Distinguished Visitors

Thousands of Muscovites tramped to Moscow's railway station fortnight ago to welcome a friend of Lenin, a prime voice of British Socialism. The train pulled in; a band struck up "The Internationale." The Muscovites roared: "Hail Bernard Shaw!" Troops swung into protecting lines down which Mr. Shaw marched, accompanied by Lady Astor and a group of other British notables including her meek husband.*

Thus began, with serious pomp, an intensive British sightseeing tour in Soviet Russia. But two of Britain's most irrepressible characters were not disposed to maintain their tour on such a great-man-&-great-lady basis. As is their custom, they cavorted and japed in the most public places. Only at the Red Square in Moscow, where they gazed upon the mummy of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Nikolai Lenin), was Dramatist-Publicist Shaw as dignified as his impressive appearance. Over the corpse he commented: "A pure intellectual type. This is the true aristocracy." Other parts of the Shaw-Astor itinerary:

P: The Kremlin where, in the Central Executive Committee room, Mr. Shaw leaped nimbly to the rostrum, let out several shrill whoops to test the acoustics.

P: The State Bank in Moscow, where they saw the collection of Tsarist jewels and plate and Mr. Shaw handled a crown worth $52,000,000./-

P: A Soviet factory.

P: The British Embassy, where a garden party was held in their honor.

P: Leningrad, where they sightsaw vigorously.

P: Back to Moscow for a celebration of Mr. Shaw's 75th birthday.

P: The Moscow horse races, where Mr. Shaw remarked: "I suppose there will be only one horse in the race, since there is no competition in a Socialist State," then lapsed into a doze, while Lady Astor fanned flies from his long white whiskers.

P: Two days at a Soviet collective farm near Tambov.

P: Two hours and ten min. with STALIN, after which. Mr. Shaw told newshawks, who discerned, through his beard, a red necktie: "Well, we found that he wears a black mustache!"

P: Tea with Maxim Gorky.

P: Home to London via Poland.

God, Jews, Guts. As usual, Mr. Shaw took every opportunity to shock whatever audience was present. Samples: "Don't attack Marxism! Remember, I was a Marxist almost before Lenin was born." To a factory manager: "The more I see of Proletarians, the more I thank God I'm not one!"

"The world has long made peace with the Jews, but the Jews won't make peace with the world. I understand the Jews better than many others because I am an Irishman."

At his birthday party he made a speech calculated to shock not Communists but Englishmen. He declaimed: "Marx said the advanced Capitalist State would be the first to make a Communist revolution. The English should be ashamed of themselves not to be the first. . . . When you [the Soviets] have finished your job and succeeded there will be a hurry to follow your example." He continued in this vein later, in a radio broadcast: "If Lenin's experiment fails, present civilization fails. . . . If the other nations follow Lenin's method, we will not have collapse and failure. If the future is with Lenin, then we can smile."

Lady Astor did her best to emulate her white-bearded friend. She went about repeating: ''I am a Capitalist!" She said: "English Proletarians . . . have guts and will not be driven like the Russians."

Petition. During the Embassy garden party a cablegram was handed Lady Astor. She read it, walked across a terrace, dropped to a half-kneeling position and handed it to Commissar for Foreign Affairs Maxim Litvinov. Cried she dramatically: "I come to you with a petition as the peasants were wont to do before the Tsar!" The message began: IN THE NAME OF HUMANITARIAN PRINCIPLES PLEASE HELP MY WIFE IN MOSCOW. . . . It was signed by one Dmitri Pavlovich Krynine, onetime Soviet expert on roadbuilding sent to the U. S. to study local methods, who was injured in a motor accident, decided to remain in the U. S., is now Research Associate in Transportation at Yale University. He already had his son Paul with him; he sent for his wife, after arranging with the U. S. State Department for her entrance as a permanent resident. But so highly do the Soviet authorities regard Professor Krynine's services, it was said last week, that despite all he could do, they refused his wife egress from the Union, hoping to lure him home.

M. Litvinov mused a moment over the petition, then said he was sorry but the matter lay out of his province. Lady Astor passed the cablegram to the Soviet Literary & Educational Organization, host to the British party's tour. Next day a New York Herald Tribune reporter found Mrs. Krynine, dressed in blue cotton and canvas shoes, in a squalid, one-room, fourth-story Moscow flat. She said: "I am 48 and I want to live, but only if I can be with my son and husband." Professor Krynine said the Herald Tribune interview was the longest communication he had had from her in several years.

*Mr. Shaw's meek wife stayed at home after Lady Astor promised to take good care of him. /-Later last week workmen repairing the Kremlin came upon a secret vault containing more Tsarist gold and jewels.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.