When Kalinin rides through the provinces on his propaganda train carrying stocks of literature, a motion picture apparatus and his official seal, with the outside “done” by some futurist artist in garish colors and depicting a millennium in which Kalinin would not be at home, he is “Comrade” Kalinin to the whole train; he takes his meals with the train crew, the porters and the secretaries; all share alike. But the remarkable thing is that when he gets back to Moscow he makes no effort to shake the dust of the provinces from his boots, he rather makes a point of remaining distinctly a villager. He receives you in his Moscow office wearing the same old mended spectacles, the same threadbare coat and, I am sure, the same heart and mind. He brings the country along with him, invades the city with it, permeates it, overcomes it.... This attitude is characteristic not only of Kalinin, it is characteristic of any peasant. I have often noted the delegates at the Congresses. They are neither shy nor bewildered, they sit solemnly in their places in the great hall, pondering all that Lenin says of trade or reconstruction, approving or disapproving; getting closer every day to the idea that Russia is theirs. It is generally believed that the line between the city workers and the peasants is wide and irreconcilable, whereas there is actually no line at all. The city workers are only peasants who have gone to the city just as Kalinin did, when they could not make a living in the villages. Russian peasants never get over being farmers. Last winter I came upon an excellent example: Some three hundred skilled Russian mechanics from Detroit arrived in Moscow; they were sorely needed in the Russian factories. Without a single exception they refused to remain in the city! And when they learned that they might be conscripted and forced to stay they fled hurriedly in every direction. With one voice they exclaimed, “We came home to the land!” Naturally, the government was in despair; officials were at a loss as to what measures could be taken to bring pressure and a sense of duty upon the returning Russians. Orators were sent to argue with the next group, but without success. The only solution the government found workable was to organize them before they arrived; to see that they brought tools from America and came with the definite idea of remaining in the cities for a fixed period; for only the country is real to the peasant, the city is forever an artificial, unhealthy invention.