RABINDRANATH TAGORE IN RUSSIA BY CENTRAL PEASANTS' HOUSE, MOSCOW

RABINDRANATH TAGORE IN RUSSIA

CENTRAL PEASANTS' HOUSE, MOSCOW

THE Poet and his party visited the Central Peasants' House, Moscow on September 16, 1930 at 9 P. M. These houses, which are used also as clubs, are scattered all over the country, in cities, towns, and villages. They carry on a great deal of cultural, social and educational work among the peasant masses. In these houses are organized lectures on various agricultural and social topics, groups are formed to do away with, illiteracy, and special classes are held to impart to the peasants practical knowledge of efficient scientific methods of working the land. Each of these houses has a museum of natural history, of the origin and growth of religion, of agriculture and of social welfare. Consultation bureaux are also established in these houses on a variety of subjects, such as agriculture, taxation, etc.

Peasants arriving in town are put up temporarily at these houses (for the period of one night to three weeks) at a very low charge (25 kopeks per night) [One kopek is equivalent to about one pice.]. They are aided by the consultation bureaux to solve all their difficulties connected with their village life. By means of these peasant houses the Soviet Government is carrying on a tremendous amount of work among the widest strata of the one-time illiterate peasants, transforming their life into one of rich civic responsibility with a new social order as its basis.

On his arrival at the Central Peasants' House Rabindranath Tagore was received in the main stub-rocmi by the superintendent of the house, the House Council, and some one hundred and fifty peasants who were boarding there at the time, representatives from the nearest and the far-distant points of the Soviet Union.

The small meeting of welcome that followed was opened by the superintendent who explained to the peasants that the poet had come to visit them in order personally to meet them and to learn about them. The superintendent welcomed the poet on behalf of the assembled peasants, and hoped that this first meeting between the great Indian poet and the Soviet peasants would lay the foundation for a still deeper contact between the peasaut masses of both countries.

In his brief reply the poet underlined the importance and significance of the strenuous work being carried on by the peasants and workers of the Soviet Republic in the building up of a new life, a new humanity. He expressed his admiration for the great spirit of goodwill which inspired this new effort, this great undertaking which demanded the utmost self-sacrifice and self-denial of the Soviet population.

A number of questions were then put to the poet, and he answered them to the full satisfaction of his audience.

Q. What is the position of the national policy in India to-day and what is the reason for the strife between Hindus and Mussalmans ?

A. I find from personal observations that this strife has been going on for the past twenty-five years only, before this period there being, as far as I can recall—and I have lived for many years in villages—no such animosity and enmity between them. I am certain that this strife has been made possible by the overwhelming ignorance and illiteracy of the Indian peasants. These feelings of religious hostility can, in my opinion, be liquidated only by the introduction of mass education. The possibility of educating the masses, unfortunately, does not exist to-day in India. Your country is the only one, similarly circumstanced, which has this possibility.

Q. Have you written about the peasants in your works, and what are your views regarding the future of the Indian peasants ?

A. Not only have I written about peasants but I am working among them, endeavouring, as far as I can, to educate them. I am not only educating children and the Indian youth in my schools, but also carrying on this work in the surrounding villages. This work is, of course, of a. modest nature in comparison with the gigantic educational work that is being carried on in the Soviet Union.

Q. What is your opinion of the collectivization that is being expanded in this country ?

A. I realize the great importance of this work (collectivization) that is being carried out by the peasants, but I cannot answer this question as, unfortunately, I know very little about it. My lack of knowledge of how this problem is being solved in the Soviet Union is one of the chief reasons of my visit to your country.

Q. What is known in India concerning our collectivization and about the work of our country generally ?

A. Unfortunately, very little, as the existing press in India as well as in other countries is reticent and untrustworthy about all facts concerning your country.

Q. Had you heard before of the existence of the Peasants' Houses and of their work ?

A. No, only since my coming to Moscow have I learned of the existence of these welfare centres for the peasants.

Now I would like to hear from the peasants at this meeting of their own opinion about collectivization and its full significance for the agricultural population.

Answer: (By a young peasant, thirty-two years of age, from Ukraine ; name: Semenchiko, living in Kherson).

I am working on a collective farm which was organized two years ago. Our collective farm consists of big gardens from which we supply canning plants with vegetables and huge wheat-fields. We have an eight-hour working day and each fifth day is a holiday. (The five-day week has been now introduced throughout the country and works under the name of "the uninterrupted working week").
The average crop is twice as large as that of any of the neighbouring individual peasants. Almost from the very beginning of the existence of our collective farm we had 150 individual farms merged into this common unit. In the spring of 1929 some 50 per cent of the collectivists left us, due to an incorrect understanding and appliance of Comrade Stalin's instructive letter (Stalin, the General Secretary of the All-Union Communist Party) who pointed out that the fundamental principle of collectivization was social voluntary participation in the organization of these collective farms. This basic principle was not correctly understood in a number of rural areas and due to its inadequate and wrong appliance and resultant bureaucratic mistakes, many peasants withdrew from the collective farms. But now, after the supplementary explanations and the high courageous effort of the remaining collectivists, over 25 per cent of those that had left have returned. And to-day, we are stronger than ever. We are building new living houses for our members, a new dining-hall and a school.

On this same question further information was advanced by a peasant woman from Siberia. She had been the member of a commune farm for ten years. She asked the poet to bear in mind when he wrote about the collective farms, the intimate connection that they have with the women's movement of which the farms are the most important centres. She explained how the woman of to-day is more self-confident and expressive than her sisters of even a decade ago and how, therefore, in the great work of winning the individual peasants to collectivization, they have to influence actively the backward section of the women- folk who did much to prevent the successful carrying out of the collectivization plan. She said : "Now we have specially organized brigades of women collectivists which travel from one part of the country to the other, working among the women, rousing them up, and pointing out to them in detail the economic and cultural advantages of collectivization. In order to lighten the strenuous life of the women collectivists in their farm work and with a view to mating their status truly equal to that of their men comrades there are in every collective farm a nursery and kindergarten. and a communal kitchen."

A farm-labourer of the great world-renowned state farm (Sovkhoz) "Gigant" also described how the collectivist idea is being realized in Russia. He said : "This farm embraces 100,000 hectares (One hectare is equal to 2.471 acres, i.e., about 7.5 Bengal bighas.) of farm land. Last year, we had 3,000 workers. This year that figure will slightly decrease, although the output per man will increase. This_is due to the introduction of the more advanced methods of agriculture such as scientific manuring and the use of tractors and other machinery. We have now more than 300 tractors. We also have the eight-hour working day. Those of us working longer, of course, receive overtime allowances. During the winter months when there is insufficient work for all the workers, some two-thirds of them are permitted to leave the farm to seek work in the cities (building, road-mending, etc.). During their period of work in the towns they will receive one-third of their summer wage from the farm and their families will continue to reside in the rooms given them at the farm."

Tagore. I should like to know the opinion of some of the individual peasants who are here, regarding the collective farm and on the whole, the views of anyone here present concerning the principle of private property and whether they regret their surrender of their individual farm holdings.

(Mr. Eskukoff suggested counting the members of the different groups of people present at the meeting. Upon counting it was found that the great majority of those present were peasants. Further it was also found that about 50 per cent of them were members of collective farms or labourers of state farms).

Answer. (A brief period ensued before the peasants got up to reply to this question. A number of them confessed that they entertained orthodox views on this subject, as the subject was not clear to their minds ; still more of them were shy and embarrassed [In a Bengali letter to Mr. Prasanta Mahalanobis, published in Prabasi for Paush 1337 B.S.,Rabindranath Tagore gives the reasons which, in his opinion. prevented the peasants from giving a clear and straightforward answer to this question and in course of the argument. he gives us some idea of his own notion about property. A translation of this portion of his letter is given below :

"It was easy to understand, he writes, that their reason for not answering the question lay in a trait of the human character. Attachment to one's own property is something instinctive with men, and beyond the reach of mere argument. Owning property is one of the forms which our striving for self-expression might take. Those who have a higher means for this at hand do not care for property ; they can afford to give away their all. But for the common man. his property is the symbol of his own individuality. and to deprive him of this is to take away from him his only means of self-realization. Had property been a means of earning a livelihood alone and not also a channel of self-expression it would have been easy, to persuade people that a livelihood could be better secured by giving it up. Neither intelligence nor acquired skills, which are some of the higher instruments of self-expression, can by force or fraud be taken away from an individual : property can. And it is for this reason that there is so much cruelty and deception and endless strife in human society over the division and enjoyment of property. I do not think that there is any way out of this except by a middle path—which, so to say, is that private property should be permitted to remain but that the limits of its strictly individual enjoyment should be fixed. Any surplus beyond this limit should be available for public utilization. Thus alone could the love of property be saved from being turned into avarice, cruelty or deception. The Soviet Government has tried to solve this problem by refusing to admit its existence, and there is no end of violence to secure this object. But it is not within anybody's powers to say that there should be no distinctiveness among men; the utmost that can be said is that there should be no selfishness. In other words, everybody should have something which he may call his own, but all the rest should be for others. The question can only he solved by recognizing both the self and the society at large. To refuse to admit either can only launch us into a war with the realities of human nature. In the West, they put too implicit a faith in mere force. This does well-enough in fields where force is necessary, but everywhere else it leads only to disaster. And any attempt to bring two conflicting truths together by mere physical force can, sooner or later, only drive them more widely asunder.—Ed., M. R.]. Eventually, a peasant from fhe Bashkir Eepublic spoke up).

He said that he was still an individual farmer but that in a short time he would enter the neighbouring collective farm. He pointed out his reasons for this desire. The collective method of land exploitation, he said, yielded a far better and a higher ratio of crop than the individual system. "'But," he went on, "for the better cultivation of the land, we need machinery. We individuals cannot afford to purchase machines. Further, even if we owned machines, we could not cultivate the small strips of land that each individual peasant owns. Only through the collectivization of these small plots into huge collective farms can we really begin to build a new order of social existence."

A woman peasant from the Tambov region (some 150 miles south of Moscow) then took the floor and said : "There can be no doubt of the superiority of life in collective farms to that outside them, and I do not think any one regrets this change of conditions." Several other peasants who spoke confirmed this opinion. Someone from the audience cried out—"How can we regret changing from our former small, dirty huts to our present large, sanitary, hygienic collectivist houses ?"

Tagore. I had the pleasure of meeting yesterday Mr. Karakhan, who said that he was particularly proud of the work done by the Soviet Government and the Soviet social organizations in the sphere of the emancipation of women and the education and upbringing of children. In my conversation with him, I expressed my doubts regarding the future of family life and even of its existence. I should like to hear what your opinions are upon this matter and whether you believe that family life will continue to exist under the collectivist social system.

Answer. (The young Ukrainian Semenchiko, who spoke before, replied)—"What I will tell you will prove whether family life is being destroyed or uot under the new social regime. When my father was alive, he used to work six months of the year in the cities and for the remaining six months (in summer) I was sent with my brothers and sisters to work as shepherds for the wealthy peasants, and therefore we seldom saw our father. Now, I see my son everyday after he returns from the kindergarten, and we are the best of friends."

Another peasant, a woman, also spoke, stating it as her opinion that the introduction of creches and kindergartens has really brought husband and wife to a better undestanding and mutual feeling. This develops in them a true responsibility and appreciation of their duty as parents.

A young Caucasian woman who had been living, excepting for the last four years, in a small village in the Caucasian mountains, rose up and spoke with great pathos and understanding. Addressing the interpreter she said :— "Tell the great poet, Rabindranath Tagore, that we women living in the Soviet Union, and particularly in the Trans-Caucasian Republics, consider that we are really free and happy only since the October Revolution. The dark days of the past before 1917 have now become distant. We are building up a new life in which we are participating, fully conscious of our duties and responsibilities, and we ;.re prepared to go to the extreme length of self-denial for the ideal we cherish in our hearts. Let the great poet know that the various peoples and nationalities of the Soviet Union wish him to convey to the people of India their warmest greetings and sympathy in their dark hour."

Tagore. Our people are still ignorant, our women are helpless, they need the light of the new age in order to find their place in the world of humanity. Answer. (The same woman from Caucasus) I would leave my home, my children, all that I have, in order to work amongst your people and to help them !

Tagore. Who is that Mongolian young man on the left ?

The Interpreter. He is the son of a collective farmer in the Kirghizian Republic, and he has come to Moscow to study in the Higher Textile Industrial Technicum. In three years time he will become an engineer and return to his Republic to work on a big plant built since the Revolution.

The Superintendent of the Central Peasants' House in closing this meeting said :

"The visit of the poet to the Soviet Union is of the greatest importance. The coming of such an eminent personage to this country, such an outstanding figure of the cultural world, means a new and bigger step in the mutual contact between the toiling peoples of India and the Soviet Union. We hope the poet will assist in the spreading of genuine and objective information in India concerning the efforts and activities of the workers and peasants of the first Workers' and Peasants' Republic in History." (Prolonged applause and the singing of the International Hymn).

INTERVIEW WITH ART CRITICS

Tagore. I thank you for your welcome and the words of appreciation. I know that the best communication between nations is the communication of mind and heart. The best products of each country belong to all humanity. This is the proper field of exchange—the field of culture. And I shall be only too glad to show you what I have done in this latest manifestation of my own creative mind.

It came to me all of a sudden without any training, any preparation, and so it has its psychological value, I believe. In other parts of Europe I must confess, however, those who are very critical of art or products of art, have given me assurance that my pictures not only have a psychological interest, but also a higher interest of art and they have acknowledged me as an artist for which I feel very proud. I want now to know what you think of my attempts, because I take your opinion of art very highly indeed.

I have felt a a need to bring my pictures to you, also because through pictures I can come into direct touch with your mind, while with my words I cannot, owing to the language barrier. But my pictures, they will speak to you without the medium of an interpreter, which is always unsatisfactory.

Critic. What is the idea of this picture ?

Tagore. No idea. It is a picture. Ideas are in words and not in life.

Critic. What is remarkable in your work is the spirit of youth and that is why these paintings are so interesting. The spirit of youth meets no difficulty in finding its proper mode of expression and your pictures have created their own technique.

Critic. Have you ever painted before ?

Tagore. Never.

Critic. You are a first-class artist. Every new picture makes a stronger impression and the entire audience is thrilled by this. We are very interested to know when these were made ?

Tagore. These are early ones. They are mainly linear, the colours come in later on.

Critic. Something resembling very much the works of Yrubel, whom you have never seen perhaps ?

Tagore. I do not believe I have seen any of his pictures.

Critic. We shall be glad to show them to you.

We shall be glad to take your paintings and exhibit them as our own—as those of a Russian artist !

We ask whether your paintings have any names ?

Tagore. None at all. I cannot think of any names. I do not know how to describe my pictures.

Critic. Is this a portrait of Dante ?

Tagore. No, it is not a portrait of Dante. I did it on the steamer on my way from Japan last year; my pen followed its own impulse, which led to this figure you see before you.

Critic. Is this any particular colour?

Tagore. No, just ordinary blue fountain-pen ink.

These are the earlier ones, the black and white.

Critic. Do you make oil paintings ? No ? Only with ink ?

Tagore. Yes.

Critic. (With regard to a picture made ,the day before) An impression of Moscow ?

Tagore. Well, I did it yesterday. I do not know if Moscow has anything to do with it—perhaps it may be so, who knows!

Critic. We wish to express our deep pleasure. Professor Christe says he has known you for a long time as a great poet, and here he expected to see some productions of a dilletante artist, but what he has seen has amazed him. He was struck by the virility of your paintings he had the pleasure to see. He is sure that your paintings represent a very great event in the history of art. He believes your. pictures will be a great education to our artists and give them a fuller sense of life.

Tagore. It gives me great delight to be able to gain your approbation and to know that this came from the expert critics and artists of your land. I almost feel vain of my productions. My pictures being too new, I am not yet accustomed to this and always I feel the greatest delight when these are praised, because I have some diffidence in not having any standard within myself and have to rely upon those who have a great background of artistic experience. It gives me great pleasure to know that you have appreciation for these works of mine.

September 13, 1930—7-30 p. in.

The Poet and his party attended the 2nd Moscow Art Theatre and saw the play— "Peter the 1st." The Poet was received on his entrance into the theatre by the Director and the leading actors of the play. He expressed great appreciation of the play and spoke enthusiastically about the fervour of dramatic power with which the whole play was performed.

September 15, 1930—11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Mr. Ariam, Mr. Chakravarty, Dr. Timbres, Miss Margaret Einstein, Mr. Marianov and .Mr. Eshukoff visited the children's creche and kindergarten of the Dynamo Works.

7-30 p. m.

The poet and his party visited the Amalgamated Union Cinema and were received by Mr. Rutin, President of the Union and a responsible member of the Board. The poet was shown portions of the Russian film "Warship Potemkin" and some portions of the film "Old and New" (The General Line). These productions were directed by S. Eisenstein. Later, the members of the Cinema Board had a conversation with Dr. Tagore concerning the poet's new film-stories of which they had heard. They were deeply impressed by the short versions of the stories by the poet, and they decided to meet him at his hotel and discuss in detail the possibilities of filming his stories.

September 17, 1930—11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Mr. Ariam visited the Timiryasev Agricultural Academy. This Academy formerly was called the Petrovsky Agricultural Academy. It trained agricultural engineers from the Russian aristocracy. To-day the 3,000 students at the Academy are workers and peasants. The idea of this revolution, as far as the composition of the students is concerned, means not only the domination of the working class, but a new system of life altogether with its new economic basis required for the modern type of trained workers who are rapidly gaining ground in the Soviet Union. The agricultural engineer of to-day, in this country, is not an "high-brow" intellectual, but a practical engineer having a thorough grasp of the new scientific methods of land cultivation, and is at the same time a conscientious member of his class and a social organizer.

RABINDRANATH TAGORE AT THE EXHIBITION OF HIS PICTURES

The exhibition of the paintings of the Poet, was opened at the State. Moscow Museum of New Western Art on September 17, at 3 P. M. It wets opened by Prof. Petroff, who stated : "Today we were experiencing the pleasure of meeting Rabindranath Tagore not only as a great poet and philosopher, but also as an outstanding painter of the day. We greet the great poet and painter who has come to our country to observe our building of a new economic, political and social order." "We particularly appreciate his visit," continued Prof. Petroff, "as a man of great vision and of deep intuitive understanding of life's essential realities." Prof. Sidorov spoke on the essence of the creative art of the poet as a painter. Prof. Ettingov of the People's Commissariat of Education expressed his warmest welcome on behalf of the Commissariat. He too underlined toe great importance of the poet's visit to the Soviet Union as beting a new link in the chain of cultural connections between the peoples of India and the Soviet Union,
Kristy (Director of Tretiakov Gallery) said : We greet you, revered philosopher and writer, in the name of the greatest museums and Region-Study Departments of Moscow, and in the name of the people's Commissariat for Education, directing the affairs of art in the Soviet Union.

We all know Rabindranath Tagore, philosopher and writer, but it was a pleasant surprise for us to learn that he is also a painter. It is with special pleasure that we have arranged an exhibition of his work in order to acquaint our intellectuals and our working masses with them. We are glad that our guest has come to us at the moment when his own native land is on the eve of emancipation, and that he has come to us when we are ourselves making heroic efforts for the recinstruction of our material and spiritual world.

We believe that by acquainting himself with our country he will take back much that is useful for his own. For ourselves, we believe that our close contact with this great representative of an old and cultured nation and the consequent fertilization of our mutual ideological and political achievements will result in far-reaching benefits for us both.

Tagore. I return warm thanks for the welcome extended to me. I appreciate intensely this -opportunity to get in touch with some of the best minds and best hearts of your country. My most intimate gifts to you are my pictures, and I hope that in them we shall truly meet each other. Only this has made me venture to bring my pictures here and exhibit them. I myself value them chiefly because they enable me to get into direct touch with the western people. Words have failed me, the help of the interpreter has created further distractions in the path of our mutual understanding. Let me hope that my pictures will be the messengers of thought between us and bring us close to each other on the plane of harmonious understanding. (The audience then inspects Tagore's pictures

Kristy. We are sincerely grateful for what we have just seen. When we came here we knew Rabindranath Tagore merely as a great philosopher and a poet and supposed that his art would be merely the hobby of a great man. But the more we acquaint ourselves with his paintings, the more we are struck with the creative skill shown in his pictures. We consider these works to be a great manifestation of artistic life and that his skill will be, like all high technical achievements, assimilated by us from abroad of the greatest use to our country.

Some persons attended the exhibition, representatives from various art and educational institutions of Moscow. Although the hall was overcrowded, we were compelled to permit three hundred more people to enter, who were tremendously eager to see the poet's paintings.

During the remaining days of the exhibition more than five hundred persons daily visited the Museum (the usual attendance is 150).

6-30-p.m.

Mr. Ariam, Mr. Shatsky and Mr. Amdur left for the Central Educational Experimental Station of the People's Commissariat for Education. This station was originally organized by Mr. Shatsky in 1912.

INTERVIEW WITH STUDENTS

Tagore. I thank you very much for giving me this opportunity of coming into close touch with you.

I do not know how to have proper communication with you. Through translation we cannot say very much—a great deal of it is lost in the way of translation. I do not feel encouraged to talk in English about any subject which is important and serious. It is so difficult for me to come into close touch with you and to know about your aspirations and also if you still have any misgivings about the society under which you are working and growing up. But these are serious questions which cannot be answered through translation.

That is why I should much rather wait till you ask me some simple questions which I may answer. If you have any curiosity to know about anything which I am doing or any other subject concerning India, I should try to answer your questions.

Maria Steinhaus. Before I ask you a question I would like to greet you in the name of the scientific workers of Moscow and tell you how glad we are to meet you. Your famous name is known in our country and we know that you are interested in our schools and educatinnal work. And our comrades would be glad and happy to show you our work (Here Maria Steinhaus asked Robindranath Tagore about his school in India. Robindrinatn's reply to this question is printed as the first article of this number.—Ed. M. R.).

Question. What is the social origin of the generality of your pupils? Are they from peasants, workers and so on ?
Tagore. In the neighbourhood of the village where we are working, we have opened a special school for the villages. You may ask why I should make such a distinction. Why I should not allow the children of the villages to come and attend the other school which is for the upper people ? The reason is that these people who come from comparatively rich families, all want to pass their examinations and get their degrees in order to earn their livelihood. Therefore, it is not possible to give to them the ideal kind of education. For instance, they cannot waste their time in manual training or even such cultural training like music and art and they want to cram themselves for their examination and somehow get through. I had to submit to this because otherwise there would be no chance of having a single student in my school One of the reasons is that our country is exceedingly poor and it is natural for these boys to want to earn their livelihood and maintain their family when they grow older and they must have some opportunity to pass their examinations in their schools, so I had to start a parallel school where the villagers who do not have ambitions for finding government employment or employment in merchants' offices, come and join. There I am trying to introduce all my methods which I consider to be absolutely necessary for a perfect education. Before long, this village school, I believe, will be the real school, the ideal school, and the other one will be neglected

Question : A representative of the literary organization of the people would like to know which are the most interesting currents in Indian literature. Are there in India any institutions for training workers for literary activity ?

Tagore. We do not have auy organized effort to help the working men, to stimulate their creative activities. There have been started various night-schools, but that is for the purpose of teaching them how to read and write and to get elementary information of various kinds. We cannot say that we have many schools which are of a higher class than that. One of the reasons is that we should not have any students even if we did start such a school. With some encouragement we can induce villagers to attend such schools in order just to read and write, and they consider that sufficient. Only sometimes there are among them some intelligent individuals who have the ambition to join the higher classes and pass through their exaininations, to get degrees. But their number is very small, and even when they do attend their schools, they lose their original character. They no longer remain tied to the village and its work when once they pass their examinations. They try to come to the town and take up some kind of work which they consider to be of a higher nature.

So we hardly have any institution for training the peasants or the working-men in order to do their own vocation properly in an educated manner. I think the only exception which I may mention is this school which I have started in the neighbouring village near our institution. There the real people of the villages get a proper training, a real education, not merely a smattering of some elementary subjects.

7-30 p. m.

Visited the 1st Moscow Art Theatre. The play "Resurrection" by Tolstoy. The poet had a conversation with the famous Soviet actress Knipper, the wife of the late author Chehov.

September 18, 1930—5 p. m.

Tea at Karakhan's home The poet and his companions were at this tea.

September 19, 1930

Left 9 a. m. for Karakhan's villa in the outskirts of Moscow. Returned ou the 20th at 4 p.m.

7. 30 p. m.

Mr. Chakravarty, Mr. Ariam, Miss Einstein and Mr. Marianov visited the Vaghtangov Theatre and saw the play "Princess Turandot."

September 20,1930—4-30 p. m.

Dr. Tagore was visited by Moscow Orientalists. Those piestnt were Prof. Veltman, Prof. Shor (a woman) and others.

7-30 p m.

Visited the First State Opera House. Received by the Directoress Malinovakaya. The ballet "Biaderka" (An Indian love legend) was performed.

September 21, 1930—10 a. m.

The poet was visited by Prof. Zelenin, the eminent Soviet physician who made a thorough medical examination of the poet. Prof. Zelenin stated that the poet was tired out and advised him to take a good rest.

2 to 4 p. m.

Sight-seeing excursion in Moscow and its suburbs by the poet and his party.

September 23, 1930

Mr. Ariam and Mr. Eshukoff visited the Museum of Handicrafts Art.

September 24, 1930—11 a.m. to 3p.m.

Mr. Ariam, Dr. Timbres, Miss Einstein and Mr. Eshukoff visited an industrial labour commune for children (for former homeless waifs) and incorrigible children. The ages ot these children are fourteen to eighteen years of age. There are 100 youngsters who live in the colony and another 100 that dine during the day. The period of retention is not longer than three years. This labour commune has not only school-rooms but also a number of workshops. The idea is to give an industrial training to these one-time homeless waifs, who have a definite tradition imbued in them of their former street life, and only thus give them that training which will mould them into honest conscious social youth.

This commune has self-government (by the youngsters themselves). There are no warders. They do four hours' practical work in the workshops and have three hours theoretical study in the class-rooms. From five to ten at night they are free for social work or their own amusements. They require no special permit to leave the colony to visit the town. All that is required is that they inform their "brigadier" (squad leader)—for the sake of convenience they are divided into military groups—of their absence. During the past year the commune has made experiments endeavouring to discover whether the children going through their course of training at the commune are sufficiently re-won from the street. To discover how far this aim has been achieved, thirty young volunteers worked for three days and nights in the reception centres of the homeless waifs, assisting in their distribution among the labour communes in the various towns. In some instances they even escorted the newly rounded" up waifs of their destinations, alone. The colony youth go regularly each summer to the Crimea for a holiday. The money for these holidays is raised by renting the premises of their winter colony to the excursion departments of the Commissariat of Education.

The same party visited the Central State Museums for the study of the peoples of the USSR (Ethnographical). These two museums are housed in the former palaces of a favourite of Catherine the Great. They present a scientific and illustrated description of the ethnographical and economical regions of the Union. (There are more than 120 different nations inhabiting the territory of the Soviet Union with a total population of 155,000,000. The Soviet Union itself covers an area of one-sixth of the world.

7 p.m.

At the Central House of Trade Unions (Dom Soyouzov) was arranged a big literature and concert evening. (This House was formerly the Central Meeting Hall of the Moscow aristocracy, or, as it was called, "Dvoryanskoye Sobraniye.") More than two thousand persons were present. The Presidium consisted of the following :

Rabindranath Tagore, Prof. Petroff, Prof. Kogan, a number of eminent Soviet writers and actors, D. Novomirsky, A. Eshukoff and others.

The programme of the evening was as follows :

1. Prof. Petroff opened the evening with a speech.

2. The poet Shingalee gave a recital of his ode to Rabindranath Tagore.

3. Rabindranath Tagore replied. (Loud and enthusiastic applause greeted the poet).

4. 1st and 2nd part of the musical recital of composer Borchtman's composition, executed by the singers with Borchtman at the piano.

5. The author Galperin read three pieces of Tagore's poems:
(a) The Happiness of Rhythm,
(b) Away with Hymns
(c) There were There is Reason.

G. Ruslanov, an actor of the Vaghtangov Theatre recited two poems, in prose, of Tagore's works : about the travelling companion and his path and about the naked little boy, how he was scared by the sheep near the sea-shore.

7. The third part of the Borchtman programme. The author-composer Dzegelyanko at the piano, Kozlovsky (Artist Emeritus of the Republic), actor of the 1st State Opera House, and a Special recital in honour of the poet, the Ario from the Russian Opera "Sadko" music by Rimsky-Korsakov.

The gist of the latter song is as follows: (very rough translation).

Oh, wonderful land, India.
The numberless diamonds of Far India,
With the lovely warm Sea
Where on the stone near the white
shore grows a fig-tree.
Paradise songs are heard sung by
beautiful birds,
And all is then forgotten ....
Far India of miracles.

8. The actor Simonov recited "Post Office."

9. Poems were then read by Rabindranath Tagore in Bengali. These aroused tremendous applause and deep admiration. The poet recited. "The Rainy Season" and "A Love Poem."

Then there was an interval, after which the following programme was gone through

1. Zagorskaya, the famous Russian folk-singer.

2. The dancer Messerer of the 1st Moscow State Opera danced the ''Ribbon Dance" from the "Red Poppy" ballet.

3. Ryabtsev and his group of the 1st Moscow Opera House gave a demonstration of Russian village dances in the satire.

4. The sailors' dance "Apple" (Yablotchka). Also from the "Red Poppy" ballet.

5. Madame Chevtchenko—Russian folk-singer.

6. Peasant choir directed by Piatnitsky, gave a recital of Russian folk-songs and dances of Northern and central regions of the USSR.

The closing of the evening was marked by prolonged applause—a parting act of admiration for the poet.

September 26, 1930

Mr. Ariam and Mr. Chakravarty and Saumyendranath Tagore visited the Tretyakov Art Gallery, Museum of Revolution and the Lefort House of Isolation.

The poet was visited by the Russian Poet Shingalee with whom he conversed on, Indian literature.

A Russian student, Mitrokhin, had a conversation with the poet in Bengali. This student is a former pupil of Prof. Stcherbatsky.

Had a further talk with the cinema people regarding his scenarios.

THE MODERN REVIEW FOR JANUARY, 1931