Russia: The Unfinished Revolution

The following program is from NET, the National Educational Television Network. In NET's journal presents Russia, the unfinished revolution with reporter Paulette Schulman. We went to Moscow this summer to look around, talk to people, and get a first sense of how far this country has come in the 50 years since the revolution.

The 50th anniversary means many things. To the Soviet government, it means posters, slogans, parades, speeches, statistics. To the Soviet people, it means memories, and dreams. A few steps from Red Square, there is a large photo exhibit in honor of the anniversary. And there we found Russians taking a look at themselves, as they were at various stages on the long road from 1917, and as they are today. Not many people are around who remember how Russia was before the revolution. In the official histories, and in these pictures, the emphasis is on poverty and on the breakdown in the old order. Only a few elderly people who grew up in home steeped in the European tradition still have memories of the cultivated Russia that also was. Of the efforts that reform, and of the alternatives that might have borne fruit had there been no revolution.

Lenin is everything. He is promises, peace, bread, land. He is orthodoxy, the one true view of things. Of all the others who helped to make the revolution, some are now in disgrace or in limbo. And there is no room for them here. In Russia, one feels closer to the Second World War than almost anywhere else in the world. It is still a living presence, and for these people it blots out much of what went before. Only the young Soviet generation under 25 is free of these memories. The one constant theme in Soviet life ever since the revolution has been and still is, building for the future. Industry, agriculture, science, education, and now the exploration of space.

But today one feels something new here, the groping for some expression of private life. Not just as a secret inner refuge, but as a part of life it demands a place for itself, openly, outwardly. In the private worlds of the Soviet people, you can sense the hopes they have for the future. And what it is that moves Russians to great outbursts of joy and sorrow. You can sense something of the intensity of Russian life. Now it is not only the working day that matters, but also how people spend their growing leisure time. The people we talk to are of several distinct generations, some are in their 70s and 80s,

and carried over something of the cultural breadth of the old Russian intelligentsia. Some are of the middle generation who came to maturity in the hard period under Stalin. And some are the young in their 20s and 30s, whose hopes have not been traumatized by the brutality of that period. The young people here take the struggles of the past for granted. It is not big words that move them, but the realization of the promises of the revolution in the way people live. And by this they mean not just material comfort, but the possibility to look westward and be in touch with the outside world. They are responsive to the same currents of thought and feeling that move young people everywhere.

Let me ask you what it is, for example, about a writer like Salinger that makes him so popular. Can you put your finger on it? The lot of teenagers everywhere I think. What do teenagers hear seeing him, for example, feel about him? Well, the same very warm and human feeling of existence. That's exactly what they see in him everywhere, I think. Not only here, but well, in France, if he is read in France, and everywhere in the world. Well, that's why. And then, well, it's so very moving, I should say, in touching. I saw this nose of Kilimanjaro with Gregory Peck. Well, I liked it also very often. It's an old film, but it is on now in our capital. Well, I don't really know why. But it is a good film, and the acting is also very good. And somehow I liked it. I liked the way it was staged. It is a hamming way.

I somehow felt hamming way in this film. I didn't. No, no. I didn't like this film at all. I didn't have such a bit. It is on now, and so I've seen this film not far, not long ago. But when I came home, I took hamming way, and just re-read the story. And I found that the film and the story have just nothing in common, except maybe the title and the epic round, just at the beginning of the story. And somehow I didn't feel hamming way. The young people here follow American styles. Well, popular music perhaps has share here. Well, I don't want to be a sense of subtlety, but they seem to be more in touch with Europe. France, Great Britain, well, Scandinavian countries, because well, fashion, and books and literature, will come easier from Europe than from America so far off.

One more question of a general nature that may seem hard, but I'd be interested in your answer. And that is, what does the word communism mean to you if you think of explaining it to people abroad who don't live under this system? How would you sum it up for them? Well, I think that it may be very easily summed up in one word that is happiness. Well, I think Marina is quite right. It's happiness. It's a happy life for everybody. And it's just time when everybody can do everything, he can express himself, can work just as his abilities allow. Well, probably it is the better life about people. You see, all people began to live better, really better than before the war. Well, they now live in modern flats, which are really beautiful. As far as my opinion is concerned, well, I came to Moscow just about ten years ago.

And while I live here, I just noticed how people live better and better. No, not country. The modern flats that Irina talks about, and they're among the best in the country, go right down to the edge of the woods and fields. And by now, Moscow is beginning to get that standardized look of cities the world over. But all this building has made a dent in the housing problem. And it would be a larger one where it not for the fact that the peasants of Russia are leaving the land for the cities at a rate that is faster than almost anywhere else. Moscow is becoming many sub-cities. And all this is changing the pattern of people's lives. I've lived in Moscow since 1963, almost four years, give or take a couple of months. And what are a couple of months when we already have 50 years of Soviet power?

I worked from 830 to 4. Now, we've gone over to the two days off a week system, that is to stay to a five-day work week. This change is being conducted gradually because it's not logical to shift everybody at once because of various disruptions. He was proud of all his neighborhood has to offer a stadium, a theater, a young people's cafe. I asked him then if he could spend a pleasant evening right there close to home. Be as a slow, be as slow, definitely. You can spend it however, wherever you like. Whatever else he is, the Soviet citizen is also a consumer. And from the consumer's point of view, the question is whether life is getting better as fast as he thinks it should be.

The newest door window is encourage optimism by displaying the very best that's produced. These are the aspirations of the society. But the country as a whole has a long way to go before such goods become widely available at reasonable prices. A woman's code at 25 rubles, which is about $27.5 at the official rate of exchange, is roughly equal to a week's pay for a great many Soviet wage earners. For the Soviet leadership, all these matters are embodied in two words that are now on everybody's lips, economic reform. This means letting the factory manager have more say. It means not trying to plan every single detail from the center. And it means allowing room for profit and market forces to govern the economy. At Moscow University, there's a young professor of economics who spent last year at the Harvard Business School studying American management techniques. We asked Vitaly Azirah how the Soviet economic reforms are going.

You know that the last year was the first year of the reform. And when you have economic reform, it's not so easy to have results after one year. And so it's a long period and some consequences of the reform issues seem maybe after five years because it's a lot of time to implement reform. But first result of the reform was good. What happened specifically? Enterprise, which switched to the new system, make a profit, and they improve the wage of their workers and quality of their goods. And some goods, for example, men's suits, and now they saw it. As a matter of fact, they did it before reform, but it's a good example. Do people actually come in and ask for the Bolshevichka trademark suits? It's very popular this name and there's a lot of products. So in other enterprise, which switched to the new system, they, I think, move in the same direction.

But a good better organization of production and communication between trade organization and production. And more profit and more bonus for workers. It's very important for manager to give consumer really products which he really wants. And to educate consumer how use the product and do it more convenient for consumers because if consumer don't show that it's convenient for him or useful for him. He can buy other things. Are enterprises beginning to compete with one another? I think it's not a real competition in American point of view. I think it's a competition how do better for consumer. I think in this way, our system has some advantages.

Sometimes it's some kind of compromise between needs of consumer and in society. But we should care about both problems. Like in the video and society, like whole consumer, like collective consumer. Some Americans have questioned, is this really Marxism-Leninism in the new reforms? Or are you moving toward capitalism and private enterprise? I think it's really not against of goals of Marxism because the goal of to give people more satisfaction from their lives, give them more products, more opportunity to spend their life for their pleasure, improve their culture and knowledge, and give them more opportunity to live better. So it's goals. We don't change our goals. We only use our other tools for achieving of these goals. What I am going to say is because we have now more opportunity to produce the same product with the produce in America. We can't think that we are becoming the same.

So we now produce TV sets, cars, and some durable goods which they produce in American people think that it's become the same. In this way, we become similar, but social system is different. One of the men who's been at the heart of the controversy about economic reform is the economist Alexander Beerman. What is unusual for the Soviet Union is that even after the initial go-ahead decisions were made, Beerman is continued to be outspoken in calling for the reforms to go faster and further, though his on-the-record remarks are cautious. It seems that the reform is going just a bit slower than I'd like, but after all, I'm only a spectator in the stands. But those who do the work in the plants who are carrying out the reform, they say that for the time being it can't go any faster. And you always have to keep in mind that it's easier to criticize than to work. Do you know what I mean?

I asked Mr. Beerman whether in the near future we could expect a shift of resources into consumer goods. And his answer reflects the continuing high priority, which the Soviet leadership gives to the production of heavy industry and defense. If you look at the various five-year plans, you'll see very clearly starting with the second five-year plan, the intention to improve the consumer light industry. But if you look at the fulfillment of these plans, why was this? The international situation, it's very difficult to continue to produce refrigerators and dress shoes when you're being forced to turn out other things. And I think wisely forced. I think it's necessary for us to divert resources from these consumer areas into the more important areas.

So, I think, I think, that in the United States put it in the following way. He had been talking with a prominent American who said, we're not going to war with you, but we are going to try to exhaust you through arms production. Unfortunately, we still feel this to be true. One part of the economy, which has real vitality, is the free market, where the peasants come sometimes from very far away to bring their produce for sale. Amidst the bustle and the bargaining, you see a striking illustration of the profit motive at work in Russia. On their little backyard plots, which account for only 3% of the cultivated land, the peasants raise almost half of the country's meat and milk, over half of the eggs, and a good deal of the best vegetables and fruit.

And all of this takes place outside the mainstream of state and collective farms. The Soviet leaders are trying to face up to the fact that Russia's rapid industrialization was achieved essentially at the expense of the peasant. And now the problem is one of feeding the growing population of the cities with an outworn system. Economic reform is coming to the farms, but it's coming more slowly than in industry. And the challenge there, too, is to find some way of using the profit motive within the framework of the Soviet political system. Not just in the private plots, but on the state and collective farms as well. In the villages, the 50 years have brought less change than in the cities and factories.

The spirit of the old Russian peasant, individualistic in many ways, and resistant to change, is still to be felt. The force of tradition is strong, and what the Communists have tried to do is to channel it into new secular forms, to take the place of the old religious ceremonies that mark the big turning points in life. This is the second day in a farm wedding that went on for three days. The guests are shouting the traditional gorka, gorka, which means it's bitter. And this is the signal at Russian weddings for the bride and groom to kiss and make things sweet once again.

The photographer tells them, come on, everybody, show a little more life please. Come on, come on, come on! Come on, come on! Come on, come on!

Come on, come on! Come, reds, parents, godparents, newborn. Allow me in the name of the Council of the working people's deputies to declare this baptism officially opened. This is a collective baptism in a large farm community.

The babies get crochets like the young pioneers, and their parents promise to bring them up in a spirit of dedication to come inism. I'm not yet fighting, but I'm not yet fighting. I'm not yet fighting. We need the godparents promise to support Alexandra and her life's path to extend the parental hand in difficult moments and to bring up Alexandra in the spirit of communism. We have a different quantity of the family in urban,

rural district, first of all. In the middle, in family we have two sometimes three children. But then I should like to you that it depends on the inhabitants of the nationality, because if we speak about such nations as co-cases are menion, they are accustomed to have more children. And to these nationalities usually have seven, sometimes eight, and the ten children. Besides many Russian women have ten children and our government to prove it.

And in our country we have the legal abort is permitted. This abortion legal abortion is permitted, and it is possible to do it after three months of pregnancy. I understand that the rate of abortion has been rather high. We have a special sanitary propaganda. We make many with the liver lecture about harmful action of abortion. That is why we try to prevent abortion using contraceptive drug. And we pay great attention to it. Certainly it is very important, because we consider that the abortion is very harmful for women, not only because of inflammation. This is which can appear after it, but from in the chronological point of view. Is the pill, as we call it in the United States, is it being used in the Soviet Union widely?

Yes, we use pill too, but I cannot tell you that we use pill in a very large scale. You are concerned, then, about the effects of these drugs, and you are making rather limited and careful use of these new contraceptive drugs. Yes, that is why we use it, but we cannot tell that we recommend it in practice in a very large scale. Adina Alexandrov-Namanduilova is a gynecologist doing research in Moscow. In her field of birth control, many problems remain. The pill is not generally available, as she has indicated, and the contraceptives that you can easily obtain are not very effective. So many women feel they have to resort to abortions, especially in the cities, where young Soviet mothers say that one or two children are all they can manage in a small apartment. I asked Adina Alexandrov-Nam whether she thinks that as the living standard goes up, and the apartments get roomier, the trend may turn toward larger families.

I believe that, for example, I can tell about myself. Tell about yourself, I'd like to hear that. I have two children, but I believe that I have not two children, and I have four children. Because my first children, my daughter, I have daughter who is 21 years old. My second child, I considered my candidate thesis, because I spent time for it very much. And then my third pregnancy was finished delivering my son, I have son who is 10 years old. And my first child is my doctor's thesis, Bravo, one year ago. That is my independence, not only my culture level, or my money, because it depends on my wish. I want to, I consider that it is, I'm very happy women that I can elaborate many scientific problems, and they have a great interest for you.

There are still women I notice doing quite heavy physical labor, in some places. We have a special law preventing which preventing the heart of a woman, and heart of a woman is forbidden in our country. We have a special law. The law excludes women from such dangerous and strenuous jobs as underground mining, but you still see a great many women in building construction and maintenance work. The fact is that in many places their labor is needed, there's no one else to do the job. And this is taken for granted by most people, including the working women themselves. Now I have read recently in the Soviet press some people's thoughts that perhaps more attention should be given to the role of a woman as a homemaker who primarily brings up the children.

Do you feel that this side is underestimated or not? Our Russian woman, they pay great attention for children too. We like our children very much certainly. We speak about 70% of physician a teacher as a woman. I can tell you that if we compare the quantity of women among physicians, this period of time, if we speak about the new, our young generation. And this compare this data with my generation. We are right if we speak about my generation. Because certainly we have most of our physicians and teachers are women, but it is a consequence of the war.

Because most of our men of my generation were killed during the war. But now, for example, this year I speak about our institute, we have equal relations between women and men. A more good way from institute. A more normal balance. Now we have normal balance. Like Irina Alexandrovna, many Russian women work outside the home. And this does not diminish their attachment to family life. Perhaps because there has been so much suffering and loss of life here in the past 50 years, the Russians place special emphasis on the education and upbringing of their children. The stories and nursery rhymes of Karnatukovsky are known to children all over the land. And his book about the young and how they absorb language in the years from two to five is popular with parents across the country.

At 85, Karnatukovsky is still going strong. Holding court, as it were, at his home under the tall pines of Piedelkina outside Moscow. The day we went out there, the neighborhood children came running over. They played together, and he told them, when the pinecone hits the target, will all shout, hurrah, and when it doesn't, will all sadly say, oovui, which means, alas. What was that? When literacy had been eliminated in this country, and illiteracy among children,

there are rows, of course, an enormous interest in the children's book. This is a good standard by which to measure culture in general. Normally, there were no children's books at all in the villages who doesn't know that good verses, good stories, and so on are necessary for the moral and artistic development of the child. Our child raising was based on national traditions, but of course, there were many, very unpleasant moments. At one time, the fairytale was forbidden. We had to tell fairytales in secret, or they obliged us to relate them to all kinds of elements of industrial production. Of course, all this had nothing to do with poetry, and it was boring for the children. This is a Chukovsky tongue twister about a barefoot billy goat and a cross-eyed nanny goat and vice versa, and believe me, it is hard to say.

First time inaudible marriage could always be the same, which had quite aamount to a decent amount of time. because of what's happening in the country. Do I know it? No, it's not. No, it's not. It's not. I asked you Koski about the schools and what he thought they should stress in their teaching. It would have shifted your degree. Yes, yes. You have to say, Jani, and now you squawley. You want to work with it.

Unfortunately, I don't know the schools, but perhaps you should ask one of these children what they would like in Kow. Well, you stop over here. Wait, they all know, but they keep quiet. But yet, not a ten-year story. Well, of course, they should teach literature better. They should not assign wrote learning of bad words. They should have better aesthetic training. Things are already moving in that direction. What's this thing? It's not a ten-year story. It's a ten-year story. That was a post-level story. Ilya Erenborg, like Jukovsky, grew up before the revolution. As a young man, he lived in France and made friends with Picasso, from whom he acquired over the years a stunning collection of paintings and drawings which hang in his Moscow apartment together with some unusual works of Russian art. Erenborg was a controversial man. Many people wondered how he managed to survive when so many Jewish writers perished in the Stalin purges.

His life poses the central question for all intellectuals and artists under the Soviet system. Where is the line, beyond which, compromised, destroys the soul? It is a very special and interesting production in Europe. In his final years, Erenborg emerged as a supporter of liberal trends in the arts. Last May, for example, he boycotted the writers by Congress in Moscow, together with several other liberal writers. But even when he was under criticism at home, Erenborg was not one to pour himself out to the Western press. This was one of the last interviews he gave before his death in September. We had very much, haven't got intelligentsia on the eve of the revolution. An intelligentsia with great taste and culture, we had wonderful painters, good theater and literature.

But only a small number of people read these books and went to the theater. The rest were a mess of a literates who had no context with culture. Then they began the work of broadening the cultural base. Inevitably, inexorably, the beginning of such a process, of course, proceeded at the expense of the profundity of culture. It began from the beginning of the revolution and ended only to what the end of the Second World War. Only then could we say that this process was finished and that the process of deepening the culture began. What helps and what hinders this process? The first to develop the culture of the emotions helps this process. The whole contemporary world now knows more than it feels. I think that it will be another golden age in Russian literature. Although my name, that is to say,

yeah, is associated with profit Elijah, I have been wrong so often in my prophecies. I still don't want to make any prophecies at this point. I can only talk about things as they wear and as they are and not about them as they will be. In the first 15 years after the revolution, we had a stunningly good poetry for its like Mayakowski, Pasternak, Anach Madawa. Now not one is left. Now the picture here is gray. Pasternak, Anach Madawa. It's clear that artists mature more slowly now. For example, I think that Vazinsianski has a piety gift, but foreigners have got an interested in Vazinsianski and Yibushanka, not only more than they have ever been interested in our poets, but even more than they have been interested ever in any of their own. I believe Yibushanka attracted more people in Paris

than any other writer since Victor Hugo's funeral. That's a rule, funnier, crazy. Of course, this had to do not with the size of his talent, but with the interest now in young Russia. And so people go to see what kind of people they are, how they talk, how they shout, and how they fall in love. When I started seeing a city, I thought this night, so you should. Don't the borders of literature need to be broadened in subject matter, so that the young people will not turn to underground literature? I don't know what you mean by underground literature. There are some things that aren't printed, and then they are printed. I want to say that it's not a question of limits. In general, there are no limits or not. But this is not my field. I have never been an editor or a member of an editorial commission. I've always turned down invitations to do so. I'm interested in literature, not only

the chair, but not literature. You are now interested in precisely this letter. You are interested in our literature in a political context, using our internal difficulties for your own purposes. I say you, I don't mean you personally. You are a perfectly nice lady. But Western is in general. How much I used to talk about Pasternak in the West, and say what a wonderful poet he was. And no one. I couldn't convince anyone that he was a remarkable poet. No one was interested until this cold war incident happened. Turnable price, and so on. And suddenly, everyone got interested. I want people to look upon our literature's literature, and not as of a source of some kind of sensation. You should ask me about what people are writing and how people are writing and not about some kind of limit. I don't know anything about these limits. The hell with them. What would you consider it?

Moscow's nearest equivalent of an off-Broadway theater is the Taganga, a fresh, brash, youthful, experimental theater of ideas and shock effects. Its guiding inspiration is Yuri Lubimov, who has set fire to a group of young actors, and they've been having a lot of fun with a living repertory. They've done some breakfast. They've worked up a production of John Reed's 10 days that shook the world. A broad simplification of the revolutionary days whose action begins right in the theater lobby with songs from 1917. Mr. The All right.

It's what I said. Just tell you something. But I need to tell you something Isabel is feeling already. It really feels as if he didn't beat it. Well, that's how you feel, huh? Oh, I'm talking, holy gosh, fool! Hold on! Ciao, ciao, ciao. Here's to 90. A good one. A good one. Really? A good one. A good one. A good one. A good one. Another Taganca production that has been enormously successful is a dramatic recitation of Andreva's Nacensky's poems, Auntie Mary, Auntie Worlds, which is captured the mood of this company of youthful actors. His themes are modern ones, ranging from the poignant loneliness of an American strip

tease dancer to the soulless bureaucrat in Soviet society, to the strong spirit of the early Lenin days. It's very fascinating. It's a magical idea. I am flying, god I will call the one who helped me welcome some friends to Our cameras are recorded

under difficult conditions and unusual, occasion at the Taganta. The 200th performance of Antimetti on July 2nd, at which Wasnasenski came out on stage at the end of the evening. The occasion was given heightened tension and excitement by the fact that Wasnasenski had just been blocked by the Soviet authorities from a proposed trip to the United States to read his poetry at Lincoln Center. And he had reacted to this denial in a defiant spirit by writing a letter to Prabda, attacking bureaucratic control over the arts. Many people in the audience had already heard through the grapevine about the letter. And there was an instant bond between poet and audience. And people waited to hear what Wasnasenski would say. He paid tribute to the creative spirit of Yuri Lubimov, who was at that moment lying very hill in the hospital. And then, Wasnasenski began to recite his poems. Some of them not yet published. What wrote on the audience laughter was a section in the poem in which a movie director

who is about to present his film for judgment to the members of a government commission takes a large swallow of contraceptive pills. Just in case, he says, because they are many and I am alone. Wasnasenski must have known that two days later he was to appear before 14 guiding members of the writer's union who tried to get him to retract his letter to Prabda. After his poetry reading, we talked with Wasnasenski. I think that only was the poetry has only one way to go directly as and more deep inside

inside of a spirit of so-called in Russian. We like a word so. Yes. Yes. And I think that this is what explains the popularity and need for poetry in our country. It goes deeper and deeper into the human soul into consciousness which in the final analysis is the center of civilization. Tell me, what are the young people of 20 like today? I'm happy to say just now that we have a lot of, not one or two or three, a lot of talented young poets. There may be more happy than we. Perhaps they are better educated. They grew up and were formed at a better time. For example, recently a 20 year old by the name of

Vladimir Gubanov came to see me. He's a pipe-fitter by trade. But he loves Lork, the early Aragon, Mikeov skin past the lack of course. He writes complex intellectual poetry and the fact that he's a worker doesn't prevent him from doing this. It is very strange part of that in Russia, very deep and very difficult art, difficult kinds of art, began mass culture. Yes. And for example, poetry and for example, such as Muslim poetry. It could make a parallel with such sciences as physics, which is complex in itself but which penetrates the very pores of the popular masses. And so poetry, it doesn't cease to be complex, necessary, philosophical, just because it becomes accessible to the masses. And I think that this is the only kind of poetry that people need.

I have the impression that the scientists here, scientists, the Uchonea, are very active in supporting the new movements in the arts and in literature. Yes. Tell me about this. Yes. In this, I want to answer why. Because such a young physics, young comics and mechanics and others, they have a lot of complicated problems and their mind is very complicated thing. And that is why they want it in art. They same problems, they same kinds of art like physics problems in their work. And that is why I think the main part of, for example, of my audience is young physics and

mechanics. Taking all the interventions here. Do you feel that some young people, before the complex problems of the world, have a tendency to take refuge in their own private lives, feeling perhaps that there is not much that they can do to influence the solution of problems? Do you notice this here? You think that it may be for Russia, for so-called Mr. Russian, so the main line in Russian, so is connection with not only his own, but with a whole world and so on. For example, as you had to mention, I think that always for Russian, young people, the least

characteristic have been questions of daily life, questions limited by some kind of narrow, materialistic circle. Russian youth is always, and now this is particularly characteristic, has always been connected with the fate of the planet. But I'll tell you that in order for a man to do something for the planet, he must for a while, at one time or another in his life, go deeply into himself, like a bear that sleeps a part of the time in order to lead a more active life during the rest of the time. And the same is true of a creative personality. I know many of our writers who live a very active life, and then suddenly disappear for three months into the provinces. They do this in order to find themselves, to be born again, and these processes have to take place in private. But as to Russian youth, I would say that they've always been linked by every nerve of the whole world, and they were less, that is to say Russian young people, less for themselves than for the

whole world. They had a particularly self-sacrificing attitude about it. So many countries of the world, there is much talk of so-called alienation among young people, and some people feel that this is perhaps a prelude to a new period of creativity among young people. What would you say about that? I hope that it will be only prelude for explosion and many great, because I want to sorry I intend for Congress. I hope that God grant this will be the period of an explosion of unprecedented creative energy. We must hope for this, because if we don't hope while we live, you end up a skeptic, scenic, pessimist, and most of all, it prevents you from working. What about the young people who are not poets, that is your audiences? Do you have

much opportunity to meet with them and to feel what themes, interests them, what kind of an approach do they have to life? If you can, enter a little bit in English, it will help. It is difficult because I am tired of my reading, my English words, I jumped out of my mind and only everything. I only, I want to say only one thing about young generation, that they are better, more free, more brave, more of, more strong, stronger, and I believe in this generation. And there is, every young generation is future, but it is possible to be a bad future, a good future. But I think that our generation is the best future.

In his art, Andrey Vasnisinski reaches out to the world of science, where he feels the creative spirit is strong. One man who has shown this spirit in large measure is Igor Tom. Indeed, he's been a major participant in the growth of Soviet science and he's won a Nobel Prize. What he's appealing about Tom is his capacity for detached thinking that carries over into the broad aspects of life. I should say that, in my opinion, the most important problem of humanity is the following of science and technology to develop extremely quick and give immense power as a hands of man. But his power can't be used for good and for ill. But the most important thing is that the psychology of man, the important instincts are at present almost the same as the

world and the primitive man. But if a primitive man could, with the power and the spare bow and spare could kill 50 or 20 people, now I had a John Buncombe kill 15 or 20 millions of people. And the problem I don't know how to deal with it, but as the outstanding problem is how to change the instance of the political German and the problem of ethics, the problem of moral, is the outstanding problem of humanity. Because otherwise, this immense power given by science and technology will be used for the destruction of man. 50 years is a short time in the life of a society and it is just 50 years since Russia was turned upside down. From the human standpoint, the picture there now is one of great achievements and great costs and much that is yet to be done to fulfill people's hopes.

There is optimism in the Soviet Union about the prospects for economic reform. Yet at this moment, no one can predict how far and how deep the reforms will have to go to be successful. So where is the paradox more evident between the achievements and the limitations of this society than in the field of Soviet science? It has had some of the most spectacular gains and also some of the most crippling inhibitions imposed by political control. Soviet cultural life has had its ups and downs and for the past two years we have been in one of the down periods. The solidarity of the writers and artists keeps pressing to widen the latitudes of free expression. But here again, one comes back in the final analysis to the question of whether Soviet political control by its very nature can allow the real flowering of this talented culture. Now in a sense, it can be said of any society that

it is unfinished in realizing its stated ideals. But this carries special force in the case of the Soviet Union because its leaders claim to have found the model for the future for all societies. And so one must conclude of Russia's revolution that it is unfinished in terms of its original aspirations and in its task of modernizing the society. And above all, unfinished in the sense of coming into harmony with the talents of the Russian people themselves. This has been NET Journal, a weekly look at the events, issues and people of the world

today. This is NET, the National Educational Television Network. Thank you. .

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