REPORT FROM THE U.S.S.R.

One of the most recent, most authoritative accounts of what has been going on behind the steel wall of censorship in the U.S.S.R. came last week by cable from Tokyo, sent by a TIME correspondent who had spent several years in the Soviet Union and left shortly before the German invasion.

He gave a striking picture of the biggest country in the world on the eve of the greatest campaign of World War II. Highlights:

Red Army. "The Red Army at the outbreak of Soviet-German hostilities was about 7,000,000 strong. Half were proletarians, a quarter peasants, a quarter white-collar workers. Of six to seven million trained reservists, all being mobilized now. the peasants are an absolute majority.

"Proletarians in my opinion are essentially satisfied with the Soviet regime. [But] Russia's immense agricultural population is essentially dissatisfied. . . . Therefore, as the war proceeds and the Army becomes composed more & more of peasants, morale will tend to disintegrate.

"Six weeks ago a bearded peasant Kolkhoznik in a village near Moscow said to me: 'When are the Germans coming to Russia to restore order?' The conversation was in a little village State-owned store where the peasant had bought several eggs at a ruble apiece. These eggs had been laid by his own chickens, but he was forced to sell them to the State for 20 kopecks apiece and buy them back for a ruble.

This is an excellent example of the recent policy of taking roughly four-fifths of the agricultural produce in indirect tax levies, leaving peasants barely enough to exist on.

"An acquaintance, a machinist in a Moscow factory in his late 305, has three children living in one room with one small window, and earns 600 rubles monthly--the price of one poor-quality man's woolen suit. He is forced to work overtime regularly in order to maintain his wage. In May, he said: 'All the same, it would be little good for us if the Germans defeated the Soviet Union. We must fight all together if attacked.' To generalize, the countryside is potentially unreliable, but the city population will fight well."

Morale. "If the Germans are able to send shirts, flashlights, bicycles, shoes, radios, etc., into Russia in large quantities, most peasants and probably workers will be satisfied to live under German domination. ... In 1932, when I first went to Russia, many people still worked self-sacrificingly because they believed profoundly and fanatically inthe idea of Socialism. Now these people have mostly fallen under the axes of various purges, and most Russians work because they are threatened with criminal proceedings if they refuse to work. All this produces a situation where any foreign invader who is able to feed the people at least as well as the Bolsheviks--not a high standard--and give them a few simple consumer goods, will be able to run the country without serious political difficulties."

Diplomacy. "I am convinced that the Soviet-German War broke out without even the knowledge, let alone the activity, of [Sir Stafford] Cripps. I received an expulsion order June 5 and went to see Cripps next morning to request his assistance in securing a week's stay to liquidate my affairs. He said, 'I am unable to do anything,' and stated further that he had had practically no relations at all with Russians for months. On questions where he had clear, indisputable juridical grounds to request something from the Soviets, he had the greatest difficulties; when it was a question of courtesy, he was unable even to take the matter up.

"I was informed in early May by a diplomat returning from Berlin that the negotiations [between Germany and the U.S.S.R. over economic demands] were insignificant, and were only being carried on by the Germans to pass time until preparations were concluded. I believe the negotiations never broke down; the Germans simply attacked when preparations were completed, as the main strategic aim was the destruction of the Red Army,which is a potential menace to Germany in the future."

Preparedness. "There was a single public air-raid shelter [in Moscow] when I left June 10. The famous Metro is calculated to hold 100,000 people standing five per square yard, but most of Moscow's crowded four millions will be at the mercy of Hitler's bombs when they start coming. ... I saw more than 200 military trains moving westward between Chita and Krasnoyarsk [on the Trans-Siberian Railway, the third week in June]. The trains averaged 25 cars, ten filled with troops, the rest carrying tanks, ambulances, munitions, munition wagons, armored cars, trucks, anti-aircraft guns, even some crated planes. . . . These trains probably carried the mechanized Twelfth Army which fought the Japanese at the Khalka Grol in the summer of 1939 under the command of General Stern. The soldiers stated they did not know where they were bound, but spoke of fighting Germany as a real possibility. Their equipment looked used but still in working condition. . . ."

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