His Salary, Her Sins

Many a king, such as Belgium's beloved Albert, has recently cut his own royal wages; but last week Josef Stalin, Dictator of one-sixth of the world, moved quietly to triple the pay of himself and Russia's 2,500,000 other Communists--the Soviet elite.

Lest this move prove unpopular, the Soviet Press played up that same day a "human touch" story like those which have made the British Royal Family so popular:

Mrs. Stalin, who is studying chemistry to become the manageress of a Soviet rayon mill, has been cutting classes--the Moscow Press startlingly revealed--and worse than that, two books which she had borrowed from the Chemical Institute's library were overdue last week! For these faults Mrs. Stalin's name was chalked with those of 50 other sinners on the Chemical Institute's black (bad) list. To Moscow newshawks Mrs. Stalin's professors explained very, very carefully that ordinarily she is prompt about returning library books, she had only cut three classes when reprimanded, she is really an exemplary student whose name often appears on the Chemical Institute's red (good) list.

Up to now iron party discipline has limited all Communists--including the Dictator--to a salary of $1,800 per year. In proposing to jack this up to $5,400 Mr. Stalin naturally had to act with caution. The change was only being "considered," ran the public announcement last week, but such public "consideration" is the Dictator's mode of feeling his way, is usually followed by action.

Direct, slashing, characteristic were other deeds of Dictator Stalin last week:

By a decree signed jointly with Premier Molotov (cautious Stalin never takes sole responsibility), 125 managers of State cattle ranches were dismissed and 35 of them indicted for criminal mismanagement (punishable by shooting). The decree, postulating that many of Russia's present breeding ranches are too large, ordered them split up by the creation of 102 new ranches, menaced with dire threats ranch managers who have ignored previous orders to breed on a strict cost accounting basis.

Enthusiastic about the general Russian cattle picture in Moscow last week was the son of the U. S. Secretary of Commerce. "This is the biggest and most interesting stock job in the whole world!" cried Cattleman Robert P. Lament Jr. "From what I have seen and heard already, they contemplate doing on a rapid and gigantic scale what is done gradually by individuals in our Western States--the transformation of cattle from longhorn, rangy animals with comparatively low meat product to modern shorthorn meat stock."

Bad news from "Europe's Largest Motor Car Factory," the $119,000,000 "Molotov Works" recently built near old Nizhnii Novgorod by the Austin Company of Cleveland, Ohio, caused Dictator Stalin to rush out to this luckless plant last week the Commissar for Heavy Industry himself, Comrade Grigoriy Ordzhonikidze, one of Stalin's best and closest friends.

In a blunt manifesto the Communist Party Central Committee stated that the Molotov Works have had to close down (three months after they were opened), blamed Communist and trade union leaders on the spot for "slandering the engineering and technical personnel," making efficient management impossible and holding too many workers' meetings.

Since every important Soviet step is supposed to be taken in a direction pointed out by Lenin, cautious Stalin is rebuking the Communists and trade unionists of Nizhnii Novgorod, reminded them that one of Lenin's slogans was: "Absolute obedience to the will of one man--namely the Soviet manager--during working hours!" Motor car production, the Dictator ordered, must be up to schedule within six months.

At Stalingrad, the huge tractor plant which was Red Russia's first spectacular step toward industrializations, early breakdowns, shutdowns and shootings resulted last year in a production of 15,718 tractors.

Two more "largests" of the Soviet week: at Moscow it was claimed that the ''World's Largest Ball Bearing Factory" is in production at the rate of 3,000,000 ball bearings yearly, and at Stanitzia Krinskaya the "World's Largest Canning Factory of Its Kind" entered the World market for the first time by shipping 150,000 cans of pork & beans not to Boston but to London.

"If they are found acceptable." said the Soviet Cannery Manager, "we can supply 2,000,000 more cans of pork & beans."

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