The following translation of an article appearing in the Soviet magazine Ogonek was made by Kent Geiger, an assistant professor of sociology at Tufts and presently a Research Fellow in the Harvard Russian Research Center. Geiger was the leader of the Experiment in International Living sub-group of the 41 U. S. students visiting Russia as part of the Cultural Exchange Program. Several Harvard and Radcliffe students were on the exchange; some are quoted in the article, although Geiger warns that such quotes, like other elements, have been skillfully distorted. Geiger's summary, which points up some of the chief themes is included at the end, as is a reply to the article by a former Radcliffe student (see box)

On November 23, 1958 the Soviet Magazine, Ogonek, which has a format and circulation in the U.S.S.R. roughly comparable to that of Life in the U.S.A., published an article entitled "We Visit Them; They Visit Us." It describes the reciprocal tours of student and youth groups which were among the activities provided for by the cultural exchange agreement between the American and Soviet Governments concluded in January, 1958. The first such exchange in the spring of 1958 consisted of small parties of student newspaper editors. The second was on a larger scale, involving 41 Americans who were in the U.S.S.R. for 39 days and 20 Soviet young people who spent 30 days in the U.S.A. during the summer of 1958.

The article, which is very unfavorable to America, was written by Anatole Valiuzhenich, a member of the student editor group which visited the U.S.A. He was also assigned by the Committee of Youth Organizations of the U.S.S.R. to assist the American exchange group which visited the U.S.S.R. during July and August, 1958.

This translation of the article has been made in order to give English speaking readers a chance to inspect a compact but rich and skillfully presented array of negative images and ideas about America. The article is a particularly powerful one because it presents America in the most concrete form, that is, in specific episodes and in the words and actions of actual organizations and individual Americans who are identified by name.

This kind of article cannot be said to be typical of the Soviet press treatment of the exchange program to date. At least some of the accounts which I have seen in Soviet publications have been quite devoid of the bias shown in this one....

"We Visit Them"

"Now we are going to the slaughterhouses, a visit I was able to arrange, at your request, but with some difficulty," Walter Clemens said.

We were so thankful to our guide that we did not even ask him exactly what difficulties he had met with. We were not satisfied with the cursory inspection of the Boston metalworking plant, "Choiser and Schluger," and the Chicago steelcasting "Saut Work," and it would have been very annoying not to visit the famous Chicago slaughterhouses, about which we had heard and read so much.

"You are now in the Chicago slaughterhouses, of Armour!" Ted Spear greets us. He is a tall, lean, middle aged man. "I represent the management and am responsible for public relations."

Ted Spear proposes that we begin the inspection of the slaughterhouses immediately.

"Please leave your cameras at the passageway," our hospitable host adds. "Okay?"

We turn our cameras over to two local trade union workers who in turn give us white robes, and we follow after the rapidly moving Ted Spear.

"In the Armour slaughterhouses 660 hogs and 220 head of cattle are slaughtered every hour. Live stock comes to us, and leaves us as sausages, semi-finished products, and canned meat."

We are hardly able to keep up with Ted Spear. He does not stop in the workshops, and he talks on the run, quickly and crisply. One remembers only the shop preparing pork cutlets. Women work here. Silent, unsmiling, strained faces. Their hands automatically are raised and then lowered, again raised and with difficulty chop off a piece of meat from the inexorably moving carcasses on the conveyor belt. Blood runs down on the dirty, pock-marked cement floor. The monotonous humming of the conveyor, the hoarse breathing of the women meat workers, and the stagnant stench of the poorly ventilated premises....

"Please don't linger, and don't bother the workers with questions. They are not permitted to talk during work hours. All questions in my office," comes from our guide as he hurries us along.