THE THAW IN SOVIET VIEWS OF THE WEST
Widmayer, Ruth
the THAW in Soviet Views of the West by RUTH WIDMAYER 'T'en years ago Soviet textbooks for instruction in the English language made unmistakably clear the contrasts between the good Soviet life...
...Here are two of many samples of humor from the 1963 text for English used in the military academies: Father: You know, Tom, when Lincoln was your age he was a very good pupil...
...Shakespeare, Swift, Byron, Dickens and many others are dear to all those who love literature...
...So that is how Charlie and Myrtle had their first lesson in race hatred...
...We can say that the best works of English writers are and will always be, a great school of life for those who read them...
...I think they are afraid of us and that's why they hate us...
...The eighth grade text of 1965 contains John Mase-field's poems "London Town" and "Sea Fever," and pictures of the British Parliament, Big Ben, and Trafalgar Square, all without editorial comments...
...These shifts in attitudes can best be understood by sampling the contents of the textbooks of a decade ago and those in use today...
...And though our views on this and that May differ here and there, We share the joys of honest work, We share the same blue sky In London, Moscow, and New York— So raise your glasses high...
...Never was there a hint that many Americans were concerned about the plight of the Negro and that efforts were being made to help him achieve equal status in American society...
...You see them everywhere they've no right to be...
...exploit the workers and especially the Negro workers...
...Before we can make use of atoms for peaceful purposes we must do away with terrible atomic weapons...
...Education has always been a high priority matter with Communists...
...thou art/For there thy habitation is the heart/The heart which love of thee alone can bind...
...A college student told me that the young men in his dormitory listen regularly—and openly—to the Voice of America...
...They've evidently forgotten what a lynching is...
...Nothing, my child, nothing...
...It does not leave the impression, as the earlier texts did, that the United States is on the brink of another catastrophic depression...
...They teach the white people to hate the colored workers...
...Also evident from an examination of Soviet texts is the growing concern of the Soviet authorities with the cultivation of proper social habits among the rising generation...
...an account of Hilary's conquest of Mt...
...In 1936, no less a personage than Josef Stalin appointed two top Communists, in addition to himself, to review and rewrite the history textbooks for high schools...
...In the textbook used for second year students at the Institute of Foreign Languages in 1956, there was a long selection called "Because She Was a Negro Woman," which tells about a Negro woman being thrown off a railroad car by Southern servicemen because she dared to sit in a compartment reserved for whites...
...Along with this more relaxed attitude toward other peoples is a note of levity and humor in nearly all the present textbooks...
...It was in such simplistic and emotional terms that the American race issue was expressed in the earlier Soviet texts...
...Let them hate each other," say the mill-owners...
...A supplementary reader for the seventh grade entitled Stories, Poems, Jokes, and Games contains riddles, proverbs, anecdotes, crossword puzzles, and other entertaining material...
...Brightest in dungeons, Liberty...
...Tom: Yes, Father, I know that...
...The English language is being taught at all levels of Soviet education, beginning with kindergarten and going through post-graduate studies...
...Every evening the night spots are packed with young people dancing and drinking...
...When a dish is placed before you, do not eye it suspiciously as though it were the first time you had seen it, and do not give the impression that you are about to sniff it...
...She began her work in Soviet affairs as a fellow of the Russian Research Center at Harvard, and she has traveled widely throughout the Soviet Union...
...Such distortions of life in the West are absent in current Soviet textbooks...
...one of the Americans exclaimed...
...He urged me to read a delightful little satirical volume by an English writer called How to Unite Nations, which has a selection caustically lampooning the Soviet Union...
...After having read these texts and observed classes in which pupils were reading such stories as "Like Black Jimmy"—an account of a little Negro boy whose life was one long bout with poverty and prejudice—I found with surprise on my last trip to the Soviet Union (October and November, 1965) that the Russians have gone to the other extreme and that the race issue is now virtually non-existent in current Soviet textbooks for English classes...
...Observations of many facets of life during my last visit to Moscow confirmed what the current textbooks indicate—that Russia today is much less drab and fear-ridden than it was a decade ago...
...Social and economic conditions are also areas where differences from earlier texts can be noted in the more recent selections...
...When the white parents discovered their children had Negro friends they were furious and forbade the children to talk to their Negro playmates again...
...economy...
...The hard line prevailed...
...Many people could not pay their rent and the landlords made them leave their homes...
...No date is indicated with the selection, giving the impression that the conditions described were current in the 1950's, and, since there are no passages showing other sides of American life, that these conditions were typical...
...The story begins: My Aunt Lena came to America from Hungary in a dark hour, in a bad winter...
...The texts of 1955-56 began introducing seventh grade pupils to the evils of American racism and continued through college...
...There are numerous amusing anecdotes and jokes from the first grade reader through the text used for teaching English in the military academies...
...You won't insist upon dropping the wife of an American soldier in such a lonely place at this hour of the night...
...There are stories by Er-skine Caldwell, Stephen Leacock, and William Saroyan, among many others...
...It is the means by which an efficient working force is trained for modern industry, and it also bears the chief responsibility for character training and value formation...
...They sold us for money like cows and sheep...
...Students in the Pedagogical Institute, for example, read in 1956 that in the United States "many graduates from educational institutions, engineers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, as well as many other specialists have joined the ranks of the unemployed...
...When the soldiers discovered the colored woman in their coach this exchange took place: "These black apes are forgetting themselves these days...
...A long time ago they stole us and made us slaves...
...Yes, but he doesn't realize it...
...Instead there are a number of straightforward, non-polemical accounts of the geography, resources, and peoples of the United States and Britain...
...Some excerpts from Dickens still remain, but there are also stories and sketches about contemporary British life, with no political connotations...
...Without doubt the striking changes in Soviet textbooks in the English lanRUTH WIDMAYER is a professor of political science at Colorado Woman's College where she specializes in the Soviet Union and China...
...Did we do anything to them...
...In higher educational institutions, English is the most popular language...
...No matter how surprised you are, take it all in your stride...
...It wouldn't be a bad idea to remind them of it...
...English is by far the most popular language in both the regular schools and the special language schools (more than 700) which teach English, French, or German...
...One is called "Children of Far Distant Lands": The children of far distant lands With joyous song we greet: Hold out to us your friendly hands Our circle to complete...
...In the special language schools, instruction begins in the second grade and continues through the tenth grade (the last year of the Soviet secondary school...
...The seventh grade text of 1965 contains an article on the U.S...
...The white workers and the colored workers must not unite against us...
...Good will and friendship need no tide Or ship to cross the sea...
...War industry (including the production of atomic weapons) plays an important part in the U.S...
...As regards agriculture, both animal husbandry and arable farming are prominent in the economy of the United States...
...A decade ago Soviet children were taught that the majority of Americans lived in abject poverty, in fear of losing their jobs, or were unemployed, even if they had college degrees...
...Here is an example from the seventh grade text of 1956, entitled "Black and White": The mill-owners in the U.S...
...The English language text used in the eighth grade of the special English language schools is a virtual gold mine for the student of changing Soviet social values...
...economy which is quite factual and unbiased, with only a brief mention about monopolies and economic crises...
...Why not...
...The customary way to refuse a dish is by saying, "No, thank you" . . . Don't say, "I don't eat that stuff...
...In them we see a children's version of peaceful coexistence between different social systerns...
...We'll teach you to know your place, too...
...There is a selection from A. J. Cro-nin's The Citadel, a popular novel in the Soviet Union...
...Brothers, it's time to raise our hearts And time to drop our arms...
...But why...
...The concluding paragraph indicates the matter-of-fact character of the essay: Heavy industry prevails in the U.S.A., including such branches as the mining, metallurgical, machine-building and chemical industries...
...Besides a distinct modification in the way Britain and America are portrayed, there are other noteworthy changes in Soviet textbooks in English...
...Have you ever heard of a boy who hasn't travelled with Gulliver or lived on a small island with Robinson Crusoe...
...the THAW in Soviet Views of the West by RUTH WIDMAYER 'T'en years ago Soviet textbooks for instruction in the English language made unmistakably clear the contrasts between the good Soviet life and the despicable conditions of life in the West...
...Nearly all Soviet colleges and universities teach foreign languages and in most of them a foreign language is mandatory...
...Even youngsters in the sixth and seventh grades were regaled with ponderous polemical passages regarding the blessings of the socialist system and the horrors of capitalism...
...Changes in textbooks in the Soviet Union are not accidental or unrelated to broad social policy emanating from the highest sources...
...Today more Soviet children than ever before are studying the English language and learning through their textbooks about life in the West, particularly the United States and Great Britain...
...In the home of a professor I saw a copy of George Orwell's 1984...
...The texts of the 1950's still deified Stalin and spoke in extravagant terms about the grandiose achievements of the Soviet state...
...Being well-developed, light industry includes textiles, leather, and footwear...
...The food industry is also well developed...
...Does yours...
...The Communist Party has always given serious consideration to the writing of textbooks...
...But when he was your age he was President of the United States...
...A handbook for senior courses in the Foreign Languages Institutes, An Advanced Course of Everyday English, 1963, contains the following selection, which one would expect in a book for grade school children rather than college students...
...The once staid Young Communist League has set up special classes to teach its members the latest dance steps...
...A selection from an American leftist of the 1930's, Michael Gold, is given in the seventh grade reader of 1956...
...In the upper grades of these special schools many subjects are taught in the foreign language rather than (or in addition to) Russian...
...The West, and the United States in particular, was depicted not only as the source of grim poverty and deprivation, but as morally and spiritually corrupt, lacking in genuine cultural values and pervaded by militarism...
...Shakespeare was one of the greatest writers that ever put pen to paper...
...Life is gayer and more relaxed...
...The story then relates how two white children and two Negro youngsters became friends without their parents realizing it...
...It clearly illustrates the Soviet desire to become more like the bourgeois middle class of the West in social behavior: Never stretch over the table for something you want, ask your neighbor to pass it...
...Present Soviet texts bear little resemblance to their somber predecessors...
...It is WAR...
...Occasional stories from the lives of Lenin and Marx appear, but probably no more frequently than our texts carry sketches about Washington and Lincoln...
...The behavior of the people on an informal level and the official values reflected in the school texts reveal that the Russians are rapidly drawing closer to the West in their interests, tastes, and attitudes...
...If your food is too hot, don't blow on it as though you were trying to start a campfire on a damp night...
...Don't make faces or noises to show that you don't like it...
...There then follows this poem by Joe Wallace called "Let's Turn Our Hands": Let's turn our hands to useful things And make this land we prize With all our sinews and our skills A people's paradise...
...Around the world so very wide Our circle it shall be...
...There's room to spare...
...In the early years of the regime nearly all textbooks were discarded because they had been written by Tsarist authors and reflected Tsarist values...
...Now this long story is not about the United States but about the Republic of South Africa, never mentioned in the earlier texts...
...The shabby, shapeless women who used to shuffle along the city streets are seen less frequently now than the well-dressed, attractive girls with high-style hair styles and alluring eye make-up...
...There is great stress in Russia today on cultured behavior, gentility, and good manners among a people still nearly fifty per cent peasant and who sometimes exhibit boorish conduct...
...There are still a few selections from Uncle Tom's Cabin and one story in a college text which relates to racial intolerance, but I found no other material about American racism...
...The father responded: "Almost all white people hate us because we're black...
...When they insist that she be thrown off the train, an Armenian sitting nearby interposes on her behalf: "Look here, gentlemen...
...Eighth-grade English students also read a selection about the tremendous possibilities for the use of atomic energy, which concludes with the comment: "But the biggest of the problems isn't a scientific one at all...
...My father had no work and my mother was tired and ill...
...Another refreshing feature of the new texts is a kind of live-and-let-live attitude, replacing the old self-righteous chauvinism...
...You are officers of the American army...
...They were further "informed" that "owing to the mass unemployment in the country, there is no assurance that people with diplomas will get any kind of work...
...guage signify carefully thought out modifications of views by the Soviet leaders...
...Take a slice of bread from the bread-plate by hand, don't harpoon it with a fork...
...Damned Armenian...
...Let's turn our hands to gentle things: To stroke a maiden's hair, To lift a baby shoulder high, To ease an old man's care...
...Where all may have and all may hope, On factories and on farms...
...Although this is the only material about South Africa, the very fact that it appears at all and that no similar passages are now offered about American racism, may be a straw in the wind, possibly indicating that the Soviet Union is presently more interested in influencing its youth toward moral indignation against the government of South Africa than toward that of the United States...
...No present Soviet personalities except the astronauts are lauded in the present texts...
...In fact, he was the best pupil in his class...
...Several poems in the text for third year English students exemplify this friendlier and outgoing approach to other peoples...
...They still sang the praises of the Great Stalin...
...Their things were carried out into the street and left there...
...People talk freely about nearly everything...
...The current texts include material on the achievements of other peoples, such as extracts from Kon-Tiki, the book about the scientists who tested their theory of ancient man's travels westward across the Pacific...
...Too long—how long!—we've spent our strength On wars and war's alarms: Brother, it's time to raise our hearts And time to drop our arms...
...Our professor of economics talks to himself...
...Some caustic comments were made on the inhumane treatment of American Indians, to illustrate the moral and cultural decadence of the United States...
...Both young and old enjoy works by English authors...
...People in all countries enjoy his plays...
...The only racist story in the current crop of English texts for secondary schools appears in the eighth grade text...
...About fifty per cent of all Russian children study English...
...twenty per cent study German, another twenty per cent French, and ten per cent take other languages such as Arabic, Hindi, or Chinese...
...Everest, a story about an Indian hunter of man-eating tigers, and this glowing description of outstanding British writers: "English writers stand high in world literature...
...More attractive in general appearance, with more and brighter pictures, better paper and larger print, they also give a more balanced picture of the English-speaking world and reveal a less Spartan approach to life in Russia...
...Only reliable Party members were entrusted with the writing of new textbooks...
...In regular schools foreign language instruction begins in the fifth grade...
...They did us wrong...
...Excerpts from Uncle Tom's Cabin were common in the Soviet texts of the 1950's...
...The Negro children felt hurt and perplexed and asked their father why they could not play with their white friends...
...The streets were covered with wet, dirty snow, and we all had bad colds...
...He thinks we are listening to him...
...Virtually the only material about England in the texts of the 1950's consisted of numerous excerpts from Charles Dickens, implying that the woes of the little chimney sweep, and of Oliver Twist and Little Nell, were still characteristic of the life of the British working class...
...The other poem is "A Happy New Year": Two thousand million live on earth...
...In between courses don't make bread-balls to while the time away and do not play with the silver...
...We can say this, too, about the works of Byron and Shelley...
...Curiously, there is also a picture of the Castle of Chillon and two verses from Byron's "Sonnet on Chillon" which contain his famous panegyric to liberty: Eternal spirit of the chainless mind...
...We'll throw you off together with this dirty nigger...
Vol. 31 • April 1967 • No. 4
