The Family in Soviet Russia

By Sidney Webb

[The following article is the last in aflowing tides of the rival soldiery in series of six which Sidney Webb, the the two years of civil war, for which leading exponent of Fabian socialism the in “White” armies, strengthened by England, has contributed toC u r r e n t H i s ­ t o r y. In these articles he has presented the contingents of the United States, an account of many phases of the Com­Japan, Great Britain, France and munist experiment in the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, were at least as much basing his discussion upon personal ob­ servation and his long experience in theresponsible as the Soviet Government. study of social problems.] Many more have naturally died in the fifteen years that have elapsed. But N no part of the life of Sovietby far the greater number got away Russia is there in other coun­in the successive emigrations, and Otries so much difference of assertionthey and their families now perma­ (if not of opinion) as on what is hap­nently form part of the population, pening to the institution of the fam­not of Soviet Russia, but of France ily. On no subject, perhaps, is it soand Italy, Austria and Poland, Ru­ difficult to make either an accuratemania and Greece, Great Britain and or a convincing statement coveringthe United States. Only the minutest either all aspects of the inquiry or allfraction of what was itself never more parts of the U. S. S. R. Let us try than a tiny section of the whole popu­ to build up, from some significantlation is now in the U. S. S. R., and fragments of the problem, the near­this infinitesimal remnant seems est approach that can be made to asilently to have disappeared into the general conclusion. proletarian mass. We must begin by realizing the How much Russia has lost, on the nature and the magnitude of thedisappearance of practically all its changes that the revolution hasupper and middle class women of lei­ wrought in the position, first of thesure with their standards of value and women of Soviet Russia, and then theirof refinement of manners, it would the children and adolescents. Here, be hard to estimate. Of educated wo­ paradoxically enough, we may fairlymen engaged in professional work leave out of account the only classes(as doctors, scientists, teachers or of women and children about whomwriters, or in music, dancing or the Western Europe and America everdrama) the number was formerly knew much! The tiny fraction ofrelatively small; and of such of these aristocratic women, together with the as have not emigrated with the governess-trained wives and daugh­wealthier classes, a considerable pro­ ters of the lesser nobility, of the high­portion seem to have accepted, more er government officials, of some ofor less sympathetically, the new the rural landlords and of the fewregime, under which they promptly wealthy employers, have practicallyfound their feet and continued their disappeared from the Russian com­careers amid the rapidly growing munity. Some few were killed in thenumber of women professionals. wild uprising of the peasantry in the What we have to concentrate atten­ first few months of the revolution,tion on is, none of these relatively and some more in the outrages andsmall groups, but the great bulk of reprisals that marked the ebbing andthe adult women of pre-war Russia, at 52 THE FAMILY IN SOVIET RUSSIA 53 least nine-tenths of the whole, who Now let us see what changes have were either the hard-working wives, occurred or are in progress. The first daughters or widows of peasants,thing that the Bolshevik revolution fishers or hunters or of independentbrought to the women of Russia was handicraftsmen, or else domestic ser­ their complete legal and constitutional vants in superior households, or emancipation; (in the second was their relatively small numbers) factory op­education on an equality with men; eratives, chiefly in textiles. There is and the third was such a planning of little information available as to whatthe social and economic environment that mystic entity “the family” inas could be devised to lighten, as far fact amounted to among these vastas practicable, the exceptional burdens hordes of hard-working women, butof the maternal and domestic func­ pre-war native literature gives a darktions incident upon their sex. Thus picture. The great majority of themwomen over 18 were at once given were illiterate and superstitious andvotes on the same conditions as men, in complete subjection to their hus­with equal trade-union and co-opera­ bands or fathers. It is not usually re­tive membership, and equal eligibility membered that a large proportion offor promotion. All occupations and all them, possibly as many as one-fourth,positions were thrown open to both were Mohammedans, and were habitu­sexes. No distinction is made between ally veiled, with the status and igno­the sexes in wages or salaries, holi­ rance that this implies. days or insurance benefits. No woman Housing is still the weakest pointis deprived of her job on marriage, in Soviet Russia, but in Czarist times,though she may, and often does, prefer the homes of nine-tenths of the wholeto abandon it, perhaps only for a term population, whether in town or coun­of years, for child-bearing and moth­ try, were universally unsanitary, over­erhood. The laws relating to marriage crowded and filthy, to a degree un­and divorce, and their privileges and known in any but the worst of responsibilities, the have been made the city slums of Western Europe. Thesame for women as for men. It must be peasants were as continually deci­added that women working in indus­ mated by disease, recurrent faminetrial factories have been accorded and premature death as in the Europecertain special privileges and protec­ of the Middle Ages. They had next to tion in the interests of the children no medical attendance. No doubtno less than those of the mothers, mothers loved their children, as they such as sixteen weeks’ continuous do everywhere, but it is clear that the leave of absence on full pay round child damage-rate and the infantile about their confinements, the right of death-rate were alike enormous. Prac­taking time off without 16ss of pay to tically every workingwoman was agednurse their babies every few hours before she was 50. As to the marital and the provision of a creche at every fidelity of husbands or the chastity ofindustrial establishment, at which the the unmarried daughters, there were young children may be safely left naturally no statistics. But he wouldthroughout the working day. be the most sentimental of optimists, These changes, which few would with the least possible acquaintanceobject to characterizing as reforms, with peasant or factory life, who couldwere, unlike so many that we have imagine that, in these respects, pre­ heard of, not merely enshrined in war Russia was any different fromlegislation. The visitor to the U. S. the Britain or the Germany of the S. R. cannot fail to see them nearly seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,everywhere in operation. In the vari­ about which we seldom think orous technical schools he will notice speak. nearly as many girls as boys, learning 54 CURRENT HISTORY, APRIL, 1933 to be engineers or carpenters, elec­but also no inquiry as to whether a tricians or machinists. In every fac­woman is or is not married or the tory that he passes through—and notmother of children. There is, accord­ merely in the textile and clothingingly, in Soviet Russia no such dis­ trades—he sees women working sidecouragement of matrimony as exists by side with men, at the lathe, the in Great Britain and some other bench or the forge, often sharing incountries, where the hundreds of the heaviest and most unpleasantthousands of women who are school tasks as well as in the skilled proc­teachers, civil servants and municipal esses. Women work in and about theemployes are, in effect, forbidden to mines and the oil fields equally withmarry, under penalty of instantly the men. On board the Soviet mercan­losing their employment. tile marine there is a steadily in­ All this concerns, however, in the creasing number of women sailors,main, the women of the rapidly grow­ engineers and wireless operators,ing cities and other urban aggrega­ usually dressed as men, as well as tions all over the U. S. S. R., together stewards and cooks and cleaners. Awith such of the vocations, like teach­ large majority of the school teachers ing, doctoring and administration, as and more than one-half of all thehave to be exercised in town and younger doctors are women. In all thecountry alike. The great majority of offices women swarm not only as ste­the women of Soviet Russia, as well nographers but also as translators,as of the men, are connected with confidential secretaries and responsi­agriculture (together with hunting ble executive assistants. and fishing) or essentially with rural Not a few institutions and estab­pursuits. What has happened to the lishments in the U. S. S. R. are under wives and daughters in the 25,000,- women directors or managers, often000 families of individual peasants, having under them many hundredsfishers and hunters? To them the of men as well as women. Thus therevolution has brought the same legal present director of the vast Park ofand constitutional emancipation as to Culture and Rest at Moscow, whichthe women in industry and the pro­ has 3,000 men and women employedfessions. Even in the extensive areas in its varied establishments, is a wo­in which Islam prevailed, the women man. Women are found elected inhave been set free, and many mil­ nearly all the Soviets, to the number,lions have abandoned the veil and in the aggregate, of certainly hun­are themselves learning to read and dreds of thousands. There are, here write, while rejoicing in being able and there, women Commissars (Min­to send their children, girls as well isters of State) in one or other of theas boys, to the local school, and in an constituent republics; they are to increasingbe number of cases to the found in nearly all the Ministers’technical college or the university. collegiums; and there are always wo­ The Soviet Government, in fact, is men at the head of some of the gov­undoubtedly bringing to the country ernment departments. Mme. Kollon-dwellers, year by year, a steadily in­ tai, after filling other importantcreasing measure of the opportunities offices, was for years the Minister in education, medical attendance and representing the Soviet State succes­social insurance now enjoyed by the cities, although in all these advan­ sively at Mexico City and Oslo, and tagesis the country necessarily lags be­ now Minister Plenipotentiary at Stock­hind the town. Thus, while in the holm. cities there are varied educational op­ It is universally taken for grantedportunities for all the girls as well as that, so far as pay is concerned, notfor all the boys, and nearly every child only is there no distinction of sexis at school, this is naturally not yet THE FAMILY IN SOVIET RUSSIA 55 the case throughout all the vast area advantage, in the way of mechaniza­ from the Baltic to the Pacific, and tion and increased production which from the Persian frontier to the Arc­has, in varying degree, already result­ tic Ocean, including much that is oc­ed from the change. The very low cupied by primitive tribes or nomads.level of efficiency, alike among the A steady stream of additional doc­workers and in the management, tors, largely women, is, year by year,plainly brings down the produce to sent into the villages; while the num­terribly poor rations wherever and ber of maternity and general hospi­whenever the weather is unfavorable. tals, large or small, accessible to at Here we can deal only with its effect least a proportion of the villages, in­on the position of the women and creases annually. children. It must, however, be admitted that In a collective farm it is usual for so long as agriculture is carried onthe peasants to retain their own in­ by tiny peasant holdings of land, oftendividual dwellings (or to erect new dispersed in strips as in the Englandones), each with its own garden of the Middle Ages, there can be little ground, its own cow, and its own pigs improvement in the home environ­and poultry. Only in a tiny proportion ment or social position of the wives,of cases does the collective farm take daughters and widows. Thus there has the form of a commune in which all so far been comparatively little alter­the production is carried on in com­ ation, except in legal status, in themon and the whole proceeds are beginnings of sanitation and in a littleshared. Usually it is only the grain better provision of medical attendancethat is sown and harvested in com­ and schooling, among the 30,000,000mon, the proceeds being divided be­ or 40,000,000 of population who tween are the government which has sup­ still in that position. But these areplied the tractors (and often the seed now the backward areas. and fertilizer), on the one hand, and The greatest change in the social the cooperating workers, male and fe­ circumstances of the peasant womenmale, each in proportion to the days began only five or six years ago withor hours of labor actually contributed, the concerted movement for the sub­on the other hand. stitution of the collective farm for the The collectivization does not usually individual small holding. This move­stop at this point. The open meeting ment is still in progress, and reaches of adult residents, in conjunction with different heights in different places, its elected committee, by which every both the number of collective farmscollective farm is governed, presently and the degree of their collective or­begins to make such improvements as ganization showing a steady annuala modest grain store or a primitive increase. Down to 1932 about 18,000,-silo, an improved dairy on modern 000 peasant holdings, with about 70,-lines, a new school building or a vil­ 000,000 of population, had been morelage hall, and presently a clubhouse, or less merged in about 226,000 collec­with its library, its dance floor and tive farms, in some districts occupy­its cinema. Later there may be a ing the whole of the agricultural land. creche where the children can be We need not consider here the vicissi­safely left when the mother goes to tudes of the movement, or the mis­work in the dairy or in the fields, a takes and failures that accompaniedcommon kitchen and dining room in its progress, often, it is to be feared,which such as choose may take their with great cruelty to the recalcitrant meals or purchase cooked food, and kulaks (the relatively wealthy indi­even a few bedrooms at a low rent vidual peasants). Nor can we critical­for single men or widowers. Naturally, ly scrutinize the measure of economicall this takes time, and the farms 56 CURRENT HISTORY, APRIL, 1933 differ as much in the rate at which The resulting emancipation of the the collective amenities expand as inwife and mother, as well as of the the order in which they are adopted. children, cannot easily be estimated. What delays progress is the sly skulk­This is what has been happening dur­ ing and neglect of work manifesteding the past seven years, in varying by many of the sullen peasants, to­degrees and at very different grades gether with the inefficiency of the of efficiency of collective adminis­ management, which naturally has totration, to two-thirds of all the vil­ be overcome, very largely by painfullage population of Soviet Russia. “trial and error.” Let us now consider the changes But almost from the start there affecting the children and the adoles­ begins, for the women, a social revolu­cents who, since not far short of one- tion. Life as lived in the old clusterhalf of the entire population of the of timber-framed mud-huts that used U. S. S. R. is under 18 years of age, to be the peasant village and labormust number some 70,000,000. The as spent in solitude on the scatteredbiggest change since 1914 is that, strips of each peasant’s holding be­instead of only one-third of the chil­ come alike transformed. No one candren (and these largely of the middle know by personal inspection whatand is upper classes) attending any happening on as many as 226,000 col­sort of school for any period whatso­ lective farms. But a significant con­ever, at least four-fifths of all of the fidential report was lately made, notchildren under 14 are now going by any transient visitor but by a well-through a greatly improved and con­ qualified informant who had seen thesiderably extended education curricu­ farms repeatedly in many differentlum. For every such child elementary provinces, to the effect that, whateverschooling lasts at least to its four­ the degree of efficiency attained, teenth year, and in 1932 this school while the old man peasant had onlypopulation numbered 21,900,000, half unwillingly come into the new organ­of them girls. This is an astonishing ization and was still sullen about it,total—about three times the number his wife and also his children almost in 1914, and one in eight of the whole invariably rejoiced in the change. population, being nearly as high a For the first time in their lives percentage as in Great Britain, and they draw, by way of advance, not a so very far short of that in the regular monthly sum of money forUnited States. their individual spendings. Instead An ever-increasing proportion of of working “all the hours that Godgirls as well as boys go on to organ­ made,” as only peasants can work,ized technical schools of secondary they have now an eight-hour daygrades, nearly all of which are delib­ (even the cows are milked three erately specialized in training for a times in the twenty-four hours, andparticular set of cognate occupations. seem to prefer it so). Instead of theBeyond this stand, on the one hand, loneliness of isolated labor in thethe array of factory schools where field they have, very generally, thethe young industrial recruit is, for pleasure of working in company. months, In­ actually taught the operating stead of the dark, silent, muddy vil­of the various machines, before he lage in the evening, they have now,can be trusted with production, and in greater or smaller degree, music on the other, a bewildering number and dancing, the radio, the cinema, (something Tike 1,000 in the U. S. the gramophone, sometimes a grow­S. R.) of technical colleges—these ing collection of books, and evenmostly remarkably well equipped— occasional lectures. Even if the vil­and both the old and the new universi­ lage cannot easily visit the city,ties, admission to which is facilitated the world is brought to the village.not only by an effective preference THE FAMILY IN SOVIET RUSSIA 57 for the sons and daughters of prole­parents, in every form of propaganda, tarian parents but also by substantialthe main insistence is on respect for maintenance scholarships. the emerging personality of the child In addition, something like 10,000,-and the utmost possible development 000, namely, all the young people be­of his or her individuality, having tween 8 and 25 who choose to join,always in mind that the child is the are organized apart from schoolingfuture citizen and producer, whose or employment in the threefold volun­individual capacity must be raised to tary companionship of Octobrists the (8 utmost. In the home, as in the to 10), Pioneers (10 to 17) and Com- school, there must be only the most somols (17 to 25) in what competentsparing use of mere prohibitions. The observers describe as apparently thechild should always be induced to most promising course of mass train­choose the more excellent way. To ing in “civics” that the world can strike a child is, by Soviet law, a crim­ show, in preparation, so far as con­inal offense. Parents are taught that cerns those of them who manifest out­punishment of any kind is felt by the standing character, for eventual ad­child as an insult, and should as far mission at 25 to formal candidatureas possible be avoided. Self-govern­ for membership of the carefullyment must be aimed at in home and chosen, highly exclusive and strictlyschool, even to the discomfort of the disciplined Communist party. elders, and even if there has to be This stupendous planning of some the discreet “weighting of the alter­ training of the children and youth ofnatives” by parent or teacher in order the entire Soviet State is, we may well to steer the choice. believe, only imperfectly in operation.To the child, even from tender Like everything in Soviet Russia, theyears, in infancy as in adolescence, conception is superior to the execu­the incessant lesson is its obligation tion. There is a great shortage of to serve, according to its powers, suc­ qualified teachers of every kind andcessively in the household, in the grade. Many of the schools are still school, in the factory and in the State. in unsuitable or extemporized prem­To this end the children’s needs are ises. Accommodation is often insuffi­ceaselessly attended to. So far as gov­ cient, and occasionally the schoolernment administration can insure it works in two shifts. The quality ofin so vast a country, whoever else the instruction in the higher schoolsgoes short the child always has a and colleges varies greatly, and mat­full ration of milk, of clothing and of ters are not improved by the recentschooling, together with hospital and expedient of shortening the term ofother medical attendance. Making training in order to turn out a largerevery allowance for the imperfection number of half-trained engineers, doc­of vital statistics, all the evidence tors, teachers or what-not to meet the points to a great and continuous de­ nation’s most pressing needs. In allcrease in the infantile and child death these respects, however, there is, rates. every year, definite improvement. The There are toys and games in every U. S. S. R. is probably the only coun­institution and on sale within reach try in the wide world that during the of every parent, with ample provision past three years has been continuouslyfor play and recreation out of doors increasing the public expenditure as on well as indoors. But the toys are education. as deliberately planned as the curricu­ But more important than the planlum or the books—no tin soldiers and for the education of the Soviet youthfew dolls, but abundance of bricks for is the new spirit in which the pres­ building, miniature tools for actual ent generation is growing up. To theuse, and working models of locomo­ 58 CURRENT HISTORY, APRIL, 1933 tives, airplanes and automobiles,human beings. We must have healthier through which it is intended and home surroundings. (Signed) Your hoped that the whole population mayChildren, the Pioneers of [the dis­ in time acquire “machine sense.” Thetrict.]” The school band then led a visitor may see, as the slogan on thegayly decorated procession of children gay poster decorating an infantround the workers’ quarters. They creche: “Games are not mere play, booed the men as they came out. A but preparation for creative labor.”public meeting was held in which the When the elder children go into campchildren took the leading part. As an in the Summer they are shown that immediate result hundreds of work­ it is immense fun not to “play men at are reported to have promised to Indians,” but to help the peasants ingive up vodka. their agricultural work; one party ofThis emancipation of children and twenty was proud to be told that theyadolescents, together with the con­ were ranked, in the aggregate, as four stant encouragement of their utmost grown men. The Pioneers find theirparticipation in social work of every joy largely in the voluntary “socialkind, makes of course for a “priggish­ work” that they undertake in groups,ness” among the young and an atti­ helping the younger or more back­tude of criticism of their lax and ward children in their lessons, “liqui­slovenly elders which is not altogether dating illiteracy” among the adultspleasing to the bulk of their fellow- of their neighborhood, clearing awaycitizens of mature age. Thus the new accumulations of dirt or debris, form­cult of hygienic living among the ing “shock brigades” to reinforce thePioneers may be excellent, but their workers where production is fallingirritating habit of “opening windows behind the plan or when some specialin other people’s houses” is frequently task has to be got through with a complained of by elderly relatives. minimum of delay. But as an instrument of lifting the And these children stick at nothing!people of Russia out of the dirt, dis­ The Moscow Pioneers took it intoease, illiteracy, thieving and brutish­ their heads the year before last to ness of pre-revolutionary days the wait upon many of the directors self-governing of democracy of Com­ the theatres and cinemas in order tomunist youth appears to be extraordi­ give their own views upon the currentnarily well devised. productions, and to expostulate onThere arises the interesting ques­ their shortcomings and defects. In a tion: “What is the sexual morality small urban district some 200 miles that is being evolved among the 5,000,- from Leningrad the Pioneers under­000 or 6,000,000 Pioneers and Comso- took to “liquidate” the excessive con­mols ?” For this widespread organiza­ sumption of vodka that prevailed.tion of the Soviet youth involves inti­ They got put up in every workshopmate social intercourse between boys the following appeal on posters manu­and girls. They are constantly to­ factured by themselves: “We, yourgether. They meet continually, not children, call on you to give up drink­only in school or college but also in ing, to help us to shut drink shops andthe hierarchy of meetings, committees, to use them as cultural institutions,representative conferences and execu­ pioneer clubs, reading rooms, &c. * * tives* that constitute the League of The children whose parents drink areCommunist Youth. They associate in always backward a t school. * * * sports and games, in “social inspec­ Remember that every bottle you drinktions” and “shock brigades” and in all would buy a textbook or exercise booksorts of voluntary social work. Hy­ for your child. * * * Respond to ourgienic self-control seems to be the call and give us the chance of beingdominant note, together with full re­ well-developed, healthy and culturedsponsibility for any offspring, a re­ THE FAMILY IN SOVIET RUSSIA 59 sponsibility enforced by the strictlyseems impossible to compute. The administered law as to parental main­answer to any such criticism is that tenance of children by father andthe young people in all countries in mother alike, according to their eco­the twentieth century are much less nomic capacity. Subject to this em­under their parents’ thumbs, perhaps phasis on personal hygiene and paren­even less under their parents’ influ­ tal responsibility, there is undoubtedlyence, than was the case in the nine­ considerable freedom in sex relation­teenth century. There seems avail­ ships according to choice, without anyable no specific evidence that this sense of sin, but with the constant re­particular emancipation has gone fur­ minder that efficiency in study or pro­ther in one country than in another. duction must not be impaired. YouWhat the foreign observer of Soviet must not waste time or strength onintercourse among relatives chiefly sex. To do so is like indulgence in bet­notices is a great deal more frankness ting and gambling, alcoholic drink andof speech and honest simplicity of even the smoking of cigarettes—“badjudgment than among the more so­ form” among the Comsomols. phisticated and—to put it bluntly— Now these great and far-reaching more hypocritical middle-class fami­ changes among the women, childrenlies of the Western world. There is, and adolescents of Soviet Russia,perhaps, less cant. The child who is paralleled, of course, by no less im­definitely taught to regard drunken­ portant changes among the men,ness as a degrading habit can hardly must inevitably have caused changeshelp applying the lesson to its own of like importance in the institu­father equally with anybody else’s tion of the family. These changes father. The Pioneer is definitely require analysis. We may note, to be­taught that he has the duty of “liqui­ gin with, that there is no sign of dating illiteracy” in his own as in any decay of the family group whichother people’s families. The rebellion mankind has derived from its verte­against dirt and unhygienic living has brate ancestors, and which doubtlessto be relentlessly carried on in all owes its great survival value to thehouseholds. The Russian youth, in advantage to the offspring of ma­fact, is told that he ought to be just ternal devotion and prolonged per­as much ashamed of bad behavior sonal care. Not even the most hostile—meaning anti-social behavior—in critic reports any deliberate abandon­those related to him as in himself. ment of children by their parents.In short, the Pioneer and the Com- Mother-love seems to be the same insomol have to be at once persistent Soviet Russia as elsewhere, and So­crusaders and active assistants in the viet fathers appear to be just asnation’s struggle toward better homes much interested in their children as and better habits, as well as toward British or American. The children increased production. Whether in the form just as much a part of the fami­long run this makes for better fami­ ly circle as with the American or lies or better tempered ones, or for British wage-earning class. The worse, may be a matter on which creche, the school and the college opinions differ! take the young people out of the homeBut what many critics have at least just about as much as the same in­subconsciously in mind when they stitutions, within comparable incomeask about the family in Soviet Russia grades and similar household re­ is what they would regard as sexual sources, do elsewhere. Whether chil­ morality in the parents. How do Rus­ dren and adolescents are less obedi­sian husbands and wives compare in ent to their parents or more than con­fidelity with those of other countries ? temporary British or Americans, itThere is, unfortunately, no available 60 CURRENT HISTORY, APRIL, 1933 yardstick for this comparative meas­without sense of sin, are condemned urement. Moreover, comparison shouldneither by law nor by public opinion, be made class by class. If the in­ and they often turn into successful quirer belongs to the upper or middlepermanent marriages. Divorce is at classes of Europe or America, hethe will of either party, but there is must be reminded that the correspond­a strict enforcement of the legal re­ ing grades of the Russian populationsponsibility of both parents for the no longer exist in the U. S. S. R. Themaintenance of any offspring, accord­ comparison can only be made betweening to their respective economic ca­ the peasant or artisan of the Westernpacities. Anything like promiscuity, world and the Soviet wage earner inwith or without marriage, is now seri­ town or country. ously reprobated by opinion. “I do It will be admitted by every visitornot want to inquire into your private that to outward appearance Moscowaffairs,” Stalin is reported to have and the other great cities of Soviet said to an important party member Russia are not only far more “decent”who was leading a scandalous life, than they were under the Czar but“but if there is any more nonsense also more than nearly all cities else­about women you will go to a place where. Dance halls, night clubs and where there are no women.” cabarets have been almost universallyWe may perhaps sum up by say­ suppressed. The Soviet stage, like theing that the great increase in per­ Soviet films, is concerned with othersonal freedom brought about by the interests than sex and stands at the revolution, together with the almost opposite pole from Hollywood. universal The falling away of religious supersession of profit-making pub­and conventional inhibitions, un­ lishing by that of the public authori­doubtedly led, for the first decade or ties has, even more than the rigorousso, to greater instability of family censorship, swept away all porno­life and to looser relations between graphic literature. Even the dancingthe sexes based on mutual friend­ of the Western world, with its promis­ship. At the same time organized cuous embracing, is forbidden as un­commercialized vice, in all the forms healthy eroticism, except where it is common in great cities of the West, tolerated for foreigners only at onerapidly diminished, even, as some or another of the expensive hotels.competent observers declare, to next There is, it is noticed, far less solici­ to nothing. During the past few tation in the Moscow streets (andyears public opinion seems to have what there is, almost entirely foreign been moving strongly in favor of—to on both sides) than in any other Eu­use a native expression—“stabiliza­ ropean city of equal magnitude. Alltion,” and any tendency to prompt, the evidence goes to show that amongreckless or repeated divorce meets the Russians prostitution in the or­with condemnation. No general or dinary sense of the word has practi­centralized statistics permit of com­ cally disappeared. parison between the numbers of di­ On the other hand, there is un­vorces and those of marriages. Such doubtedly in Soviet Russia a greaterfigures as have been published for freedom than in many other countriesparticular cities and years appear to in sexual intercourse, based on mu­show totals (and local variations) in tual attraction and friendship, amongSoviet Russia not markedly unlike the unmarried of both sexes and allthose of parts of Scandinavia and ages. Such unions, which are utterlydifferent States of the United States.