"WE DON'T WANT WAR"

To Russians the echo of the German guns is still a vivid memory--strong and loud enough to make itself heard even above the polemics of the Soviet radio and press. As much as any people, more than most, the Russians want peace with the rest of the world. Last week, TIME Correspondent Samuel Welles, after talking to some peace-loving Russians, cabled:

Last week I had a talk with some Russian workers and their children, at a small repair shop on a side street near a school. My companion and I were the first Americans they had ever seen.

The shop had three workers--the foreman, a middle-aged war veteran with stainless steel false teeth, a handsome, young, just-demobilized soldier in bright new overalls, and a freckle-faced 17-year-old apprentice. When they heard we were Americans, they welcomed us cheerfully and we all came outside to talk in the not too warm sunshine.

Growing Boys. Before long, school let out, and our bull session was waist deep in curious kids. We asked them what they would like to know about America. Their spokesman, a sharp-chinned, black-eyed, nine-year-old girl, replied with the firmness of a miniature Catherine the Great: "We know that it is best to live in our country."

Soon young & old were firing questions. An old man, thoughtfully pulling his mustache, asked: "Why does your Truman want to fight us?"

"America doesn't want to fight anybody," I said.

"Then why does America attack us now," asked the foreman, "after we have suffered so much? Sixteen men were killed from this one side of the street." A young veteran chimed in: "Bozhe (gosh), it's so nice just to be alive!"

"But if you want war," exclaimed the old man, "we are not afraid. Look what fine boys we have growing." He waved his hand at the lads standing around us.

We asked one of them, a 13-year-old Pioneer (Communist Youth organization), what he wanted to be when he grew up. "An engineer," he answered promptly. And would he like to study in America? "Very gladly, but only if my country will send me," he said. Then, in a quick change of subject, he asked: "Why have you changed from the Roosevelt policy?"

"We all won the war together," I replied. "Why did your Government change its policy afterwards?" He nodded and said: "Yes, we can see that change, too."

Entertaining Strangers. Later the steel-toothed foreman said with a warm smile: "It's an old Russian custom to entertain strangers. It would give me pleasure to invite you to my room. But I am short of food."

That reminded the thin little Pioneer of something he had read in the Communist Youth paper. He asked: "Is it really true that you are tossing potatoes into the sea in America and burning grain for fuel in your locomotives? We need so much more bread and potatoes" (see INTERNATIONAL).

I pointed out that America had exported over five million tons of grain last year, which was news to them all. None of them had heard of UNRRA aid in the Ukraine and Byelorussia. The old man countered the reference to UNRRA aid with: "Why are you also so kind to the Germans?" I replied: "The Russians are being kind to the Germans in Germany too." The old man answered: "That is true. We have heard it from our sons in the occupation Army. But why are you against our getting even ten billion in reparations? We need it because our country was ruined so much."

"Why doesn't America sell anything to Russia now?" spoke up the young veteran. I told him that we were willing to sell to Russia and to anyone else, but that the postwar backlog of orders was so bad that even our own people often had to wait a year or two. None of them knew until I told them that Russia has thus far refused to join every international economic agency, from the World Bank to the International Trade Organization.

A Glass of Wine. Again & again they returned to the terrible effect the war had had on Russia, and told how nobody wanted another war. "So much ruin, so much bloodshed, so much to be done again," said the young veteran, "and our reconstruction goes so very slowly."

The old man, almost shaking off his fur cap in his vehemence, summed up their feelings. He said: "The heads of our Governments would better solve the problems if they sat down at a table over a glass of wine." Then he quoted an old Russian saying: "Bez butylki ne razberesh" (You can't solve anything without a bottle).

As we left, the group called, "Come and talk to us again." And the voice of the foreman rang out above the rest as he lifted his five-year-old niece into his arms. "Tell them in America," he called, "that we don't want war."

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