RUSSIA: Write with the Heart

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After ten weeks in Russia, TIME Correspondent Samuel Welles went on to Finland and Sweden and, without censorship, reported:

At 5 in the morning, the train from Leningrad stopped near the Finnish frontier. A captain, in the green-tabbed uniform of the Soviet Security Police, and a buxom woman interpreter came into my compartment. The woman pulled my bed apart and turned over the mattress. The pair found only one thing which pleased them: the embossed, lavender-colored propusk (pass) to Red Square for the May Day parade. The woman said in awe: "Neither of us has ever seen one of these. . . . Did you see Stalin?"

"Very clearly," I replied. "Through field glasses from about 60 feet. He is getting greyer, but his face has much more animation than I would have guessed from pictures. He never paused to catch his breath as he climbed up Lenin's tomb."

Said the captain with feeling: "We too would like to see Stalin."

The Two Stories. At long last, all my belongings were passed. The woman again turned to me. Her intense eyes looked straight into mine. "When you write about Russia, you will have your opinion," she said, "but write with the heart. We don't want any more war. We had enough. Remember the terrible destruction we suffered, and the pale faces of our children. Write with the heart."

Hardheaded patience and firmness the West will need in dealing with Russia; but understanding and compassion it will need too. To consider Russia "with the heart" means to sense two stories—the story of her great warm people, and the story of the cold bureaucracy of lies and murder which grips the people's lives. You cannot know a jail without having seen the prisoners.

Russia Passes By. For weeks before May Day, all over Moscow, I had seen civilian columns practicing for the impending "spontaneous" demonstration. This had made me feel a little cynical; but I was not prepared for what was to come. Only part of the parade turned out to be organized. Most of it was people, just sauntering along. The tide of Russia's human power flowed by, mothers walking hand-in-hand with little girls & boys, fathers with still smaller children perched on their shoulders. There were kids tugging at toy balloons.

The people moved on hour after hour over the whole length and width of Red Square, without a break or a gap. Most of them were smiling. A voice from the loudspeaker regularly bade the crowd to "Hurrah for Stalin." But all quite naturally turned their faces up toward him. No other procession I ever saw had the force, impact or sheer splendor of that ragged million. It was Russia that had passed, in the shape of her patient, pliant, tireless people.

But it was another Russia that stood and watched, in the shape of her present masters—the Politburo, lined up atop Lenin's tomb and surrounded by an army of secret policemen. All over Russia, in less dramatic settings, you sense those same counterpoints between the people and their leaders, between the lives the people would like to lead and the lives they are made to lead. You sensed them on the very train that carried me out of Russia.