Chapter V

Now I know you want to know what about it, and how is it working, and what is it. Well, I am giving it as much study as a Bird like me could give serious study to anything. Before coming in here, I read everything. I read so many of that fellow Marx’s books that I don’t want even to see the Marx Brothers, as clever as they are. I have come to the conclusion that the reason there is so many books on Socialism is because it’s the only thing in the world that you can’t explain easy. It’s absolutely impossible for any Socialist to say anything in a few words. You say, “Is it light or dark?” and it takes him two volumes to answer Yes or No; and then I know there is a catch in it somewhere. It’s like a long Theatrical Contract. If one of them tells beyond the Salary and the amount of weeks you are to work, why, you might just as well light a cigarette with it. More words ain’t good for anything in the world only to bring on more argument.

If Socialists worked as much as they talked, they would be the most prosperous style of Government in the World. But the thing is they don’t know anything about it themselves. There is not two of them in the world with the same idea of what it is. They say, “All we want is somebody to come in and see with an open mind.” Well, if ever a Guy went into Russia with an open mind it was me. It was not only open but it verged on being empty. Lord, if 130,000,000 people that never had it any too soft in their lives are trying to work out a way to better their condition, why, it ain’t for a yap like me to come along and tell them that they are all wrong.

You know, I dident have to go to Russia to find comedy or chaos in Governments. If I was looking for governments that wasent just exactly hitting on all six, why, I left one and went through a dozen more going to Russia, so anybody better not start heaving too many rocks at Russia’s government--I don’t care which country you come from--till you have looked your own over.

Liberty don’t work as good in practice as it does in Speech. You got to figure that bunch of fellows are playing with the biggest Toy in the world. They are like a poor old Farmer or Rancher out home in Oklahoma that has a bunch of Kids, and they have never had anything to play with in their lives but an old hound pup; and then Dad strikes Oil, is paid a big bonus, and wanting to do something for his Gang, goes to Tulsa and gets them all the mechanical toys of every description in the world and hands them to them to play with. Well, that is what somebody has slipped these soviet fellows. They have had an electric train thrust into their hands and they had never pulled the string on even a jumping jack before, and they are naturally going to have a lot of short circuits and burned fingers before they get the thing started. Cæsar and Nero and that bunch of boys that got credit for steam-roller measures through the Roman senate were playing county politics compared to these Babies. The whole Roman Empire, in its balmiest days--and it had some balmy days--that little Minor-League Empire would have got so lost in Russia that Columbus, De Soto and Lewis Clark couldent have found it.

Now handing this bunch of fellows Russia would just be like Judge Gary coming backstage at the Follies and saying, “Here, Will, you and the Girls take over the Steel Corporation and run it.” Now you have to have some kind of training to handle something big or else you have to do a lot of practicing on it after you get it, which is generally pretty expensive. Most of these fellows were on little Communist Newspapers.

Now America has withstood some pretty rough handling at times, but I sure would hate to see it fall under the management of a troop of our Dissatisfied Newspaper men. Put it in the hands of an old hardheaded Farmer or a small-town Merchant, but deliver it from Editors. They would have more Theories how to run us than the Communists. So you got to give these fellows a little bit of the benefit of the doubt. They are practicing and are trying to do the best they can, but unfortunately they are practicing on 130,000,000 people that have to remain the horrible example till these Guys find out themselves just what it’s all about.

’Course, it won’t be such a terrible disgrace--on them--if they don’t make it, for there is Nations with men trained from childhood in government that looks like they were getting practiced on. It’s just tough on the people, that’s all. It’s no disgrace not to be able to run a country nowadays, but it is a disgrace to keep on trying when you know you can’t. ’Course, things look pretty bad there. You see, this is ’26 and the war started in ’14. That means twelve years that trains, street cars, Public Buildings, and in fact everything, has not had a thing done to it since the day the Czar’s forces marched off to fight Germany; no painting, no streets fixed up to amount to anything. Most of the streets are, however, kept clean. You see a great deal of poverty among the people along the streets, a great many ragged little children begging. ’Course, you can see these things in lots of cities besides Russian ones, but it’s worse in there.

I never saw a pair of silk stockings on a single lady on the street. Everything is very expensive. Most all the manufactured things have to be imported, as their factories, very few of them are operating. The Factories are there, but the machinery is all rusted and spoiled in all these years of no usage; and they have to get in new machinery; and it costs a lot of money to re-equip all those. Food things shouldent be so high, for they raise everything in the world up there; but it seems to cost them a lot to handle it through the stores. They have these coöperative stores; in fact everything is supposed to belong to the government, but they are changing now and allowing private ownership and cutting prices over each other.

You see, the Communism that they started out with, the idea that everybody would get the same and have the same--Lord, that dident work at all. That has all been changed--the idea that the fellow that was managing the bank was to get no more than the man that swept it out. That talked well to a crowd, but they got no more of that now than we have. I don’t suppose there is two men in Russia getting exactly the same salary. They get what they can get, and where they can get it. When the government runs anything, as they do practically everything over there, there is always about twice or three times as many working in the place as would be found in private enterprises.

During these hard times they have had so much dishonesty among the people working where they could get their hands on any money that it takes about two to watch one, and then four others to watch those two. There is also an awful lot of unemployment.

Taxes are very high. They have succeeded in stabilizing their money--that is, inside the Soviet Union. The Ruble is worth 50 cents, which is the par value of it. The Chervonetz, or sort of a little pocket Chevrolet, is worth just about five dollars, and compares with the English pound. Right after the Revolution, when they were operating their money like a lot of these Countries over here do, on just a Printing-Press basis, why, they had bootleg money-makers, just like they do over home with--alleged--booze. If you needed any money, you would go to your Currency Bootlegger and buy it. Each one claimed to make Nothing but Prewar stuff. Now they got it stabilized, but it’s up so high nobody can get any of it.

I asked an official of their Foreign Office how they maintained it at standard, and he said: “We balance our budget. We estimate how much will come in during the year and don’t spend any more than that. We make our exports and imports balance, and that is one reason we cannot bring in as many things as we would like to.”

But another very prominent man who had been in there off and on for years, doing a big business in there, said: “They originally started out with a bunch of Gold that they inherited from the original Government, and what they had confiscated from various ones during and after the Revolution, and they took that to England and borrowed its equivalent in money on a loan against the gold. Well, they took this money and come back home and issued more currency against what they had brought from England, saying, ‘It’s all backed by our gold reserve.’ They would issue another batch against the last one, just pyramiding, all backed up by this original that was in hock to England. But anyhow, they have kept it steady, and you don’t have to read the papers every day to see what you have.”

Of course, anyone going in will ask, “Is it working? Is everybody happy?” Well, they are not. Over 90 per cent of the population in Russia are farmers, and live out in the country and Villages. The Revolution was to get the Peasant the land. They took all the land and everything that the rich or even fairly prosperous had away from them, and it’s owned by the Government. They give it to the Peasant, but it’s only his as long as he lives on it and tends it. He can’t trade it off or sell it. The real deed to the land is held by the Government.

’Course, that beat the old way of being under the thumb of the Landlord. But now that the Peasant owns it, he has to pay the taxes on it. Before, it was the Landlord had to pay them. So the difference in what he pays the Government and what he paid the Landlord is so little that he can’t hardly see where he comes in to be much better off.

But that is not the real and the serious trouble there. It is this: The Government tells the farmer what he shall get for his products--based, of course, on the market value at that time. Well, he is not kicking so much on that as he is on this: When he sells his grain, he can’t take the money and go buy what he needs. He can’t buy his plows and his wagons and his harness and many other things that has to be made by a factory. They cost him more than his grain brought him; and if he did happen to have enough, then the things are not to be found to buy. They have to import most of them and the cost to the farmer is tremendous. So what does the old Farmer do? He won’t sell them the stuff.

The Russian Peasant may be Illiterate, but he is not what you would call Dumb. He knows something about this Guy Marx’s theories himself. He knows what’s the use raising anything if you can’t trade it or sell it for what you want. So he is just raising for his own use. And living on what he raises. If he does raise more, when they say, “You have so much wheat here; you must sell that,” he illiterately replies, “No, I eat that. My family very big bread eaters, eat lots of wheat. I have none for sale.”

Sometimes he hides it; but, anyhow, he is not selling it, and that has got the whole Communistic Party about cuckoo right at this minute. Their problem is to satisfy him. They have to get him some stuff in there cheaper than they can afford to, or make it, or pay more for his grain than they can get for it in outside world markets. Somebody is going to lose some money on the thing, and it ain’t going to be old Mr. Peasant. He can set and live on just exactly what he raises. But the old Boys in town has got to get enough nourishment from what the farmer raises to make those brotherhood-of-man speeches on. The old farmer just grinds his extra up into Vodka, lays in a lot of wood and hibernates for the winter.

If you got that Vodka for a companion you got a mighty ally on your side when it comes to forgetting your troubles. The old Peasant has gone through many of these same winters. He knows it’s not going to make much difference with him who is in. You see, there is only 600,000 Communists in the whole of Russia, and they are ruling over the other 130,000,000. So this 600,000 has got to figure out some way to sorter half satisfy this small minority.

Look over home the Pheasants out in the West and Middle West are either hollering for higher prices for their grain or cheaper prices for flivver parts, phonograph records, Crystal sets, cheaper movie admission and Government instruction in Black-bottom dance steps. So, you see, Russia’s problem is about our problem, only Russians can get along without all these necessities. They can live on what they raise, and drink the surplus and enjoy it. But you have got to supply our Pheasants with these essentials, for they can vote and the Russians can’t--they can vote, but they can’t get them counted.

So, after all, the world is just about the same whether it be on the banks of the Vulgar or the Potomac. So we are not in a position hardly to blame the Communists for not finding a solution when we pay 600 men $10,000 apiece a year and they can’t find out.

So, as I said before, I dident have to go to Russia to find humor in Government.