– I’m Back From Moscow Le Devoir (1952) #2

Source:  Le Devoir, June 16th, 1952.  Second article in a series by Pierre Elliott Trudeau on his return from the 1952 Moscow Economic Summit.

“Je reviens de Moscou”	“I’m Back from Moscow”
Premières rencontres	First encounters
Comment je passe en Russie — Chaude réception — Un plan de Moscou?… — Des vieux dans les églises — Balle de neige sur le Petit Père	How I got to Russia — Warm reception — A plan of Moscow? — Old folks in the churches — A snowball for Stalin
par Pierre Elliott-Trudeau	by Pierre Elliott-Trudeau
— II —	— II —
“Le moi est haïssable” (Pascal)	“The ego is hateful” (Pascal)
Si la souplesse d’un système administratif peut s’apprécier à son habileté à resoudre le cas particulier, je dois marquer quelques points au crédit des Soviétiques, car je suis un cas particulier incarné et ambulant.  Plutôt que de prendre l’avion Paris-Prague-Moscou comme tous ceux qui partaient de la France, j’imaginai d’aller en train via Autriche.	If the flexibility of an administrative system can be appreciated according to its skill in solving the particular case, I must credit the Soviets with a few points, because I am an incarnated particular case, and travelling.  Rather than take the Paris-Prague-Moscow plane like all those who departed via France, I imagined going by train via Austria.
Des raisons que la raison ignore me firent aboutir à Linz, à la limite de la zone américaine.  Il s’agissait alors de traverser cent milles de territoire soviétique pour arriver à la frontiere tchèque, et je demandai aux autorités les permis nécessaires.	For reasons which I forget, I went as far as Linz, at the boundary of the American zone.  It was then a matter of travelling a hundred miles over Soviet territory to reach the Czech frontier, and I asked the authorities for the necessary permits.
Les Français soutinrent que c’était impossible.  Les Britanniques me proposèrent une alternative d’ailleurs parfaitement impracticable.  Les Américains me conseillèrent de tenter la chance en prédisant que je m’éveillerais dans les mines de la Sibérie.  Force m’était donc de m’adresser aux Soviétiques.	The French affirmed it was impossible.  The British proposed an alternative moreover perfectly impracticable.  The Americans advised me to tempt fate, predicting that I would awaken in the mines of Siberia.  I had no choice then but to speak to the Soviets.
Je passe !	I’m in !
Je traversai le Danube; aussitôt happé par l’engrenage militaire, je franchis vite la distance qui me séparait de la commandantur.  Là, il me restait à m’expliquer avec un officier russe qui parlait un allemand aussi boiteux que le mien.  Surprise!  il me laissa passer sans la moindre formalité.  Et je songeât que le Danube à Linz était large de la distance entre Washington et Moscou, et qu’on ignorerait complètement d’un côté ce qui se passait de l’autre.	I crossed the Danube; as soon as I was picked by the military apparatus, I quickly covered the distance which separated me from the command.  Then, I was left to explain myself to a Russian officer who spoke a German as halting as my own.  Surprise!   He let me pass without the least formality.  And I had thought that from the Danube to Linz was as far as the distance from Washington to Moscow, and that one side would be completely unaware of what went on on the other.
Arrivé à Prague à trois heures du matin, et seul voyageur venant d’Autriche, j’escomptais bien prendre quelqu’un au dépourvu.  Point du tout.nbsp; On me reçut à la gare, me logea magnifiquement, me nourrit, me procura le visa soviétique, et m’expédia vers Moscou avec une rapidité et une courtoisie exemplaires.	Arrived at Prague at three a.m., and the only traveller coming from Austria, I quite expected to catch someone at a disadvantage.  Not at all.  I was received at the station, magnificiently lodged and fed, obtained the Soviet visa, and was dispatched toward Moscow with exemplary speed and courtesy.
Moscou	Moscow
À Moscou, la machine continua admirablement à résoudre mon cas.  (Mais attendons la fin! …)	In Moscow, the machine continued admirably to solve my case.   (But wait for the punch line! …)
Arrivé quatre jours trop tôt à la Conférence, je fus reçu à bras ouverts et installé au nouvel Hôtel Sovietskaia, véritable chef-d’oeuvre de style parvenu.	Arrived four days too early for the Conference, I was received with open arms and installed in the new Hotel Sovietskaia, a true masterpiece of nouveau riche style.
L’on mit une interprète, un chauffeur et une Ziss (surprenante imitation d’une Chrysler de luxe) à ma disposition, et m’ayant invité à prendre possession de la ville, on fut un peu déroulé quand je demandai un plan de Moscou (du reste absolument introuvable, et aussi tabou que les caméras), et indiquai ma préférence pour les balades pédestres et solitaires.	An interpreter, a chauffeur and a Ziss (surprising imitation of a Chrysler de luxe)1 were placed at my disposal, and having invited me to take possession of the city, they came a bit unwound when I asked for a plan of Moscow (absolutely untraceable, and as taboo as cameras), and indicated my preference for secluded footpaths.
Il faut dire qu’on ne m’y encouragea point et qu’on fit tout pour organiser mon temps.  Mais par ailleurs on ne me gêna nullement; une seule fois j’eus le plaisir de me moquer d’un type qui me filait, mais il pouvait aussi bien être un badaud qu’un flie.  Et comme j’arrivai assez bien à me débrouiller avec le métro et les autobus, je pus aller où je voulais dans Moscou.	It should be said that no encouragement was given to this end, and that all was done to organize my time.  But on the other hand, by no means was I obstructed; I had the pleasure only once of mocking a fellow who was tailing me, but it could just as well have been a gawker as a tracker.  And as I managed rather well to navigate the subway and the buses, I could go anywhere I wanted in Moscow.
À la Messe !	To Mass!
J’annoncai mon intention d’aller à la messe le dimanche de la Passion.  On parut un peu étonné que je crusse encore à ces balivernes, mais apres quelques coups de téléphone on me donna les renseignements concernant le lieu et l’heure.  J’allai quatre dimanches à la messe, en trois lieux différents, durant mon séjour en Urss.  J’entrai aussi dans une synagogue et de nombreuses églises orthodoxes.  D’autres délégues m’ont rapporté qu’ils étaient allés dans des mitaines protestantes.	I announced my intention to go to Mass on Easter Sunday.  They seemed somewhat astonished that I still believed in all this nonsense2, but after some telephone calls I was given the information concerning the place and time.  I went to Mass on four Sundays, in three different places during my stay in the U.S.S.R..  I also entered a synagogue and numerous orthodox churches.  Other delegates told me they had visited Protestant meeting places.
Or, les jours de grande fete, ces temples sont remplis à craquer, — mais uniquement de vieillards.  La liberté de culte n’est donc pas éteinte; mais faute d’instruction religieuse cette chrétienté est amputée de sa jeunesse.  Sauf en Georgie toutefois, où les jeunes paraissent encore assez dévots./b>	Now, on high feast days, these temples are filled to bursting — but only by the elderly.  Freedom of religion is therefore not extinct; but for want of religious instruction this Christendom is cut off from youth.  Except in Georgia, however, where the young seem still rather devout.
Je continuai de demander toutes sortes de permissions particulières.  Je voulais assister à des procès, parler avec des prêtres, étudier les bases économiques du Gosplan, rencontrer des universitaires, etc. …  Rien ne me fut refusé, bien que le moi continuât d’être haïssable, voir insolent.	I continued to ask for all kinds of particular permissions.   I wanted to attend at court trials, to speak with priests, to study the economic bases of the Gosplan, to meet academics, etc. …   Nothing was denied me, although I continued to be hateful, even brazen.
Je commets un sacrilège	I commit a sacrilege
Je questionnai le juge sur son salaire et son train de vie.  Je fis subir aux académiciens un examen sur les doctrines économiques.  Je narguai les syndicalistes sur l’impossibilité de faire la grève.  Dans les Kolkhoz, je m’intéressai aux mesures des paysans plutôt qu’aux écuries modernes.   Je me détachais sans cesse du groupe qui visitait le Kremlin, ouvrant des portes et suivant les couloirs dans l’espoir de trouver quelque belle icône.	I questioned the judge on his wages and his lifestyle.  I subjected academicians to an examination on economic doctrines.  I taunted trade unionists on the impossibility of striking.  In the Kolkhoz, I was interested in the methods of the peasants rather than in the modern stables.  I perpetually detached myself from the group which visited the Kremlin, opening doors and following corridors in the hope of coming upon some beautiful icon.
Une autre fois, impressionné de voir de par la ville et la campagne dans les lieux publics et même les privés, des effigies, des bustes, des statues, des photos, des peintures, des gravures, des mosaïques, des broderies, des bas-relief, des haut-relief, des carton-pâtes, des ébènes, des ivoires, des marbres, des grains de riz sculptés et que sais-je, représentant le Père des Peuples, l’Idole des Masses ouvrières, le Dirigeant du Socialisme universel, le Libérateur des Opprimés, le Chef du Camp de la Paix, le Philosophe de l’Histoire, le Guide des Démocrates, le Sage, l’Éminent, le Doux, le Dur, l’Infaillible, le Grand Camarade Staline, je lancai affectueusement une balle de neige sur une statue où il était représenté en une attitude particulièrement bienveillante.	On another occasion, impressed with seeing all over town and country in public and even in private places, effigies, busts, statues, bas-reliefs, alto-relievos, paste-boards, mahoganies, ivories, marbles, sculpted grains of rice and for all I know representing the Father of Peoples, the Idol of the Working Masses, the Leader of Universal Socialism, the Liberator of the Oppressed, the Head of the Peace Camp, the Philosopher of History, the Guide of Democrats, the Sage, the Eminent, the Mild, the Hard, the Infallible, the Great Comrade Stalin3, I affectionately launched a snowball at a statue where he had been rendered with an especially benevolent expression.4
Scandale!  mais mes hôtes en exprimèrent de la douleur plutôt que de la colère.  Et je pus continuer à parler de Tito et de Tomski, de demander les oeuvres de Trotski dans les bibliothèques, et, généralement, de parler de corde dans la maison du pendu.	Scandal!  But my hosts expressed pain rather than anger.  And I was able to continue to speak of Tito and of Tomski, to ask for the works of Trotsky in the libraries, and, generally, to speak of rope in the house of the hanged.
MARDI:  Un peuple sympathique, mais conventionnel jusqu’à la nausée.	TUESDAY:  A sympathetic people, but conventional to the point of nausea.

 

Translator’s Notes

¹  The Chrysler-Ziss is less likely an “imitation” than an actual product of a Chrysler foreign concession, or of actual Chrysler plans.  See the Hoover Institute’s Professor Antony Sutton on how the West financed the Bolshevik “revolution” and built the USSR.  It was not Communism that built the Soviet Union, but western technology, loans and capital.
 
²  Wake up.  This is “Catholic” Trudeau telling you that the Catholic faith (and religion in general) is “balderdash”, “nonsense”.  Now, the pretext for Red activities at Trudeau’s Cité Libre and in the French-Canadian Catholic Youth movement was the desire to improve and modernize the Church from within.  Trudeau battled in the press against Catholic priests and would defend himself on that basis, citing chapter and verse of Catholic dogma in his defense.  But, here, he straightforwardly admits, the Catholic religion is “balderdash”.  “Nonsense”.  He was therefore lying when he pretended that Cité Libre was founded by young Catholic intellectuals trying to reform the Church.  It was founded by Communists undermining French-Canadian Catholic culture, on the model of the crypto-Communist review, Esprit, in France.  Trudeau is a Communist pretending to be a Catholic for public consumption.  Regardless of your position on religion, you must be quite concerned that Pierre Trudeau intentionally misrepresents himself to deceive his listeners.  Not only does he lie about being a Catholic, he’s a Marxist who lied about being a “Liberal”.  He had himself buried in a Catholic ceremony led by a prelate who has moreover been tape-recorded on public radio stating that he advocates war for world government.  Anatoliy Golitsyn plainly states that in the late 1950s, the KGB recruited “devoted” young Communists to penetrate and subvert the priesthood.  Trudeau was a liar.  He pretended to be a Catholic to gain political acceptance from people he was undermining.
 
³  “[…] the Sage, the Eminent, the Mild, the Hard, the Infallible, the Great Comrade Stalin”:  here’s a little footage on the real Stalin, one of the world’s worst mass-murderers:

Stalin's Holodomor against the Kulaks

Above:  film-with-photo discussion of Stalin’s body collectors in Ukraine waging the Holodomor against peasants who refused to give up their homes and farms for collectivization.

Stalin was a liar, like his acolyte Trudeau.  Soviet factories did not run “without capitalists”.  Once again, see the Hoover Institute’s Professor Antony Sutton on how the West built the U.S.S.R.

“Stalin, the leader of the first worker-state, lived in reclusive comfort.”  So did Trudeau; (so does Trudeau Junior).

For more details on the benevolent Mr. Stalin and his criminal adjutants, read Sever Plocker (at Israel’s Y-Net News):  “Stalin’s Jews”.
 
⁴  Trudeau, ever the liar, was again undone.  (He undid himself above by admitting that religion is “nonsense”; his biographers, the Nemnis, have quoted him calling it “superstition”, although he always posed as a Catholic.)  However, this time, Alan Stang documents in 1971 that the press undid the lying Mr. Trudeau.  Said Stang:

“But Toronto Telegram correspondent Peter Worthington checked the meteorological records and found that there was no snow in Moscow during that conference in April, 1952.  Worthington published that fact, and for some reason Pierre has since been angry at him.”

As you may have noticed, that anecdote is the basis for NoSnowInMoscow, the domain here at WordPress and elsewhere.

Afterword

It’s too bad Trudeau made Treason his occupation.  He’d have been more interesting (and perhaps less damaging) as a writer.

 

PERMISSION:
Nota bene:  This French transcript and the exclusive English translation are by Kathleen Moore for the legal research purposes of Habeas Corpus Canada, The Official Legal Challenge to North American Union.  Document date: 17 September 2016, based on a rough draft on 16 September 2016.  Permission is given to use this document, with credit to its origin.  If you find this document useful or interesting, please support The Official Legal Challenge To North American Union:  PayPal: habeas.corpus.canada@live.com