Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 7 October 1946 — Page 18

Wk ‘THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES Lo

MONDAY, OCT. 7, 1046

People Behind The Iron Curtain

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BANQUET FOR VISITOR: The chairman of a collective farm proposes a toast to Strohm: “In the near future we'll be able to h&al the wounds of war. Tell the American people we're not afraid of werk; that we'll overcome these handicaps and hardships. And we will retur

2 Photos by John Strohm from NEA IN FRONT OF THE CHURCH, BEGGARS: To get into Moscow’ Cathedral, you must walk between two lines of beggars—perhaps 80 in all—the halt, the lame, and the blind. The only place John Strohm saw beggars in his 4000-mile’ journey through the U, S. S. R. was in

t of the churches. This woman, who carried a sack of coins, distributes some:to each beggar. every-day meal,” but a banquet for a special occasion, %

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PHYSICAL CULTURE PARADE: Husky, well-built girls stride across parade grounds in a physical culture demonstration in Minsk. In each republic, groups like this vie for a chance to march in Moscow's AllUnion parade.

BEHIND RUSSIA'S IRON CURTAIN— Soviet People Want Peace, Better Living and a Chance to Build Homes

Savoy in Moscow. (It was hard to - | get used to the idea of every dry- . newspaperman has been given as great freedom to go where | goods store, lemonade stand and] demobilized. The shoes bring $100

urd has or ‘ares movie being run by the govern-| « per pair in Moscow; this soldier he pleased, talk with whom he pleased—and rarest of all, ment.) ; s turned down a barefoot woman's

to take hundreds of pictures of life-and conditions behind the | “I work for myself," was his| offer to barter a supply of canned so-called Iron Curtain. | surprising’ answer Souls tor ‘them. : :.3 , Iv after I had cabled ! He said he pays 1500 rubles to This privilege was granted te.me only aft : _-|the government license inspector Prime Minister Stalin after six months of efforts to obtain | ghen he comes around every month. a visa for Russia through regular channels had gained no| (That's $125 at the diplomatic rate ad | of exchange for a license to operyaraage. : ] ; {ate a shoe-shine business on Mos1 appealed to Stalin to permit me, as a writer for Amer- | cow's sidewalks) jcan farm publications, to talk to the common people of | Even though he gets three to

Sr : : : . : five rubles a shine (24 to 40 cents), Russia in hope of improving the understanding between OUT | 1g said, it keeps him: hustling to

two peoples. | pay the tax and earn enough addi-

Ten days later, I had the visa. And I have finished my {tional fa Jags care of hs family. . on ’ a . . ny scharge tour with no sterner injunction from official sources than | veterans who have been given an| the admonition of the minister of agriculture to “tell the opportunity to engage in private] truth.” i enterprise on a limited scale. | . : . . | Then there was the little girl I - : Farmers Spade in Bare Feet | talked with as we crossed the Volga|

No official asked to censor my copy. These dispatches river on a ferry headed for Stalin-| grad. She had a basket of cucum-|

are transcribed from my Moscow notes, in New York. bers slung on one end of her| No one sought to conduct my travels to where I might shoulder yoke, a container of ‘milk see “favorable” views on Communistic life. {on the Dues She was carrying he; . § shoes, until she got to town No one even examined the hundreds of photographs 8 ; : if fF R Allowed to Own a Cow which I took in the cities and farms of Russia. 1 Ths milk was from Ae family Much of the territory I covered was in the former cow—yes, they owned the cow. All “bread basket” of Russia. They're still spading the fields Soliechive armen can. .own a cow od . . reals. Je ~a 9 and also a calf, a sow, 10 sheep, 10 barefooted in Byelorussia; they re still hungry; they Ye heehives, and as many chickens as) still living in the debris of the disastrous war they've just they can keep. gone through The cucumbers had been grown | : " on the acre of ground each collecThey hate war as only those who have known its terrors | (ive farm family hag for its own use most intimately can hate it. Numb, hungry and bleeding| The milk and cucumbers were] from the last conflict, they can only feel horror at the Jurpias $9 Me yas headed for . . . . ¢ . 1e Nn wou ring thought of going through it all again against a nation which lapout 55 cents a quart: the = —e———]. ; many of them assured me earnestly they love. | cucumbers, about 30 cents apiece. He Josen: Qn woe jam) visited, 38 the work on fms. : ob of| U: 8. LABELS: All the food on the shelves of this store, above, is UNRRA food, without which people “ . . "| mos ant yd " amilies ha een killed, the men, In Stalingrad, the gigantic job of} : mT r -UN s America gave us food which kept us from starving, | Ia most wan ed to buy a farm "or ard CHCEeD ’ I wbble of this blasted | of Minsk would have starved. A Russian woman here buys powdered milk. The only non-UNRRA good said a woman on the street in M and start planting cucumbers my- | I t : build ! Sqr ie TaD I y iv i te | on these shelves are vodka, champagne and other wines, with vodka selling at 120 rubles a liter (510 at 3a 10 0 ) Stree n Moscow, self. But land is one of the things! n one county, every bullding was city is’ being done largely by leen- | di h $24 at official rate) i : . ‘ plomatic rate of exchange, at official rate). “America gave us the Studebaker trucks which helped a man can't own in the Soviet burned by. the retreating Germans. aged girls and women { - —— p—— win the war.” said woldier| = | Union, It all belongs to the state One small section of one small, There are no steam shovels or| \ 1 e ar,’ said a soldier|” testores wach boogion of. 8.) The Russians have incentives for republic of the Soviet Union sacri- bulldozers; these girls patiently in Stalingrad. | left wing labor: leadership. as the jobs that American industria] ex- ficed 300,000 lives for the common carry the stones away on WheelOther impressions which | speed-up, incentive pay and back- peris never heard of. The industrial victory. barrows without wheels, a girl lift- | { A ’ > piecework system has been trans-| , The Russian concern today is not ing each end of the load. Women crowd to the fore in the kaleido-| breaking work days. scopic pattern of my travel by| As I traveled the feeling grew posed completely to the farm beefsteak and automobiles: it is are laying brick, driving tractors, : . 0 a v1 Ae nt _ . » . - « y 4 ny airplane, jeep, train, automobile that the Russian people—I am not | bread and shoes. A pair of army working on roads, swinging scythes, and afoot include: ‘ | talking now of the Soviet press or shoes sells for $100 in-the Moscow | doing everything a man can do and ONE. The Russian citizen knows) Soviet leaders—have a deep regard farm 1 visited pays the girl who market. Farm workers go barefoot. doing it well.

much more about the United States| [Of America and things American. takes care of the race horses: She ay DR ean Slataiel d| en neve a skinny two-pound chicken is $20. faces of those people ine ; e most highly mechanized | would have won the war,” said | ™° " o : wanted another war.. They all said that we have been led to expect, | The night before we left Stalin- gets 40 ‘rubles a. month for taking v

"ic 'g ‘ef Jor A ) verage industrial worker Love Pageantr ro : despite the limited reports on the| Brad. for Moscow, 1 had callers, care of each mare and cleaning the |d8ricultural area in the world be- one Soviet official a “The » age than $36 a month Love Beauty, Pag y we could and must work together in tsid Jd published in the FOUr 20-year-old girls had come 20 stable. She gets 360 rubles each fore the war, the most striking sight| I asked Minister of Agriculture | Who makes ‘ess than Bo «“They love the beauty, the pag- peace.” outsife world JI hel bs 1 aps btw , YORE cra . "|this summer was of women. cutting | Benedictov: “When the Soviet | doesn't splurge on chicken eantry.. and the music of the «yes, Mr. Minister,” I replied, controlled Russia press. miles from a collective farm across time a mare gels pregnant; 50 ru y . Ys : the Volga to bring me a going- bles if the mare has a live and the grain with sickles and cradles! Union gets back to Tiormal—oh,| Farmers eat relatively well, But .,..,ch—you can't keep the Rus- “and I have just. taken a trip TWO. There is a genuine gratl-| gift—a basket each of fo- healthy colt; 50 rubles if the colt bending over to bind the bundles|say 15 to 20 years from now-—how even they are planting grain in the gang from’ their church,” the Pa- through Byelorussia. I talked with tude and appreciation not only for! matoes, cherries, apples, and cu- lives one month; 50 rubles if it lives by hand. | much of the work on farms will tiny plots back of their houses {yjarch told me, your scientists, with your farm the assistance which the U. 8, RAVE! cumbers And they wanted to two months—and so on until each Women Do Heavy Work | then be done by women?" which ordinarily would be given 1¢ was the same in the country. people. They say the same thing. the So 1s defeat the Germans | ; colt is five months old. Not all that is du “Only about 55 per cent,” WAS over to vegetables or more intensive, 4 corner of every farm home i8 America and the Soviet Union must ak 3o for the UNRRA food ship-| * Did we have collective farms in And it's not only for jobs like combines and tractorf, but a lot of his answer. [gardening. a religious ikon be friends” . | America? ‘Did American women taking care of race horses. They it is. If they don’t have combines! “Why not grow potatoes? I The Anti-Religious Museum in Kiselov nodded THREE. The people are Amazed, fight in the front lines like the have such an incentive system for they swing cradles and flails. In! ‘The Soviet has just harvested asked a collective farmer. Moscow has been closed to the pub-' “Yes, I am sure that is the and baffled to read in their news-| Russian women? What did Amer- every job from hauling manure to Byelorussia, when. it came time for the biggest grain crop since the | “Because I want to be sure of lic since 1043. although I did still see they feel” he said slowly.. “So that the United States isiican boys and girls their age do! experimenting with perennial wheat. spring planting and they had war started, but rationing will be having some bread for my family,” a sign; “Religion Is the Opiate of looks like our job is to educate the pro 'sggression Russia | for recreation? Did they have| . The scientist who develops a new neither tractors nor horses, they|continued at least until next year. he answered. [the People,” on the outside of a mu-| diplomats. Our diplomats are our and brandishing the atomic bomb|clubs? Wh i . y squar | mad bl h st be show a ¢ ul 5? at sports did I play? [variety of grain, for instance, gets/spaded half a milllon acres. Some| Basic rations are provided for all| The pastor of the Moscow seum facing Red Square, A | main problem—t ey mus e shown offensively. Fa What bureau do you work for?” a flat royalty for every acre planted of those feet pushing the spade into at a low price: Thus, everyone has church may be writing to In Minsk, 1 was invited to “a cup! the road to peace. FOUR. Communism, as prae-|1 asked the disabled soldier who to it: He does very well financially. the earth were bare, too, or wrapped a chance to eat, regardless of the why I, a soft-shelled Baptist in, good.ot tea'--that's Russian for a aah ok teed | Russia, Is far from Utopia. was shining my Shoes ac 1 stood! Every village in Byelorussia or the in rags. money’ he earns Istanding at West Union, Ill, didn’t banquet--by the foreign minister TOMORROW: Moscow; first lo Iniits present | phase of development on the sidewalk outside (he Hotel Ukraifte has its atrocity stories by Women are doing 80 per cent of - Bread is less than four cents a come to church in Moscow, of Byelorussia, Kuzme V. Kiselov; at an enigma, Aa 4 la a ; . 2)

ERG eit er UNRRA SHOES: U.S. Army style shoes are carried by a Red army soldier who got them when he was

ASSEMBLY LINE: One line in this Stalingrad tractor factory is in | operation. The manager dodged a question on production hopes; the

(Continued From Page One) | sign on the wall listed the goal at 6000,

BRINGING IN THE SHEAVES: Women like these cut grain in | bunches with little sickles. They do 80 per “cent of the work on Russia's farms. For each quarter of an acre they cut, bind and shock,

| the women get credit for 1.75 trudo-dyns or “work-days.”

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SHOE-SHINE LICENSE: This shoe-shine man pays a license fee of $125 a month for the privilege of plying his trade on the Moscow sidewalk. The government permits a certain amount of private enterprise by disabled war veterans for a stiff license fee,

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| pound. (Ration prices have recent- | Well, T went to ehurch—but it was whom I had met while reporting the ly been tripled.) {the Russian Orthodox ehurch, United Nations conference at. San If the worker wants “to buy{ I almost didn't get in. The Cathe- Francisco. I told him I wanted to things not on His ration- card, he dral was jammed inside and out. introduce the people of these councan go to the commercial store «or | People were even huddled under the {ries to the people of America—as There all he needs windows to hear snatches of the the best approach to a is cash. mass and the beautiful music, peace, An egg costs 80 cents, a pound 11] never forget the hunger for of butter $10, and the price tag on that undefinable something on the

free market, Royalties on Enterprise For example, here's how a state Francisco TI ‘talked with Americans,” he said. “None of them

| please ask me: 0 war loss of

Biggest Grain Crop

once more to the happy life we had before the war.” The farmers drink samogan, a “moonshine” vodka; the well-stocked table is not @

lasting

He agreed. “When I was in San many

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