Russia

Before introducing Mr. Ketchum, Major Baxter, the President, paid tribute to the late Sir Arthur Currie whose death had been announced in the morning papers.

MR. KETCHUM: Mr. Chairman, Members of The Empire Club: I believe that you were invited here today to listen to what I had to say specifically on the subject of "Soviet. Russia's Fighting Forces". That was one of the series of lectures that I was scheduled to deliver. After a few words with your President, preceding the luncheon we decided that as this is a new audience, I might cover a much larger field and deal generally with the Russia of today, the Russia that I saw this summer when I went there as the guest of the Canadian National Council of Education and spent about three months travelling, for the first time in my experience, in twelve republics" and autonomous regions, in the land known as the Union of Soviet Socialistic Republics.

I would first like you to appreciate the territorial enormity of this land; the complexity of language, etc. It is a land of approximately one hundred and sixty-one millions of people, embracing one hundred and sixty-one nationalities and speaking, at least one hundred anal fifty languages; and, formerly, until religion was abolished, practising one hundred and fifty different religions.

The Union is divided into about twenty-eight governing regions, seven of them being full-fledged, independent republics and the others being what they call autonomous regions with their independent government. The whole Union is governed by five hundred thousand Communists. There are only five hundred thousand Communists in all Russia. It is not always fair to assume that every Russian citizen you meet is a Communist. The power of the Union is centralized in what they call a Central Executive Committee of the Communist Party. The Communist Party meets in solemn congress every two years and there appoints and confirms previous appointments of its members of the Central Executive Committee, about fifty in all. They are the governing body in Russia.

I have given the general construction of Russia as it is today. Most persons usually assume that Russia is one single unit; actually it is a composition of states, very much like the United States of America, about twenty-five in all.

Instead of remaining in Moscow as on previous occasions my duty in daily journalism demanded, I sought and obtained, on account of my invitation from the Council of Education authority to travel rather extensively and, quite frankly, I had facilities to visit factories that I might not have had as a journalist. It gave me a very intimate knowledge of conditions as they exist in Russia today. I was anxious to ascertain to what extent the first five-year plan. had triumphed; I was anxious to ascertain the prevailing conditions on the farm lands, especially under the new collective farm system that obtains in every part of Russia for eighty per cent of the farm lands are now collectively owned.

Before taking you into one or two of the factories and telling what conditions prevailed there in the last two years, I would like to give an idea of what the first five-year plan is and what the second plan stands for. The first plan was conceived in 1928, ire solemn congress by Lenin and leaders of the Central Executive Committee, standing before the General Congress of the party, I should think, five or six or seven hundred delegates, and they finally approved a plan to convert Russia from an agrarian industrial state into a self-contained industrial agrarian state. In other words, they wanted to reverse the revenue from agriculture to industry. In the old days" eighty-five per cent of their revenue was derived from agriculture. Today, it is the aim and purpose to convert Russia into a self-contained industrial state from which she will derive the large percentage of her revenue from industry. They claim that they have succeeded to the extent that forty-nine per cent now comes from industry, from the factories and the remainder from agriculture. That may or may not be so. Personally, I am inclined to doubt that, because an artificial price is placed by themselves on industrial production and therefore it is quite possible that agriculture still predominates.

The first five-year plan's task was to convert Russia into an industrial agrarian state in five years. Therefore, the first step was to furnish what industrial machinery was necessary to produce in that direction and for that reason, the Russians imported a foreign group of engineers, consisting of about one hundred and eighty-five Americans and one hundred and fifty Germans. A group of foreign engineers built the background of the (organization that was to carry through to completion the five-year plan. They were brought at large stipends to Moscow on five-year contracts, the condition being that they must fulfil the. conditions of the contract, so far as production was concerned.

The idea was to electrify Russia; to provide, for example, a dam that would render in a short time an enormous increase in electrical power throughout the Soviet Union.

Also, the plan provided for the collectivization of farms. That is, it converts the majority of the farm land from individual holdings into enormous collective holdings on which, as was the case with a number that I visited, at least ten thousand peasants contribute to the production from a single farm. About sixty per ,cent of their yield in wheat, corn and rye is returned to the government for the service the government renders in having directors for the farms and interest on the original investment. The remainder of the profit, they keep for themselves, having sold the surplus on the open market.

You have the general idea of the first five-year plan. Did the first five-year plan succeed? My answer is that I think in industrial construction, it did. By that I mean that they have actually created the enormous industrial works, and the great metallurgical works.

There is a large factory located at Stalingrad. I am not sure that they are not producing about fifty thousand tractors a year; at any rate that was the plan-that they should begin producing tractors from one tractor works alone. I made it my business to go there at some considerable distance off the beaten track, going down the Volga River. I remained in the factory to ascertain to what extent they were actually producing tractors. I am quite convinced, that so far as the principal works are concerned, they are producing tractors. Whether fifty thousand or not, I am not prepared to say, but certainly many thousands of tractors are being produced every year. Some engineers tell me the tractors are defective in workmanship; that they are defective and fall to pieces after the tractor finds its way into the field. For example, ball bearings may be missing, or a wheel drops off. Evidence I did see in the tractor works was that a great many tractors were brought back for repairs. But, in a general way, they are producing on a large scale, tractors, motors and machinery.

I had written about Russia in previous years and it had been said to me, "O, yes, they have wonderful works, but are they producing anything? Is there anything corning out of the factories?" I said, "I don't know. The next time I am in Russia, I am going into the factories". As far as actual construction of the enormous works are concerned, they have produced the factories; whether they can retain the tempo of production, I can't say.

Employment conditions are still very bad. The food question is still very, very acute. That is so, not only in urban centres but on the farms of Russia, as well. In the Ukraine and the Northern Caucasus, in the winters of 1931 and 1932, I don't think it is any exaggeration to say that at least five million persons perished of starvation-five million and possibly more than that. I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that in the winters of 1931 and 1932 the death rate throughout Russia doubled, owing to malnutrition and lack of food, because the food crisis, Gentlemen, was very, very crucial and had it not been, may T add, for the turning of the tide this summer when they had the best wheat crop since 1913, combined with the factor of American recognition, I doubt very much whether the Soviet regime could have gone on very much longer without drastic action in various sections, so far as Communistic policy is concerned. In the Ukraine and the Northern Caucasus, these conditions were brought about owing to drought because weather affects conditions very greatly. They had first the consideration of drought in 1931 and the crops, therefore, suffered.

Also, they have left in the Ukraine, large numbers of the Kulak class. They had been exterminated in most other parts of Russia because they were considered a danger to proletariat society. They had been left behind in the Ukraine for some reason or other and, whether they found that the drought had caused general disorganization among the peasants or not, anyway, they decided that the time had arrived for what was tantamount to a small sized rebellion. Although the world has never known the extent of the uprising, through the strangling of the press, the Kulaks came to grips with the Soviet power with very serious consequences-buildings were burned, cattled destroyed, thousands of Kulaks, I imagine, were killed, but the poor peasant, of course, was the man who really suffered in the end, for at the end of the harvesting seasons of 1931 and 1932, there was no grain in the Ukraine at all which meant that there was no bread and even a Russian can't live long without bread.

Mr. Walter Durant of the New York Times and I compared figures and we decided that about two million made pilgrimages to the cities in a hopeless quest for food. They came to the cities and there the conditions were very bad, particularly in Odessa, which I visited in the summer.

But conditions have altered. This year-perhaps they wouldn't admit that it was by the Grace of God--they have had the best wheat harvest since 1913 which was a record year in wheat alone. I saw evidences of a fine harvest everywhere I went.

They certainly had the tractors and they had the organization. After the catastrophe of the holocaust in the Northern Caucasus they sent down shock brigades because they were determined at all costs to consolidate their forces there. The result was that they were very well organized this year and from all the best reports they are back on terra firma, as far as the Ukraine and the Northern Caucasus are concerned. That means that for the first time in three winters, the average Russian worker and peasant alike will eat bread. That doesn't necessarily mean that he will not eat meat. There is a great scarcity of meat still. That is the explanation of the reports you heard about difficulties in the Northern Caucasus and the proximity of Russia to a severe crisis until this summer.

American recognition has had a tremendous effect on the morale of the people. I saw a new buoyancy of spirit that I had not discovered in my previous years of travel there. America is looked on as a friendly democracy. They decided that when America would recognize them they would be a power and a support and a friendly alliance in every sense of the word. The recognition is hailed as being the equivalent to a credit, "ad infinitum". They consider that actual gold will again begin to pour into Russia. Whether that is going to happen, I can't say myself.

Now, just a word about the second five-year plan. They speak of the first and the second five-year plans. It was the way the whole system was divided in years past. There is the period of economic policy and the period of collectives. Down through history, you will hear of the period of the first five-year plan. Now, they are in the period of the second five-year plan. Its fundamental aim and purpose is the holding of the bag of oats for the people, so it is something on which they can pin their hope for the next two or three years and follow Stalin into the labryinths of his future plans.

The second plan is intended to raise the standard of living of the workers. They argue that now that they have their enormous industrial work constructed, and more or less paid for, they don't need to export so much. That is what they would say to Mr. Bennett when he talks about wheat. They would say that under Stalin's plan they are not going to export so much wheat. They need it for their own consumption. They are going td increase commodities in light industry and increase the production of materials and commodities for home consumption, as opposed to export under the first plan, which was necessary for the payment of commodities purchased abroad.

They are going, furthermore, to render or bring about what they label an absolutely classless society. That may have a significance you don't understand. It may mean--I hope so--that they are going to provide a level of the wages between the so-called brain worker and the manual worker, for in Russia today, the laborer is the privileged class-the sort of "nouveau riche" of today, whereas the brain worker does not receive nearly so many privileges. That is very hard properly to appreciate. However, they propose under the terms of the second plan to present to the world an absolutely classless society. That also carries a significance. They will also do away with any remaining Kulaks who are members of the old Bourgeoisie who still have some possessions.

The food crisis is still very difficult. They hope under the terms of the second plan to begin producing for home consumption.

You ask why there is no unemployment in Russia. The answer is that their exists in Russia a system of what I call "pressed labour" which is unparalleled in the world outside. For in Russia today the system of labour is this: Stalin says: "Fellow Citizens and Countrymen, there is work for all but he who would live must labour". That means that they will create work for you, but they, in turn, expect you to work, no matter what it is. They will give a man a job as a shoemaker, even though he would be better as a blacksmith. They will create a job as a typist for a woman who before was a window cleaner--but he or she must work if he or she is going to eat. "He who will idle must perish". It is very effective in this way; if a man does not turn up for his daily task in the factory within the first five days of the month, if be fails to turn up or give good or just reason to the doctor of his factory, he is cut off his ration card for the remainder of that month, as well as losing his wages. To me it is one of the harsh things about the system anal one of the things about the Soviet system that I do not like. I do not think that the average Canadian worker would like that sort of thing.

That is one of the points about the Russia of today. They have an absolute system of pressed labour. I am not here as an anti-Soviet propagandist. I refuse to be that. I think it is a much more interesting subject, dealt with subjectively.

But the Soviet has a system of pressed labour in that form. You can't get a ration card unless you go to work.

You have in Russia an absolute dictatorship of the proletariat. There are three forces which maintain it, that consolidate or protect it from the revolutionists. They are the army, the secret police and propaganda.

They have the most aggressive propaganda, well organized and cleverly concealed, that the world has ever seen. Its effects are shown in the schools, in the universities, in the streets, in the newspapers and in the magazines. It can be seen, right down to the tiniest tots coming out of the nurseries.

I would like to tell an anecdote in this connection. They have in Russia a pioneer movement which is the equivalent of the Boy Scout movement here. There, again, they are given the Communist, anti-religious teaching at the earliest age, until today, if you mention the word "Christmas" to a youngster of ten years of age, he simply gapes at you. There is no such thing as Sunday, Monday, or anything of that kind. The old western week has disappeared. There is one day of rest.

It all comes back to the propaganda system that works in the schools and in the theatres and so on. To what extent it entrenches itself in the young mind can be emphasized by a short anecdote of a teacher who came to a school to conduct an examination in mathematics. The teacher stood before the class and said, putting an ordinary problem in mathematics to the class, "If I were to purchase a case of apples for twenty-five rubles and sold them for fifty rubles, what would I get?" "Three years in jail", was the answer. The idea being that the profiteer is the worst citizen under the sun.

"Religion is the opium of the people". I think that Marx was responsible in the first place for that phrase which was carried on by Lenin, and that phrase you will find emblazoned from street corners and house tops in every corner of Russia. Fifty per cent of the churches are still standing. They have been converted into antireligious museums and in these museums you will see on great banners in bright hued colours, the words, "Religion is the opium of the people".

The Russia Soviet authorities will not admit that they officially prohibit religious practice. But they have the Militant Atheistic Society, with a membership of five million or more under a strong executive of Communists and before I left Russia on this occasion, I thought it worth while to spend a couple of hours with Professor Lukinovitch and I went deeply into the subject of religion with him and he admitted to me that Russia is using every legitimate means in her power, short of actual physical coercion" in crushing the spirit of religion in the people. They argue that religion is incompatible with socialistic freedom. Therefore, by a process of propaganda, they are endeavouring to exterminate the spirit of religion in Russia. I have no reason to doubt that.

They organize a shock brigade if they discover a town somewhere in the Ukraine or in the Northern Caucasus where they feel that there is a preponderance of religiously minded people still prevailing and they send down these shock brigades. They go into the homes of these people and they ask, why they are still clinging to the old-fashioned idea of religion. Churches are being torn down by degrees.

To give again the gravity of the situation from that point of view, I asked Professor Lukinovitch, if they were so interested in liquidating religion in their scheme of things, why didn't they start by destroying all the churches, instead of removing just a few and converting the others into museums as they are doing now. He said, "Because, Mr. Ketchum, if we were to remove all the churches we would simply drive them underground; then we would never know where the religious people were to be found". The religious aspect of the situation could be dealt with at great length, but I will not take up too much time with it.

With regard to marriage, as you probably know, the religious ceremony is no longer recognized and very few religious marriages now take place. No religious ceremony is connected with deaths any longer. If you marry today, you simply go to a Marriage Commissariat. They have the Bureau of Deaths, Marriages, Divorces and Adoptions. If you are going to be married, you go in, sign a register, walk out and you are married. If either you or your wife return the same day--either one of you can return the same day to the same office and declare that you are divorced, and you can send a postcard to the other contracting party saying that you have changed your mind.

There is an anecdote told which shows to what extent this prevails. The story is told of a man who changed his mind. The one penalty in connection with this is that the man must pay alimony for his frivolity. In this case the citizen was called before the judge; a woman claimed that he had married in haste and had also departed in haste, so she claimed alimony which she has a right to do under their statutes. The judge listened to the case with great sympathy. Summing the case up, he said, "Well, my man, I am afraid you will have to pay one-third of your income in alimony to the woman you have left". He said, "I can't do that. I am already paying one-third for my first wife". The judge said, "Well, then, you will have to pay the second third of your income to this woman". "But, judge", said the man, "I can't do that. I am already paying the second third of my income to my previous wife". "In that case", said the judge, "you will have to pay the third third of your income in alimony to this woman". He hesitated a moment or so and then he said "I can't do that because I am already paying my third third to a previous wife". The judge said, "You are paying the three thirds of your income to previous wives? How do you live?" "Well, judge, if you must know the truth of it, I am living on the income of my wife's alimony from her five previous husbands".

That is the marriage situation. Curiously enough, divorce is on the decrease. What the reason is, I do not know. Put I have read several books and most authorities agree that, curiously enough, divorce under this system is disappearing. I attribute it to the self-respecting attitude of the average Russian woman. They are very artistic and they have a great sense of self-respect. Also, industry is dragging women, more and more, into its vortex. The appeal was made last year for women to join industry. Conditions are made so attractive that they find it very suitable to their taste and in my trip around Russia this year' I found that in many of the biggest factories and doing the heaviest tasks, many times sixty percent of the workers were women. Many were from the agricultural districts. They give as their reason that they liked the brighter lights of the city.

They have their cultural development which is one of the great things in Russia. This applies in factories as well as in the agrarian centres. In Russia they claim that under the terms of their first five-year plan they have solved, at long last, the agrarian problem that has baffled agricultural countries throughout the ages. They present the problem as this: They say that other rations have not given the time to the agrarian problem. It is the problem of keeping the peasant tilling the field abreast of the cultural advantages which, as the days go by, are accruing to the workers in the city which he feeds. That is why they claim that row they are succeeding so well on their farms. They are encouraging more and more people to remain on the farms and they are bringing the bright lights of the cities to the remotest districts of the farm land. That is true in a very great degree, for under the terms of the five-year plan, many of the largest farms I visited this year, I found out from the engineers that they had actually gone to work putting up buildings--theatres and sports stadiums,--before they thought of the soil around, the idea being to create the communal centre which would make the farm attractive to the workers.

Gentlemen, I haven't much time longer. I have three or four minutes.

I think you can take it as pretty well for granted that Russia is now more or less economically on her feet for the first time since the revolution. She is pretty well on the road to a reasonable degree of prosperity. I do not think that anything can upset the present power for the next fifty years. I am not personally interested, beyond that time. r think, if we are to face the condition as it is we must recognize that it is a pretty solid institution now. Personally, I am inclined to think that there is a great market there for Canadian goods. But that is a controversial question that I am not dwelling on in Canada. I am not here for one person or another. They require commodities of all kinds. There is no doubt that that need can be met by whatever arrangements they have made with America. There is no doubt that they have made a great trade arrangement.

Just a little humorous touch in conclusion: The Russian is notorious for his sense of humour, the carefree way in which they carry on from day to day, notwithstanding all their trials and tribulations. They are an easy, free-going race of Bohemians, especially in the artistic set where one moves, more or less, as a journalist. There is a good deal of humour; they laugh at themselves a good deal. They kid themselves through the dark times. They say, "Saychas"--it means, "Immediately". You say to a Russion, "Will you dire with me?" He doesn't say,, "Yes", he says, "Saychas". Actually, in its literal sense, it means "immediately". It probably means any time between now and ten years from now. It is an expression that indicates the carefree attitude of the Russian people. They don't care very much. "Nichivo"--it doesn't matter very much. That is the spirit that has carried them through. There is a good deal of humour in Russia.

There is a story I would like to conclude with, a story which was told to me in Russia by Russians. There is more humour than truth in it, possibly. Mr. Lloyd George entertained George Tchitcherin, Commissioner of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Litvinoff's predecessor, at Downing Street. During the course of the meal, Lloyd George noticed Tchitcherin's secretary get up suddenly and withdraw from the room. And almost instantly, Lloyd George noticed that his watch was missing. He explained to Tchitcherin in a whisper that his watch had disappeared. He said, "I don't want to upset this talk. But after all, a watch is a watch and my watch disappeared just as your secretary walked out of the room". Tchitcherin, quite unabashed said" "Just a moment, I will fix that for you", and he prepared to leave the room. Lloyd George said, "Wait a minute. We don't want to cause any international complications over a small thing like a watch, but it was a family heirloom and T rather prized it". Tchitcherin left the room and in two shakes of a lamb's tail he was back anal proceeding, quite nonchalantly with his soup, he passed back the watch under the tablecloth. Lloyd George was quite astonished at the alacrity with which he had done the whole thing and he said, "Tell me, Tchitcherin, what happened". "There was no commotion at all. No, no. Sh! He doesn't know that I got it back!" (Laughter.)

Gentlemen, I did not realize until the luncheon that you wished me to speak on the Red Army today--Red Russia's Fighting Forces, but I brought you some lantern slides made from a collection of photographs which I got in Russia for the National Council of Education. Being an army officer, I was particularly interested in the army and as I had access to some rather good pictures, I had slides made from them. We are now going to show some of the pictures which will tell the story in themselves. I couldn't attempt to describe the pictures in detail but I shall let you see them as quickly as possible.

(Lantern slides shown and briefly commented on by Mr. Ketchum.)

In expressing the thanks of The Empire Club to Mr. Ketchum for his enlightening address, Major Baxter stated that the Club was also indebted to the National Council of Education, through whom Mr. Ketchum was secured as the guest speaker for this luncheon.