I found this travelogue of Danish author Hans Scherfig’s 1950 trip to the USSR. I think it will be of interest to people here so I have translated it. The illustrations are by Scherfig himself.

In this final chapter, the delegation leaves Moscow and returns to Denmark, only to encounter a hostile press attacking them for their insufficiently negative accounts of the Soviet Union. Scherfig contrasts the fear, hypocrisy and social contradictions of bourgeois society with the community, optimism and human dignity he has seen socialism foster in the Soviet Union. He similarly contrasts technological progress under capitalism, which has produced ever more efficient means of war and mass destruction, with technology placed at the service of human needs under socialism. Despite the hostility awaiting him at home, Scherfig remains confident that propaganda cannot halt historical progress and, with an optimism that is difficult not to envy today, concludes that the delegation’s encounter with Soviet society offered an encouraging glimpse of the future.

Travels in the Soviet Union

Table of Contents

Chapter 15

The last day of our stay in Moscow was the ninth of May — Victory Day. Once again the city was illuminated. There was dancing and celebration and crowds in the streets, fireworks in the sky, violet shafts of light from searchlights in every square, the great ruby stars glowing above the Kremlin spires.

Our last day was free, with no engagements or official receptions. Some of us had spoken on the radio that morning, but otherwise we had turned down the invitations. Only the indefatigable Stahl, it seems, went off to some concert or dance performance. I paid a farewell visit to some private friends, and later went shopping with Kirkeby. We ran into Brauer in a department store, surrounded by gesticulating people. He was buying gramophone records, and everyone around him was trying to persuade him to buy their own particular favourites. By then Brauer had forty records and wanted no more. But a little Ukrainian pushed his way through the crowd, bought a record of a Ukrainian folk song with his own money, and presented it to Brauer. He did not want the foreigner to leave without taking this favourite melody home with him.

People we did not know took an interest in our well-being. We were sitting in a beer hall over a mug of beer when a stranger at the next table got up and asked whether he might not buy us a round; he had watched with concern as the foreigners drank the pale Riga beer, which is only 6 percent, and wondered if he might not introduce us to the strong dark Leningrad beer. We ought to get to know the best. Strangers gave us good advice when we were shopping — “Try that!” — and would then argue among themselves about what was best for us to get. The customs officer at the airport was dissatisfied with a balalaika I had been given in Stalingrad; his own had a better sound, and had he had it with him, he would probably have given it to me.

The evening before, a farewell party had been held for us. About fifty guests had been invited, people we had come to know here, friends of Denmark. The biologist, Professor Isayev, who was with us, was once asked whether Denmark had any friends in the Soviet Union. “Denmark has 200 million friends here,” he replied. Why should it be otherwise? I was sitting beside Rossiysky, the Stakhanovite worker from the Kalibr factory. We had difficulty communicating, and Savadsky, the theatre director, had to act as interpreter. Would we ever meet again? Would a time come when the borders were open and there was free exchange between our countries? “It is up to you to get the borders opened,” Rossijskij said. “Stop sending spies here, stop entering into hostile alliances against us, stop joining a military bloc with aggressive aims!” It has since become publicly known that the chairman of the Danish Confederation of Trade Unions has joined an organisation engaged in espionage in Eastern Europe, and that the Danish prime minister has approved of the activity[1]. Under such circumstances, can you expect open borders?

There were many speeches, and some of my fellow countrymen will be displeased when I reveal that there was talk of the desirability of peace between nations. For our part, we expressed the hope that as many people as possible might have the chance to see what we had seen; that Danish workers might come to the Soviet Union in greater numbers, look about them, and get to know their Russian comrades. Nothing could be more useful! Naturally, information about the Soviet Union can be circulated in Denmark. We can give figures for prices, wages and production; we can show pictures and provide statistics. But the particular humanity of socialist society is something you must experience for yourself.

A priest in the Minsk airport, 1950

On the morning of May 10, I looked out across Red Square for the last time. That same evening I was in Tikøb. It is not distance that is insurmountable.

The Red Square, Moscow 1950

When travelling from east to west, one has to set the clock back. One travels into a time that has already passed. The aeroplane did not merely carry us home; it carried us back into history. From the Soviet Union we flew into the past.

At Kastrup airport we came into contact with Western culture again, when Anker Kirkeby bought a copy of B.T. The paper contained a furious attack on him because it had been discovered that he had given a friendly speech at the Writers’ Union in Moscow. In Information they attacked me and took the precaution of preemptively distancing themselves from anything positive I might be suspected of saying or writing in the future. When I got home, a dozen or so newspaper clippings were waiting on my desk, reproaching me for having come home alive. To date, more than 150 embittered newspaper articles have been written against me in the Danish press because I have been to the Soviet Union and refuse to lie about the country. If I had only wanted to tell a few tales about cannibalism and the like, my fortune would have been made.

I do not believe that the truth can be suppressed and the facts denied forever. You cannot lie history backwards. There was once in ancient times a tyrant who could not endure daylight because he had bad eyes. He ordered his magicians to stop the sun and hold it down, so that he could live in the darkness that was comfortable for him. But although the magicians conjured and chanted and cast their spells, the sun rose at its usual hour. No magicians and no newspaper magicians can stop time, even when they are commanded by mighty tyrants.

There is a limit to what you can learn in a country during a stay of a few weeks, even if you use your eyes and ears and spare no effort. What the cultural delegation can report about living conditions and production, social welfare, etc., could certainly be obtained by other means. Moreover, when figures are reported, you must bear in mind that they do not remain current for long. What has been said here about wages and prices will soon be out of date; since the last Danish delegation was in the Soviet Union, there have been a couple of major price reductions, and material conditions are improving from month to month. By the end of the present Five-Year Plan, great changes will have taken place.

Although it can already be established that, by and large, the standard of living of a Soviet worker is higher than that of a Danish worker, this tells us nothing about the happiness of the individual. Human satisfaction cannot be measured by statistics. Here, I believe, our personal contact enabled us to discover something significant. There are no statistics for human cheerfulness and kindness; figures cannot tell us anything about openness and warmth between people. The atmosphere, the feeling, the warmth are things that must be experienced. We were given confirmation that socialism is possible, and we saw with astonishment and emotion the extent to which social conditions have shaped people’s mentality, their way of dealing with one another, the tone that prevails between them. Those of us who are communists know something similar in our relations with our comrades; those who took part in the Resistance during the Occupation remember the special spirit that prevailed at that time. In the Soviet Union, this spirit is part of everyday life: the sense of community, mutual respect, optimism, faith. It cannot be explained as “national character”; it is possible that the Russians have always been friendly people (although the older literature undeniably tells us otherwise); what we are dealing with here is a new socialist mentality, a humanity which we in the West have experienced only in fleeting moments and during exceptional periods.

In the futureless bourgeois society, fear has become part of life. Permanent fear is the foundation of upbringing; fear is a necessary condition of state power; fear lies at the heart of religion. The constant fear of poverty, unemployment and war is accepted as a necessity. Fear of war is almost as profitable to monopoly capital as war itself, with its destruction of wealth, and it is artificially maintained through a dependent press.

In the world of fear, neuroses flourish. People reproach the Soviet people for not having the same need for psychoanalysis as the Americans. But take fear away from the Americans and the psychotherapists will be out of work. People talk about conformity in the Soviet Union, and rightly so, insofar as there is no disagreement there about the social system. The Marxist outlook is there obvious foundation, and everyone shares a belief in the possibilities of human beings. This has nothing to do with lack of freedom; on the contrary, it presupposes the freedom of the individual: individual initiative, responsibility, independence and criticism. By contrast, in the final phase of the Western bourgeois societies we have duality and division. Two incompatible worldviews are taught side by side: a Christian metaphysical outlook and a materialistic scientific one, and even schoolchildren are expected to switch between them with tact and agility. A rapid adjustment is required when moving from the religion lesson to the physics lesson. We have two moralities; we have the demand for lifelong monogamy alongside the recognition of polygamous unions; we have the demand for truthfulness alongside the regard for ordinary good manners; we have the Ten Commandments of the Book of Moses as a guide, while at the same time the state imposes severe punishment for failing to break the sixth commandment[2]. We have Christianity as the state religion, yet we are imprisoned if we live according to its teachings. Throughout their lives, adults and children are forced to maintain a painful moral double-entry bookkeeping, which necessarily produces neuroses and complexes and madness. Hypocrisy is the goal of bourgeois upbringing.

The prerequisite for socialism is the development of technology, the conquest of nature, the fulfilment of the Bible’s command that we make the earth subject to us. But the attitude to technology is different in a society where machines are servants from what it is among us, where they are gods. The worship of the machine is a dangerous form of idolatry. Faith in the omnipotence of machines will lead to bitter disappointments. In America they have invented an artificial brain, an electronic calculating machine so perfect that it can go insane. But the heart cannot be replaced by machines; feeling, humanity and dignity cannot be put on wheels. The robot cannot take the place of man. The Germans achieved great things in technology, but their robots could not prevail against man; the automatons were defeated.

The machine age has produced technological marvels. German engineers built admirable gas chambers, tiled and fitted with chrome-plated taps and handles, with a large capacity; German scientists constructed furnaces capable of incinerating as many as 200 people at a time, and invented the death van, which suffocated its passengers with carbon monoxide in twelve seconds. American engineers have constructed a model gallows, inaugurated in the Korean capital of Seoul, capable of putting Koreans to death in record time. The greatest achievement of theoretical physics, the release of atomic energy, led in America to the creation of a bomb whose inauguration cost 200,000 lives. It is supposed to have subsequently been improved. This was the culmination of technological progress under capitalism.

The Soviet Union, too, has harnessed atomic energy; a mountain has been moved and the courses of a couple of rivers changed in order to make a desert fertile, to create the possibility of more life and greater crops.

Man placed above the machine, man in his dignity, that is socialism in operation. The meeting with real people was the great thing we experienced in the Soviet Union. I take the risk of telling about this meeting despite the hundred and fifty defamatory articles that have already been written about me on that account, and in expectation of numerous new ones. It was a meeting with the future, an encouraging and stimulating meeting.

Original Danish text

XV.

Den sidste dag, vi var i Moskva, var den niende maj — sejrsdagen. Byen var igen illumineret, der var dans og fest og mylder i gaderne, fyrværkeri på himlen, violette strålebundter fra projektører på alle pladser, de store rubin-stjerner tændt over Kremls spir.

Den sidste dag var en fridag for os uden arrangementer og modtagelser, nogle af os havde talt i radioen om formiddagen, men ellers havde vi sagt nej tak til invitationer, kun den utrættelige Stahl gik vist til en eller anden koncert eller danseopvisning. Jeg var på afskedsvisit hos private venner, senere gik jeg med Kirkeby i butikker. Vi traf Brauer i et stormagasin omgivet af gestikulerende mennesker, han var ved at købe grammofonplader, og alle de omkringstående prøvede på at overtale ham til at købe deres særlige yndlingsplader, Brauer havde på det tidspunkt fået 40 plader og ville ikke have flere; men en lille ukrainer trængte sig frem og købte for sine egne penge en plade med en ukrainsk folkesang og forærede Brauer den, han ville ikke have, at den fremmede skulle rejse hjem uden denne yndlingsmelodi.

Folk, man ikke kendte, var omsorgsfulde for ens velbefindende. Vi sad på en ølstue og drak et krus, og en fremmed mand rejste sig fra nabobordet og bad om lov til at give en omgang; han havde med bekymring set, at de fremmede drak det lyse Riga-øl, som kun holder 6 procent, om han ikke nok mårte vise os det kraftige mørke Leningrad-øl? Vi skulle lære det bedste at kende. Man gav os gode råd ved indkøb — prøv det der! — sagde fremmede mennesker, og de kom i indbyrdes diskussion om, hvad der var bedst for os at få. Tolderen i lufthavnen var utilfreds med en balalajka, som jeg havde fået i Stalingrad, hans egen havde en bedre klang, havde han haft den her, ville han vel have foræret mig den.

Aftenen før havde man holdt afskedsfest for os. Der var inviteret et halvt hundrede gæster, mennesker vi havde lært at kende herovre, venner af Danmark. Biologen, professor Isajev, som var med, blev engang spurgt, om Danmark havde venner i Sovjetunionen. — Danmark har 200 millioner venner her — svarede han. Hvorfor skulle det også være anderledes? Jeg sad ved siden af Rossijskij, Stakhanov-arbejderen fra fabrikken »Kaliber«, vi havde vanskeligheder med sproget, og teaterchef Savadskij måtte være tolk. Ville vi nogensinde mødes igen? Ville der komme tilstande med åbne grænser og frit samkvem? — Det er jeres sag at få åbnet grænserne — sagde Rossijskij. — Lad være med at sende spioner herover, lad være med at indgå fjendtlige alliancer imod os, lad være med at slutte jer til en militærblok med aggressive formål! — Det er senere blevet offentlig kendt, at formanden for de danske samvirkenderemovedforeninger har tilsluttet sig en organisation, som skal spionere i Østeuropa, og den danske statsminister var indforstået med denne virksomhed. Kan man under disse omstændigheder forvente åbne grænser?

Der blev holdt mange taler, og det vil mishage nogle af mine landsmænd, når jeg røber, at der blev talt om ønskeligheden af fred mellem landene. Fra vores side blev der udtalt håb om, at så mange som muligt måtte få lejlighed til at se det, vi havde set, at danske arbejdere i større antal måtte komme til Sovjetunionen og se sig om og lære russiske kammerater at kende; intet ville være mere nyttige! Der kan naturligvis spredes oplysning om Sovjetunionen i Danmark, der kan meddeles tal for priser og lønninger og produktion, der kan vises billeder og gives statistik, men den særlige menneskelighed i det socialistiske samfund må opleves selvstændigt af den enkelte.

Den tiende maj om morgenen så jeg for sidste gang ud over Den røde plads. Samme dags aften var jeg i Tikøb. Det er ikke afstandene, der er uovervindelige.

Når man rejser fra øst til vest, må man stille uret tilbage. Man rejser ind i en tid, som er gået. Flyvemaskinen førte os ikke bare hjem, den førte os tilbage i historien. Fra Sovjetunionen fløj vi ind i fortiden.

I Kastrup lufthavn kom vi igen i kontakt med den vestlige kultur, idet Anker Kirkeby købte B.T. Bladet indeholdt et voldsomt angreb på ham, fordi det var blevet opdaget, at han havde holdt en venlig tale i forfatterforeningen i Moskva. I »Information« angreb man mig og tog på forhånd afstand fra det positive, jeg kunne mistænkes for at ville sige eller skrive i fremtiden. Hjemme på mit skrivebord ventede en snes avisudklip med bebrejdelser for, at jeg var kommet levende hjem. Indtil idag er der skrevet over 150 forbitrede avisartikler imod mig i danske blade, fordi jeg har været i Sovjetunionen og ikke vil lyve om landet. Hvis jeg bare havde villet fortælle lidt om menneskeæderi og den slags, var min lykke gjort.

Jeg tror ikke, at man i al evighed vil kunne fortie sandheden og benægte fakta. Man kan ikke lyve udviklingen tilbage. Der var engang i oldtiden en tyran, som ikke kunne tåle dagslyset, fordi han havde dårlige øjne. Han be falede sine magere at standse solen og holde den nede, så han kunne leve i det mørke, der var behageligt for ham. Men selvom magerne manede og galdrede og troldede, stod solen op til sædvanlig tid. Ingen magere og ingen bladmagere kan standse tiden, selvom de kommanderes af mægtige tyranner.

Der er begrænset, hvad man kan lære i et land under et par ugers ophold, selvom kan man bruger sine øjne og ører og ikke sparer sig. Det, kulturdelegationen kan meddele om levevilkår og produktion, socialforsorg o.s.v. kunne vel skaffes af anden vej. Desuden må der ved meddelelsen af tal tages det forbehold, at tallene ikke længe beholder deres aktualitet. Hvad der her er sagt om løn og priser vil være forældet om kort tid; siden der sidst var en dansk delegation i Sovjetunionen har der funder et par store prisfald sted, de materielle vilkår forbedres fra måned til måned. Ved den nuværende femårsplans afsluming vil der ske store forandringer.

Selvom det allerede nu kan fastslås, at en sovjetarbejders levefod i det store og hele overgår en dansk arbejders, siger det ikke noget om det enkelte menneskes lykkefølelse. Den menneskelige tilfredshed kan ikke vurderes udfra statistik. Jeg mener her, at vi ved personlig kontakt har kunnet opdage noget betydningsfuldt. Der findes ingen statistik over menneskelig munterhed og venlighed, tallene kan ikke sige noget om indbyrdes åbenhed og hjertelighed, stemningen, følelsen, varmen er noget, der må opleves. Man fik bekræftet, at socialismen er mulig, og man oplevede med undren og bevægelse i hvilken grad de ydre samfundsforhold har bestemt mentaliteten, omgangsformen, tonen mellem mennesker. De af os, som er kommunister, kender noget af det samme i forholdet til kammerater, de, der deltog i modstandsbevægelsen under besættelsen, erindrer den særlige ånd, der herskede dengang. I Sovjetunionen er denne ånd noget, der hører dagligdagen til, fællesfølelsen, den indbyrdes respekt, optimismen, troen. Det kan ikke forklares som »folkekarakter«; det er muligt, at russerne altid har været flinke folk (selvom den ældre litteratur unægtelig fortæller noget andet); her er tale om en ny socialistisk mentalitet, en medmenneskelighed, som vi i vesten kun har oplevet glimtvis i særlige perioder.

I det fremtidsløse borgersamfund er angsten blevet en bestanddel af livet. Den permanente frygt er grundlaget for opdragelsen, frygten er en nødvendig forudsætning for statsmagten, frygten er det centrale i religionen. En bestandig angst for fattigdom, for arbejdsløshed, for krig er en anerkendt nødvendighed. Frygten for krig er næsten lige så indbringende for monopolkapitalen som selve krigen med dens destruktion af værdier, og den opretholdes kunstigt gennem en afhængig presse.

I angstens verden trives neuroserne. Man bebrejder folk i Sovjetunionen, at de ikke har det samme behov for psykoanalyse som amerikanerne, men hvis man tager angsten fra amerikanerne, vil psykoterapeuterne blive arbejdsløse. Man taler om ensretning i Sovjetunionen, og det er med rette, for så vidt som der ikke i Sovjetunionen hersker nogen uenighed om samfundssystemet, den marxistiske livsanskuelse er der selvfølgelige grundlag, troen på menneskenes muligheder er fælles for alle. Det har ikke noget at gøre med ufrihed, det forudsætter netop den enkeltes frihed, den enkeltes aktiviter, ansvarsbevidsthed, selvstændighed og kritik. I modsætning hertil har vi i de vestlige borgersamfunds sidste epoke dobbeltheden og splittetheden. To uforenelige samtidige livsanskuelser, et kristent metafysisk livssyn og et materialitisk naturvidenskabeligt livssyn doceres side om side og kræver allerede hos skolebørnene takt og smidighed. Der kræves en rask omstilling fra religionstimen til fysiktimen. Vi har to moraler, vi har kravet om det livsvarige engifte samtidig med anerkendelsen af polygame forbindelser, vi har kravet om sandheds kærlighed samtidig med hensynet til almindelig velopdragenhed, vi har mosebogens ti bud som en rettesnor, samtidig med, at statsmagten sætter streng straf for ikke at bryde det femte bud. Vi har kristendommen som statsreligion, men vi bliver indespærret, hvis vi lever efter dens lære. Igennem hele livet tvinger man voksne og børn til at føre et pinefuldt moralsk dobbeltbogholderi, som nødvendigvis medfører neuroser og komplekser og galskab. Hykleri er målet for borgerlig opdragelse.

Forudsætningen for socialismen er en udvikling af tekniken, naturens overvindelse, opfyldelse af bibelens krav om at gøre os jorden underdanig. Men forholdet til tekniken er et andet i et samfund, hvor maskinerne er tjenere end hos os, hvor de er guder. Tilbedelsen af maskinen er et farligt afguderi. Troen på maskinernes almagt vil bringe slemme skuffelser. I Amerika har man opfundet en kunstig hjerne, en elektrisk regnemaskine, der er så fuldkommen, at den kan blive sindssyg. Men hjertet kan ikke erstattes af maskiner, følelsen, menneskeligheden, værdigheden kan ikke sættes på hjul. Robotten kan ikke erstatte mennesket. Tyskerne nåede vidt i teknik, men deres robotter kunne ikke klare sig over for mennesket, automaterne led nederlag.

Maskinalderen har frembragt tekniske vidundere. Tyske ingeniører byggede beundringsværdige gaskamre med fliser og forkromede haner og håndtag og stor kapacitet, tyske videnskabsmænd konstruerede ovne til opbrænding af indtil 200 mennesker på een gang, de opfandt dødsbilen, der kvalte sine passagerer med kulilte på 12 sekunder. Amerikanske ingeniører har konstrueret en mønstergalge, som er blevet indviet i Koreas hovedstad Seoul og kunne tage livet af koreanere på rekordtid. Den teoretiske fysiks største resultat, frigørelsen af atomenergien førte i Amerika til skabelsen af en bombe, hvis indvielse kostede 200.000 mennesker livet. Den skal senere være forbedret. Det var den tekniske udviklings kulmination under kapitalismen.

Også i Sovjetunionen har man taget atomenergien i brug, man har flyttet et bjerg og forandret et par floders løb for at gøre en ørken frugtbar, for at skabe mulighed for mere liv og afgrøde.

Mennesket sat over maskinen, mennesket i sin værdighed, det er socialismen i funktion. Mødet med rigtige mennesker var det store, man oplevede i Sovjetunionen. Jeg tager risikoen ved at fortælle om dette møde trods de halvanden hundrede smædeartikler, der allerede er skrevet om mig i den anledning og forventning om talrige nye. Det var et møde med fremtiden, et opmuntrende og stimulerende møde.

  1. Throughout the Cold War, the Danish Social Democratic Party and the social democrat-controlled labour movement ran an extensive anti-communist intelligence network and conspired to keep communists from gaining influence on the labour movement. Much of the work was carried out by an organisation called “The Information Central of the Labour Movement” (AIC) which passed intelligence on Danish communists to British and American espionage agencies. In 1950 the social democrat Hans Hedtoft was prime minister while Eiler Jensen was chairman of the Confederation of Trade Unions, both men were known to be virulent anti-communists. ↩︎

  2. The commandment referred to is “Thou shalt not kill.” Scherfig is referring to further military service. The Danish original reads det femte bud (“the fifth commandment”), following the Lutheran (and Roman Catholic) numbering of the Decalogue, in which this commandment is fifth. In the Reformed numbering customary in English-speaking Protestant contexts, it is the sixth; hence the translation renders it as “the sixth commandment.” ↩︎