Wobbly's Party

To Ainibulak, Kazakstan, on the southern fringe of Siberia, to celebrate an unprecedented May Day, went a great horde last week. From the Kirghiz Steppes; from the valley of the tempestuous Hi; from trackless plains and mountainsides; from Moscow, 3,000 miles away: bearded patriarchs with their clans and scores of children; bigwigs of the Soviet Union; Kazaks, turbanned, camel-riding, purple-robed; heavy-handed farm women from Penza's and Samara's fertile plains; soldiers of the Red army; Turkmen, bunches of wild red turekid under their left ears; voluble Muscovites, spinning out arguments about rural collectivization, hygiene, atheism.

It was a big moment for William ("Bill") Shatov, onetime "wobbly" (labor agitator), Chicago syndicalist, soap-box orator, Erie R. R. section hand. The horde had come to see Comrade Shatov drive home with brawny hands the spikes that would make one steel stretch of the two units of Russia's new $100,000,000 Turk-sib (Turkestan-Siberian) Railroad which bridges the great plains between Arys and Novosibirsk, for centuries traversed only by slow-footed camel caravans. Against tremendous odds Engineer Shatov had finished the great project a year ahead of schedule. Now Russia was coming to honor the man who had bound together her sprawling reaches a little more compactly with 1,700 mi. of track.

The band played the "Internationale," the crowd cheered madly. Shatov talked dynamically, thrilling his listeners with the story of the railroad. He spoke of the bridging of the Hi, the torrent whose floods and malarial swamps had threatened to halt operations.

But principally Comrade Shatov's words were addressed to the younglings--about 40 of them, aged 1 to 10--who were massed about the flatcar. "You see," said he, "we old ones have built this road for you, for young, free Russia, and you must remember that and work also in your turn for the Soviet State, to make it strong and great, not for your sake only, but for all oppressed humanity."

Dedication ceremonies lasted several days. At Ainibulak the celebrations included rough, he-manly games. Opposing teams of Kazaks wrestled on horseback, 200 on a side. They faced each other and at a signal dashed together, grappled in woolly, wild, free-for-all combat. Dust rose, plunging horses nickered, squealed. The mounted wrestlers shouted, cursed. Spectators cheered. One by one the horses lost their riders and galloped away. Escaping a trampling almost miraculously, unhorsed Kazaks stumbled, rolled, fell to safety out of the melee. A surprise armlock at last gave victory to an almost naked and extremely hairy man. Shouting, he dashed up and down the field: the only wrestler left on horseback.

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