Reflections on the USSR while visiting Greece

Issue #10 Diary Notes of a European Journey (Mainly about Russia) June 9-15, 1962

In the summer of 1962, Paul Green was invited to attend a theatre conference in Athens, Greece. He planned his travels to begin in May, so that he could spend time in Russia prior to the conference. He spent two weeks in the Soviet Union, touring and attempting to “get something of the truth about what was going on there.” He wrote: “I had long given up hope on getting the true facts on Communism from the American press.” His careful observations have been shared over several issues of PAUL GREEN’s CABIN. By the first week in June, he was on his way to Greece. While in Greece, he saw several plays and took time to reflect on his time in Russia. Green’s daughter, Betsy, remembers her father coming home and sharing this list with the family.

Moscow, Saturday, June 9

Up early. Rain pouring, checked out, a long lean mountaineer-type drove me through the country to the airport. Men and women hurrying along in the rain, going to work. Driver went so fast he had to be spoken to. He looked around and nearly ran off a high embankment, which would have killed us both. Kept on flying. At airport a madhouse, nobody to speak English and a mob crowded into the little clearing room going to all ends of the earth. Met up with a couple of American-Armenians, one had married a girl from Greensboro. They couldn’t speak Russian either. In fact, I knew more words than they. But we comforted one another. After an hour and a half, we got cleared and made our plane.

We came down at Kiev in the Ukraine, beautiful, rich looking land, level as a floor. It certainly looked like “the breadbasket of Russia.” Unloaded, went to a building to have our luggage checked. Then off again. Sun shining.

Arrived at Vienna at noon. Beautiful airport, a different world of smiling, polite and beautifully dressed people. I had been studying German on the way and found now all the hid-away words of long ago came fumbling to the fore. It was easy.

Got cleared and on into town to Hotel Kummer. Had hardly put my bags down before Paul and Skip [Green’s son and his wife] phoned to say they were downstairs. After lunch we all went exploring the town. A joy to see the shops full of consumer goods, people buying, busy and happy in their “competitive blindness.”

Wednesday, June 13

Up early. Took long walk. Bothered by bad cramp in my back. Back to hotel, to do sitting-up exercises. No help. Packed up. Paid bill, goodbye. Off to airport.

Had a smooth flight to Athens. Was met at airport by two young girls with long legs and cropped short skirts — from Greek Tourist Bureau. Drove to Kings’ Palace Hotel where I had a room — a small room, noisy place in the halls. Supper. Took a long walk. Sunny weather, flowers in bloom. Again, another world.

Plywright Paul Green in Epidaurus, Greece, 1962

Thursday, June 14

Read late last night in Euripides’ plays. I must read more of him. I have always had such devotion to Aeschylus that maybe I haven’t properly appreciated him.

Also some Tennessee Williams. I like the words of his plays, their poetic flavor, that is, but not the characters who speak them. Also I like his lambent using of scenery and his seeing-through walls, treatment of his people’s environment.

Got up early, took a long walk. Later bought a hot water bottle for treating my cramped back. Lay on the bottle for hours in my room. Helped some. Read a lot of French drama. A collection of 8 “Great French plays” I’d picked up.

Felt pretty well, played out all day. Maybe if I could sleep peacefully at night, I’d feel peppier. But it seems every moment of my sleeping is full of tumultuous dreams — it has been that way now for several years. And if I’m not sleeping and lying waiting for sleep, always I am writing dialogue inside my head. For years now my dreams incline to the following matters:

1. Imprisonment by some political power—my efforts to escape, threats of execution, etc.

2. Poverty—being penniless, Elizabeth and I hunting a place to stay, hunger, disgrace, etc.

3. Old houses—always finding beautiful old places trying to buy them, planning to remodel them and live in them

Then a thousand variations on these themes, few of any joy. Strange!

Took a taxi in the evening out to see the Son et Lumiere production at the Acropolis. Poked around ahead of time on the hill. Beautiful view, the sun setting. Then bought a ticket to the production and walked on up and around to the place where the audience sat—some 250 chairs lined up. There, to the right a few feet away, the chiseled-out rostrum from which the speakers used to address the Greek citizens. Here, where we were sitting Pericles, so the guidebook said, delivered his great speech in memory of all those who fell at Marathon. The dark finally came down and there shone a half-shrunk moon to the right up in the sky, but not bright enough to interfere with the show. Then the show began — a bravura musical announcement, next some words from the unseen speakers, then a long, long crawling — now brass, now woodwinds with a few strings, then brass again and on and on  — overture.

The whole thing was poor and boring to me. It centered mostly around the Persian invasion, and the defeat of the Persians — I suppose they were defeated in the script. They were in history. And ended with a woman’s voice — Athena’s — speaking some fairish words about freedom and beauty and good taste. The music finale crawled and crawled and tried to build into some sort of affirmation, but the modernity of the composer’s idiom kept him aesthetically and creatively constipated right on to the end. Break wind, mister, break wind, I kept saying to him across the void.

About 200 people present, English and Americans. The English show at 8:30 p.m.; the French at 9:30 p.m. Got a ride back to the hotel with a young wild man. Arrived safely, just the same. 20 drachma.

Friday, June 15

Elia Kazan here interviewing actors. Met Allardyce Nicoll [a British scholar] and his wife, rather his little animal-creature Polish wife. She of flat broad face, powerful square little hands, dark deep-peering and wide-spaced eyes, sharp teeth, dark — an earth creature. Later she said she was an earth-digger, a fanatical gardener. We talked on that subject quite a bit. I told her of my wife’s and my fanaticism, too. I liked her. Nicoll had aged much since I saw him last in America — not in the face but in body, slightly unsteady step, vibrating, palsy fingers. Met many Greek people during the day, among them the choreographer Dora Stratou.

At night took a taxi to the park some miles away to see an outdoor production of Aristophanes’ The Birds… A fine group of actors, and dancers in the poorest of facilities, a rough outdoor place on the hill — bleacher risers of wood about 39 inches wide, stiff chairs with canvas seats, people pushed hard to squeeze by you, crude lighting, etc. Much like an outdoor Campbell College production (The Highland Call), a place seating about 1,200, I guess…Tremendous lot of dancing on the concrete floor, two shows a night — rough on the feet.

Back in hotel late. Read late the last of David Shub’s Life of Lenin. What a terrific life Lenin led — and in too many ways how appalling! The Flaming Torch! Courageous, oh yes, and as cruel, too.

While in Russia I began to set down a list of things I liked and didn’t like. I might as well copy it here.

THINGS I LIKED IN RUSSIA

1.    The dream of peace and plenty for all the peoples of the earth — pretty much as expressed in the 20-year plan for the U.S.S.R. Congress — minus, of course, the inflammatory bits here and there against all non-socialist countries.

2.    The plan for a social system based on merit, talent and need and not on position, inheritance, wealth, “accident” or race.

3.    The devotion of the people to art, music, literature, the theatre, opera, etc.

4.    The honor and respect in which scientists. artists, teachers, poets, dramatists, etc. are held.

5.    The honesty of the people — for instance, the honor system of paying fares on the busses and trolleys.

6.    The stamina of the people.

7.    The self-reliance of the people.

8.    The welfare plan for the care of the aged, the incapacitated, the infirm, etc.

9.    The plans for short labor week — ultimately 20 hours.

10. The plans for cultural and creative uses of leisure.

11. The educational plans.

12. The free medical and dental care.

13. The cheapness of transportation, rents, and services, etc.

14. The higher salaries for teachers, artists, scientists, etc. (I’m repeating somewhat)

15. The tremendous interest in books — good books, science, literature — no trashy stuff on the newsstands.

16. The wiping out of illiteracy, an accomplished fact.

17. The wonderful museum and art galleries — the best kept, the best arranged of any I’ve seen throughout the world, whether in Paris, London, New York, Madrid, Athens, Vienna, Rome.

18. The volunteer citizens police force — an addition to the smaller professional police force — much like our volunteer firemen set-up.

19. The cleanliness of the cities — a matter of great pride on the part of the people.

20. The incredibly beautiful and efficient subway system in Leningrad and Moscow — each station a work of art, an underground palace of marble, bronze and glittering glass.

21. The absence of spurious or shoddy advertising anywhere.

22. The fine cultural, educational, and clear-eyed entertainment use made of televisions, radio and screen. No bellywash being sold or promoted. No nasal drip, not stomach powder or torpid liver awakener.

23. Absence of advertising to mar the highways.

24. The spacious streets and parks.

25. The kindergarten system.

26. The elementary school system.

27. The modesty of the women. Quite a change from the frankness of the early communist days.

28. The low crime rate.

29. The penology of rehabilitation rather than the vengeance of punishment — wherever possible.

30. The low mental sickness rate (so far as I could find out).

31. No unemployment.

32. Sense of equality of the people.

33. The belief in work — honest work — “Everyone who is able must work, and he who does not shall not eat.” ( I would amend the last line.)

34. Absence of parasites.

35. Lack of race prejudice.

36. Low taxes.

37. The 20-year plan for —

         a. Far-reaching exploration of space

         b. Widespread use of nuclear power for peaceful purposes, to take the place                    of wood, coal, oil in producing electricity, etc.

         c. Computer engineering, radio electronics and automation

         d. Vast and imaginative researches and developments in —

                  (1) Metallurgy and mining

                  (2) Machine building

                  (3) Synthetic materials etc. etc.

         e. Agricultural developments

         f.  Geological and geographical exploration and researches

         g. The development and leadership in the social sciences such as philosophy                   (the Russians call that a science — in fact, they call nearly everything                     a science), law and political economy.

38. The automobile clocks — they work. (I never saw one in Russia that wasn’t keeping good time, and I’ve never owned one in America that did. Still I hear it said that you can’t find a good flashlight in the whole of the Soviet Union. So it can go tit for tat in these small matters with no harm done — but the same process now at work on the political front and now as the Cold War is deadly and terrifying. And may God have mercy on our poor souls, for we have none!)

THINGS I DIDN’T LIKE ABOUT RUSSIA

1.    The lack of compassion in the social and political philosophy. (I mean real and not theoretical compassion. The answer given to my complaint here was that a society scientifically built and run — that is a communist one — will provide true justice to all, true compassion, and not a sentimental, wayward and fluctuation subjective charity. Words, words, I think.)

2.    The doctrine of progress through revolution — bloody, if need be, though since Stalin’s death the bloodiness as a theory and a practice has somewhat abated its fervor and necessity.

3.    The crippling of personal and free initiative — and that is to say curtailment of true freedom.

4.    The always present danger of losing the sense of individual significance and importance in the devotion to a general and dehumanized concept.

5.    The attitude of submission among the people.

6.    The propagandizing activities that go along with a continued one-sided view of the world.

7.    Slowness of ordinary work — apartment building, road construction, etc. Movement of the workers slow. But then, this is true of Europe as a whole, compared to the U.S.

8.    The deification of Lenin who was a modest man (except for “the cause,” and in this he was a fierce little roaring lion) and would have deplored this contradictory cult of personality.

9.    The tacks and veerings of the Communist line to fit any new experience, though each new position is loudly proclaimed as the true one, just as the former had been so proclaimed. And the people accept and plod on.

10. Repression of the churches — by the slow death of discouragement which is done through education in science.

11. The out and out any time and all the time materialistic view of man and his world. Science is the way to salvation!

12. The Communist ethics — anything can be counted good if it advances Communism. The end justifies the means. (Absolutely contrary to Christian ethics. So lies, deceit, cheating, betrayal, cruelty, what not — all are to be practiced against the enemy, the Capitalistic imperialists, in bringing the new day of peace, plenty and brotherhood to pass.)

13. Low wages of the working people — the very proletariat which the revolution of 45 years ago was supposed to take care of in far and plenty first of all. The worker is still unrescued, while the administrator rides high and, under Stalin, too often to his death, of course.

14. High cost of food and clothing — much, much higher than in the U.S. (A taxicab driver makes about three dollars a day and an ordinary and poor-material overcoat will cost him about one hundred dollars. One of my guides, when asked, said she paid $150 for her coat — a sort of cotton thing. But then she added pridefully that she had had it for nine years.)

15. The lack of consumer goods.

16. Long delays in restaurants and hotel service. (I was often waiting one to two hours for a meal though the place was swarming with waiters.)

17. The lack of ordinary politeness from men to women.

18. Lack of “style” in the men and women.

19. Lack of juice and bounce in the people.

20. The dour grayness of what one might call the social landscape.

21. Lack of housing for the people. (The authorities say this is being rapidly remedied.)

22. Women doing heavy work. (But then I learned that there was a law that said they were not required to lift any weight heavier than 15 kilos — some 33 pounds. If they obey the law, then they won’t hurt themselves.)

23. The bad roads.

24. The deliberate misrepresentation of facts about the West. (Again I’m repeating. Too bad, too, that the West does the same for the U.S.S.R. It is almost impossible to get anything into the U.S. in praise of any phase of Soviet life. And there is, to repeat, much to praise. So do both political camps tread their way to possible and mutual annihilation. Mad! Mad!)

25. Gross failure of the present farm program. (While I was in Moscow the government raised the price of meat and butter, a sudden 30%. The collective farms had been falling miserable behind in their expected quotas. The government promised relief to the workers “as soon as possible.” And the workers, with few exceptions, seemed to me to say, “Thank you, dear good government.” In the U.S., in a comparable situation, the air would have been filled with curses loud and deep and a lot of blasphemy and brimstone blue smoke of the aroused democratic man breathing forth his flame and fervor — and I think rightly so.)

26. Finally —the complete and atheistic denial of Jesus and his teachings, even to denying that he ever existed as a person, contending that he and his story were only a myth. (The schoolchildren are taught the atheistic point of view — “There is no God; there is no hereafter; there is no such thing as an immortal soul — man is a scientific and factual organism and the only world he has is this world, and so let him make the best of it, make it as beautiful and real and creative as he can.” For when he is dead he is dead as a doornail or a flower that bloomed in the spring or a long, long lost morning of a faded and unregretted day.)