The Daily Worker Newspaper, January 21, 1933, Page 3

DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JANUARY 21, 1933 MEMORIES OF LENIN-- HIS STAY IN FRANCE Paris Election; Theatre; With Lafargue, Karl Marx’s Son-in-Law By N. K. KRUPSKAYA. (The following are excerpts from Vol. 2 of “Memor.es of Lenin” by his widow and co- worker, . Parts of the book ap- Peared in last Saturday’s issue. The book will be made available soon by International Publish- ers.) Se LTHOUGH Lenin’s thoughts were almost entirely taken up with Russia, he nevertheless made a careful study of the French labor movement. At that time the So- cialist Party of France was oppor- tunistic to the core. For example: In the spring of 1909, a great strike of postal employees broke out. The whole city was'in a state of excite- ment over the event; but the Party kept aloof. “It is the business of the trade unions and not ours,” the party leaders said. To us Russians this division of labor, the Party's aloofness from an economic strug- gle, seemed positively monstrous. FOLLOWED ELECTION Ilyich paid particular attention to the electioti” campaign. The campaign did not seem to concern immediate political problems; ic was all taken up with persona: bickering and mucual abuse. Only a few of the meetings were inter- esting: At one of them I saw Jaures. He had tremendous influ ence on the crowd; but I did no like his speech—every word seemec to be deliberately chosen. I like Vaillani’s speech much bette. Vaillant had been a fighter in th. Paris Commune and was particu- jJarly loved and esteemed by the workers. I can recajl the figure of a tall worker who had come to the meeting straight from work, with his shirt sleeves rolled up. ‘This man listened to Vaillant with wWrapt attention and suddenly he exclaimed: “Fine speaker, the old man!” Two young lads, the sons of this worker, sitting beside him, were equally enthusiastic. But not all the orators at the meetings were Jaureses and Vaillants. The ordi- nary speakers played down to their audiences: they spoke in one way to a working-class audience and in another way to an audience of in- tellectuals. By attending French election meetings, we got a clear insight into what elections mean in a “democratic republic.” To an outside observer, the thing seemed simply astonishing. That is why Hlyich was so fond of the revolu- tionary music-hall singers who poured ridicule on the election campaign. I remember one song which described how a candidate goes to a village to canvass for votes; he drinks with the peasants, telis them a lot of cock-and-bull Stories, and when the peasants aré drunk they vote for him and sing “T’as ben dit mon ga!” (What you say is true, lad!). After having got the peasants’ votes, the candidate begins to draw “his 15,000 francs salary as deputy, and betrays the interests of the peasants. On one occasion 2, Socialist member of the Chamber of Deputies named Dumas came to visit us and related to us how he went around the villages during the election to canvass for votes and I unvoluntarily called to mind that music-hall song. One of the most popular music-hall singers of that time was Montagus, the son of a fighter in the Paris Commune; se ‘YICH was fond of visiting the suburban theatres, and of watch- ing the working-class audiences there. I remember on one occasion we went to see a play which de- Picted the tortures of soldiers in a penal battalion in Morocco. It was most interesting to watch the audi- ence. They were quick to respond to every incident. The perform- ance had not yet begun. Suddenly shouts went up from all over the theatre: “Hat! Hat!” This out- burst was caused by the entry of a lady wearing a -fashionable hat trimmed with feathers. The audi- ence demanded that the lady re- move her hat and she was obliged to submit. The performance began. In the play a soldier is sent to Mo- rocco and his mother and sister re- main at home in poverty. The landlord of the house in which they live is willing to allow them to live there without paying the rent if the soldier’s sister agrees to be- come his mistress. “Brute! Dirty dog!” was shouted from all paris of the hall. I have forgotten all the details of the play, but I remember that it depicts how the soldiers who do not submit to the officers are tortured in Morocco. It ended with @ mutiny and the singing of the Internationale. The performance of this play was prohibited in the center of the city; but in the sub- urbs it was performed to enthusi- astic audiences. In 1910 a huge i RUMBLINGS IN THE SOUTH--- LENIN—Photo taken in 1923 during his illness. Millions of workers throughout the world will commemorate, during the next few days, the anniversary of the death, in 1924, of the leader of the world-pro- letarian revolution, A Debate on the Marxian Conception of Literature By ALLAN JOHNSON. see ivory tower of the bourgeois aestheticians was broken into and fumigated by Michael Gold, revolutionary writer, when he de~ bated in Engineering Auditorium recently with Ernest Boyd on the topic, “The Marxist Approach to Literature Is the Only Scientific One.” Gold took the affirmative. ‘The debate turned into an excel- lently formulated lecture by Gold, and into cheap, intellectual acro- batics on the part of Boyd, who is a leading bourgeois literary crit- ic and one of the editors of the American Spectator. At the few points at which Boyd consented to cross intellectual swords with Gold. Boyd revealed not only the bankruptcy of bour- geois literary criticism which he upholds and practices but his own inability or refusal to even attempt to understand the basic principles which underlie any scientific ap- proach to the study of literature; principles which derive from Marx- ism and which flow back to it. DECAY OF BOURGEOIS * LITERATURE Gold led up to his exposition of Marxian criticism by pointing to the chaos stalking the ranks of the bourgeois literature; showed how some, like T. S. Eliot, have turned to forms, of Catholicism, British Royalism and Classicism; how others like Hemingway and Pound are trying to escape the problems of their time by an apotheosis of exilism, bull-fights and Montpar- nassian verslibre; how still others like Allen Tate and the late Hart Crane, who recently committed suicide, turned to the shadowy labyrinths of a dead metaphysics; how some like Robinson Jeffers seek life in a glorification of death or like Archibald MacLeish look to Wall St. for leadership for the American people. Gold then showed the effects of the present economic crisis on va- rious strata of the intelligentsia and named the growing list of noted writers, including Dreiser, Dos Passos, Sherwood Anderson, Malcolm Crowley, Waldo Frank, Lincoln Steffens and a host of others, who have allied themselves , with the revolutionary movement. oie 8 W otal increasing number of writers and artists who are supporting the revolutionary workers is not an accidental offshoot of the econom- ic crisis, Gold pointed out, but is a direct reflection of the cultural crisis, which was predictable at the inception of the economic crisis. Just as world events have proved that the Marxian way out is the only way out of the chaos of capi- talist economics, these events have synchronously proved to ever- growing segments of the intelli- gentsia that the Marxian to literature is the only way out of the chaos of capitalist literary criticism, Gold showed. Only by the use of Marxist cri- teria can literature be scientifically analyzed, interpreted and evaluat- ed, Gold pointed out, and, after admitting that all literary criticism is conditioned by a class bias, proved that only the world view and methodology of the revolution- branches of knowledge. cussing philosophy. “Soon he will prove,” Laura said about her hus- band, “how sincere are his philo- sophic convictions,” and she ex- changed significant glances with her husband. I understood the significance of these words, and of this exchange of glances, in 1911 when I heard of the death of the Lafargues. They both died togeth- er as atheists. They committed suicide and left a note saying that they had both decided to die be- cause of their old age, and because they were too feeble to carry o1 the struggh All literature reflects a class point of view, Gold continued— there exists no “pure” literature isolated from the needs, interests and philosophy of a particular class, and only when this class point of view is the view of the working class, can it be either ob- jective or in the interest of man- kind as a whole. Gold showed how bourgeois lit- erary criticis—later in the course of the debate Boyd was to do pre~ cisely what Gold said was habitual with bourgeois criticis to do, and which Boyd denied he would do— accept without question the prop- aganda in the works of leading bourgeois writers while they vehe- mently denounce the propaganda in the works of revolutionary writ- ers in the name of objectivity. Gold pointed to Eliot as an example of @ great bourgeois poet who was ac- cepted by bourgeois critics as one of “the purest of the pure” artists and yet whose work was filled with open and implicit approval of re- actionary politics and futilitarian- ism in living, while these same crit~ ics denounced as “propagandists” revolutionary writers whose work expresses the opposite of these qualities — revolutionary politics and the hope and will for a better world. Gold finished his argument by Jaunching an attack on the intel- lectuals in the service of the capi- talist class who are paid enormous sums to corrupt the outlook of their readers, |and who then ridicule their audiences for their “stu- pidity”. YD, suave, condescending and visibly impressed by his resem- blance to a vastly more intelli- gent Irishman Bernard Shaw, at- tempted a rebuttal by poo-poohing Gold’s reference to Marx as “so much religious worship” scarcely more worthy of logical refutation than the worship of Jehovah or Buddha, and then went on to prove, without being conscious of it, the Marxian contention that the leading bourgeois. critics are either dolts incapable of being edu- cated or, charlatans, or sometimes both, and that they are always, consciously or unconsciously, ene- mies of the working class. Boyd “knew alli about Marx” when Dreiser, Dos Passos et al were intellectual infants, he confiden- dentially informed the audience, and there was “nothing to Marx” but a lot of “wearying and abomin- ably written dogma”. Artists have other things to do but listen to “maniacs” (referring to Marx), Boyd vouchsafed, unwittingly eat- gorizing himself, and no “true artist” can “be interested in the troubles of anybody living at 12 East 3rd St.” (tenement section) although he might feel sorry for him. It would be another matter if the dwellers in penthouses on Park Ave. were to have “troubles”, “troubles of adultery”, (Boyd had lamented on the “de- cline in adultery” in the last issue of the “American Spectator), but the description of these latter “troubles” would constitute “litera~ ture” whereas the description of the lives of the residents at 12 East ‘8rd St. would be so much “propa- ganda”, Boyd denied that most bourgeois writers sell themselves in the in- terest of the capitalist class and submitted as “proof” a handful of writers in Holland and Belgium who “remain, true to, their art”, remainder of Boyd's argu- ment consisted almost entirely ited with the words i ing” and “pleasant” and by the reiteration of the ts art is “individual” and is created in a social and economic vacuum, Boyd’s parting shots—they hit no one but himself—were that “revo- lutionary writers, too, sold them~ selves for remuneration”, and that *“Trotzky himself” had denied the possibility of the creation of prole- | (From the Novel, “To Make My Bread”) By GRACE LUMPKIN (The following is a section from TO MAKE MY BREAD, (Macau- lay Co.) the novel of southern mill workers by Grace Lumpkin. 4t was one of the three proletar- ian novels to receive the Maxim Gorky award by the Revolution- ary Writers Federation.—Editor’s Note). re a: ‘HE mill sat over them like an old hen and clucked to her chickens every day. In the} morning she said, “Get up, get up.” In the day she said, “Eat, eat,” and at night, “Go home, go home.” But to Em- ma, working all night, the mill said other things. ... hie om 'ALKING before the frames in the night in her stocking feet with her head tied up to keep the lint out, Emma thought about the mill and considered where her work there was taking her. She thought of all she had promised herself. Now Granpap was up in the hills, and Basil was in the town, maybe, be- cause he had become educated, get- ting the things that she had planned to get for all of them. At first when she talked to John she had thought more of him because he had been lost for three days, and less of what he said of Granpap and Basil. Now it came to her that Basil had been living in town for some time and had not come for a visit to his folks. Granpap had gone back to the hills, but sent word that he would come again, and he re- membered her with two dollars. ... That Saturday afternoon she spoke to Ora, when Ora had come from work and they were settled around the fire with the pleasant settling that comes from the knowl- edge of a day and a half of no mill ahead. “Oro, I'd like to go to the town for once. I'd like to buy a hat for church, Will ye come?” “Go to town like this?” Ora asked. She pointed to her big belly. The youngest child, who had beeb weaned in preparation for the next one, stood by her knees trying to reach up to her, “Stop that,”she said to him. “Hit ain’t for you, any more.” She dragged him on her lap where he had to sit perched on the end of her knees, so that he might not interfere with the one inside. “I’m s’ tired, Emma.” “Hit'll do ye good, Ora.” Emma's eyes had a shine to them. She had never been to town except the time she went to get the coat at Reckow- itz’s store, and that was on a side street, almost an alley. “The washing’s got to be done.” “For once hit’ll have to go. And Bonnie here can care for the young ones.” “Td like to go,” Bonnie said. Sa le O08@ HE tried to frown and look griev- ed; she was so healthy it was hard for her to look sad. Sschool agreed with her. And this was the time when the “first flush of woman- hood was creeping into her cheeks.” ‘That is what the preacher called it, He said, “It is when the first flush of womanhood is creeping into the |. cheeks of your daughters that they need a mother’s care most.” “Take her instead of me,” Ora told Emma. “No, Ora. Hit’ll do ye good. Don’t ye want Ora to get a little airing, Bonnie?” “Yes, but sometimes I want to go to town.” “Well, you'll go one day. I'll take ye.” Ora always looked queer when she was with child. She was so lean and tall the baby stood right out from her. It was not for that reason, though, that Ora and Emma walked down side streets going to the busi- ness part of the town. No mill peo- ple, even the young ones with beaus, liked to walk on the streets where the fine houses stood, though that was the quickest way. There was @ feeling that the rich didn’t want the sight of poor on their streets. Mill hands’ clothes didn’t go well with the fine houses, and the plea- sures of wealth. “Let's go behind Mr. Wentworth’s place,” Emma said. “Hit’s quicker » to town and I’d like t’ see hit if only from the back.” Perhaps it was meanness and envy, but most people in the village made fun of those who lived on Strutt Street. Some of the men had got their places by hard work, but SPEAKS ON HER NOVEL Grace Lumpkin, author of “To Make My Bread”, a section of which is published on thfs page. She will speak on her book at the John Reed Club, 450 Sixth Ave., New York, Sunday afternoon at 2:30. ae in literature in a capitalist so- lety. Gold, in the five minutes of his rebuttal, didn’t take the trouble to deny Boyd’s calumny against revolutionary writers, but did show that not only could proletarian lit- erature be produced in capitalist countries, but that it wi all of them licked the boots of the bosses, the managers and superin- tendent. For there were plenty of hard workers who hadn’t risen. The. higher-ups had to short the regular hands in weighing and making out the pay checks in order to make as much money for the mill as possible. It was a known fact that the high- ups had to do this as part of their job. But the best ones hated to do this against a neighbor, so it kept them from rising. In the case of the overseer, it was whispered his wife had lived with Burnett once, with him making no murmur against it. This was gossip, and per- haps not true. Though there was the attitude toward the high-ups on Strutt Street, there was no such feeling to- ward the really big ones, those who lived in the town. There was inter- est, and if the man who owned the mill, who lived in Washington, came down, there was excitement. Every- body said he was as common as mill people and spoke to all as if he was on their level. His son, who lived in the town, was the same. This was the young Wentworth whose house Emma wanted to see from the back. Emma and Ora went down |a street and up another side one and came out right behind the son’s house. With the lawn it covered a whole block. There were no leave: on the trees, so they could see the large white house, very clearly, with the big central part and a wing on each side. The lawn, blue-green with winter grass, came down to the edge of the sidewalk where it was protected by a stone fence | about two feet high. They stood and looked. , ‘I reckon one of those rooms is ‘as big as our whole place,” Ora said. “The back yard is clean as if hit was the front.” “Hit must have a hundred rooms ... and I'd be willing to say...” “Look, Ora!” The back door opened. A black man in a white coat and dark trousers came onto the porch push- ing a baby carriage, He let it down the steps into the yard. Behind him came a black girl, and in her arms was a white baby wrapped up in a warm looking pink blanket. “Hit’s that baby.” “Maybe we'd better go along, Ora.” “I helped give hit that present. T've got a right to look.” “I gave ten cents, and had to tell Bonnie to wait for a tablet till the next week.” “Frank gave a quarter for both of us.” “Wasn't hit pretty, Ora? Gold and - and silver with a silver spoon.” “Maybe they've got the goblet now in the carriage.” “Let's look if she comes cleser.” “Hit must be four months old now.” “Look, he’s put the carriage un- der that tree in the spot of sun- shine.” “Did you ever see anything like hit? Hit’s like a baby hearse.” “We'd |better go, Ora. They're a-looking at us.” “Wait, Emma. She’s going to put him in. I can see his feet, in little shoes.” “They're a-looking at us.” “Look at the blankets she’s lay- ing on him. They’re little, like they was made for a baby.” “We'd better go, Ora.” ee te 'OMEONE called the black man from the back window. He went below the window and looked up. “T’ve got a right here, Emma. I helped give hit a present.” The black man came toward the street, as if he wanted to speak with them. “I'm a-going, Ora, and you can stay.” Emma started walking away down the sidewalk, and Ora had to follow. “I don’t think he meant any- thing, Emma,” Ora complained. “I wanted t’ see more. Maybe the black girl would have let us go close.” Emma walked on. “They say that baby owns stock in the mill,” Ora said, trying to keep up. Emma slackened In her walk now she was some distance from the house. ig . @ HAVEN'T yet exactly known what stock is.” “I don’t know myself. But hit seems to mean that ye get money out of the mill.” “We get money out of the mill.” “Well, I think hit means yet get money without working. Like that baby, now. He’s got stock and he sure is too little t? work » any,’ “Maybe. Granpap said Mister Hellman that spoke at the reunion owned stock in the mill, and hit’s right I don’t see him around work~- ing any.” They turned up another street that led toward the square. “Ye know,” Emma said, laughing at herself, “at first I thought stock was us. You know how Hal Swain used t’ say he owned twenty head of stock or thirty. I thought hit meant we was the stock and they owned us.” “That was right foolish.” “I know. Hit made me mad, thinking of being owned, till Gran- pap set me right, because Hal Swain had told him about the Con- gressman, the same that got him out of jail, owning stock in this mill and others. I know hit’s some- thing] on paper that brings in money, but still I don’t understand.” SOVIET LITERARY MUSEUM A Central Literary Museum is now being organized in Moscow. One of the tasks of this museum will be the purchase of literature archives of various writers, chiefly Russians. The Museum is inter- ested in unpublished manuscripts in the field of belles lettres, memories, literary memoires, au- thors’ correspondence, ete, Paze Three STORY OF A THRILLING “THE QUESTIONER”—This is the title which W: Cleveland artist placed on this painting which is now on the Corcoran Galleries in Washington, D. C. worker with a copy of the Daily Worker containing the dema Hunger Marchers for Unemployment Insurance. SOVIET an ion at shows a yds of the The pa (The following first-hand ac count of conditions of terror in Tallapoosa county, where four weeks ago a reign of murder and brutality was inaugurated by the white Jandiords and their sher- iffs’ gangs, is written by a white northerner, who travelled through the section last week). (ASS murder of defenseless peo- ple is brewing in sections of Tallapoosa and Macon counties. White bullies, including Grady Daniel, Will Hill, and many others, are stopping people on the roads and threatening to kill all Negroes. Sheriff Ross Riley, of Macon County, is freely quoted as stating that he will “kill men, women and children to break up this mess (the Share Croppers’ Union) if anything more happens like the past troub- le”. The murders in December were caused by white officers tak- ing the little remaining food and means of living from various fami- lies. Ku Klux Klan leaflets, bearing the address of Box 651 Birming- ham, have been circulated in the section. These handbills threaten Negroes interested in their consti- tutional right of social equality or in the Communist Party. The Communist Party, under the law, enjoys every right of any other political party. Gangs riding in high powered cars have prowled over wide areas of the counties breaking into homes, stealing guns and ammuni- tion and beating up women and children. A careful survey shows that hundreds if not thousands of dollars worth of weapons and am- munition has been confiscated by the prowlers. Eye witnesses tell of seeing guns stolen from Negro farmers and given to members of the mob. No Negro is allowed to buy ammunition today. During the series of raids conducted by the white ' sheriffs’ gangs, over 50 homes, it is estimated, were pil- laged. Trunks were broken open, lofts searched and children threat~ ened. UNGER is common in the area. Starvation is just around the corner in many of the tiny huts LEADING U. S. ARTISTS TO EXHIBIT WORK AT THE JOHN REED CLUB By J. B. [AT the capitalist structure is falling apart to its last brick is made more evident every day. This time it is the artists who are desert- ing it. The artists are turning to the class struggle for inspiration. Capitalism can offer them neither @ market nor subject-matter for their work. True, the beginning is as yet unclear as to revolutionary content, but the number of out- standing artists shifting to the side of the working class is great. ae Smee} HE John Reed Club has taken the lead in this movement by or- ganiing an exhibition—“The Social Viewpoint in Art’—which exten- sively embraces all the phases of this change. This exhibition which opens in the headquarters of the club, 450 Sixth Ave., Thursday eve- ning, Jan. 26, and continues to Feb. 16, will make art history. Lead- ing figures in the art world such as Orozco, Thomas Benton, Boardman Robinson and many others will ex- hibit their work. Prominent critics representing the revolutionary viewpoint on the one hand, and the unclear, though sympathetic social viewpoint on the other, will speak | on the opening night Visit to Tallapoosa, Scene of Sharecropper Struggles that shelter from 12 to 15 people. Afraid to sleep in their many families are 4 house ken windo' torn up floo with bull shacks. must Most of these where to move. have also attemp land owners in the se Tuskegee, about 15 from allowing the homeless f: ers to move into unoccupied lands. tYAGES in the scction a! as 40 “and 50 cents pi Working hours are from sun. In cases where board nished the worker sists of cold si left from the white tables. Some farmers have been told they would have to move from their land if their wives did not wash for the white lan: Many landlords are now visiting their tenants several times a day and telling them to keep quiet and not talk to anyone. They are also inquiring for local new n con- Stories of the worst brutality are heard on e | ne school teacher, boarding h the family of a farmer, was whipped with ropes by a mob of whites. Sylvia Warren, a woman nearly 100 and blind, was severely beaten and cut with pistols in the hands of white men. Shells and bullets that were shot at women and little children can be obtained at almost any cabin in the Liberty Hill section. Other men have sent-deflant m sages to bullies who have th ened them with death. These farmers say that they may be killed but they will at least die fighting, A virtual urfew law is in effect. Many farmers te. t they do not dare to go away m home. Hundreds have been arned to stay away from the Liberty Hill area. Whites stop strangers of either race on-the roads and in- quire their business. In spite of this men connected with the In- ternational Labor Defense have operated efficiently in the section. Every effort is being made by the whites to break up the Share Crop- pers’ Union in the trouble zone. The organization is young in that immediate locality. No trouble has been experienced near Camp Hill, where deputies murdered Ralph Grey, a leader of the Share Crop- pers’ Union, summer before ‘ast. Rumors that a large force of armed and well disciplined Camp Hill men were about to start to the de- fense of the Liberty Hill men when the prowling mob withdrew are heard on every side. These are believed by the far assert that Camp Hill men are so well organized that they can pr tect themselves and the white ruf- fians know it and leave them alone as a result. There are several white tenant farmers in the Camp Hill Share Croppers’ Union. More are now seeking admission. 'USKEGEE Institute is coupled with the sheriffs’ gangs in the angry conversation of many farm~- ers. ‘They assert that it isas much opposed to them as the landlords, Direct questioning of over 50 peo- ple revealed that no one in the section is at all familiar with the National Association for the Ad- vancement of Colored People or its activity. Though held strictly under cover @ great amount of union organiz- ing is now being carried on, Plans are already being laid for an ex- tensive campaign for the right to vote, guaranteed them by the Constitution and denied them by the mob, on the part of the farm- ers. This program is being coupled with the union work. The situa- tion is uneasy and tense, the threatening danger is that the white mob will commit further serious outrages. AIR RESCUE | vonne E. bore Risks Life When Dynamo Is Torn Loose en into the w y of the engineer A COURAGEOUS DECISION Without stopping very long to koy made his way into the motor gondola -of boldly hung over the remost, to see what ne dynamo. What it had been ngs, and hang- was dangling propeller in failing. If ppened there would be an nt, unavoidable catastrophe. night, in the open sea, far from among the raging waves houghts flashed through e lightning—but action was necessary. Rusakov briefly informed the mander of the plane that the > was hanging in the air, d that the speed be lessened, as he had decided to climb out and seize the dynamo. Easily said, but st impossible to accomplish. ss, the decision was taken, be executed, because an- d—and ¢: trophe was that h ee ee shall himself: let Rusakoy speak for passed a note to the com- der asking him to reduce the eed still further. While the commander read the note by the light of a pocket flash, I instructed. the technician Pshe- nichny to throw me the end of the cable, and with the cable I climbed into th: motor gondola. “Opening the hood of the motor, I pushed the end of the cable through and paid it out. The rush of air carried it back toward the stern. When I had paid out enough so that it would reach to the hatch, I made fast the end, crawlcd back, caught the loose end. and fastened it to the frame of the motor. In this way I achieved something in the nature of a life-~ i That would be my support if I climbed out of the plane into s e. Everything was ready. warned them that it would five or ten minutes to grasp dynamo. I called Pshenichny 1 the into the gondola and explained my problem. I climbed out of the gon¥ dola. The cold current from thé propeller tore my body from the plane. My hands grew numb, Sparks from the muffler flew into my face. Clinging to the rope, I crawled along, pressing against the aluminum of the plane. I reached he dynamo, raised up on my knees, seized it, and it pulled easily away. “With the precious load in my leit hand, alternately holding on to the life-line with my right hand" and teeth, I crawled back to the: cabin. Alongsid? the hatch tf caught the life-line with one handy I was growing weaker. The terrible > nervous strain was beginning to tell: J tried to pull the dynamo into the cabin, but unsuccessfully. The re-. sistance was so great that I coulé not pull the dynamo with one hand: Comrade Pshenichny held me with one hand, but neither could he: take the dynamo with his other: ‘The thought flashed through my mind. ‘Throw it overboard .. . in- to the water,’ but even then it would fall into the propeller and the dynamo was valuable. It had to be pulled aboard. I shook my head, shouted to Pshenichny to take the dynamo, but he did not hear me. How could one hear with the motors roaring overhead! PURPOSE IS ACCOMPLISHED “Seeing my helplessness, Pshé> nichny decided, better one than. all. He let go of me and bonding over cautht hold of the dynamo itr my outstretched hands. At that moment I was holding on with my teeth only. “The most important thing was accomplished. The dynamo was in the cabin, It remained for me to climb in. But danger of a catas- trophe had not yet passed. If I should fall, it would mean under the propeller. Making a last ef- fort I crawled to the hatch, but the rush of air did not even allow me to thrust my head in. I de~ cided to climb forward. I dragged myself along the plane, raised my leg. I was thrown up by the air to the hatch and Pshenichny caught me there by the leg, almost breaking it off on the edge of the hatch. He was right: even had my leg been broken, still I was alive... .” ey eee, USAKOY, one of the best of thie junior engineers of the squadron, was originally a worker in the Ural methyl plant. Later he graduated. from aviation school and rose in’ & short time to the position of junior engineer, For this exploit he was awarded the orde rof the Red Stare