This Soviet World.
First Edition of Strong’s Study of Communism in the USSR
Strong, Anna Louise. This Soviet World. New York: Henry Holt and Company, (1936).
8vo.; red cloth, stamped in black; red topstain; spine faded; light wear to extremities; black, white, and red illustrated dust-jacket.
First edition. Strong wrote This Soviet World after spending 15 years living in the USSR and observing the daily lives of its citizens. The subtitle of the book is “Men make the Soviet World, The Soviet World Makes Men,” and Strong devotes several chapters to the psychology of the Communist Party and its positive effects on national identity and the labor force. She also examines the role of women in the Soviet system, concluding that women in the USSR are actually more liberated than women anywhere else in the world. In the chapter entitled “The Freeing of Women,” Strong notes that Soviet women “receive equal pay for equal work and no jobs are closed to them. They have equal opportunity in education and in government. They have equal rights and duties in marriage; they are free to have or not to have children. They have full political, economic, legal, and social equality, as human beings and citizens” (p. 196).
Strong describes the lives of several of the women she has met over the years:
Policewoman Lily travels fearlessly through dark woods about the city to round up criminal gangs…Black-eyed Katya is a street-conductor, with the best record among the twenty-seven woman conductors of Tver…All the young men admire Nina, eighteen-year-old glider pilot, who three days a week sails through the air on light wings…Zoya is champion motor mechanic in a clothing factory and also chairman of its shop committee… Marusia is studying to be a doctor…Dusia was the first female chauffeur in the city; the boys used to run after her yelling “girl driver.” One by one the girls of Tver have conquered every trade and profession. So have women throughout the USSR. (p. 203).
This Soviet World was one of many books Strong wrote about the benefits of living in a Communist society – other titles include China’s Millions (New York: Coward-McCann, 1928) and her best-selling autobiography I Change Worlds: The Remaking of an American (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1935).
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