Pathway to Japanese Literature

Yesterday had been terribly cold. The snow on the boulevard had frozen over again, and children brought out their skis. Then tonight, a spring rain poured down at minus five degrees. Everywhere turned glassy-smooth. Glossy black and mirroring the city’s lamplight, the metropolis—Moscow, capital of the Socialist Federation spanning one-sixth of the globe—had its trams charging through spring’s muddy waters with furious momentum. Tonight was special. March 8th marked International Working Women’s Day. Various events were being held at workers’ clubs across every district. So you had to hurry.

At the end of the southeast-bound tram, the Japanese woman got off. Three or four women with red cloths over their heads also got off but scattered almost immediately; she found herself facing a rain-soaked dark intersection, an odd vacant lot, and at its edge a yellow freight car that seemed to be a lineman’s hut. On its roof, a radio antenna glistened wetly. The wet slender tree trunks in the vacant lot glistened too. When she looked over there, large white letters under the pitch-black sky—

КОМУНАР A worker came along with their coat collar turned up. The Japanese woman called out in a loud voice from where she stood.

“Comrade! Do you know where the Kuforminstrv Club is?” “Go straight through that vacant lot—keep going until the third alley on your left—there’s a bridge there. Beyond that.” “Damn it!”

A truck came barreling in without sounding its horn, one headlight dimly lit. The Japanese woman walked along the lonely sidewalk, occasionally propping her left hand against the siding of the houses lining the street. I really should have bought new winter boots ages ago. If the treads 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 railway tracks. Ahead of her, three young labor women who appeared to be Komsomol members walked in step, talking eagerly as they went, heedless of the rain. They were saying such things. "How absurd!" "That jerk!" It was less that he was a fool and more that he lacked self-awareness. "Because in that workplace, aren’t ninety-five percent of us shock workers already!" The Soviet proletariat had accomplished "October" without umbrellas. In 1930, a single woman’s umbrella amid Moscow’s crowds could, at times, take on class character equivalent to a coachman’s coat.

Figures began to appear clustered on the sidewalk. A boy with the earflaps of his tanned winter hat flapping beside his red cheeks grabbed the Japanese woman and asked. “Don’t you have a ticket?”

After walking a bit further,

“Do you have any extra tickets?” On the night of the Paris Commune anniversary celebration, when she went to the club named after Lyuikov, several people—mostly youths—were also gathered at the entrance, asking everyone who came. When there were special events, Moscow’s clubs required entrance tickets.

From the carriage porch, several thick glass doors—arranged exactly like those of a theater—stood in a row. The Japanese woman put her full weight into pushing it open and entered. Bang!

Oh, it’s warm!

The large hall, with coatrooms at both ends, was packed with people. A Pioneer girl with a neat bob cut wore a red collar pin around her neck. An older Pioneer boy holding printed leaflets in his hand was talking to that girl. A young wife—wearing dress socks and sporting a celluloid comb in her bob cut—strolled about while leaning on her husband in a navy Tolstovka work shirt, occasionally adjusting her new lilac French crêpe collar pin and glancing around the surroundings.

The brass tag read “905”—the deposit number for the Japanese woman’s coat and winter boots.

It was hard to believe that outside there was such rain and dark roads. The Japanese woman ascended the large staircase—where people were constantly going up and down—to the second floor. The first area was the National Defense Science Association's research laboratory. On the wall hung live-action footage of gas attack drills, aircraft diagrams, and firearm diagrams; several young men and women could be seen gathered in front of them, turning the small guide lamps on and off. “OPPOSE IMPERIALISM AND FASCISM!!” A red placard. Closed-door research rooms of various kinds were lined up. But the Japanese woman, at Moscow’s largest railway workers’ union club, could not afford to be touring the corridors now. She had to find the supervisor. For tonight’s event, what she had was not a ticket but a single scrap of paper, and that scrap absolutely required the supervisor of this club.

It was vast. As she walked on, the passageway seemed to gradually slope upward underfoot. When walking alone through a densely packed crowd of people all facing the same direction in utter silence, she couldn’t help but feel that way. A woman’s voice, as if vibrating the carbon filaments of the numerous electric lights blazing against the white wall, resonated metallically through the microphone.

“Thus, comrades! The Five-Year Plan will not only advance Soviet cast iron production to third place globally and coal mining output to fourth—it will increase the average wages of all Soviet workers engaged in production by seventy-one percent by its conclusion. The State Planning Department...”

Cutting through sound waves with his birch-colored jacket shoulders as he stomped forward, the supervisor had the Japanese woman wait in the front row right below the stage adorned with red cloth and brought a chair from the side door. The only one who had arrived this late was the Japanese woman. At the center of the long table draped in red cloth on the stage, before a nickel-plated bell, sat an elderly woman chairperson with a calm profile, looking down as she wrote something. To the left, right, and behind her, roughly eighty percent of those seated in the chairs were women who appeared to be party members. At the edge of the table, a Komsomol girl was taking shorthand. A plaster statue of Lenin. Red placards were also hung around the railings of the second-floor balcony. At the front blazed a 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 planters were placed at both ends of the stage.

“The development of production means through electrification will reduce the current average daily working hours from 7.71 to 6.86.” “As a step forward in constructing proletarian new culture, the Ministry of Education aims to implement a fully state-funded four-year universal education system by the end of the Five-Year Plan.” Through air saturated with numbers flying thick and fast alongside an indescribable tension of fervor, a female party member quietly came from the stage to where the Japanese woman sat. She put her mouth to the Japanese woman’s ear and said.

“Welcome! Where are you from?”

“From Japan.” She whispered back. “Are you a representative?” “No.”

“Please come up to the stage. It would be excellent if you could give us a speech—”

There were six or seven hundred people inside. The Japanese woman declined. The female party member squatted beside her and placed the registration notebook and pencil she had been holding onto the Japanese woman’s knees. “Then, please write down your name and occupation.” She had been intently watching the Japanese woman write “Japan. Writer, Yuri Chūjo” in clumsy characters while listening to the speech, but as she stood up with the notebook in hand, she infused her low voice with force and— “Thank you!” she said.

"I’m satisfied you’ve come tonight."

A roaring wave of applause erupted, and the first verse of The Internationale began to play. The speech ended. The petite female party member who had given the speech drank a cup of water from the pitcher and returned from the podium—stylized with a hammer and sickle—to the table where the chairperson sat.

A sense of ease spread throughout the hall.

The Japanese woman asked the man—around forty, with thick thumbs—sitting in the seats on the left side across the linoleum-covered aisle. “Was her speech very long?”

“We Soviet people aren’t particularly good at speaking briefly, you see.”

Having said that, he laughed. Then he added seriously, “The Five-Year Plan itself isn’t a small task, you see!” That was true.

Behind them, such whispers could be heard. “What’s wrong!” “You there!” “Because I went to look at the hats…”

On March 8th, women workers in USSR factories leave their workplaces one hour early every year. While ringing the bell, the chairperson stood up. She delivered her report in a thin, clear voice that betrayed her age.

Representative of the [Name] District Komsomol Committee, Comrade Ilinskaya.

Welcomed by enthusiastic applause 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 barrage of machine-gun-paced oratory in a woman’s voice, never pausing for breath. “For the unity of peasant women and factory-working women, we of the Komsomol will exert all our strength!” With a casual flick of one arm, she stepped down from the elevated podium and retreated into the depths of the stage. The Internationale swelled up.

Finely folded pieces of paper were passed along one after another over shoulders. The woman in the front row stood up and came to place them into the suggestion box set out below the podium on the stage. “Comrades!” “It is truly a pleasure for us to hold this grand Tenth World Proletarian Women’s Day evening event tonight.” “I have been sent here as a representative to convey the heartfelt joy of the [Name] District Soviet to you all.” (Enthusiastic applause.)

The one facing the microphone directly and speaking each word clearly was a slightly plump man in a black Tolstovka who resembled an aged Voroshilov.

“It is against my wishes to speak of unpleasant matters to you honorable working women on this joyous evening.” “However, Comrades!” “To complete the Soviet Five-Year Plan, we still have many things for which we must engage in self-criticism.” “Among the women gathered here now, there are probably hundreds of active shock workers.” “There are likely dozens of active representatives.” “There can be no doubt that these class-conscious working women truly understand the meaning of the Proletarian Revolution and are dedicating their tremendous support to the proletarian state.” “We are experiencing this in practice at our factories and in each of our workplaces.” (Applause)

“Now then, cities are in such a state—but what of the rural areas? When we examine what role rural women are fulfilling regarding the organization of collective farms—which bear the most critical role in the Five-Year Plan—it cannot, regrettably, be said that they are one hundred percent satisfactory. When I went to the countryside recently, an old acquaintance of mine came out, bowed in the old-fashioned way, and said—” (Here, the skilled Soviet official adopted the peasant woman’s dialect.) “Comrade Glebov. If you join a collective farm, is it true even babies get shared around like cattle?”

A roar of laughter erupted throughout the hall. “That sounds even better!” shouted a voice. They laughed again at that.

“Look! Comrades, you laugh like that. But that remains an unbelievable fact—a fact still believed in some parts! In another village, they unanimously refused to join collective farms. Why? Because priests told them women must all cut their hair upon joining, and sleep under one enormous communal blanket at night! Those poor rural women were utterly shocked.”

The audience clapped… laughed. They laughed.

“Comrades!” “However, should we permit such rampant counterrevolutionary elements and ignorance to persist unchecked in rural areas?” “Comrades!” “The countryside is not a colony to be exploited by cities as the rightists would have it.” “It constitutes the very core of industrial raw material production essential to socialist industry—a core that must be decisively integrated with urban industrial output.”

Applause! Earnest applause. Not a single member of the audience was laughing anymore.

The Japanese Woman, feeling a kind of astonishment in her heart, gazed around at the faces surrounding her. How about that—this unity of spirit! Those drawn toward the podium and reacting animatedly—listening to speeches that had now been underway for nearly three hours—were not limited to so-called class-conscious workers, March 8th hostesses, labor women, or their vanguard successors with red neckties.

A girl with thin flaxen hair hanging down her small back, wearing a light-blue-striped coarse flannel dress, had been sitting to the right of the Japanese Woman. She sat quietly and properly listening to the speeches; when the Five-Year Plan talk—filled with numbers blaring from the microphone—came on, she slipped her right hand into her flannel dress pocket, transferred something granular to her palm, then stealthily brought it to her mouth. She felt a cough coming on. The girl knew she must not disturb the speech with the ticklish irritation in her throat—a throat whose gender was not yet discernible. She carefully clenched her slender fingers and pressed them to her mouth.

The companion of this clearly unaffiliated girl (not a Pioneer) was her grandmother. She was a grandmother who had never worn a woman’s hat since the day she was born and had continued to work with her hands and feet—whether in her own kitchen or on the floors of others’ homes. Narrowing both eyes and leaning one arm elbow-deep on the back of the front-row chair, she stared at the stage and listened to the speech—there was the glow of that deeply lined profile. This was a fragment of the light that the USSR cast upon its approximately 1.3 million club members.

In the USSR in its thirteenth year of revolution, trade unions with 10.28 million members were, in essence, working to control socialist production labor and construct proletarian culture. Throughout the USSR, thousands of workers’ clubs were the work of the trade unions’ cultural departments. Originally, the clubs had been membership organizations. They only admitted those from factories that had clubs or belonged to their respective production-based trade unions. However, this created one inconvenience.

Although the Soviet Union was a proletarian state, their Moscow had not been built through socialist urban planning. Long ago, the Grand Prince of Moscow, dragging the hem of his stiff gold-thread-embroidered robes, commanded long-bearded people to build this walled city in medieval style. In the modern USSR, there were cases where factories and clubs—where workers engaged in production while forging new lifestyles—and homes where they presumably lived burning petroleum stoves lay scattered at opposite ends of Moscow. Would they feel like going all the way to the city’s other end—to listen to, say, that “Production Economic Plan” speech workplace committees had gathered for during their one-hour lunch break at factories, as read in this morning’s *Workers’ Newspaper*—after returning home to eat *shchi* (cabbage soup)?

“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 musicians played a lively march,

One, two!

One, two! The XX District Pioneer squad marched into the Kuforminstrv Club hall with their solidly heavy gold-braided squad banner at the forefront. Right, left! Right, left, halt! Form ranks! From the center, a twelve- or thirteen-year-old Pioneer girl strode briskly up to the podium. A red collar ornament on the brown podium; a neat and clever-looking face; bobbed hair with bangs.

“From the XX District Pioneer Squad, enthusiastic greetings to World Proletarian Women’s Day!”

It was the girl’s clear, striking voice. Following that, all squads raised their voices in unison, “Long live World Proletarian Women’s Day!!”

In the seats beneath the rear balcony, a group involuntarily rose to their feet, beaming broadly as they applauded toward the stage.

After the Pioneer squad departed once more to a march and the district women’s representative had finished presenting a portrait of Lenin to the club as a commemorative gift, the chairperson rose from their seat.

“Comrades, with this, all speeches registered with me tonight have concluded.” “Is there anyone else who would like to speak?” Hundreds of audience members sat in utter silence. About two seconds passed before a young man’s voice shouted.

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

“No!” “No!”

The man with thick thumbs sitting next to the Japanese Woman wore a cheerful smile. He was in complete agreement. He shared the spirit of the USSR’s working youth.

“Then, we will now take a twenty-five-minute break.” “We will move straight to the play—is that agreeable?”

There was tremendous applause. The sound of applause blew the slender elderly woman chairperson toward the stage.

The Japanese woman’s surroundings were a completely cheerful festival-like commotion.

“Natasha!” “Natasha!” “Hurry up and get over here already!”

“Mitya, where are you?” “Didn’t you see? They found a spot over there, apparently.” They stood. They beckoned. They were signaling each other from distant corners of the room.

“Move aside!” “Hey!” “Hey!”

The club supervisor pushed through the jumble of hips and backs, making the Komsomol members shoulder a long bench and haul it in.

“Where to?” “Here! Right here!” Further supplementary seating in front of the first row. Instantly, the young men and women who had been clustered in layers around the open door beside the stage swarmed toward it, and among them were three or four who quickly settled into seats.

The supervisor—over forty, her hair a pale shade—frantically waved her hands and cut in.

“Comrades! Don’t sit here! Committee members are coming here. That’s why we put them there.”

“What committee members?!”

“This area really had to be kept clear.”

“Hey.” A man wearing a rubashka under his suit jacket urged his companions. “Stand up.” The two young men stood up, but the woman who had taken a seat right in front of the Japanese woman remained as she was—leaning her back against the bench’s support without moving—and waved enthusiastically toward the door. Over there, the man accompanying her was leaning against it, his hands in his trouser pockets.

“Why?” “Come here! Come on!” She gestured toward the nape of her neck where her curls fell loose. “Come on! Come!” she called insistently while making vigorous gestures. The man had been resisting silently with obvious reluctance, but when the woman kept pressing him too much, he came over to the bench and spoke in a low yet decisive voice.

“Stop it—this isn’t proper.” “Why?” Looking up at the man from below, the woman said in a nasal voice loud enough for those around to hear.

“If committee members come, we’ll just move aside then—why make a fuss now? We’ve waited all this time to watch the play!”

The man was whistling the “Budenny March” and looking off toward the balcony when, before long,

“You stay put here, then.” “It’s Women’s Day today—so it’s fine if you’re a woman, right?” He ended up returning to the original doorway. The woman pouted slightly, took out a handbag, and looked at her face in the mirror. The mirror was cracked.

Immediately behind the Japanese woman, two small Pioneer girls came carrying a single chair between them. They arranged their red neckerchiefs and sat down on it together. The Japanese woman asked the Pioneer girls. “Who’s putting on the play tonight?”

“I don’t know.”

The other, smaller one, “Tram.” “Tram,” she answered. “How 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 theater troupe composed exclusively of workers that existed in Moscow and Leningrad. All members were young Komsomol members who engaged in class-based collective living under a collective economy and strict regulations. To join them, one had to have performed actual productive labor for a designated period. Leningrad Tram possessed its own theater. In Moscow, Tram toured various clubs and, through their realist artistic expression, critiqued the contemporary issues Soviet workers faced while building their new culture.

“What’s the title of the play they’re doing?” In response to the Japanese woman’s question, the two Pioneer girls answered firmly.

“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 were demanding, and what new art should be created for the workers’ state of the USSR. At some point, the front page had been published.

Average price of discounted tickets. (Soviet workers obtain discounted tickets for each theater through their respective trade unions.) MOSPS Theater

(Moscow Regional Soviet of Trade Unions 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 across Moscow held free admission days for all trade unions. However, “Generally speaking, the Soviet cannot yet boast of having an ideal proletariat theater.” The Workers and Art journalist wrote. “The theater buildings are old and can only accommodate small audiences; therefore, the burden of operating costs—i.e., ticket prices per person—becomes high.” “Let’s calculate: how much would a five-member worker household spend on a night at the theater?” “Let’s take the Trade Unions Soviet Theater as an example.”

92.5 kopeks ticket price 20 kopeks　　　　　Round-trip tram fare

10 kopeks　　　　　　 Program

The play began at 7:30 and ended after 11. Muscovites ate their main meal after 5:00 p.m., returning from their workplaces. Before going to bed, they wanted to have at least some tea and bread with sausage.

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

For five people: 8 rubles 62.5 kopeks. Even if the MOSPS Theater had an excellent repertoire, you couldn’t just go there so often, could you? The Soviet needed theaters that could seat at least five thousand to ten thousand people at a time. "We must adapt the shrewd methods of American showmen in Soviet style."

Recently, a major reform of theater organizations was declared as one of the cultural initiatives under the Five-Year Plan. To place all theaters of the USSR under the complete joint management of the Art Department of the People’s Cultural Committee, trade unions, collective farms, and central authorities. To relocate theater centers to production labor zones.

This was a remarkable leap forward for the development of proletarian art in the Soviet. Tamara, the Komsomol member, sat down on a chair as if at her wit’s end and asked Mitya, the Komsomolets member: “Hey Mitya, aren’t Komsomol women allowed to have children?” Mitya was a young factory worker wearing baggy pants and a striped athletic shirt year-round. He was a shock worker.

“What the hell!” Mitya exclaimed. “That’s exactly the kind of question Lunacharsky would’ve heard! Komsomol women are definitely allowed to have children! To build solid replacements for our ranks, the Komsomol must have children!” That’s what I think, Tamara reflected. But Fedya’s ideas are different. Hmm… What now? “Fedya told me this morning,” she continued inwardly. “Babies, diapers, home life—all that’s outdated bourgeois taste. ‘I don’t want that…’ he said—”

Mitya rapped his shin with the bundle of wire he held. (He was trying to install a radio in this rented room they lived in.)

So what? Fedya’s… ridiculous! At your place, you’ve got a proper independent room like this, a job, and even such a good Yasli nursery at the factory— “Don’t worry.” “I’ll set him straight… Fedya’s wrong!” “But…”

With simple bewilderment, Mitya scratched his head. Damn it! If only I had half Fedya’s way with words…

Fedya dumped his document-filled briefcase there and chased after Katya.

“Hey Katya, just listen to what I have to say!” “I can’t even imagine living without you.”

“You said the same thing to Tamara in front of me, and to Ryōrya in front of Tamara, didn’t you?”

Wearing her khaki Komsomol uniform with band trim, Katya remained calm. She was a member of the Komsomol Yacheika committee. “It’s an entirely different matter.” “Hey, Katya, think about it—with you among us, what intellectual woman is there? Aren’t they just boring philistine women or dullards at work without a shred of wit? In such an ignorant environment—Katya!”

Katya glanced at her wristwatch, then picked up the discarded document-filled briefcase and handed it to Fedya as she spoke. “There! “This report has to be at the Secretariat by seven tonight.…”

And, with a slightly sarcastic smile, “Paperwork is paperwork!”

"That's perfect!!" Behind the Japanese woman, two Pioneer girls huddled together on a single chair flushed bright red and nodded fervently. Fedya himself had declared just moments earlier: "Paperwork is paperwork!" This came after he'd rejected a young Komsomolets—who needed emergency funds to return home following his mother's sudden death—on the grounds of being five minutes late to submit his request at the factory committee. A textbook case of bureaucracy in action.

The Japanese woman looked at her watch. It was already past twelve. Yet neither the performers nor the audience showed any sign of fatigue or faltering. This bureaucrat—this specimen of a disruptor of the new life—how would he be eradicated by Tram on this International Working Women’s Night? She watched with bated breath.

Outside, Moscow was a wet springtime glass marble. As the night deepened, it became increasingly slippery. A taxi attempted to climb the dark slope beside Moscow University only to skid backward in reverse—but O reader, do not hastily assume that countless Soviet mothers in Kuforminstrv Club’s hall, engrossed in the play this late into the night, were nonchalantly abandoning their children.

USSR workers’ clubs surely had a “Mother and Child Room” somewhere in their buildings. While the mothers absorbed their artistic or political enlightenment, their babies lay quietly sleeping on the small white cots of the “Mother and Child Room,” breathing in their oxygen.

[January 1931]