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4+ the temporary set-
*ks, the work of the Bolshoi
allet School] continued.

The two of them were nine

years old when they were
chosen by a Bolshoi ballet

commission to enter the school,
they in their turn
sit on a similar commission to

and today

}

OOl.

What has Soviet power
meant to these two young dan-
cers? In their short profes-
sional careers they have. al-
ready performed in 17 coun-
tries outside the Soviet Union
and have just returned from a
South America.

tour in

“See our stage,” said Stru-
chkova with expressive ges-
tures of her beautiful hands
and arms. “See the facilities
we have for work and leisure.
We have no need to worry
about where the next pair of
ballet shoes is to come from.
Nowhere in the world has a
ballet dancer such facilities for
developing. and _ perfecting
their art free from all eco-
nomic worries.

“Nor does dancer have
to worry about what is to hap-
pen when their dancing days
are over. After 20 years work,
say at the age of 38, a dancer
can retire on a comfortable
pension if they so desire.

“But none do this, of course,
for there is every possibility of
continuing work, teaching,
training, developing another
generation of dancers, either
at the Bolshoi or in one of the

any

The small fry are happy that CBUT is again showing the
This shot shows the Canadian

explorer locked in combat with a TV Cree brave.

British writer

many other ballet schools and
theatres in the Soviet Union.

“We have seen theatres all
over Europe,” she continued,
“and we know what conditions
are like there. Of course there
are wonderful dancers in these
countries, including Britain’s
own incomparable Margot
Fonteyn.

“In many of these theatres
the audience sit in luxury, but
few of them think of what
happens .on the other side of
the curtain or know under
what impossible conditions
some of these artists have to
work.”

Struchkova warmed to her
subject, and her eyes sparkled
as she went on to tell of the
way in which the Bolshoi,
basing itself on the finest tra-
ditions of the old Russian bal-
let, has developed that art, in-
troducing new ballets and new
composers with special atten-
tion, cf course, to Soviet com-
posers.

Here Lapauri, .an outstand-
ing ballet dancer in his own
right, interrupted to point out
that the Soviet Union is the
only country in the world with
a special institute for training
ballet producers. He himself is
now studying at that institute
as well as continuing his
vareer as a dancer.

Once again I was struck, as
I have been when speaking to
so many other Soviet pople
leading in their own, particular
field, at the extreme modesty
of this young couple, in spite
of their great successes.

Both of them were, up to the
age of 30, members of the
Soviet youth organization the
Consomol, and they told me
how much that organization
had helped them in their work,
broadening their horizons and
taking them down a peg or
two when they were in dan-
ger of getting swollen-headed.

I asked Struchkova if she
had ever had such a taking-
down. She laughed and said:
“Of course, and it did me a
power of good.”

It happened on one of the
first occasions during her sec-
ond year at the theatre when
she took the part of Maria: in
the ballet “Fountain of Bak-
chisaarai.”

She forgot her cue at one
point in the second act and
wrecked the show. At a meet-
ing of the Consomol after-
wards all the youngsters in the
theatre took her to task and
told her that the trouble was
she was getting too big for her
boots.

“T have never forgotten that
lesson,” she told me, “and I
shall always be grateful to my
young colleagues in the Con-
somo] for that lesson.”

SAM RUSSELL

boon:

* Margot Fonteyn and Michael Soames (above), celebrated

stars of the Royal Sadlers’ Wells Ballet, perform in the
classic Sleeping Beauty, which will be one of the ballets pre-
sented by the company when it visits Vancouver next month.

BOOKS

Bertrand Russell's book
truth mixed with rubbish

Y OWN VIEW on religion
M is that of Lucretius. I re-
gard it as a disease born of
fear and as a source of un-
told misery to the human race.
I cannot, however, deny that it
has made some contributions
to civilization...

With these words Bertrand
Russell opens the second chap-
ter of Why I am not a Chris-
tian and Other Essays on Re-
ligion and Religious Subjects.

It is interesting to compare
this estimate of religion with
that of Engels. Engels wrote
of “the religious swindle,”
called religion “the fantastic
refleciion of human things in
the human mind,” and describ-
ed it as based on “a prehis-
toric stock of what we should
today call bunk,’ due to low

economic development and
false conceptions of nature.
On the face of it the two

conceptions look alike. And yet
there is a difference.
approached the matter as a
sociologist and traced religion
to its roots in human history.

Russell approaches it as a
logician and, finding retigion
irrational, heaves it overboard
without asking what were the
material conditions that made
people adopt it.

The result is that in this
book a great deal of truth is

Engels

mixed with a great deal of rub-
bish. He says with perfect jus
tification that religion is ™
many ways an obstacle to hu-
man happiness, that the Vati-
can upholds capitalism and
condemns Socialism, __ that
Christianity has a warped at-
titude to sex, and that all this |
obscurantism rests on dog
mas unsupported by evidence |
and often self-contradictory.
Well and good! But how did
people come to swallow un a
supported and self-contradic”
tory dogmas? '
Russell cannot say. He cad”
only wring his hands 2
them, and wish that people —
would be open-minded scePe)
tics like himself. a
Yet is Russell after, all 927
openminded? An open mind of
everything is impossible. Rus’
sell, for example, has a “dow?
on people who talk of right
eousness or unrighteousnes> —
Does Russell then think th?
everybody should do as h
likes? Of course not. He see?
like all of us, that some sort
of conduct must be encourage? |
and others prevented. y
Once you grant tha‘, does ity
make much difference wheth” |
er you use the words “ight
eous” and “unrighteous,” oF
simply “right” and wrong?”
A. ROBERTSO:

November 22, 1957 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 8

over |