The Provincial Lady in Russia: I Visit the Soviets

Delafield's American publisher suggested that she go to Russia and write something funny about life on a collective farm. She needed the money so, against all inclination, she went. She travels with an odd assortment of people, most of them specialists of some description, but some of them, like the lost and aristocratic Miss D, just interested in finding out what's going on and reporting back to their friends and acquaintances.

Delafield struggles to be fair about life in the Soviet Union, but she's depressed by the lack of freedom, the lack of privacy, the crowded conditions and, most importantly, by the fate of the Romanovs. Her travelling companions occupy two extremes: they love everything Soviet and think that this is the best of show more all possible worlds, or they loathe absolutely everything and everyone.

Intourist controls the places the tourists visit and the people they speak to so tightly that few of the experts are able to accomplish the research they had planned. Indeed, so repetitious and uninformative are most of the set visits that Delafield writes mainly about her travelling companions.

"One can only congratulate the Government on the thoroughness with which it has seen to it that everyone coming into contact with foreign visitors upholds the theory that Soviet Russia has attained to earthly perfection within the last twenty years and has no longer anything to learn."

"Stories filter through, from time to time... Of people who try to get away and can't - of people who are serving long terms of forced labour, as prisoners...

This book was first published in 1937, a time when many British intellectuals were great supporters of the Soviet Union. Delafield was not one of them. show less

Although this nonfiction account by E.M. Delafield (pen name of Elizabeth Dashwood) of her six-month sojourn in the Soviet Union is not really part of the Provincial Lady series, it’s packaged with the four true Provincial Lady novels in The Provincial Lady Complete Series (a steal at 99 cents!). The original title was I Visit the Soviets, and you’ll know to not expect any adventures including Vicky, Robin, husband Robert, her household of demanding servants or Delafield’s offbeat friends and neighbors.

While less charming that the proper Provincial Lady novels, this book is eye-opening in his details of Stalinist Soviet Union (although, of course, no one knew the worst until the rise of Nikita Khrushchev). Even so, Delafield show more laments the shortages, drabness, incompetence, deprivations, extensive lines, undrinkable water, terrible restaurants and food, and worse transit.

An enjoyable read; just don’t go into it expecting humor, sweetness and light. show less

I feel E M Delafield was marvellously intrepid and very brave to not only visit Russia but to spend time on a collective farm while she was there. It must have been hard to find anything amusing to say about Russia at this time, although she tries in her inimitable way. She is honest about the situation in that period and her visit to the collective farm, where she lived for a short time, really illustrates how ghastly it must have been.

Like the other Provincial Lady books, this follows the carefully observed life and inner workings of a genteel British mother in the 1930s. Unlike the other books, this isn't actually funny. Her tales of early Soviet Russia are interesting at first, but tend to repeat themselves. This frank and detailed look at the intersection of British and Soviet cultures, and the equally frank debate about communism and equality, makes this an interesting document. It's not a great read, though.

A thoroughly interesting book about one woman's experiences in Communist Russia in the early 1930's. I visited the Soviet Union in 1987 and I can report that Intourist operated in exactly the same (ineffectual) manner then as it did during the time of Delafield's visit!