I9o HUMAN LIFE IN RUSSIA
It should be added that in cases where the Soviet Govern-
ment desires to prevent foreign correspondents from obtaining
first-hand information about the position^ it simply prohibits
them from moving outside Moscow,1 But it is confirmed on all
hands that Moscow is a positive Eldorado compared with the
rest of Soviet Russia, and this is especially true with regard to
living conditions for foreign journalists and diplomatists. And
even if a Moscow correspondent obtains the Kremlin's per-
mission to travel in the provinces, he is invariably confined to
the routes and to the provincial centres specially designed for
tourist traffic. Naturally enough^ reports of such journeys are
restricted to impressions from sleeping-cars and dining cars—
for example^ on the famous route from Moscow to the Caucasus
via Kharkov and Rostov^ or the lines to the big provincial centres.
By the side of this group of journalists who are compelled
to pass over the gloomy side of Soviet realities with vague
allusions j while reporting in full detail the record achievements
of the regime in art, music and science, there is another and a
deliberately misleading group who do not hesitate to spread
untruthful reports about Russian conditions.
Another method which Moscow is now compelled to adopt
in order to prevent the truth from being known abroad is the
elimination of the last permanent foreign eyewitnesses of
events in the south, e.g. by the dissolution of the Drusag^
and by refusing to renew the contracts of foreign specialists.
Apart from all this, all foreigners visiting Russia are more
rigorously treated, for it is thought undesirable to have a
repetition of the incidents of 1933, when men like Malcolm
Muggeridge, Harry Lang and Gareth Jones succeeded ia
evading the vigilance of their guardians.
The chief measure, however* is to refuse permission to
leave the country to Soviet citizens desiring to visit relatives
abroad. Attempts to escape are treated as crimes: the inhabi-
tants of the Soviet Union are like mediaeval serfs tied down
to a definite territory.
1 A decree to tbis effect was issued in the summer of 1933.