Pathway to Japanese Literature

Yesterday had been bitterly cold. The snow on the tree-lined avenue had frozen over again, and children brought out their skis. Then tonight’s spring rain came pouring down at minus five degrees. Every surface turned glassy-slick. The tram charged through Moscow’s spring mud—this metropolis glistening blackly with city-light shadows cast upon it, capital of the Socialist Federation spanning one-sixth of the Earth—hurtling forward with ferocious momentum. Tonight was a special day. March Eighth was World Proletarian Women’s Day. Workers’ clubs across every district were hosting events. So they had to hurry.

At the terminus of the tram heading southeast, the Japanese woman got off. Three or four women with red cloths over their heads also got off but scattered instantly，leaving her to see before her a rain-soaked dark intersection，an odd vacant lot，and at its edge a yellow freight car resembling a railway worker’s hut. On that roof，the radio antenna glistened while wet. The wet，slender tree trunks in the vacant lot also glistened. Looking over there，beneath the pitch-black sky，large white letters—

КОМУНАР A worker arrived, coat collar turned up. The Japanese woman called out in a loud voice from where she stood. Comrade! “Do you know where the Kuforminstr Club is?” Cut through that vacant lot, keep going straight, take the third side street on your left—there’s a bridge, and it’s just past that. Damn it! A truck came barreling in without sounding its horn, one headlight dimly lit.

The Japanese woman walked along the desolate sidewalk, occasionally propping her left hand against the siding of the houses lining the street. She really should have bought new winter boots long ago. If the rubber studs on the soles had worn down, there’d be no walking on a night like this.

She reached the bridge. It was a wooden overpass. Beneath it ran a railway line. Ahead of her walked three young laboring women who appeared to be Komsomol members, keeping in step and talking animatedly despite the rain. They were saying such things.

“You’re such an idiot!” “That idiot!” “It’s less that he’s an idiot and more that he lacks self-awareness.” “But in that workplace, aren’t 95% of them shock brigade members already!” The Soviet proletariat accomplished “October” without such things as umbrellas. In 1930, amidst the crowds of Moscow, a single woman’s umbrella could, at times, take on as much class character as a coachman’s overcoat. Shadows of people gathered on the sidewalk came into view. A boy with the earflaps of his fur-lined winter cap flapping beside his red cheeks grabbed the Japanese Woman and asked.

“You don’t have a ticket?” After walking a little further, “Do you have an extra ticket?” On the night of the Paris Commune commemoration, when she had gone to the club named after Ruykov, several youths had clustered at the entrance too, asking everyone who arrived. When there were special events, Moscow’s clubs required admission tickets. From the carriage porch stretched several thick glass doors identical to those of a theater. The Japanese woman threw her full weight against one and pushed through. Bang!

Ah, warm!

The large hall with cloakrooms at either end was packed with people. Pioneer girls with neat bobbed haircuts wore red collars fastened around their necks. An older Pioneer boy holding printed materials conversed with one of the girls. A young wife—wearing theater-going socks and sporting a celluloid comb in her bobbed hair—occasionally adjusted her new lilac French crepe collar as she strolled about, leaning against her husband in a navy Tolstovka while surveying their surroundings.

“905” – the brass tag the Japanese Woman had received for her checked coat and winter boots. She found it hard to believe such rain and dark roads existed outside.

The Japanese woman ascended to the second floor via the grand staircase where people were constantly going up and down. The first thing was the National Defense Science Association’s research laboratory. On the wall hung actual footage of poison gas drills, aircraft diagrams, and firearm diagrams. Before these, several young men and women were gathered, turning the small guide lamps on and off. “Oppose Imperialism and Fascism!!” A red placard.

A row of various laboratories with closed doors lined the corridor. But the Japanese woman, at Moscow’s largest Railway Workers’ Union Club, could not afford touring the corridors now. She had to find the supervisor. For tonight’s event, what she possessed was not a ticket but a single scrap of paper—and this scrap absolutely required the club’s supervisor.

It was immensely spacious. As she walked there, the passageway seemed to gradually begin sloping upward underfoot. When walking alone among the multitude of people lined up in utter silence all facing the same direction, she began to feel that way. A woman’s voice—as if vibrating the carbon filaments of electric lamps blazing against white walls—echoed metallically through the microphone.

“In this way, Comrade! The Five-Year Plan does not merely advance Soviet cast iron production to third place in the world and coal mining output to fourth. The average wages of all Soviet workers engaged in production will increase by seventy-one percent by the end of the Five-Year Plan. The State Planning Department…” Cutting through soundwaves with his birch-colored coat shoulders, the Supervisor strode forward and had the Japanese Woman wait in the first row directly beneath the stage draped in red cloth, then brought a chair from the side door.

The Japanese Woman was the only one who had arrived this late. At the center of the long table draped in red cloth on the stage, with a nickel bell before her, an elderly female chairperson with a quiet profile sat bowed over, writing something down. To the left, right, and behind, those lining the chairs—eighty percent were women who appeared to be party members. At the edge of the table, a Komsomol member was taking shorthand. A plaster statue of Lenin. Red placards were also hung around the second-floor balcony railings. At the front hung a blazing placard: "Long Live the Tenth International Working Women’s Day! “Under the banner of Leninism, complete the Five-Year Plan in four years!”

Large palm pots were placed at both ends of the stage. “Through electrification’s development of production means, we will reduce current average daily labor hours from 7.71 to 6.86,” declared the voice through tinny speakers. “As an advancement in proletarian cultural construction, the Ministry of Education plans to implement four-year universal education fully state-funded by the Five-Year Plan’s end.” Through air thick with statistics and tensile fervor, a female party member slipped from the stage to where the Japanese Woman sat. She pressed her mouth to the ear beneath cropped black hair and whispered.

“Welcome! Where are you from?” “From Japan.” She whispered back. “Are you a delegate?” “No.” “Please do come up to the stage. If you would give a speech, that would be very good—” It held six or seven hundred people. The Japanese Woman declined. The Female Party Member squatted beside her and placed the notebook and pencil she had been holding onto the Japanese Woman’s lap.

“Then, please write down your name and occupation.” She watched intently as the Japanese Woman—listening to the speech while writing “Japan. Writer, Yuri Chuzho” in clumsy characters—but as she stood up with the notebook in hand, she lowered her voice emphatically: “Thank you!” she said. “Your coming tonight gives me great satisfaction.” A roaring applause erupted as the first verse of The Internationale began to play. The speech ended. The petite female party member who had given the speech drank from the water pitcher and returned from the hammer-and-sickle podium to the chairperson’s table.

A relaxed atmosphere spread through the hall. The Japanese woman asked a man in his forties with thick thumbs sitting in the left-side seats across the linoleum-covered pathway. “Was her speech very long?” “We Soviet people aren’t particularly good at speaking briefly, you see.” He said and laughed. Then he added earnestly. “The Five-Year Plan itself isn’t some small task, you see!” That was true. From behind came such a whisper.

“What’s the matter!” “Oh, you!” “Because I went to check on a hat…” March 8th, female workers in USSR factories leave their workplace one hour early every year. The chairperson stood up while ringing the bell. She reported in a clear voice that betrayed her slender years.

—Comrade Ilyinskaya, representative of the [District] Komsomol Committee.

Welcomed by enthusiastic applause, the one who came to the podium was a twenty-two or twenty-three-year-old Komsomol member in a green jacket and a pure white collar. But what a high-speed speech this was! Glancing up repeatedly at the audience with darting eyes, she unleashed a minute-long rapid-fire barrage from her female voice without pausing for breath. "For the unity of peasant women and factory-working women, we Komsomol will exert our full efforts!" With a casual lift of one arm, she stepped down from the raised podium and retreated to the back of the stage. The Internationale surged forth.

Finely folded slips of paper were passed along from shoulder to shoulder in succession. A woman in the front row stood up from her seat and came to deposit them into the suggestion box placed under the podium on the stage. “Comrade! “Comrades! It is truly a pleasure for us to hold this grand evening commemorating the Tenth International Working Women’s Day.” “I have been sent here as a representative to convey the heartfelt joy of the [District] Soviet to you all.” (Vigorous applause) The one speaking clearly word by word with his face turned directly toward the microphone was a plump, aged man in a black Tolstovka shirt who resembled Voroshilov.

“It is against my wishes to speak of unpleasant matters to you honorable working women on this pleasant night. However, comrades! To complete the Soviet Five-Year Plan, we still have many things requiring self-criticism. Among the women gathered here now, there are likely hundreds of active shock brigade members. There will be dozens of active representatives. There is no doubt that these class-conscious working women truly understand the significance of the Proletarian Revolution and are contributing great assistance to the Proletarian State. We are experiencing this in practice at our factories and in each of our workplaces.” (Applause)

“Now, while the cities are in such a state, what of the countryside? When we examine what role rural women are fulfilling regarding the organization of collective farms—which bear the most critical responsibility in the Five-Year Plan—it cannot, regrettably, be said that we are one hundred percent satisfied.” “When I recently visited the countryside,” he continued, adopting a peasant woman’s dialect for effect, “an old acquaintance came out, made a polite old-fashioned bow, and said: ‘Comrade Grebov. If you join the collective farm, is it true they’ll make us share our babies like cows too?’”

A roar of laughter erupted from the entire hall. “Even better!” called out a voice. They laughed again at that. “Now then!” “You comrades laugh like that.” “But this remains an unthinkable reality believed in some quarters.” “In another village, they unanimously refused to join the collective farm.” “Why?” “The monk said that if you join the collective farm, all women must cut their hair, and at night there’s one enormous futon everyone must crawl under to sleep.” “And so those unfortunate rural women were utterly shocked.”

The audience clapped... and laughed. They laughed.

“Comrades! But should we leave such rampant counter-revolutionary elements and ignorance in rural areas unchecked? Comrades! The countryside is not a colony to be exploited by cities as the right-wing faction claims. It is the core of industrial raw material production that must be decisively combined with urban industry—indispensable for socialist production!”

Applause! Enthusiastic applause. By now, not a single person in the audience was laughing.

The Japanese woman gazed around at the surrounding faces while feeling a kind of astonishment within her heart. Look at this unity of spirit! Those drawn to the podium—reacting vividly as they listened to speeches now nearing three hours in length—were not limited to so-called class-conscious workers, March Eighth’s mistresses of ceremony, working women, and their vanguard successors wearing red neckties. A girl with thin flaxen hair hanging down her small back, wearing a shabby light-blue striped flannel dress, had been sitting all along to the right of the Japanese Woman. She sat quietly and properly while listening to the speeches, but when the talk turned to the Five-Year Plan—which rang out from the microphone laden with nothing but numbers—she slipped her right hand into her flannel dress pocket, took something granular into her palm, then stealthily brought it to her mouth.

She felt the urge to cough. The girl knew she must not disturb the speech with the tickling irritation in her still-androgynous throat. She clenched her slender fingers tightly over her mouth and acted with caution.

The companion of this clearly unorganized girl (not a Pioneer) was her grandmother. A grandmother who, from the day she was born, had never worn a woman’s hat and had continued working with her hands and feet—whether in her own kitchen or on others’ floors. Look at the radiance of her deeply wrinkled profile—eyes narrowed, one arm propped elbow-deep on the front-row chairback as she stared at the stage listening to the speech. This was a fragment of light that the USSR cast upon its approximately 1.3 million club members.

In the USSR during its thirteenth revolutionary year, trade unions with 10.28 million members were fundamentally engaged in controlling socialist production labor and building proletarian culture. Thousands of workers' clubs across the USSR were operated by trade union cultural departments. Originally, these clubs had been membership organizations. They only admitted those belonging to factories that maintained clubs or their respective production-specific trade unions. However, this system created an inconvenience. Though the Soviet Union was a proletarian state, its Moscow had not been constructed through socialist urban planning. Long ago, the Grand Prince of Moscow—dragging the rustling hem of his gold-thread embroidered robe—had commanded his long-bearded subjects to build this walled city of medieval style. In contemporary USSR there existed instances where factories and clubs—where workers forged new lifestyles through production—lay separated at opposite ends of Moscow from the homes where they likely burned petroleum stoves. After returning home to eat shchi (cabbage soup), would workers feel inclined to travel clear across the city—say, to hear a speech about the "Production Economic Plan" that workplace committees had gathered to discuss during their one-hour lunch break, as reported in that morning's *Rabochaya Gazeta*?

“Good labor requires good rest.” As part of rationalizing rest, the clubs came to absorb even the citizens of their respective districts. Therefore, tonight the club’s music section members played a lively march, One, two!

One, two!

The [Name] District Pioneer Detachment marched into the Kuforminstr Club hall, their solidly heavy gold-tasseled detachment flag at the forefront.

Right, left!

Right, left, halt! Formation drill. From the center, a twelve- or thirteen-year-old Pioneer girl strode briskly up to the podium. A red collar ornament on the brown platform, a tidy sharp-featured face, bobbed hair with dense blunt-cut bangs.

“From the [Name] District Pioneer Detachment, enthusiastic greetings to World Proletarian Women’s Day!”

It was the clear ringing voice of a girl. Then the entire detachment raised their voices in unison, “World Proletarian Women’s Day—long live!!” Under the rear balcony seats, a group had unconsciously risen to their feet and were applauding toward the stage with broad grins. After the Pioneer detachment departed once more to the march and the district women’s delegate had finished presenting a portrait of Lenin to the club as a commemorative gift, the chairman rose from his seat. “Comrades, with this concludes all speeches scheduled for tonight on my sign-up sheet. Is there anyone else who wishes to speak?”

Hundreds of audience members fell utterly silent. After about two seconds, a young man’s voice shouted.

“No!” Drawn out, they now hurried here and there in rapid succession, “No!”

“No!” The man with thick thumbs next to the Japanese woman wore a cheerful smile. He was in complete agreement. He resonated with Soviet labor youth’s mood.

“Now then, we’ll take a twenty-five-minute break,” announced the chairman. “Comrades, we’ll move straight to the play afterward—is that agreeable?” Tremendous applause erupted. The sound’s force sent the slender elderly chairwoman careening toward the stage.

Around the Japanese woman swirled a perfect carnival of cheerful commotion.

“Natasha! Natasha! Hurry over here already!” “Meech, where?” “Haven’t you seen? They found a spot over there.” They stood. They waved. From opposite ends of the room, they exchanged signals. “Move it!” “Hey!” “Hey!” The club supervisor shoved through a tangle of hips and backs, making Komsomol members carry one end of a long bench they brought in. “Where to?” “Here! Right here!” Supplementary seats before the front row. Instantly, young men and women who had been massed in layers by the stage’s open door surged toward them, three or four swiftly securing spots.

The supervisor, a man over forty with light-colored hair, intervened while frantically waving his hands.

“Comrade! You can’t sit here. Committee members are coming here. We placed these seats for that purpose.” “What committee?!” “We must keep this area clear.”

“Hey.”

A man wearing a Russian-style shirt under his suit jacket urged his companions. “Stand up.” The two young men had stood up, but the woman who had taken a seat directly in front of the Japanese Woman remained leaning her back against the bench’s backrest without moving, vigorously waving toward the door. Over there, a male companion stood leaning against it with his hands in his trouser pockets.

“Why?” “Come on over here!” At the nape where her curls fell—hey, hey!—she called out with vigorous gestures. The man had been silently resisting, but when the woman kept insisting, he came over to the bench and said in a low yet firm voice: “Cut it out—this is awkward.” “Why?” Looking up at him from below, she declared in a nasal voice loud enough for those around to hear: “If the committee comes, we can move then—what’s the problem? We’ve come all this way to see the play!”

The man whistled the “Budenny March” and looked off toward the balcony, but eventually, “You stay put here, then.” “Today’s Women’s Day—if you’re a woman, it’s fine!”

He ended up returning to the original doorway. The woman pouted for a moment and took out a hand mirror to look at her face. The mirror had a crack. Right behind the Japanese Woman, two small Pioneer girls came carrying a single chair between them. They arranged their red neckerchiefs and took their seats together there. The Japanese Woman asked the Pioneer girls. “Who’s putting on the play tonight?” “I don’t know.” The other smaller one answered, “Tram.”

“Tram,” answered the smaller one. “Why do you know that?” This was the Pioneer girl who had said she didn’t know. “I read the posted notice…” Tram (Theater Working Youth) was a theatre troupe composed purely of workers, based in Moscow and Leningrad. The members were all young Komsomol members conducting class-based collective lives under a communal economy and strict regulations. To join them, one had to have been engaged in actual productive labour for a fixed period. Leningrad Tram possessed its own theatre. In Moscow, Tram travelled between clubs and critiqued through their realistic artistic expressions the current issues Soviet workers held in abundance on their path to building a new culture.

“What’s the play called?” To the Japanese Woman’s question, the two Pioneer girls firmly replied.

“We don’t know either.” *Workers and Art*. In Moscow, such a newspaper was published. It addressed various practical issues: what kind of art workplace laborers demanded, and what new art ought to be created for the workers’ state of the USSR. At some point, a table had been published.

Average price of discounted tickets. (Soviet workers receive discounted tickets for each theater through the trade union they belong to.) MOSPS Theater (Moscow Regional Trade Union Soviet Theater) 92.5 kopeks Revolution Theater 68 kopeks Satire Theater 96.6 kopeks Korsh Theater 1 ruble 11 kopeks

Opera 1 ruble 24 kopeks The day after May Day, all theaters in Moscow became free admission days for all trade unions. However, “Generally speaking, the Soviet Union cannot yet boast of having ideal proletarian theaters.”

The *Workers and Art* reporter wrote: “The theater buildings are old and can only accommodate small audiences; consequently, the burden of operating costs—i.e., ticket prices per person—becomes high. Let’s calculate—how much does a five-member worker household spend on a night at the theater? Let’s assume we go to the Trade Union Soviet Theater.” 92.5 kopeks ticket cost 20 kopeks Round-trip tram fare 10 kopeks Program The play started at 7:30 and ended past eleven o’clock. Muscovites eat their main meal after five in the afternoon, returning home from their workplaces. Before going to bed, they would want to eat at least some bread with sausage and tea. Therefore,

50 kopeks Food and drink expenses Total: 1 ruble 72.5 kopeks

For five people: 8 rubles 62.5 kopeks. No matter how excellent MOSPS Theater’s repertoire might be, they couldn’t very well go so often. The Soviet Union needed theaters that could hold at least five thousand to ten thousand people at once. “We must adapt the shrewd methods of American showmen in a Soviet way.”

Recently, as one of the cultural initiatives under the Five-Year Plan, a major reform of theater organizations was declared. To place all theaters of the USSR under the complete joint management of the Arts Department of the People’s Commissariat for Culture, trade unions, collective farms, and central authorities. To relocate theater centers to production labor areas. This marked a remarkable leap forward for proletarian art in the Soviet. Komsomol member Tamara sank into a chair as if at her wits' end and asked Komsomolets Meech.

“Hey, Meech, aren’t Komsomol members allowed to have children?”

Meech was a young factory worker wearing leaf-green trousers and a year-round striped sports shirt. A shock brigade member. “What’s this now!” “That’s exactly the sort of question Lunacharsky said he kept hearing!” “Komsomol women are absolutely allowed to have children!” “To create solid replacements for our ranks, the Komsomol needs to produce children!” “I think so too.” “But Fedya thinks differently.” “Hmm.” “Well?”

“Fedya said to me this morning.” “‘Babies, diapers, family—all that’s outdated bourgeois taste.’” “‘I don’t want—’ …” Meech tapped his own shin with the bundle of wire he was holding. (He was in the process of trying to install a radio in this rented room where they lived.)

So then Fedya… how absurd! You all have a proper independent room like this, and jobs, and even such a good yasli nursery at the factory— Don’t worry. I’ll tell him… Fedya’s wrong! But...

Showing simple bewilderment, Meech scratched his head.

Damn it—if only I knew as many words as Fedya!

Fedya tossed his briefcase there and chased after Katya.

“Hey Katya, just listen to what I’m saying!” Fedya pleaded. “I can’t possibly imagine living without you at all.” “You said the same thing to Tamara in front of me,” Katya countered, “and to Lyolya in front of Tamara, didn’t you?” Wearing a khaki Komsomol uniform with striped bands, Katya remained calm. She was a member of the Komsomol cell committee. “The circumstances are entirely different,” Fedya insisted. “Hey Katya, think about it—what intelligent woman exists around us besides you? Are they not just trivial philistine women or dullards at work who can’t muster a single wit! In such an ignorant environment—Katya!”

Katya glanced at her wristwatch, then picked up the discarded briefcase and handed it to Fedya as she spoke. “Here! This report must reach the secretariat by seven tonight…” And she smiled slightly sarcastically. “Business is business!” “Excellent!!”

Behind the Japanese Woman, two Pioneer girls huddled together on one chair flushed their faces and nodded earnestly. Fedya himself had declared just moments earlier, “Business is business!” A young Komsomolets—who’d had to rush back to his village after his mother’s sudden death—had approached the factory committee for a loan, only to be rejected because he was five minutes late—a perfect display of bureaucratism.

The Japanese Woman looked at the watch. It was already past twelve o'clock. But the performers showed no signs of fatigue, and the audience remained unwavering. They watched breathlessly to see how this bureaucrat—this specimen of a disruptor of the new life—would be eradicated by the tram on this night of International Working Women’s Day.

Outside, Moscow was a wet spring glass marble. As the night deepened, it grew increasingly slippery. A single taxi attempted to climb the dark slope beside Moscow University, only to skid and reverse—but dear reader, do not hastily assume that countless Soviet mothers engrossed in the play at Kuforminstr Club’s hall were nonchalantly neglecting their children so late into the night. Soviet workers’ clubs surely have a “Mother and Child Room” somewhere in their buildings. And while the mothers absorbed their artistic or political enlightenment, their babies slept quietly on the small white cots in the “Mother and Child Room,” breathing in their oxygen.

[January 1931]