File:Russia in the shadows (1921) (14576572859).jpg

Identifier: russiainshadows01well (find matches)
Title: Russia in the shadows
Year: 1921 (1920s)
Authors: Wells, H. G. (Herbert George), 1866-1946
Subjects: Communism
Publisher: New York, George H. Doran company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
scores of little creatures. But shewas evidently keenly proud of the work ofher organisation, and she said that shefound life—^in this city of want, under theshadow of a coming famine—more interest-ing and satisfying than it had ever been inthe old days. I have no space to tell of other educa-tional work we saw going on in Russia.I can give but a word or t^o to the Home ofRest for Workmen in the Kamenni Ostrof.I thought that at once rather fine and not alittle absurd. To this place workers aresent to live a life of refined ease for two orthree weeks. It is a very beautiful countryhouse with fine gardens, an orangery, andsubordinate buildings. The meals areserved on white cloths with flowers uponthe table and so forth. And the workerhas to live up to these elegant surroundings.It is a part of his education. If in a forget-ful moment he clears his throat in thegood old resonant peasant manner andspits upon the floor, an attendant, I wastold, chalks a circle about his defilement 128
Text Appearing After Image:
CREATIVE EFFORT IN RUSSIA and obliges him to clean the offendedparquetry. The avenue approaching thisplace has been adorned with decoration inthe futurist style, and there is a vast figureof a worker at the gates resting on hishammer, done in gypsum, which wasobtained from the surgical reserves of thePetersburg hospitals. ... But after all,the idea of civilising your workpeople bydipping them into pleasant surroundingsis, in itself, rather a good one. . . . I find it difficult to hold the scales ofjustice upon many of these efforts ofBolshevism. Here are these creative andeducational things going on, varying be-tween the admirable and the ridiculous,islands at least of cleanly work and, Ithink, of hope, amidst the vast spectacle ofgrisly want and wide decay. Who canweigh the power and possibility of theirthrust against the huge gravitation of thissinking system? Who can guess whatencouragement and enhancement they mayget if Russia can win through to a respitefrom civil and foreign war

Note About Images