Sovietdom Penetrated

The small, snug Berlin flat of Sinclair Lewis was devoted, for the afternoon, to cocktails, beer and tea. The guests, including famed Rosamond (The Miracle) Pinchot, toasted diversely in all three beverages a petite and pretty black-haired woman who would soon be off adventurously to Moscow. She was Dorothy Thompson, the clever, penetrating Berlin correspondent of the New York Evening Post and Philadelphia Public Ledger, which are owned by Sateveposter Cyrus Hermann Kotzschmar Curtis. As she sat, nibbling an olive from the depths of her cocktail, Miss Thompson (divorced) looked pleasantly incapable of delving into Soviet Russia and returning to set down her experiences and observations in almost 100,000 businesslike words.

A few nights after the small, snug tea Dorothy Thompson looked even less the curt, mannish newshawk which some imagine her as she danced, in a low-cut gown, with Sinclair Lewis at a smart Berlin night bar. Before the week was out, however, she was indubitably in Moscow and remained there during the celebration of the tenth anniversary of the founding of the Bolshevist regime. The exhaustive report of petite correspondent Dorothy Thompson has now reached the U. S. in its entirety and appeared in the papers which she serves. No sooner was it off the press, however, than a similar report was issued in book form* by famed Ivy Ledbetter Lee, suave discerning public relations counsel to the John D. Rockefellers, pere et fils. Mr. Lee's visit to Moscow antedated that of Miss Thompson by only a few months. Of remarkable significance is the fact neither has written anything of Soviet Russia which contradicts the other.

Still more interesting is the fact that a correspondent with the known prestige of Miss Thompson seemingly could not obtain interviews with the high officials of the Soviet State, whereas Publicist Lee appears to have carried Rockefeller or perhaps Harriman credentials which opened every door except that of Comrade Josef Stalin, the dour, seclusive Soviet Dictator who is never interviewed.

Since Observers Thompson & Lee perfectly supplement one another it is not difficult to draw from their work a synthesis, a symposium:

Marriage. Both commentators thoroughly explode the myth that women have ever been "nationalized" in Soviet Russia. Both note the extreme simplicity with which marriage and divorce are accomplished by mere registration of intent before the authorities. Quotes Mr. Lee from the Soviet Government Code: "Children of unmarried parents enjoy the same rights as the children of legally married persons."

Miss Thompson, probing deeper, declares: "If [a woman] is about to have a child and does not want it she can get rid of it legally, and, if the State considers her reason adequate, in a free clinic. . . .

"A woman about to have a child can file with the People's court three months before its birth the name of the father. If he does not protest it is taken for granted that he is the father and he is held, equally with the mother, responsible for the child's support. . . . The original Communist theory that the State should be responsible for children has been abandoned. It is still held [only] by such champions of free love as Alexandra Kollontai . . . now [Soviet] Minister to Norway (TIME, Dec. 19)."

Concessions. The three most significant concessions thus far granted to foreign interests in Soviet Russia are, say Miss Thompson & Mr. Lee, 1) The Mologoles concessions granted to a German syndicate of which onetime German Chancellor Wirth was the head; 2) The Caucasian manganese concessions let to W. A. Harriman and associates of Manhattan; and 3) the Lena Goldfields concession, granted to Britons. Generally speaking, Mr. Lee appears to mistrust the good faith of the Soviet Government in connection with the recently defunct Mologoles concessions and the Harriman scheme which is now going forward under a completely revised contract "far more favorable to Mr. Harriman."

Miss Thompson reports the Lena Goldfields to be "immensely profitable" and Mr. Lee corroborates that an official of the British company described its progress to him as "entirely satisfactory." Again probing deeper, Miss Thompson claims to have ascertained that very many small, private concessionaires "are making enormous profits, profits which they could not possibly expect to draw in any European country or America." She adds: "An ideal concession is that of a Danish button company which makes buttons from pressed blood obtained from Russian slaughter houses, and has acquired a fortune in a very short time."

Both observers deem the Soviet State scrupulous in fulfilling the letter of its agreements, and yet inclined to adopt what Miss Thompson calls "a rather Machiavellian attitude," when it proves possible to mulct or ruin a foreign capitalist while still keeping within the limits of his concession agreement.

Espionage. The dread Ogpu (sometimes abbreviated Gpu) or secret police is given its unfamiliar official designation by Mr. Lee as, "The Union State Political Department."

Although both he and Miss Thompson were oppressed by the feeling of being constantly spied upon, and although each tried the experiment of leaving private papers in calculated disarray around their hotel rooms, neither was ever able to detect the slightest tampering with their documentary bait.

Red Army. "I do not think," writes Miss Thompson, "that anyone who has ever seen a Red Army demonstration will ever again treat Communism as a joke. . . . The army is ... well fed, well clothed and well housed ... a compact army of 562,000 . . . absolutely proletarian in its sympathies. . . .

"The army is kept closely in touch with the workers through a system of 'patron age'; a factory will 'adopt' a regiment; a regiment, on the other hand, will 'adopt' a village. . . . The Red Army, more than any other in the world, is aiming toward the goal of a volunteer militia, in which the entire nation will participate. ... In Russian factories the workers are organized in[military training] units . . . and already they are partially outfitted with the most modern 6.5 millimeter repeaters. . . . Men in a textile factory can be turned in three minutes into 18,000 trained and armed troops."

Boast. "I was able actually to handle the great crown of the Tsars, said to be worth $50,000,000," boasts Mr. Lee. "So rarely are these jewels displayed that . . . when we emerged a little crowd had gathered to see who the people with such privileged eyes might be."

Purity. "The bedroom farce and the sex novel do not exist in Russia. . . . There is a refreshing freedom from sex consciousness. . . . Men and women go swimming in the same lake or river, without bathing suits. . . ." Thus Miss Thompson plumbs the purity of Russian minds.

Government. "The Government of Russia is in some ways organized like that of New York City," declares Mr. Lee. "Stalin, as the head of the Communist Party, is the 'Charlie Murphy' of Russia, and he has many of the characteristics of the late Mr. Murphy, the chief of them being that he works silently and away from the public gaze. . . . The immediate destiny of Russia is in his hands."

Foreign Relations. In conclusion both Ivy Lee and Dorothy Thompson point out that the surprising sequel to Great Britain's diplomatic break with Soviet Russia (TIME, May 23) has been that London buys more from Russia and sells less than before, thus adversely affecting the Empire's trade balance.

Meanwhile the U. S., which has never recognized Soviet Russia, has sold to her since 1923 some $262,000,000 more goods than the U. S. has bought from Russia. Shrewd Ivy Lee observes that so long as the balance continues favorable to the U. S. he can see no validity in "the suggestion that in buying Russian goods we are providing funds for [Russian] propaganda activities in the United States. . . . My impression [is] that the so-called Bolshevik propaganda is, in itself, perfectly futile."

A third report on Russia, set down emotionally rather than factually by famed Novelist Theodore Dreiser, is now appearing in news organs adherent to the North American Newspaper Alliance. Thus far the emotional genius of Novelist Dreiser has led him into such self-contradictions as are contained in the following statements: 1) "I believe that in the main the Russian people are satisfied with the Soviet mechanism, and that they think it is perfecting itself daily," but 2) "There is a dictatorship of the Communist Party. ... All over Russia you find a kind of terror of the Communists, and what they may do in case you do not do or talk or even think as they do."

Another contradiction: 1) "In Russia . . . where are the rich? There are none. And where the groveling, feverish poor? Gone also. . . . You cannot feel want here any more than you can feel material luxury, they are not," but 2) "Prices of everything were outrageously high, salaries could not compare with what things cost and there was never enough of anything, neither food nor entertainment, nor what you would."

Uncontradicted assertion: "Insofar as I could see [the morals of Russian women] are no worse than the morals of women anywhere else in the world "

*PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA--Macmillan ($2 lol