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Housing. Everywhere there is a shortage of houses, huge families sleeping in small rooms, and as many as 100 people eating at a neighborhood kitchen. For while Moscow before the War had 1,500,000 people, today it harbors almost 3,000,000.
Ragamuffins. Incorrigible, homeless children, orphaned by war, revolution, famine, abound like alley cats, sleeping for the most part where night overtakes them. Preying upon society, finding food and money where they can, they are skilled pickpockets, moral degenerates. U. S. observers would have seen them and shuddered, half with pity, half with revulsion.
Education. Although the Soviet Government has opened many schools, among them being those in which trades alone are taught, the population as a whole remains illiterate and characteristically apathetic. Children are taught only what they wish to learn, for there is no such thing in Bolshevist philosophy as forcing a child to do something that he or she does not want to do—hence the reason why 100,000 vicious ragamuffins roam the streets today.
Divorce. To understand the Soviet psychology of divorce, the U. S. citizen must first note that nobody, even a Kalinin or a Stalin, is permitted to earn more than $115 a month (and few earn as much). It is true that a man or woman can obtain a divorce, without any red tape or delay, merely by applying for a decree. The judge almost invariably grants it. And the charge is only a few cents.
But Soviet law states that a man must pay his wife, if there are children or if she is physically incapable of supporting herself, no less than 30% of his income. Thus, if he earned $115 a month, he must pay $34.50 a month in alimony. The result is that he is very careful about choosing a second mate, for a second divorce would leave him without means of self support. Therefore, although divorce is facile, the law actively discourages it.
On the other hand, men & women, childless and physically fit, may obtain any number of divorces, and this is unquestionably the objectionable feature of the law; for it tends to check propagation.
Prices. The inquiring U. S. citizen would be obliged to pay from $10 to $20 for a room in an hotel—there might be a bath attached, but, probably, there would be no water to fill it. An ordinary dinner, such as might be bought in the U. S. for $2 at the outside, would cost about $5 in Moscow or Leningrad; and, paradoxically, the cheapest food is caviar, which may be bought for a few cents a pound. However, the open air markets and the food bootleggers (those operating without government licenses) supply fresh foods much cheaper and stale or semi-putrid stuffs even cheaper—but always above U. S. prices. A rough suit of clothes costs about $125.
Ogpu. Nor could the visiting citizen escape the surveillance of the Ogpu, formerly the Cheka or secret police, the successors of the Tsar's secret agents. So secret are they that members of the force are even unknown to each other, and only a handful of the highest governmental officials know who is at the head of the organization that sends agents out to shadow the visitor and that is ever alert for the faintest sign of a counterrevolution.