NOTES
ON
A VISIT
TO THE
SOVIET
UNION
IN
AUGUST
AND
SEPTEMBER
1958
By Joseph Stokes, Jr., M.D.
Department of Pediatrics, University of Pennsyleania
113
T
lIE FOLLOWING is written for thepur-JO5e of supplementing the account of Doctor Milton Senn* concerning his visit to the Soviet Union during mid-1958. Dr. Senn visited first in the early summer; and I was there from mid-August to mid-Septem-i)er. We have agreed that Dr. Senn will
cover the family and child health aspects,
and I shall make some remarks on the over-all scene. Both of us visited with more than
OflC corfll)aniofl and both of us had mnterpre-tens. In my own case we were furnished with an excellent interpreter who had written his final English thesis on a comparison of the satire of Charles Dickens and Mark Twain, but we also had a scholar from the United States who spoke Russian fluently, Dr. Sam-uel Corson, a physiologist whose knowledge of scientific Russian filled well the gaps in the medical knowledge of our interpreter. Dr. George Perera of Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, N.Y., was the third mem-ber of our group, and at times lie aided in contacts through his knowledge of French. In addition, the number of American visitors in the Soviet Union in 1958 was over 5,000, as confirmed to us by Ambassador Men-shikov after our return; we met several of-ficial delegations of teachers, agricultural-ists, physicians, and of those studying social security, pension plans, etc.
Before leaving the United States we had the opportunity of obtaining helpful point-ens from Dr. Senn who had just returned, and also had checked with a number of med-ical and other groups who had been there in recent years. Among others were Doctors Cohn MacLeod, Richard Shope, Paul White and Margaret Sloan. Conversations with
C PEDIATRICS, June, 1959.
Justice Villiam Douglas, who very kindly sent me his book Russian Journey, and with Clarence Pickett and other members of the American Friends’ Service Committee who had been there were enlightening. One of the latter group, Professor William Edger-ton, had been to the Soviet Union four or five times recently and in the summer of 1958 was the Chairman of the American Delega-tion to the Slavic Congress-a congress on Slavic languages held in Moscow. He was present at an evening reception at Ambassa-dor Thompson’s residence in Moscow which we attended towards the end of our trip and at which we had the opportunity of discuss-ing our visit with Mrs. Franklin Roosevelt. We visited Ambassador Thompson at the beginning of our trip and Richard Davis, Minister, at the end of the trip, also having the opportunity on our flight out of Russia of discussing Soviet education at some length with Senator Stennis of Mississippi who had made a particular effort to study this area of their effort. The books of Field on Medicine and Gunther’s Inside Russia aided considerably.
The “Iron Curtain,” the events of the Stalin era, and our newspapers’ emphasis on areas of difference rather than on areas of agreement, and on failures rather than on accomplishments, makes one ill-prepared to face the Soviet Union with an open mind. Prejudices in the United States are so deep that any statements of Soviet progress brand one in many American minds as either pro-Communist or, by the more compassionate, as “starry-eyed.” The knowledge of the branding one can all too easily receive on returning to America, makes one all the more cautious in checking observations and in modifying phrases and statements to stay
ADDRESS: Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, 1740 Bainbnidge Street, Philadelphia 46, Pennsylvania.
114 VISIT TO THE SOVIET UNION
\V(’1 I wi thimi thlP wehl-kmiovn anm(1 well-au-tllemiticate(l facts. It is still possible to be
mis-taken, i)llt with over 5,000 Americans on the loose in 1 year imi the Soviet Union, it is less 1)ossible than it used to he. It has also hap-pened with a number of visitors that the shock of awakening to the progress of the Soviet Union since 1946, despite the destruc-tion of most of European Russia by the Germans, has been sufficiently striking as to
permit enthusiasm to run away with
bal-anced judgment. The seriotms deficiencies of Russia have been spread across the front pages of our press in glaring headlines for so many decades that the sudden realization there is real progress in important areas sometimes makes it difficult for the Amen-can visitor to express containedly his
new-won knowledge.
The fact that the solid Iron Curtain was changing to steel mesh became obvious with the signing of the cultural exchange agree-ment between the Soviet Union and the United States early in 1958. Our own trip of three medical visitors was a result of this agreement. The Union of Soviet Societies for Friendship and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries (formerly VOKS) invited the American Friends’ Service Committee to send a delegation of three, for 1 month to 6 weeks, with the understanding that a pro-fessional delegation of three from the Soviet Union would soon return the visit. These three, an astronomer, an automation engi-neer and a surgeon have completed the onig-inal purpose of our visit early in 1959. The more important purpose, namely the long-term exchanges (of 6 months to 2 years) of post-graduates--approximately 3, 4 or 5 years after Ph.D. or the same after M.D., or the equivalent in other areas-is about to be initiated in accordance with the spirit and letter of the agreement between our two governments. The American Friends’ Service Committee extended a positive feeler, as they had extended other feelers, to the So-viet Union in 1947 when tens of thousands of dollars worth of streptomycin were sent as a gift to the Soviet Union at a time when they had no drug available for the treatment of
tubercimlosis, iI11(1 in certaimi respects as a
re-ttmrmi gift to Europe for Sweden’s gift of the Nobel Peace Award to this Committee. The invitation from the Soviet Union was a na-tural outcome of these approaches towards greater understanding between the peoples, and it is the belief of almost all persons in both countries to whom we have talked that the long-term exchanges which now hope-fully are to be consummated can only add to such understanding.
We flew into Leningrad on the afternoon of September 11, then travelling immedi-ately by the night train to Moscow where for 4 days all arrangements were made with the Soviet Academy of Medical Sciences and with the Union of Soviet Societies for our month’s stay. This included: a return to Leningrad for 6 days; an air trip through Moscow and Rostov to Sochi on the Black Sea for 3 days; Sukhumi in Georgia on the Black Sea, 1 day; an air trip up the Dnieper River Valley to Kiev in the Ukraine for 7 days; and back to Moscow by air for the last 8 days. We ended the trip with 2 days in Warsaw under the guidance of Professors Francis Groer and Henry Brokman.
Since our objective was the development of cultural exchanges, we stayed in the larger urban areas and centered our atten-tion on personal contacts and the general social outlook. I should like to outline our general impressions which seem to be of greater significance than the health or
sci-entific data we gathered.
It cannot be too greatly emphasized that
de-1)ressiomi to a feelimig of pioneering exhilara-tH)mi, from serfdoiii to a feeling of owner-Shii1), and froni bitterness to pride in
achieve-mnent. It is of interest that many of them
consider Peter the Great, who died in 1725, as their first great communist because he was the first Czar to bring in culture from the Western World and to check the joint power of the nobles and the church over the peasants. He greatly loosened the shackles of the peasants, at least temporarily, and gave to Russia a vision of her potential power.
As the people have only known dictator-ship, they cannot appreciate our concern for their freedom. They feel free because they have known nothing else and certainly they are far easier than under the Czars. It is when their type of dictatorship has armed contact with the West, as in the satellite countries and Germany and Hungary, that the grave dangers of dictatorship stand out against the background of free peoples.
One cannot judge the Soviet Union today with what it was at the time of the Revolu-tion or in the 1930’s or in the 1940’s, nor even in the early 1950’s. Like our own coun-try in our pioneer days it has changed so rapidly that one can only truly judge it by comparisons with itself-even in 1958 it was very different from 1957, as Mrs. Roosevelt, who was there both years, has pointed out. Even as we left, Khrushchev was changing the education of the children to include stip-ulated periods of manual work. In the past 3 years the youth groups, similar to our work camps, have cleared by volunteer labor an area in Kazakhstan and western Siberia equal to the entire area of France for new cultivation. This is a colder area than France and not as fertile, but the astonishing vigor of the youth under expert management (but as far as we could determine not under com-pulsion-it may rather be termed group ap-proval or more properly group pride of achievement) suggests how changes can be brought about so rapidly and how out-of-date one may be in his estimate of the Soviet scene. Within the last 3 years also a large collective farm on the edge of
Mos-cow, and just distal to time University of Moscow, has been covered with apartments which now house about 200,000 persons-one reason that consolidated slums were present in Moscow a few years ago but are now disappearing. Kiev, which has buildings much like Philadelphia and lies on a high bank overlooking the Dnieper River, was a mass of rubble in 1946 from German destruc-tion and is now a beautiful tall city, much of it being rebuilt by volunteer labor. These ac-complishments obviously show strength, vigor, and determination. It is extremely hard to imagine Moscow as a sea of huts with mud between, with a few houses of the upper classes scattered about the great palace of the Czars, the Kremlin, in 1924 as
Dr. Corson then saw it, and to see the same
people today in extensive apartments and public buildings sending the first man-made satellite in apparently permanent orbit past the moon and around the sun. To be sure some of their knowhow has come from the West, but, if one believes Niels Bohr and the Danish physicists, much of the know-how has come from the Soviet Union itself.
It is their solid achievement against the Czarist background and against the Ger-man destruction of most of European Russia, except for Leningrad and Moscow, which commands admiration for the people, however despicable the Stalin era may have been in its bloody purges and broken pledges. One can admire the sturdy intel-ligent vigor of the people without admiring their government.
The Stalin era represents, even to most of the Soviet people of intelligence whom we met, a stage in their development which in retrospect is viewed with much bitterness. Khrushchev’s speech concerning the “Cult of Personality” means much to the people and in many cases Stalin’s
pie-tures are disappearing when public
cen-116 VISIT TO THE SOVIET UNION
ten with white lines for a single car are now reserve(l for the Lmnh)ulamKcs O1 official cars, limit iii Stalin’s era were reserved for his ca’alCa(le of seven or eight intomnobiles all covered amid drivemi at high speed in single file with side roads blocked off to avoid the public eye and any possible at-tempt at assassination. Stalin wrote his own “authoritative” book on Philology and on Architecture from which sprang the “birth-(lay cake” architectural atrocities dotting the
Moscow skyline and even the skyline of
Varsaw (the Palace of Culture). Hopefully,
tunes are changing, since Khrushchev rides
from the airport to the Kremlin with open car acknowledging the cheers of the popu-lace. The worst feature of the Stalin era, epitomized in such a figure as Beria who at-tempted to consolidate his power, like Hit-len, by using Stalin’s fear of his life and the Jews as strawmen, has virtually disap-peared. Pasternak would undoubtedly have disappeared imi Stalin’s reign, rather than merely being denounced by the Union of Soviet Writers. The present government has taken no official action against him. There is freedom of worship in the churches and
in the synagogues. Seminaries are also
per-mitted. We visited and talked to Jewish, Russian orthodox and Baptist Congrega-tions, and went into Moslem mosques. As far as we could determine, although the gov-ernment emicotmrages atheism, they do not re-press any religious sect.
On the negative side of the ledger one
could list the following:
1) A monolithic one-party system or die-tatorship.
2) A lack of evidence at present of an independent judiciary.
3) No opportunity for recall of leaders, and the danger of a “blood bath” whenever the government changes.
4) Inability to obtain full information comicermiimig the Soviet Union lml(l about the rest of the world.
5) Greater limitatiomi on job openings than in the free world.
6) Forced exposure to indoctrination.
7) Lack of maturity evident in
overconfi-dence and self-assurance as well as “chip-on-the-shoulder” attitude.
The favorable or positive points may be listed as follows:
1) High social standing of the intellectual, the scientist and educator, and salaries commensurate with such standing.
2) The high place of education itself. 3) Unusual eagerness for books and abundant libraries.
4) Long-range planning: a) streets; b) social security; c) planning and provision for leisure, e.g., arts and rest homes.
5) Preventive health, such as complete
prophylaxis in DPT, etc. Emphasis on men-tal and physical health.
6) Sense of social responsibility, includ-ing volunteer services, e.g., reclamation of land already mentioned.
7) Greater total participation of women
in all activities.
8) Equality of people in all personal
re-lations.
There can be no question that within the
framework of this complete dictatorship,
politically so abhorrent to the West, there are certain implications for free peoples of the greatest importance, such as : 1) the social and financial standing of the scientist and educator; 2) incentives to labor in their
method of controlled “piece work”; 3) the
