Billington Discusses Impressions Of Living Conditions in U.S.S.R.

The creativity and spirit inherent in the Russian people have not been completely submerged by life under the Communist regime, said James H. Billington, assistant professor of History, last night in a talk at Christ Church.

Discussing his visit to the Soviet Union last summer, Billington noted that one of the chief aims of leading scientists and technicians "is to get rid of the dreary, somber, Moscovite style of architecture." This is not a mere detail, he explained, but the only way "they can assert the value of human considerations."

Soviet writers, he continued, produce creative works which the world never sees. He explained that much of their writing is done "for the drawer," to be read only by a few other literary people.

Billington, an expert on Russian studies, said that he has a notebook full of the jokes of the Russian people. "Their humor usually plays with official party slogans," he pointed out.

To illustrate typical Soviet humor, he related a story popular in Russia this summer. Khrushchev, he said, was marking a tour of Soviet farms and hired a peasant to sit on top of Moscow towers to watch for the advent of true Communism which would replace the present "preliminary, benevolent" Soviet state.

Several weeks later, when an American in Moscow asked the peasant to sit on the top of the Statue of Liberty watching for crises in capitalism, the latter replied, "I would never give up a permanent job for a temporary one."

"Harsh Geometric Patterns"

Billington's first impression of Russia was on his plane trip, when he noticed a contrast between the "harsh geometric patterns of the collective farms and the rugged, almost mystical beauty of the landscape."

His second impression came as he landed in Leningrad late in the afternoon, before the street lights were turned on, when the town was a dark gray. "The workers emerged from the metro and entered their cracker-box houses looking like small ants," he observed.