of disfranchisement has little more than nominal power. The State grain collections, upon which much depends, are so unsatisfactory that the Moscow newspapers have dis7 continued publication of the usual five-day totals. It is already evident that the urban centres will have to be rationed: Bread cards will be introduced in Moscow on March 15th, and it is probable that before next harvest it will be necessary to import foodstuffs from abroad.

The announcement of Trotsky's deportation was made here with characteristic discretion. Just two lines' without a heading, published under " Latest news " for " Events of•the

clay,' that he had been expelled from Russia, by order of the OGPU, with his family. Curiously enough, in the same columns of " faith divers," two or three newspapers published an item to the effect that the name of the town Trotsk, in the Province of Samara, would henceforth be changed to Cha-

payevsk. Sic transit gloria ! The news had been so fully discounted as to cause no popular interest beyond speculation where Trotsky had gone and how long he would stay there.

Your correspondent is able to give the following explanation of this perplexing affair. Trotsky with his wife and daughter- in-law actually left Batum for Constantinople in the last week of January. On arrival in Odessa, however, two days

later, his party was taken off the vessel, which went on to Constantinople, because the authorities in Moscow had learnt

that Germany was unwilling to grant the ex-Commissar of

War a perms de se iota. Turkey, at that time, had only agreed to give him the customary fourteen-day transit visa

accorded to Soyiet citizens. Trotsky accordingly remained in

Odessa for several days, living under surveillance in a villa on the outskirts of the-city, while arrangements were being made for his longer stay on Turkish soil until he should find asylum

elsewhere. When at last the Turkish Government agreed, he took a later boat to Constantinople, arriving there in the middle of February. .

The French writer, Henri Barbusse, has just returned to Moscow from a tour of several months through the Cauessui.

He states that his next book, to be published in Paris two or three months hence, will have a Georgian setting in order to prove that Georgia has not been oppressed or deprived of liberty by its incorporation in the Soviet Union.

M. Barbusse asserts that during his travels he discovered the 'oldest man alive to-dav, Nikolai Andreyevich Shapkofski,

aged 146, an inhabitant of the Abkhasian village of Latti. This ancient, says M. Barbusse, has never been ill in his life, and until the age of 120, when his last daughter was born by his third wife, who was a year old on his seventieth birthday, he bathed daily in a mountain stream. He ascribes his longevity to hearty eating and copious draughts of Caucasian wine. Of late years he complained that his hearing had failed slightly and his teeth were not so good as heretofore, but happily he was still able to drink wine and expected to live fifty years more. M. Barbusse vouches for the truth of this story, and published in a Moscow newspaper the certified copy of Chapkovsl,d's social insurance. card, which gives details of his birth, &e., and entitles him to draw an " old age pension " of fifty roubles monthly.

The greatest success of the current theatrical season has been an extravaganza called Bog, by the poet Maykofski, first produced cal February 13th by MayerhOld:. It is- in reality the most savage satire on contemporary life that 'has yet appeared in Moscow, but apparently was able to pass the Censor by the simple device of postulating the future victory of World Communism. The play opens with an average Ruisiari proletarian, Igor Ilinski Prisipkin, divorcing his yridng Communist wife on account of her idealism, and del tiding to get what he can of the fruitiof the ReVOlution from his membership in trade unions and elubs,'andhis status as 'a free and independent worker. He marries a new wife, whose father has an important administratiye, position, and gives a wedding feast allow with wine and song. A dispute arises, the lainp is upiet, the house burnt down. Fire brigades' alive

with streams of water, but it is too late. The whole party has perished in the ruins..

Then the scene changes to 1979, when the loud-speakers of Moscow announce that an extraordinary discovery has been made in excavating part of " old Moscow " for a new tube. The body of a man has been found encased in ice, apparently uninjured, and scientists believe that it is possible to resus- citate him. The proposal is put to vote of the principal cities of the Communist world state, and the results are expressed through the loud-speakers of their leading news. Papers, the Red Star of London, the Shanghai Isvestia, the Red Times of New York, and the Fran* Cimminiist Pravda of Chicago, which is now the biggeSt eity in- the world. The majority, favours -resuseitation,:to the next' scene -portrays a hospital where Prisipkin is revived-. His first words are to ask, for a drink to cure his headache, his first act to produce his " documents " as member of a trade union, &c. The audience roared with laughter at the professor's. bewildernient. before these commonplaces of present MoseoW life. The poor relict of " ancient life " looks around hini iii despair. Suddenly Ile bounds forward and begins searching on the ground. A: bug has fallen from his head. His only companion from. the old.

days that are gone. .

There we get the theme of the. play, the conception of Prisipkin and his ilk as parasites upon Communist society. That he has his Own parasite is a natural sequitur. The curtain falls with a frenzied search for the lost insect whith, as the professor explains, is apparently a necessary adjunct to the life of " ancient man."

The last act shows Prisipkin and his bug in adjoining cages in the zoological institute, being the subject of a lecture by the. Director to a crowd of men and women visitors clad almost indistinguishably in grey and dark cherry-coloured costumes. - The Director calls Prisipkin " it " throughout his discourse, and makes it clear that there is in his mind no great difference between such a human parasite and its insect comrade. In this scene Mayakofski pokes bitter fun at the current shibboleths of Moscow, self-criticism, bureaueratism; nepotism, labour discipline, and so forth.

Finally, " It " is allowed to walk out on the stage from its cage. " Don't worry. It is quite harmless," says the. DirectOr. Then—crowning irony Prisipkin steps forward to the fOot- lights. " My own people," he shouts ecstatically to the

audience,. " My own people;- like me. I knowyou and recognize you . . : . all—than God • 7 .

" It' is becoming excited," says the Director coldly. Let us put It back in Its cage." Curtain.—I am, Sir, Are., YOUR Moscow CORRESPONDENT.