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"Mrs. Roosevelt Discusses Conditions
in Soviet Union"
Harvard
Law Record - March 13, 1958 - Pages 1, 3
By Binder
reprinted by permission
Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, who has recently returned from a visit to the Soviet Union, told a capacity audience in the New Lecture Hall last Friday evening that the success of communism in Soviet Russia cannot be interpreted or judged by free world criteria. The great mass of the Russian people, she explained, were peasants and suffered under the rule of the czars. They never experienced anything akin to what we call "freedom." Today "everyone dates every good thing that has happened from the time of the Revolution."
The former first lady, in an address sponsored by the Law School Forum, said that in the age of czars only a scant 10% of the Russian people were literate. Now probably no more than 10% could be considered illiterate. Under the czars life was cheap. There was "little concern for the peasants."
Today, she explained, a vast number of people in Russia feel that the first important freedom is the "freedom to eat." While attempts to raise living standards and confer benefits upon the people appear small when judged by Western standards, they appear much greater in the eyes of the Russians, who appreciate the change in attitude upon the part of the government since the time of the czars. The "little bit of economic security" now possessed by a great many people in the Soviet Union is thought by them to be "the beginning of freedom."
"Everything in the Soviet Union is done under compulsion," Mrs. Roosevelt emphasized. Yet the set-up of compulsion "does bring some good results." For example, a woman who works (and most women in Russia do) is required to spend a certain number of days at home before having a baby, eight days in a hospital if birth is normal, and 57 days at home after the baby is born, for which period of time she continues to receive her normal pay.
Efforts are being made to alleviate poor housing conditions in the cities. One apartment house per day is being constructed in Moscow. Crowded conditions remain, however. "You and I would call it the worst kind of slum living."
Among the remarkable results produced by the discipline in a compulsive society, she pointed out, are exceptionally clean apartment houses and streets. People are taught not to litter them up and don't. She told of observing man lighting cigarettes and, when they were finished, carefully placing the burnt match back in the box. The discipline of Russian children is "extraordinary," down to those but six months old.
Preventative medicine in the U.S.S.R. "is compulsory but good," the former first lady said. And much of their science, of course, is far advanced, due to a heavy concentration in that field. It is a "great mistake" to underestimate the intellectual capacity of the Russians, she warned.
Mrs. Roosevelt pointed out that she found very few young people in the churches. There are plenty of churches in Moscow, she continued, but it is mostly the older people that attend them.
What of the younger people? "Most people have to have something to worship," so the youthful worship Lenin. The two persons that are held in the highest esteem in Russia, she declared, are Lenin and Pavlov. Some of the results of Pavlov's experiments on the subject of the conditionedproper reflex, she feels, are being utilized by the Soviet leadership to discipline the Russian people.
The challenge that the Soviet Union offers the United States is "not purely a military one," she asserted. "The Soviet Union is the showcase for what you can do under compulsion. The United States is the showcase for what free people can do for themselves."
A struggle for the allegiance of the uncommitted areas of the world is reaching a crucial stage, Mrs. Roosevelt declared. The Soviets have been saying to these nations, "Forty years ago we faced the same problems you face today. We overcame them. We can help you to overcome them. We understand them. The United States does not."
She denounced the idea that "freedom stems from free enterprise." When we try to equate freedom with any particular type of economic system, we lose the sympathy of a good part of the world, she stated. Each country faces its own peculiar problems and many nations are unable to develop an economy akin to that of the United States.
The Russian government has been very adept at the art of psychological warfare, she asserted. The best seats at Moscow theaters and playhouses go to foreigners. Visitors areof the guests of the government and it is seen that they get the very best. This, she said, is part of a "well thought-out plan."
In answer to a question, Mrs. Roosevelt stated that although there is some grumbling among the people in Russia, particularly among students, it is "wishful thinking" to believe that there will be a revolution in Russia in the near future.
The challenge presented by the Soviet Union should not discourage us, she emphasized. "If we can understand the challenge, we can win it." With the proper use of imagination, vision and courage "there is no question but that the free world can remain free."