I found this travelogue of Danish author Hans Scherfig’s 1950 trip to the USSR. I think it will be of interest to people here so I have translated it. The illustrations are by Scherfig himself.

Chapter 7 describes the warm and at times overwhelming and excessive hospitality the delegation was shown in the USSR. The May Day parade in Moscow as well as the party in the streets afterwards is described. Scherfig describes the numerous called for peace made by there people and asks the rhetorical question of whether it would be expedient for the USSR to promote domestic pro-peace sentiment so strongly if it was planning aggression as claimed by western opinion.

Travels in the Soviet Union

Table of Contents

Chapter 7

Russian hospitality is boundless, like the country itself. Should we criticise our hosts, which, as everyone knows, one ought not, we might say they made too much of us. They wished to show us more than we could take in. They were tireless, and they overestimated our constitution; a good thing like sleep they evidently regarded as a quite superfluous habit. They fulfilled our wishes with a thoroughness that gradually made us uneasy about wishing for too much. Their care for us sometimes made us rebellious.

Should you happen to mention that you wouldn’t mind taking a ride on the metro, an extensive tour was promptly arranged, with the metro director and a number of traffic experts showing us about, although we had a former Minister of Transport among us[1] and could surely have managed to buy a 50 kopeck ticket and glide down the escalators on our own. When I merely hinted that I would like to know where the famous Tretyakov Gallery was, it was instantly arranged that I be driven there by car, received by the museum director, shown through the galleries, and have every single painting explained to me.

This was nothing but extraordinary kindness and politeness. Naturally, we could ride the metro as much as we liked on our own, and no one prevented me from pottering around the museums alone. We had plenty freedom of movement. We were simply being pampered. We grew expectant. That is the danger of traveling in a delegation: you gradually begin to take  for granted that everything will be arranged and taken care of for you. All practical difficulties were taken from us. We got everything we pointed at, like spoiled children. We didn’t even get the chance to spend money. We were given everything: tobacco, stamps, postcards — all those little things you still expect to buy yourself, even as a guest.

It may be careless of me to reveal that some of us made money in the Soviet Union; certain newspapers will no doubt write about “Moscow gold.” I wrote a couple of chronicles for Russian journals, and I spoke on the radio a few times, and was remunerated. But it proved quite impossible to spend these fees. Even when some of us went out on our own and enjoyed ourselves at a beer hall, there were strangers who absolutely insisted on buying a round when they heard us speaking a foreign language. People were approachable and good-natured and very eager to talk and ask questions and discuss and treat us. The meals we were served at the hotel were feasts, and we only occasionally had the chance to sample ordinary daily fare in cafeterias and mess halls; it was hearty enough, for that matter, Russians are great eaters, and when you see the quantity of delicious and refined cakes in the confectioneries, you understand why Russian girls grow plump like Viennese women of yore. We had to show a certain restraint at meals so as not to grow out of our clothes. Danes are fond of describing food, but I shall not go into particulars. After the fifth course there would typically be served a lovely hearty soup with pirogi — round hollowed-out breads filled with mince — and then the whole thing would begin again. When the waiter, after three desserts, brought the coffee along with a massive cake of concentrated almond paste and buttercream, and you pleaded with him to stop, he would look at you with fatherly concern and place an especially large slice of the delicious cake on the plate. This last heavy meal we would typically have around one o’clock at night, when we returned home exhausted from an opera or ballet.

The days were so packed that we had to do our private writing at night. Alfred Jensen and I shared a large hotel room, and we often sat there at three or four in the morning, working on our lectures as dawn broke outside. On the table stood an enormous writing set, like a temple with domes and sculptures, far too elaborate to actually use; we saw such pompous desk ornaments everywhere and gathered that they were highly prized. When we finally grew so sleepy that black spots danced before our eyes and we were nearing total exhaustion, we had to give up and go to bed. The few hours of sleep we got were deep and heavy, and they would have to last us a good while.

It is a strange sensation to wake to a view of the Red Square. To draw the curtains from the window and see the Kremlin in the morning sun, while the streets are being washed down with fire hoses. The night before May 1st we had been disturbed in our deep sleep by a strange and unpleasant spectacle. It was tank units from the Red Army, rolling past, on their way to join the parade. By morning, music rose from the streets. The demonstration columns were forming up, and as they waited, people danced to accordions, balalaikas, and horns, dressed up and morning-fresh. The square and the district around the Kremlin were cordoned off, and in the adjoining streets the demonstrators thronged with flags and banners and pictures and flowers. The workers from the enterprises which had fulfilled the plan best were to go at the front.

The Danish delegation had been seated on a tribune before the Kremlin wall. To our left was Lenin’s mausoleum, on whose terraces Stalin and other members of the government would stand during the demonstration. We were seated with the French delegation, led by the poet and champion of peace Paul Éluard. Between us and the mausoleum were the delegations from the people’s democracies and the numerous Chinese delegation in identical blue suits.

I later read in Danish papers that the military parade in Moscow on May Day had gone on for six hours. This is not true. We timed it exactly and can swear the troops took just 45 minutes to pass. Horsemen, foot soldiers, sailors, paratroopers, tanks of all sizes, guns and Stalin organs went by while an orchestra of a couple thousand played the Soviet anthem and the Kremlin’s ancient cannons boomed salutes. Planes roared overhead in formation, heavy bombers and gleaming fighter jets screaming past with a terrible shriek that left you dizzy, and uneasily reminded you that you’d be getting up to fly yourself early next morning. The whole thing lasted exactly 45 minutes. An impressive spectacle, certainly, but hardly an overwhelming display of armed might. The civilian demonstration, by contrast, went on for seven hours. Right at the front, in a tight cluster carrying huge red silk banners, we spotted our friend Rossiysky from the Kaliber factory, walking slightly bent, taking long strides, the massive banner across his shoulder. Then the people came flooding into the square. This was no regimented march. A dozen-odd columns converged, forming ranks of about a hundred, old and young, men, women, and children. With flags, placards, paper flowers and brightly coloured balloons. With accordions and mandolins, singing, shouting and waving. There was nothing uniform or standardized about this crowd. It was simply the people celebrating their great holiday. This enthusiasm couldn’t have been rehearsed or staged. You could see plainly enough that the banners and portraits, all those lovely, touching, oddly beautiful arrangements of paper flowers and ribbons, were handmade and utterly individual. Thousands of portraits of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin, enormous ones requiring many bearers and guy ropes, and tiny ones too. You could tell that many were simply framed paintings taken down from the walls of homes or workplaces and carried in the procession. There were also many portraits of Mao Zedong and well-known figures from the people’s democracies, and it was moving to see that murdered Ernst Thälmann had not been forgotten here in Moscow; we saw his picture several times, and Erik Stahl translated the inscriptions for us: In memory of Thälmann and Ernst Thälmann is not forgotten.

Moscow, May 1st 1950

For hours on end the people poured across the square. Athletes and gymnasts in bright jerseys, schoolgirls in their white aprons, peasants from the surrounding kolkhozy, the actors’ guild, the writers’ union, artists, students, workers from hundreds of Moscow factories and offices, families, women with small children, elderly grandmothers. Every sort of musical instrument was playing; there were shouts and cheers, scarves and paper flowers waved in the air, and sometimes the children released their balloons so that the little coloured balls drifted upward and vanished among the Kremlin’s towers. The most variegated, shifting, disparate sight imaginable. A spirit of celebration and rejoicing that reached its height when you reached Stalin, who was also laughing and and waving.

We figured that roughly 300,000 people must have been passing every hour. In all, I suppose some two million must have marched. Among all the inscriptions and slogans, there was one theme that kept recurring: The struggle for peace. One word that we quickly learned by heart, the word: Peace. This demonstration was a cry for peace.

Now, you may think what you like about peace. I am aware that at home there are those who believe peace is not the best of things, and a witty writer at a radical paper[2] can naturally, on the paper’s demand, produce many exquisite sarcasms about the adherents of peace; not everyone, after all, is as crude as the editor of Berlingske Tidende, who actually collects signatures against peace[3]. But whether you like peace or not, you have to concede that peace propaganda as intensive as that conducted in the Soviet Union would be of little expedience if the country intended to start a war of aggression. Such a mentality of peace cannot be desirable in a conquering people. If the Soviet Union were ruled by dictators preparing war and aggression, these millions would not be allowed to cry out for peace.

For all the vivid, bewildering impressions that overwhelmed us that day, what endures is a profound sense that the immense assembly was a manifestation of peace over war. A solemn avowal of the stubborn will to peace of this joyful people. That was the encouraging lesson of the day.

After the hours-long demonstration people danced in the streets. It was like the Bastille Day in Paris. Every café and restaurant was packed. VOKS suggested some performance or other we should see, but most of us refused to go to any performance. We wanted out into the city. We wanted to drift about in the crowded streets and experience the people’s celebration. We drifted from place to place, and we made friends with strangers. I recall some Azerbaijanis who invited us to Georgian wine. I recall a conductor in a Georgian orchestra who sent bottles of wine to our table. I recall many strange things, and I have also forgotten a great deal. Moscow was brilliantly illuminated. Searchlights played against the sky in great clusters, white and violet. A giant fireworks display lit up and thundered over the city, and people sang and danced and played the strangest instruments.

We were woken very early the next morning by the hotel telephone. They awaited us in the dining room with sour milk and ham and many fried eggs and fish and sausage and boiling tea. And then we drove off at furious speed along the long broad road to the airport, from where we were to fly to Kiev.

Original Danish text

Rejse i Sovjetunionen

  • Hans Scherfig, 1950

VII.

Den russiske gæstfrihed er grænseløs, ligesom landet selv. Skulle vi kritisere vores værter, hvad man som bekendt ikke skal, kunne vi sige, at de gjorde for meget ud af os. De ville vise os mere, end vi kunne optage. De var utrættelige, og de overvurderede vores fysik; en god ting som søvn betragtede de vistnok som en helt overflødig vane. De opfyldte vores ønsker med en grundighed, som efterhånden gjorde os betænkelige ved at ønske for meget. Deres omsorg for os gjorde os sommetider rebelske.

Når man lod et ord falde om, at man godt kunne tænke sig at køre en tur i undergrundsbanen, blev der fluks arrangeret en omfattende forevisning, hvor banechefen og en række trafikeksperter førte os omkring, skønt vi selv havde en tidligere trafikminister iblandt os og nok kunne have fundet ud af at købe en billet til 50 kopek og lade os glide ned ad de rullende trapper. Når jeg ymtede, at jeg gerne ville vide, hvor det berømte Tretjakov-galleri var, blev det straks ordnet sådan, at jeg blev kørt derhen i bil og modtaget af museets direktør og ført rundt og fik hvert enkelt billede forklaret.

Her er udelukkende tale om en overordentlig elskværdighed og høflighed. Naturligvis kunne vi køre så meget, vi ville, i undergrundsbane på egen hånd, og der var ingen, der forhindrede mig i at vimse rundt i museerne alene. Vi havde bevægelsesfrihed nok. Man forvænte os bare. Vi blev fordringsfulde. Det er det farlige ved at rejse i en delegation, at man efterhånden finder det selvfølgeligt, at alt bliver ordnet og tilrettelagt. Alle praktiske vanskeligheder var taget fra os. Vi fik, hvad vi pegede på, ligesom forkælede børn. Vi havde ikke engang lejlighed til at give penge ud. Man gav os alt: Tobak, frimærker, postkort — alle de små ting, som man dog regner med selv at skulle købe, selvom man er gæst.

Det er måske letsindigt af mig at røbe, at nogle af os tjente penge i Sovjetunionen; visse aviser vil nok skrive om »Moskva-guld«. Jeg skrev et par kronikker til russiske blade, og jeg talte et par gange i radioen, og det blev honoreret. Men det var helt svært at komme til at bruge disse honorarer. Selv når nogle af os gik ud på egen hånd og hyggede os på en ølstue, var der fremmede mennesker, som absolut ville give en omgang, når de hørte os tale udenlandsk. Folk var indladende og vennesæle og ville meget gerne snakke og spørge og diskutere og give ud på os. De måltider, vi fik serveret på hotellet, var festmåltider, og vi fik kun nogle gange lejlighed til at prøve den almindelige daglige kost i kantiner og marketenderier, den var forøvrigt kraftig nok, russerne er meget spisende, og når man ser mængden af lækre og raffinerede kager i konditorierne, forstår man, at de russiske piger bliver buttede ligesom wienerinderne i gamle dage. Vi måtte vise en vis tilbageholdenhed ved måltiderne for ikke at vokse ud af vores tøj. Danskerne ynder at beskrive mad, men jeg skal ikke gå i enkeltheder. Efter den femte ret blev der gerne serveret en dejlig kraftig suppe med pirogi — runde udhulede brød, fyldt med hachis — og så begyndte det hele forfra. Når tjeneren, efter at vi havde fået tre desserter, serverede kaffen og dertil frembar en kæmpe kage af koncentreret mandelmasse og smørcreme, og man bønfaldende værgede for sig, så han på en med faderlig bekymring og lagde et særligt stort styke af den lækre kage på tallerkenen. Det sidste kraftige måltid fik vi gerne ved et-tiden om natten, når vi udmattede vendte hjem fra en opera eller ballet.

Dagen var så optaget, at man måtte lave sit private skriftlige arbejde om natten. Alfred Jensen og jeg delte et stort værelse på hotellet, og vi sad tidt klokken tre eller fire om morgenen og skrev vores foredrag, mens det blev lys udenfor. På bordet havde vi et enormt skrivetøj, der var som et tempel med kupler og skulpturer, altfor indviklet til at kunne bruges; vi så den slags pompøse skriveredskaber mange steder og forstod, at de var meget yndede. Når man omsider blev så søvnig, at sorte pletter dansede for øjnene, og tilstanden nærmede sig afmagt, måtte man opgive skriveriet, og de timers søvn, man fik, var dyb og fast og skulle slå til for lang tid.

Det er en mærkelig fornemmelse at vågne til en udsigt over Den røde plads. At trække gardinerne fra vinduet og se Kreml i morgensolen, mens gaderne bliver spulet med brandslanger. Natten før den første maj var vi blevet forstyrret i vores dybe søvn af et underligt og ubehageligt spektakel. Det var tankafdelinger fra den røde hær, som skulle deltage i majparaden, der kørte frem. Om morgenen lød der musik fra gaden, demonstrationstogene var ved at sille op, og i ventetiden dansede folk til harmonika og balalajka og tudehorn, pyntede og morgenfriske. Pladsen og kvarteret omkring Kreml var afspærret, og i de tilstødende gader stimede demonstranterne med flag og bannere og billeder og blomster. Arbejderne fra de virksomheder, som bedst havde opfyldt planen, skulle gå forrest.

Til den danske delegation var der reserveret pladser på en tribune foran Kreml-muren. Til venstre havde vi Lenins mausolæum, på hvis terrasser Stalin og andre af regeringens medlemmer ville stå under demonstrationen. Vi havde pladser sammen med den franske delegation, som anførtes af digteren og fredsvennen Paul Eluard. Mellem os og mausolæet var delegationerne fra folkedemokratierne og den talstærke kinesiske delegation i ensartede blå dragter.

Jeg har senere læst i danske aviser, at militærparaden på majdagen i Moskva havde varet i seks timer. Det er ikke rigtigt. Vi tog nøjagtig tid og kan bevidne, at militærets forbidefilering varede i tre kvarter. Ryttere, fodfolk, matroser, faldskærmsfolk, tanks i alle størrelser, kanoner og stalinorgler passerede forbi, mens et orkester på et par tusind mand spillede sovjethymnen, og Kremls gamle kanoner saluterede. Flyvemaskiner drønede hen over himlen i formationer, store bombemaskiner og skinnende jet-jagere, som røg forbi i et skrækkelige sus, så man blev svimmel og med ubehag tænkte på, at man i morgen tidlig skulle op og flyve. Nøjagtig tre kvarter varede det hele. Det var en meget imponerende opvisning, men ikke noget overvældende opbud af våbenmagt. Den civile demonstration varede derimod i syv timer. Allerforest i en lille flok med store røde silkefaner genkendte vi vor ven Rossijskij fra fabriken Kaliber, han kom lidt foroverbøjet med lange skridt og den vældige fane over skulderen. Og så myldrede folk ind over pladsen. Det var ikke nogen taktfast march. En halv snes kolonner mødtes, så geledderne i demonstrationstoget blev på omkring hundrede mennesker, unge og gamle, mænd og kvindet og børn. Med flag og plakater og papirblomster og kulørte balloner. Med harmonikaer og mandoliner, syngende og råbende og vinkende. Der var ikke noger uniformerer eller ensrettet ved dette mylder. Det var simpelthen folket, som fejrede sin store festdag. Denne begejstring kunne ikke være indstuderer eller ordnet. Det var så rydeligt at se, at bannerne og billederne og de mange smukke og rørende og mærkelige arrangementer med papirblomster og bånd var selvlavede og meget individuelle. Der var tusinder af billeder af Marx og Engels og Lenin og Stalin, kæmpestore billeder, som måtte bæres af mange og understøttes med barduner og ganske små billeder, man kunne se, at en hel del af disse billeder simpelthen var skilderier med ramme, som man havde taget ned fra væggen hjemme eller i bedrifterne og førte med sig i optoget. Der var også mange billeder af Mao Tse-tung og kendte mænd fra folkedemokratierne, og man blev bevæget ved at se, at den myrdede Ernst Thälmann ikke var glemt her i Moskva, vi så hans billede flere gange, og Erik Stahl oversatte indskriptionerne for os: Minde om Thälmann og Ernst Thälmann er ikke glemt.

Time efter time strømmede mennesker ind over pladsen. Sportsfolk og gymnaster i kulørte trøjer, skolepiger med deres hvide forklæder, bønder fra omegnens kolkhoser, skuespillerforbundet, forfatterforeningen, kunstnere, studenter og arbejdere fra Moskvas hundreder af fabrikker og kontorer, familier, kvinder med små børn, gamle bedstemødre. Alle mulige musikinstrumenter var i gang, og der blev råbt og skreget og viftet med tørklæder og papirblomster, og sommetider gav børnene slip på deres balloner, så de små kulørte kugler gik til vejrs og forsvandt mellem Kremls spir. Det mest brogede og afvekslende og uensartede, man kan tænke sig. Et humør og en fest og en jubel, som kulminerede, når man nåede frem til Stalin, som også lo og vinkele.

Vi regnede ud, at der måtte passere ca. 300.000 mennesker i timen. Ialt har der vel demonstreret et par millioner. Blandt alle inskriptioner og paroler var der een ting, som stadig gik igen: Kampen for freden. Eet ord, som vi hurtigt lærte udenad, ordet: Fred. Denne demonstration var et råb på fred.

Nu kan man jo mene om fred, hvad man vil. Jeg er klar over, at hos os er der flere, som mener, at fred er ej det bedste, og en åndfuld skribent ved et radikalt blad kan naturligvis, når bladet forlanger det, frebringe mange udsøgte sarkasmer om fredens tilhængere; det er jo ikke alle, der er så plumpe som Berlingske Tidendes redaktør, der ligefrem indsamler underskrifter mod freden. Men enten man nu kan lide fred eller ikke, så må det nødvendigvis indrømmes, så intensiv fredspropaganda, som den, der drives i Sovjetunionen, ville være lidet hensigtsmæssig, hvis dette land havde i sinde at begynde en angrebskrig. En sådan fredens mentalitet kan ikke være ønskværdig hos et erobrerfolk. Hvis Sovjetunionen blev styret af diktatorer, som forberedte krig og overfald, ville man ikke tillade disse millioner at råbe på fred.

Efter alle de brogode og forvirrede indtryk, som denne dag overvældede os med, er det, der bliver tilbage, en stærk følelse af, at det vældige opbud var en tilkendegivelse for fred mod krig. En alvorlig overbevisning om detre muntre folks stædige fredsvilje. Det var dagens opmuntrende lære.

Efter den timelange demonstration dansede folk i gaderne. Det var som på Bastilledagen i Paris. Alle cafeer og restauranter var overfyldte. VOKS foreslog en eller anden forestilling, vi skulle se, men de fleste af os nægtede at gå til nogen forestilling. Vi ville ud i byen. Vi ville drive rundt i de menneskefyldre gader og opleve folkets fest. Vi drev fra sted til sted, og vi blev venner med til fældige mennesker. Jeg erindrer nogle azerbaidjanere, som inviterede på grusisk vin. Jeg erindrer en dirigent i et georgisk orkester, som sendte vinflasker til vores bord. Jeg erindrer mange mærkelige ting, og jeg har også glemt en hel del. Moskva var strålende illumineret. Lyskasterne spillede mod himlen i store bundter, hvide og violette. Et kæmpefyrværkeri lyste og bragede over byen, og folk sang og dansede og spillede på de underligste instrumenter.

Vi blev vækket meget tidligt næste morgen af hotellets telefon. Man ventede os i spisesalen med tykmælk og skinke og mange spejlæg og fisk og pølse og kogende te. Og så kørte vi afsted i voldsom fart ad den lange brede vej til lufthavnen, hvorfra vi skulle flyve til Kijev.

  1. Delegation member Alfred Jensen served as Minister of Transport for the Communist Party of Denmark in the so-called “Liberation Cabinet” lasting from the end of Nazi occupation of Denmark on May 5th until November 7th 1945. ↩︎

  2. The “radical paper” in question is most likely the centre-left mainstream broadsheet Politiken which has long been politically close to Denmark’s “Radical Left” party, a moderate right-wing party. ↩︎

  3. The Stockholm Appeal calling for an unconditional ban on nuclear weapons was passed by the World Peace Council in April 1950. Around 135,000 Danes signed the appeal. Denmark’s Atlanticist and anti-communist press denounced the appeal as Soviet propaganda. The reactionary broadsheet Berlingske Tidende ran a campaign against the appeal, printing a daily “double coupon” in the paper. Signatories of the Stockholm Appeal could clip the coupon, fill it in, and withdraw their signature, one half would be sent to “The Adherents Of Peace”, the Danish organisers of the appeal, while the other half would be kept by Berlingske Tidende. Some 15,000 people withdrew their signatures in this way. ↩︎