Life Journal on USSR in 1943

They [the Russians] dwell below a system of tight state-controlled info. However most likely the perspective to take towards this isn’t to get too enthusiastic about it. Once we take account of what the usS.R. has achieved within the 20 years of its existence, we are able to make allowances for sure shortcomings, nevertheless deplorable. For that matter, even 15 years in the past the Russian financial system had scarcely but modified from the times of the Czars, and the kulaks of the steppes have been nonetheless treating trendy industrial machines like new toys. In 1929 the Soviet Union didn’t have a single car or tractor plant and didn’t produce high-grade metal or ball bearings. Immediately the usS.R. ranks among the many prime three or 4 nations in industrial energy. She has improved her well being, constructed libraries, raised her literacy to about 80%–and educated one of the vital formidable armies on earth. It’s protected to say that no nation in historical past has ever performed a lot so quick. If the Soviet leaders inform us that management of data was essential to get this job performed, we are able to afford to take their phrase for it in the meanwhile. We who know the facility of free speech, and the need for it, might assume that if these leaders are honest of their work of emancipating the Russian individuals, they may swing round towards free speech–and we hope quickly.

That is from an editorial in Life, March 29, 1943. The entire problem was dedicated to the us. Certainly, the title on the entrance, together with the image of Joseph Stalin, is Particular Difficulty USSR. (The problem was being thrown out when a neighboring workplace was being emptied and I retrieved it.)

The image above is the quilt. The image, by the way in which, was taken by the well-known photographer Margaret Bourke-White in 1941.