Slop.

In connection with the status of Stalin in the U.S.S.R. I feel I must refer to one point of criticism which is raised in common by the Webbs, by Andre Gide, and by Sir Walter Citrine. This is the phenomenon described by the Webbs in their book as “the adulation of Stalin.” Any reader of the Soviet Press, with an eye and ear trained to the English language, is likely to be sometimes shocked by references to “our dearly beloved Stalin,” “our glorious leader,” and so on. This matter has often struck foreign observers, and is cited time and again as evidence of a servile attitude on the part of the population towards Stalin, and thus as symptomatic of a lack of democracy.

Personally, I must frankly admit that for at least three years in the U.S.S.R. I was often unfavourably impressed by the lavish way in which love and praise of Stalin was expressed in public utterances of all types of Soviet citizens. To the English ear such words seemed to be more appropriate to religion than to modern politics, and there is no doubt that I, too, was at first affected in the same way as the Webbs by this. But my feelings on this matter were completely changed when I happened one day to see a letter from a young worker to his brother. It began: “Honoured Beloved Brother!” These were the same words, or words closely similar to, those which had been thoroughly unpleasing to me when addressed to Stalin, because in English they suggested degradation and servility! But the young Russian used them to his brother. And when I suggested that he should simply write “Dear Brother” he was literally shocked. The English have a reputation for being a cold-blooded nation!

When André Gide began a letter to Stalin in the same words which he would have used in French, his guide suggested that a little verbal embroidery was necessary. Gide was shocked. But if I wrote to André Gide in French to-morrow, and finished up “yours sincerely,” Gide would certainly consider that I did not know French, or that I was being rude. The French, you see, happen to conclude their letters with a rigmarole which, to the English, seems artificial and somewhat servile.

When the Webbs discover a “deliberate exploitation by the governing junta of the emotion of hero-worship, of the traditional reverence of the Russian people for a personal autocrat,” they substantiate this view by examples of an apparent extravagance of language such as we have mentioned, which in English appears utterly ridiculous. And, while it is obviously not going to be the policy of the Communist Party of the U.S.S.R. to try to stimulate hatred of its leaders, but the opposite, I feel that the translation of the language used gives an utterly unreal picture of the situation.

When the people of the U.S.S.R. wish to express their loyalty to their recognized leader they can only do it in their own language. Actually, the language of the oriental peoples of the U.S.S.R. is even more flowery than Russian. If the Russian worker writes to his brother as “dearly beloved,” we must not consider these words to be servile when coming from a group of collective farmers and addressed to Stalin. On the contrary, they are fraternal words, brotherly words, and not servile words. When these facts are taken into account I think it is true to say that not one example of the “adulation of Stalin” which the Webbs give contains any example of adulation greater than the words expressed by millions of British workers about Dimitrov at the time of the Leipzig trial.

All people when in foreign countries tend to assume that they understand the language better than they do, and are happy if they can translate sentences phrase by phrase without a dictionary. Both the Webbs and André Gide, cultured people as they are, have not absorbed the idiom of the Russian language. By mechanical translation they have made errors of interpretation which can have serious political repercussions; for the question of whether the Russian workers address Stalin in the way that Lady Houston wrote about the late King or as the Archbishop of Canterbury addresses God, or as one workman addresses his brother, is a question of vital importance in considering the degree of democracy which exists to-day in the U.S.S.R. Actually, as I discovered after three years, the workers of the U.S.S.R. use the same words in writing to Stalin as in writing to a much admired brother.

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