The Challenge of Foreign Policy; 1; Russia: How Stable is Her Political Leadership? How Strong is her Military Power?

This is National Educational Television, a program produced for the Educational Television and Radio Center. The University of Michigan presents Challenge of Foreign Policy, an exploration of vital questions in America's relations with other countries. Today's subject, the Russian people, what are they like? How do they live? And here is your moderator for this series, George A. Peake, Jr., Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan. What are the Russian people like? How does life in Russia compare with life in the United States? What does the individual Russian think of his own government and what does the individual Russian think of the government of the United States?

These are questions not often mentioned in official statements on foreign policy, but they have a very significant bearing upon Soviet-American relations. To discuss these important questions, we have with us today two guests, first Professor Richard Beadsley, of the Department of Anthropology of the University of Michigan, a long student of Russian culture. And also, Mr. Harrison Salisbury, correspondent for the New York Times, who has already been on two of our previous programs, who has spent five years in Russia and has had first hand information on the Russian people and the outstanding characteristics of those people. Professor Salisbury, will you tell us about some of the friends that you made among the Russians during your four years in the Soviet Union? Well, let's may surprise you, Mr. Peake, but I didn't make any friends during the years I was in the Soviet Union. How was that? Well, it wasn't because I was unfriendly.

It was simply because the Russian people are afraid to be friendly, to be real friends with foreigners under present conditions. Well, now, you mentioned this fear of being friendly. Is this more so in certain parts of Russia than in others? Well, I would say that it is general throughout Russia, but it is perhaps a little bit less strong outside of Moscow than it is in the capital. The fear of the government is sort of an inverse ratio to your distance from the seat of authority of the government. Well, now, this fear of the government seems to be a characteristic of a present Russian life then. Well, it is, and it's something which we mustn't forget. It's a very natural thing, I think, for fear to exist in Russia today. It's fear that's based on the police powers of the state, and those police powers are used against the people, against people who may have objections or antagonisms toward the government.

They are very real fears. They are fears of Siberia, of being sent to Siberia, of being sent to the forced labor camps or being sent in exile to places like Yakutsk, for example. Yakutsk is in the far east of Siberia in the sub-artic regions, and it's a cold, desolate, miserable land. Here you see one of the main streets in Yakutsk. You can see how primitive life is in that area of Russia. It is. This looks almost like Alaska, say, in the gold rush days. It's all the mud, and they wouldn't be there. That's very true, and it happens to be that Yakutsk is in the same latitude as Noma Alaska. It's a cold, barren, miserable land with few conveniences for life, even if you're not a prisoner in a forced labor camp, as many of the people who live there are. Here we see actually a site where forced labor is at work. Behind that wooden fence, there are men and most likely women working hard under the guns of the Tommy Gunners building that brick building.

That happens to be a new building for the printing plant in Yakutsk. Well, Mr. Salsberg, you said that the Russians went unfriendly as a people, but their fineness may have increased a little bit if you get away from Moscow. What is that attitude toward the American government, as distinguished from individual Americans? Well, toward the American government, you will find that their attitude on the surface at least pretty much follows the propaganda. That is they consider that the American government is antagonistic to Russia. Time and time and again, when I happened to have casual meetings with Russians after they had our conversation gone a little ways, they'd say to me, why does the United States want to make war on Russia? Why are you interested in attacking the Soviet Union? When I replied to them, as I invariably did, that the United States wanted to live in peace with the Russians, that we wanted to live in peace with countries throughout the world, they reacted immediately with obvious expressions of great relief.

Often they'd shake my hands and say, I'm so glad I met you. I'm so glad to know that because I've been so afraid that the United States was going to attack Russia. And if Russia America then hasn't reached the people at all to lay any of these, unfortunately, the voice of America has a very hard time getting past the Iron Curtain. The Iron Curtain is real as far as radio is concerned. It's a barrier of interfering stations, of jamming stations, that blot out our broadcasts as we try to get through to the Russian people. That's one of our big problems. And one of our problems in this regard, I think the voice of America sometimes makes this attempt. People in general have the feeling that if we can only give the Russian people hope there may be some internal dissension rising to revolt. Let's go to that question for a moment, could you? Well, I know many people have asked me this question. What are the possibilities of revolt in the Soviet Union? It's a natural question to ask. We know that the Russian people live under difficult conditions that there is lots of natural

resentment toward the government, but is there a possibility of revolt? I think that among Russians, generally speaking, there's not. The power of the government is too great. That doesn't mean that there aren't groups in Russia, of course, who are more antagonistic toward their government and who might under certain circumstances rise against their government. For example, supposing we take a look at the map here, there are many people in Russia who are not Russians, and it's in these groups that you have to find sentiment more strong against the government. Do you crane, for example, here, where there are very likely to be little centers of antagonism to the government? Again, down here in the Caucasus, where you have the Georgians and the Armenians and other non-Russian people. And again, in Central Asia, with a vast area of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan here, in all those areas, you find little islands of antagonism, which is where people are more likely to rise against their government.

But still, I don't think that these areas are big enough or the numbers of people involved are large enough so that we should pin our hopes on much chance of revolt in Soviet Union. But there is one thing that occurs to me in connection with these people, the Ukrainians, I think, live in much the same fashion that the Russians do. The remainder of the people you showed there, the ones in the Asianic side, amounting to some 20%, isn't it, of the total Russian population, live in an entirely different fashion, have different lives. Right, and I think that that's a point which many Americans don't realize that when we speak of Russia or the Soviet Union, there is one great national, like the Russians, but there are these other smaller groups, which they're non-Russian and they don't even look like Russians, many of them. You mean that non-Uropian? Non-Uropian. Many of these people, if we saw them, we would say, well, he must be Chinese or he must be Mongolian or something of that type. As a matter of fact, we have some pictures here of these people. Here is a picture of a group taken in Central Asia, a schoolmaster reading to some students.

They don't look like Russians do that. They're all, they're Asianic peoples, they're Tajik peoples, I would suppose, from their costume. This is their national dress. We have a picture here of a horsewoman, certainly. She doesn't look like a Russian girl either, she doesn't look unattractive, she's not unattractive at all. Looks like the American Wild West. It looks like the Wild West, she rides as well as a cowgirl. She's probably a Buriyat Mongolian, perhaps or maybe a Kazakh, it's hard to tell in Central Asia about the nationalities of these people, they're quite mixed up. Still, when we talk about the Soviet Union, after all, it's the European Russian part that is the most important, is it not, because that's the largest population-wise, that's the most highly industrialized. That's quite true, it certainly is. I suppose that the population of Russia, what would you say Mr. Beardley, around 180 million to total population is around 220 million, and about 180 million of those would be great

Russians wouldn't they? Yes, I think so. Yeah, it's a very high percentage, certainly. I wonder if we could move on then and talk about the subject of religion in the Soviet Union, because after all, the Communist line is essentially an atheistic line, what about the amount of religion in the Soviet Union? Well, that's an interesting thing, because the Communist line is atheism, of course, and as you know, they've done a great deal to try and suppress the church in the Soviet Union, not only the Christian church, but the Muslim church, and all the other faiths. Of course, the biggest faith in Russia is that of the Russian Orthodox Church. The Muslim faith would be the faith in non-European Russia, out in Asia, in places like that. But in European Russia, it's the Russian Orthodox Church. Now here is a picture of a church, a picture I took, as a matter of fact, one Sunday in Moscow. This is the Novodevici monastery, one of the great churches in Old Churches in the center of the city, and here are the people coming away from the Sunday services.

If you go to a church on a Sunday in Moscow, you will find the church filled with worshipers. That's rather surprised in most Americans, who assume that because the official policy of the government is against religion that no one goes to church or the churches have all been closed. How many groups? Any particular groups? Is it the older people who hold onto the religion, because we hear in this country that the new are being weaned away from religion, and that in the next 20 or 20 years religion will become less important in Russia? Well, it used to be true that it was mostly the old people. I remember when I first went to Russia during the war, it was mostly the old people in the churches. Today, you'll find young people, middle-aged people, people in all walks of life. Religion has made a great comeback in the Soviet Union, which is a surprise, and the government hadn't cracked down on this. The government has tried to crack down a little bit. For instance, last year, they ran quite a campaign directed against communists and members of the communist youth movement who were going to church, and the government didn't want them to do that.

Against the party line, yet they were doing it. The result of that campaign, which was carried out for nearly the whole year, and which became quite virulent in its latter weeks and months, was that it apparently backfired. Because the secretary, the communist party, Mr. Khrushchev, himself, had to run the notice in Prague, the official communist party newspaper, saying in effect to lay off the church, telling his followers that they must no longer carry out this type of propaganda. That was a defeat for the government, and it certainly shows something of the strength of religion still. I wonder if I can ask another question that relates to a contrast, if any, between the European parts and the Asianic parts of Russia, or, again, how the Russians stand with relation to ourselves, how about standard of living? Well, of course, Russia is an enormous country, truly enormous country, and you have contrast of every kind. For example, if you go out to Central Asia, you find a very low standard of living. It's higher than what you'd find, perhaps, in other Asianic countries, and still it's

very, very low. For example, we have a picture taken in a bazaar, a bazaar in Samarkand. Here are consumers' goods in Samarkand. You'll see their shoes, not second-hand shoes, not third-hand shoes, but probably fourth-hand shoes being sold, and an active market in that type of consumer's goods. That is typical, we might say, in Central Asia and in Samarkand. When you come to European Russia, the situation is quite different, because there the government has an active campaign of distributing consumer's goods, advertising them. For example, here you have an advertising sign along a highway in Russia, advertising ice cream. That is the same. Well, it says buy ice cream. Any kind of ice cream? The government sells it all. Well, it's still pretty good advertising. It's not bad at all. And now here is another example of consumers' goods. This is the window of a perfume shop in the center of Moscow, that tower there, you see, it advertises Kremlin perfume, the leading brand of perfume in Moscow.

I see. No, tell me, that looks like a pretty expensive setup. I wonder how many, well, let's make some sort of comparison, if we can, perhaps, how many hours of work or how many dollars it would cost to get some of this perfume or some of the other goods that you've mentioned? Well, now to buy a bottle of Kremlin perfume would cost about 160 rubles in Moscow, at the official rate of exchange, that would be something like $40, which is the money of money. Maybe the rate of exchange is out of line, and I do think it is still, this would cost all, this would cost five days' labor for an ordinary factory worker to buy a bottle of perfume. What about other consumer goods items? What about television sets, for example? Are there many television sets in Russia, and this is all under state control? Can you get them? They're all under state control, all right? They're not nearly enough television sets to satisfy demand. Television is just as popular in Russia as it is in this country. People will wait six months to get a set, and they have long queues at all the television

stars. Well, you have to stand in line, or hire somebody to stand in line for you. There's an idea. I mean, that's actually the case that you hire people to stand in line to get a consumer goods. Almost a racket for these very scarce items, like TV sets and automobiles. Then queuing is a profession. Queuing is a profession in Russia, that's right. Well, what about the programs on television? I gather quite a bit of propaganda comes over the television sets, that's one of the interesting things about the TV over there, is that they don't use it for newscasts or propaganda talks. They use it for films, for plays, for opera concerts, things of that kind, the ballet. This doesn't, of course, get into the Asiatic parts of Russia, does it? The television? No, it doesn't. They don't have a network system over there. They have stations in the largest cities. I think there are perhaps six or eight of the largest cities that have TV.

Well, let's keep on the stand-in of living in consumer goods business a little further. While you were in Moscow, did you have a case that said about shoes, suits, or shirts, or things like that? I didn't buy a single item of clothing in the time I was in Moscow. I'm sure you needed something. Well, I had it set in, but I had it set in from outside. The standard equality was comparatively low. The price is very expensive, clothing is one of the things that the price is highest on in Russia. Well, let me ask the question that from a little different point of view, what you said makes it quite apparent that the American need to feel no hesitancy at going in his second best suit of clothes to Russia. This standard is lower, but in the other hand, you pointed your picture in Samarkand, made it quite apparent that the standard is still lower in Asia. By the majority of Russians living in European Russia, probably no more about the Asiatic comparison. Don't they feel that they are doing pretty well? Well, that's true.

They know very well in Moscow that they have the highest standard of living in Russia. They know that they live better, not only than in Asiatic Russia, but in other cities, and certainly much better than out in the country. They know another thing, which is very important for Russia to know. They know that they're living better this year than they lived last year. Has this been true since the revolution? I mean, each year they've tended to make a strike event, not in the sense of the revolution, but in recent years, since the war, I happened to be in Russia during the war, and at that time, their standard living sank right down to the bottom every time. That's how everything went into the war. Now, what's interesting is that after the war, each year, 1946 was better than 45, 47 was better than 46, and so on, right down to the present time, more goods in the stores, prices a little bit cheaper each year. They didn't actually go down in price this particular year, but for seven successive years, they had price reductions. Therefore, the Russian, making his own comparison, finds life better today than it was last year.

He doesn't stand there and say, well, it's about time they came down in price. Well, no, he doesn't say that out loud. He may think that, but he doesn't say that out loud. Well, sometimes we hear from people who've come back from the Soviet Union that standards of living is a poor, and these people ought to revolt. And I think you would answer, but standards of living in their own frame of reference have improved. That's the thing. And that is, the government actually drives support from this fact that its own standards of living in Russia have improved. And part of that, it comes because it has an iron curtain between its people and the broad. A Russian is not in a position to make a standard comparison of his standard of living with that of people in Western Europe or in the United States. It's impossible for him. He has no contact with these other parts of the world. Another way in which standard of living is expressed, of course, is not merely in consumers goods, but let's say in the amount of time that children can spend in school, has education – have educational levels risen in the time that the Soviets have been empowered? Yes, they certainly have.

They have introduced universal education, and they work hard at it. It's one of the better phases of life in Russia, the amount of emphasis they put on education. Still, I would say that the schooling that the average Russian gets is not up to our levels, but it's ever so much better than his grandfather got or his father got. We hear in this country about the large number of engineers at the Russian universities are turning out. Is this true? It is true. They're turning out massive numbers of engineers. They need them in this large and expanding country of theirs. The quality of these engineers, however, is comparatively low by our standards. I mean, the technical schools themselves are not as good, you think, or is it a matter of the background of the people themselves? I think they're making it. They're both those factors involved. One thing is the principal thing, I think, is that they've had to expand their facilities too rapidly. Whenever you stretch a system, the product naturally goes down, and that's true in all branches of education over there. They've had to turn out too many people too fast, so that perhaps ten years from now, the quality standards will begin to rise, and it'll be a different...

The extent of quality I gather applies to all types of goods, heavy industrial goods, as well as consumer goods. It applies to goods, as well as to education. It applies all the way through where you're turning out mass products. I would think that technologically, however, I shouldn't want to give the impression that they don't have good technicians in Russia, because they do have. They have small numbers of excellent scientists, excellent technicians, and all that sort of thing. They have the vast numbers that we have. As I understand it, doing World War II, they built pretty good tanks. They built excellent tanks. Better than ours. I think they were better than ours, isn't it? Right. And in the amount of air power and things like that, they're pretty good. That's right. They're good where they have to be, but it takes more effort. They have to concentrate more of their people to produce things than we have, and then we can do it. If they get good tank builders, maybe they don't get as good agronomists for people to do with agriculture. Yes. That's possible.

They can't be good all the way around. They just don't have the facilities. But I was impressed with the fact that there seemed to be a number of universities established in these republics of Central Asia, that alone European and Russia. That's right. They have universities all over their country. As a matter of fact, you'd be surprised, however, if the comparatively small enrollment in the university, Moscow University, the largest in the country, only has 14,000 students. And that's considerably larger than any other. More than twice as large as the next largest university. Of course, that's not as large as some of our big universities in the Midwest. No, indeed. It isn't as large as the University of Michigan, for example. 25,000, 30,000. That's true. And true that the Central Asian one, I think, had an enrollment of about 3,000. I think that's about right. The prevention universities have 2,000 or 3,000 students. When we are talking about standards of living and consumer goods, I assume you are mainly talking all the time about European Russia, and you're not talking about the Asia-Atting part of it. In general, that's true. You can apply a sort of a scale to the Soviet Union with the most improvement in Moscow, and then progressively filters down until you get way, way out in Asia, where the amount

that filters out is very, very small. So when we, in the United States, talk about this, I think we have to think more about European Russia every time. That's very natural because that's what we know best and what we see most in most of our travel. What do consumers' goods would be in short supply that would strike the American when he got there? What about Coca-Cola, for example? Well, Coca-Cola is in completely short supply. It doesn't exist in the Soviet Union. They have no Coca-Cola. They have soft drinks, of course, and they like soft drinks, but not Coca-Cola. They have ice cream bars, Estimals, they call it. What about automobiles and automobile mechanics? Automobiles are hard to get there. They only made 75,000 last year, which gives you some idea. They could have sold 10 times that number if they had it. This was 75,000 in 1954. That's right, in 1954. And television sets? Television sets that made 300,000 last year in 1954. They could have sold perhaps a million, maybe two million, and the demand is so great. Those are the two consumers' goods items that are in the shortest supply.

Television sets. Television sets and automobiles. Automobiles wouldn't matter so much if there were only a few places they could drive. I gathered that the highways are not nearly as good as the railroads. Well, they're not. In fact, they're only two really important highways in all of Russia. Two highways that we call highways, like Blacktop. They're about the same type of road that we built 25, 30 years ago. Now, when you went down into the Asian-Cauter Russia, how did you travel then? Well, I traveled by plane. And do most people do? Most people do, because the distance is great. And the train trip out to Central Asia is long and exhausting. It takes about seven or eight days to get out there in the train. And you can fly out in, or lapse time, about 20 hours. But because flying must cost something, this means that people in Far East, part of Asian-Cauter Russia, must be relatively in distant contact with the European Central-Cauter. That's right.

There are a long ways off. You're a long ways from European Russia when you're out way out in Habaraster, a lot of the stuff. What does all this mean for the American people now, in terms of American foreign policy? Well, I think that there's one important fact that is involved in all of this. The Russian people think that they're better off now, because their condition is better than it was last year. But they don't know what life is like in the United States. I think that's a very important factor. I think it'd be good for them to be able to make a few more comparisons between life and Russia and life over here. That's why you would encourage that, say, young farmers of Russia, if there's any such an organization, and there, apparently, is, should come over and meet with the young farmers of America to go to Iowa or Kansas, places like that where we grow corn and weed. I think that we can only gain by comparison, giving the Russians an opportunity for comparing our way of life and theirs. Our way of life is so superior to their way of life that it's almost unbelievable. I often had the experience in Russia telling a Russian about things in America, and I

could see by his eyes that he didn't believe it could be true. He thought I was just telling a story. Our way of life is so much superior to theirs. As a matter of fact, in many parts of the world, it would seem that, actually, you do well to ask to have the Russian send over the ones who were perhaps the most convinced about the Russian way of life to begin with, maybe the leaders of the youth movements. I think that it's a fine thing to bring in convinced communists over here to see what our way of life is. I don't expect them to go back and write articles and probe about how wonderful it is in America, but they can't help whispering their friends' ears about the things they've seen in the beginning. We have only to gain by inviting groups from the Soviet Union to come to the United States to see our way of life. That's what I believe I certainly do. Despite the laws that we have on the books in this country that make this very difficult. They do make it difficult, and I think that it would be wise if we could, in some way, facilitate bringing exposing large numbers of communists to the benefits of capitalist existence.

I think the Soviet Union wouldn't send over people who weren't convinced communists would think. I don't think so. It seems to work from every point of view. You've pointed out that the Russians are friendly to American people, and this would encourage that. I don't see how it could help. You've pointed out that religion is growing, and there's evidence that religious spirit is growing again in America. This seems to me, provides another tie. It provides another point of contact. The living standards comparison is something which is certainly ought to be, have some effect. We can't lose on that. No. So that any group that comes here, irrespective of whether it's an agricultural industry, when they get here, they can't keep quiet about this, and they're bound to talk about their friends and neighbors, and this would be to advantage. Well, gentlemen, I wonder if we can sum up and say at least this much about the peoples of Russia, namely that they tend to like individual Americans, that they know very little about the United States of America, and they are point of view of the United States government is that it is a war like one, that anything we can do in this country to let the Russian people know more about America, its advantages to us and to American foreign policy.

Mr. Salisbury, if I can go back now and revert to one of these questions about religion, you suggest that religion is reviving an interest. What are the Russian people like? You have been listening to an exploration of this question, and it's meaning for Americans. Participating in the discussion were professors George A. Peake Jr., and Richard K. Beardsley of the University of Michigan, and Mr. Harrison Salisbury, New York Times correspondent, an author of the book, American in Russia. Next week, in this series on foreign policy, we will move on to the first of two programs dealing with another powerful communist country, China. Our subject next week of probing into the intentions of red China's leaders, be with us then for another crucial phase of the challenge of foreign policy. This program was produced in the television studios of the University of Michigan.

This is Don Hall speaking. The preceding program was produced for the Educational Television and Radio Center. This is National Educational Television.