RUSSIA: Get Thee Behind Me, Satan!

• Share

The Soviet Government has been very reluctant to let its citizens travel outside Russia. Since the Revolution, few Russians have been exposed to the seductions of capitalism. But last week, with Red armies overrunning Rumania, Bulgaria and entering Hungary, more Russians than ever before were face to face with the blandish ments of the other, world.

In Pravda and Red Fleet, famed Soviet Author Leonid Sobolev tackled the Get thee behind me, Satan problem with humor. He warned Red Army men who had seldom seen luxury goods in Russian shopwindows, that "a lot of outward tinsel will dazzle your eyes." He warned them "not to believe in the deceitful phantoms of a false civilization." Some of Sobolev's "deceitful phantoms": sleek automobiles, bright advertisements, well-to-do homes with shutters mysteriously drawn to hide "cheap luxuries," fat businessmen with gold watch chains looped across their well-fed midriffs.

Other foreign perils were short, knee-length skirts, stockingless legs, and "wonderful shoes with the full bare heels show ing." Said one of Sobolev's characters, a Red Army man, drawing on his experience: "Probably not enough material to finish the shoes." Said his witty comrade: "No, the Rumanians have a tradition of showing their heels in war." "The women," Sobolev conceded, "are handsome in a standardized way, with carefully made-up faces smoothly pale in spite of the burning sun, with hairdos which are a little too artful and with striking dark red pouting lips — the fashion seems to dictate 'sinful mouths.' "

"They look fine," confessed one of soldiers, sliding his eyes from cheeks to open-toed shoes.

But his comrade was not to be caught. "Put them under a faucet and then you'll see. No, brother, our Ryazan girls are better. They use no trickery."

But more Russians were yet to be tempted. Sighed Sobolev: "We shall have to go through more foreign countries."