ABOUT an hour and a half's journey from Moscow, in a small city by the name of Podolsk, there is a factory which makes sewing machines. Before the 1917 revolution this plant was owned and operated by the American capitalist, Singer. Today it is owned, like all Soviet work-shops, by the working class and run by those who man its machines.
What have been the results of this change? Has production increased or fallen off? Is the product of an inferior or better grade? Can the workers produce their own directors and engineering force!?In other words, has the working class proven itself capable of management?
What of living and working conditions? Are the workers better off and happier than in the old days? Than those employed by Singer in the United States? What chances do their youth get for education and training? What are their interests and ambitions? What future is before them?
How do teachers, doctors and white collar workers live?
What about community and family life, and the new position of women? How do people spend their free time? What activities does the local Soviet Government carry on? Who runs it, and how do people look upon it? What role does the Communist Party play?
In general, how does Red Podolsk compare with and differ from any town in the United States? It was these questions, as well as many others put by American workers and students that took me to Podolsk.
Several friends from the States, now in Moscow, made a wry face when they heard of my plan. Why pick such a town? Moscow, Leningrad, Odessa, a dozen other places would be far better! They thought by my choice I was doing the Soviet Union an injustice.
Frankly, if my purpose had been other than that of showing a very average town, then certainly I could have selected far more interesting, cultured centres, than modest little Podolsk. It would be similar, my friends argued, to describing America in terms of Troy, New York, or Kalamazoo, Michigan. Yet what is more typical of modern America than Middletown, Indiana! Podolsk is Soviet Middletown. My aim was to find neither the worst nor the best, but the average, digging into the many-sided whole of existence that makes up its Main Street.
A Main Street, which for the first time in history, has gone Red.
For several weeks I have been living in this young socialist city, sharing daily experiences in the factory, union, Party, clubs and homes; making friends and exchanging ideas on subjects ranging anywhere from the technique of skiing to lowering production costs, new standards of conduct, problems of child training, proletarian culture, relations between factory and countryside, the recurrent topic of international politics and "Will the imperialists dare start a war on us this spring?"
What innumerable questions they ask about America! They are as eager to learn more about life in the States as we on the other side of the water are to find out about things here.
So come with me to Podolsk! You will be accepted by Jack, Olga, Andree and young Paul, as one of them. We will go with them to their work and meetings, drink many a glass of tea around the friendly samovar, and altogether get acquainted, at first hand, with our factory and home town in the Soviet Union. And what we find in Podolsk will be typical of what is going on throughout this vast land.
Across miles of snow-clad fields our train chugs past tiny stations with their clustering villages and peasants, bulky in their sheepskin coats. Before the morning papers are entirely read, we are at our stop.
Mounting to cross the bridge that runs above the tracks, we get our first view of the town. In the distance, beyond the stretch of snow-capped house-tops which glisten in the sun, can see powerful brick structures whose smoke-stacks are puffing vigorous, dark clouds into the pale yellow sky. On the far left is our sewing-machine factory. Beyond it the new workers' town is springing up. Swinging around, we identify the cement, metal, and car-repairing shops, and the new bread factory. This industrial centre has grown in the last eight years from a town of twenty-four to sixty thousand population and is still growing. Coming from a land where for the past years slack-time and close-downs have been throttling smoke stacks, stilling factory whistles, the sight of these humming industries is a startling, fresh sight.
Descending from the bridge, we pass through the red brick station. The air is dense with human bodies, buzzing with talk. Workmen in rough jackets, peasants with their sacks and bulky milk cans, students, sleepy women with restless infants are waiting for their trains. Many are sitting with that stolid patience the Russian villager has, whose time sense is only now beginning to trouble him.
In the old days, to make a trip, even the shortest, was an event for which you came several hours ahead of time. The custom still holds. Everybody seems to be travelling. Some are going up to Moscow on business for their factory, others to shop or enjoy their free day, the peasants to dispose of their surplus products, and one hilarious group of youth and girls to spend their fortnight's vacation in the south.
At one end of the waiting room, people are elbowing their way about a well-stacked bookstall, demanding papers. On the opposite side, a buffet, and small cafe where travellers are washing down sandwiches and herring with enormous gulps of scalding tea.
Outside, little sleighs, drawn by horses and known as droshkies, form a patient semi-circle. Their peasant drivers doze into their beards, blow their noses on the snow, engage in wordy arguments with their neighbours, and vie with one another in enticing a passenger and whisking him across the snow.
Main Street, which runs at right angles from the station through the heart of the town, is flanked with shops, bookstalls, and low wooden and brick houses. We pass an old-fashioned watch repairing shop, drug store, several food and clothing co-operatives, a large school, and an old photography shop whose show-window is crowded with stilted poses of family groupings that might easily have been, taken on Second Avenue, New York.
Down the side streets, above the crouching wooden structures rise modern apartments of brick and stow. In the States, you would know that these were for Park Avenue families. Here, their occupants are machinists, railroaders, mill workers and their families; along with engineers, doctors, and specialists.
Children dash by on skates and sleds. They grab hold of peasants' wagons carting their wares to the city, even onto the few trucks that speed by the long line of clumsy jogging carts.
Maybe, as a kid, you also clung to rear ends of wagons, skimming along the asphalt until a sharp turn or angry driver loosened your hold? And were there community-run skating rinks and toboggans waiting for you at the other end?
People swing along the streets like those accustomed to foot travel over miles of country. About three-quarters of the town is only a few years from the village. Rough, maybe, some of their clothing, worn slick and without much style. Full of contrasts, like everything else in this city: where new elbows old and all is changing, changing. Bulging sheepskins, darkened from years of usage, jostle ready-made serge overcoats; shawled heads are outnumbered by tams and smart hats rom the city. In the sea of tramping boots and galoshes, an occasional pair of bast shoes, on some newcomer. Bast shoes, set on acquiring leather. Scarfs grey, brown, blue, and red tucked about the throat. Many wear fur and woollen caps pulled close to the eyes.
Today, the cold is not severe, so most have left their furred ear-flaps free, which flop as they walk, like great mule-ears.
They are a busy, hardy folk. Straightforward and sprung from stock long accustomed to toil. That pinched, harrowed look which stares forth from the faces of America's and Germany's masses, here is missing. In its stead one senses strength, a vim to living. What is their source?
With our guide, we make a scouting trip about town. Many sights are as familiar as home, others we miss. In place of peanut vendors and push-carts, there are small co-operative booths,also old women crouched by the curb, selling apples and sunflower seeds. But where are the bread lines? Hungry men staring into shop windows without the price of a meal? The fashionable ladies and gentlemen? And where the child-labourers hawking their papers and learning early the ways of Al Capone?
Down the street come sounds of a broadcaster: "Comrades, the next number is Beethoven's Turkish March." The music bounds to meet us. A bearded, ragged creature pushes our elbow. Bowing low, cap in hand, he mumbles, "For God's sake, only a few kopecks!"
"Away with you!" Our companion looks him over scornfully. "Our factories crying for more help--and you begging! How much does the priest get from your pickings? Go on, not a kopeck we'll give you. But if it's a job you are wanting--"
Whirling about, his ragged coat flapping, the fellow darts away, Soon he is beseeching another, "Have pity--a few kopecks!"
We pass a large club, built along modern lines, and topped by the radio now broadcasting a talk on hygiene. Its white walls carry red streamers: "All Out to the Factory Elections." Down the side street is an open-air co-operative market covering half a square. Shoppers are milling about its stalls, buying, arguing over purchases. Across the way, an open field is jammed with carts, working people, rough tables behind which farmers are dishing out milk and cuts of meat to customers, meanwhile grubbing for potatoes in their straw-filled baskets.
Another four blocks and we come to the factory. Its massive buildings stretch three blocks long and again as deep; mounting like the Palisades along the Hudson-bare, enduring. Before the gates there are no lines of unemployed hanging about, no cops warning, "Get a move on--you'" Going to the entrance, we fall in behind a working woman and two men, applying for admission. As in the States, It is the owner who grants it. Not a Singer, Rockefeller or Mellon, but
workers. Crouching before the tiny peep-hole of a window, the woman demands, "Give me a pass to the Factory Committee." A telephone inquiry, some notes on a paper, and she goes in. The men have business with the workers' management. We say we have an appointment with Jack Nickamin, in the Youth section. Another phone call, more writing and we pass inside.