The Daily Worker Newspaper, June 19, 1926, Page 10

: : M ASHUR A (Picture of a Young Russian) By Moissaye J. Olgin : | a HIS is how I met her. I was sitting in a tram-| car that stopped at the Lubyansky square. The square was in a red turmoil. A youth dem- onstration had just been terminated and a crowd of young men and women thrust themselves into | the car. One of the girls looked like a glowing | poppy among grasses. Was she beautiful? I know not. A brown, oval, sunburned face with a golden glow under the skin. Oval, dark, luminous eyes with a little squint. Thick, brown hair combed back. A laughing big mouth,—red and white, blood and pearls. Apple-quality in the figure: round, resili- ent, luscious, substantial. The whole appearance so permeated, saturated, full to overflowing with life, sunshine, laughter, free joy, that one did not care to think whether the creature was beautiful. Ask whether a young pine tree is beautiful when it quivers in the hot summer wind. The car was filled with a colorful hullabaloo. The tram had not yet moved from the spot before I knew that the name of the girl was Mashura. | She sat opposite me on the narrow seat next to the window. I looked at her, thinking how well the name fitted her apperance: broad, round, coherent, with a wide sweep: Ma-shu-ra. I must have looked at her with too much curiosity. be, cause she suddenly burst out laughing: : “You want to talk. Why don’t you? Don’t be bashful.” ~ ‘ Simlingly I said something to the effect that she interested me as a type of the new proletarian youth. Mashura turned tp the rest of her com- rades with a loud voice in mock earnest: “J have the honor to introduce to you a rare bird, an American who speaks Russian.” Not a quarter-hour had passed before we all became friends as if we had known each other for many years. A on ee ONCE tried to make the balance of Mashu- ra’s day and found that hours were missing. Tt is like this. In the morning she must get up not later than six or half-past six, because she has to wash, dress, cook and eat breakfast, and then ride forty minutes in the tram and walk ten min- utes to reach her factory at “whistle time,”— eight sharp. In the factory she works from eight to twelve and from one to five every day execpt Saturday, when the work is finished at twelve. At six in the evening she finds herself. in the uni- versity where she takes courses and participates in the seminary till nine. Three times each week she is occupied, first, in the party nucleus, sec- ond, in a political circle where she gives a course, third, in the chorus. Besides, she has been charged with the special task of organizing sections of the M. O..P. R. (International Labor Defense). This necessitates her visiting workers’ meetings _ and making speeches on behalf of the M. O. P. R., sometimes also organizing conferences and meet- , ings. M. 0. P. R. keeps her busy several evenings, a week. All this is regular, indispensable work. _Figuring out the extent of her activities, I could not understand where Mashura found time, first, to eat supper, there being a ride of a minimum of fifty minutes from the factory to the university; second, to prepare the work for the university; third, to read books and papers; fourth, to participate in the Komsomol (the ~ young Communist organization); fifth, to sew * herself a dress, to mend stockings, to wash her _ linen; sixth, to live. _ Of course, she did not need much clothing. A red kerchief on her head, a white blouse and a short skirt up to her knees, a pair of- sandals on her strong, sunburned, well-shaped feet, and noth- f ing else, Still-— “MASHURA, where do you find time—?” Mashura jerks her head, her eyes flash like two black little mirrors, and her big mouth re veals a hundred strong, white teeth. “Nitchevo—I find time.” “Mashura, what do you study in the univers- lity 2” “Biology and Marxian philospohy.” “Mashura, what do you want to become?” “What do you mean, become? I am.” “What are you?” “A proletarka.” | Mashura gives her upper body a powerful | twist so that her white blouse shakes. Mashura loves energetic movements. Mashura needs a great deal of space. She feels best in the open ‘air. Oo—ooch! How good it is to move! | “Mashura, how many hours a night do you sleep ?” Re “Never mind. Who cares to sleep away his life?” : : I * * * WAS in Mashura’s house. She inhabits a room with two other girls in the Arbat section of Moscow, on the eighth floor. There is an ele- vator in the house, but it stops at nine in the evening. Coming, as I did, shortly before eleven, because I knew that nobody comes home earlier, I had to walk up one hundred and twelve steps. But the girls boasted that their balcony over- looked half of Moscow (the house formerly be- longed to the bourgeoisie, now it is honeycombed with workers.) We drank tea on the balcony. Of Mashura’s two room-mates, one is an office worker and the other a medical assistant. The latter works in a hospital two days in succession, with the whole third day off. When she is free she cooks for all the girls, preparing food for the other two days. There is no kitchen, and the food is cooked on the primus, a kerosene burner. The room is clean though not large. There is a bed, a couch, two chairs, a table, a couple of boxes, a primus, a balcony. There are lots of books. All three girls are reading books. There are pictures on the walls, portraits of leaders, and a féW landstipes, eed vu ane Of the two other girls, the office worker is a weakly, pale creature of about twenty-two, with dreamy eyes and slow gestures. The mefical as- sistant is a woman of about forty, with closely- cropped hair, a hardened face and mannish ex- pression, Mashura looked enormously young in the company of her room-mates. One would be- lieve she was sixteen. One would take her for a careless child, if not for the moments when the laughter disappeared from her face, at which mo- ments one realized that this was an earnest per- sonality, a woman with a will and a way. aces what are you going to do tomor- row?” ' “Tomorrow I am going to the Narkomzdrav (Health Commissariat). The day nursery in our factory needs a doctor. to wait so long.” Mashura swings her two fists downwards as if nailing something in the air with two ham- mers. In a minute she is laughing again, het white teeth gleaming in her big, luscious mouth. “Sing, Mushura.” “Everybody is asleep.” “Don’t talk nonsense. Who is going to sleep on a night like this?” “Would you help?” “Go ahead.” Mashura fills her chest with air, and a warm. frolicsome folk tune dances into the wide-awake. white Moscow night. The refrain is caught uy in the adjoining rooms. In a few minutes th whole house is a-singing. Be-ee-ee-aa-aa-a-ch Mashura screams out, spreading her arms. Ji looks as if she would swing herself from the bal cony. it’s scandalous we have MASHURA says she has aman. How 60? Quite plainly: she has a husband. Been married for a year and a half. Why doesn’t she live with him? She jerks her head sidewise, and her brown face becomes all aglow with gold sparks which shovi from under her skin, j “Bourgeois notion,” “But don’t you want to live with the man you love?” “So we meet, What else? Must we always step on each other’s corns? Or should we per- haps put two beds together and cover them with one quilt? Ha, ha, ha, ha!” IT a net et te A ER RRR EPR ne A NI ES i nL LLC LL LE CL CC CC CL LT tS _ It seems Mashura has never seen @ thing than two beds covered with one qnilt. “But when do you meet him, sincd you always busy?” “Nitchevo. One finds time. A famous scholar once said: ‘One must only know how to be master of his time.’ This is NO7'. (The Russian equiva lent of Scientific Management). : Mashura is taking at the university g course in NOT. “Can you tell me something about the ‘Taylor system?” she asks, and her broad, laughing face assumes the expression of a lovely, attentive, well- béhaved pupil in a class. I SAW Mashura on the Vorobovy hills of a Sup- day afternoon. From the heights, Mosc looked like a silver and gem embroidery onja green rug. At the foot of the hills the river Moskva spread like a blue sash with buckles of mother-of-pearl. ed Young people played in the flelds, Mashura among them. Her hair was disheveled, her face flushed, her shapely bare legs fairly Jumping from under her dress. She took off her red ker- chief, holding it in her hand and waving it in the air in front of a cluster of young men who ran in every direction. It was like this: whoever catches Mashura will have a dance with her. She waved the kerchief and ran, with the heated boys ian her. Laughter rang, rolling all over the eld. Little white clouds danced in the hot summer skies of Moscow. Voices rang from everywhere: “Ma-shu-ra! Ma-shu-ra !”” They Say By HENRY GEORGE WEISS Is manhood not within you, courage gone? - Are you but’fit to be the slaves you are? Can you not beax, the,light, of Ereedom’s dawn, : Nor lift your heads to view # single tir 2000 > o Oh tell me true—are you the blind, the dumb, The patient beast of burden that they say? But stupid dolts from whom no will can come To break the bonds and throw the chains away’ You toiling serfs that delve below the earth, You rugged ones that plant the generous whes | Are you but fools fit for your master’s mirth? Are you but dust beneath their haughty feet? And you who toil in factory and mill... Speak! Let me hear! They say you love your ’ chains; ee oe - They say that at their bidding you would kill To add another dollar to their gains. They ‘say . .. . they say .... and as they say I hear The thud of rebel feet, the sullen ery Jf Labor Militant write deep with fear That on bi brows which gives them back the ie! ( i 7 Have Faith in Massachusetts? — By ADOLF WOLFF, “Have faith In Massachusetts,” Once wrote a politician Who since has climbed ~ Into the White House. — Have Faith in Massachusetts Where long ago Witches were burnt Alive, And where today Two Innocent men, Two honest toilers, Two devoted comrades, Are branded as murderers And tortured Tortured for years, Six terrible years, Alive In a tomb With the shadow of death Getting nearer and nearer, Bigger and nearer, Bigger and nearer, And the politicians ~~ And the hangmen se Want us to, = Ask us to Have faith in Massachusetts, ‘ LLL LLL LT Cente