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Anyone can take exactly the same 2,000-mile trip made by the U. S. Ambassador last week, under the auspices of Intourist, the Soviet State Travel Bureau, but not with the same super-service from Stalin's NKVD. When rich Mr. Davies liked a picture in a State store so well that he paid 5,000 rubles smack down for it last week—nominally $1,000—J. Stalin's Sherlocks began muttering among themselves. These dread Soviet police sent for a nervous Russian art expert, he appraised the picture as worth 800 rubles, and the NKVD cracked down on the Ukranian State shop. It promptly disgorged 4,200 rubles and this "refund" NKVD agents beamingly carried to Capitalist Davies in his private car.
First important stop was at Kharkov, fine and flourishing "Industrial Capital of the Ukraine," the political capital being Kiev, "Mother of Russian Towns." In Kharkov rises the modernistic Palace of State Industry, "largest office building in Europe," the tallest sections 13 stories high. In efforts to get droning Red Bureaucrats inside to bestir themselves, the Kharkov managing staffs of a section of the latest Five-Year Plan have been satirized in Soviet films showing languid Communist typists squirting perfume over themselves and ogling their Bolshevik bosses—a deliberate exaggeration like all Communist propaganda. Last week Red bosses and Red typists seemed on good behavior, but Ambassador Davies hustled on out to the Kharkov Tractor Plant, thoroughly inspected the entire works, which now send a tractor off the assembly line every five minutes. Some unfortunate jinx caused the first tractor off the line as Mr. Davies approached to refuse to start. "It has been rejected," announced the Bolshevik interpreter, "and it is now sent to specialists for analysis!" The next tractor snorted off beautifully and during the Ambassador's visit no other breakdown appeared. After dropping in at the Medical Clinic and Nursery, the party drove to Kharkov's Turbogenerator and Electric Machinery Plant. Here many workers were standing about puffing cigarets, so occupied in conversing among themselves that they scarcely noticed the Ambassadorial party. In the turbine section every worker seemed sweating for dear life on a rush order. At the stately Kharkov "House of Pioneers," the Ambassador asked what it was before and was told "The House of Nobles."
"Ah, it is being used for a much better purpose now," commented Democrat Davies. "I am impressed by the work being done in Kharkov."
Next day the Commissar's car took the Ambassador to the metallurgical centre of the Ukraine near the great Dnepr River hydroelectric dam. In the heat of Russia's Revolution, some demanding comrades from the Ukraine called on the great Lenin and wanted to know what the Ukraine was going to get out of all this.