Foreign News: Crystallized Communism

Most visitors to Moscow this summer have emerged to remark, “Conditions are so much better—so much less Communist.” Last week a broadside of decrees from Joseph Stalin’s tall-towered Kremlin crystallized the gradual change:

¶ Communist was the complete freedom with which a Russian used to be able to get divorced with no questions asked, merely stopping in at a State bureau which mailed a post card to the no-longer-desired mate. Recently the State bureaus began firing sharp questions at every divorce applicant (TIME, July 15). Last week the ”post-card divorce” was abruptly abolished in Russia proper with the six lesser Soviet republics expected to fall into line. The three-ruble ($2.60) divorce fee will soon be upped to 100 rubles ($86.67). Hereafter no Soviet divorce will be granted until both husband & wife have been questioned and provision made for taking care of any children.

¶ Communist was the Red Army & Navy’s avoidance until last week of ranks & titles, hitherto despised by Bolsheviks as smacking of Capitalism. Every Red officer, no matter what his duties, has been a “commander.” Last week the Red Army was equipped for the first time with “lieutenants,” “captains,” “majors” and “colonels”—but not with “generals” since that title still stinks in Communist nostrils.

Instead of the various grades of general, the Red Army received last week “brigade commanders,” “division commanders.” “corps commanders.” “second rank army commanders” and “first rank army commanders.”

Notoriously it has been necessary to staff the higher branches of the Red Army with former Tsarist officers who have been gradually retiring as younger Communist officers step into their boots. Announced Pravda last week with pride: “The commanding staff who participated in the recent Kiev maneuvers were about 6% workers and 30% collective farmers. . . . The commanders of the Red Army are assisted by the attentions of the Communist Party, the solicitude of the Soviet Government, and the fervent love of the Soviet people.” Simultaneously the Government abandoned for the first time the Communist doctrine that Russia’s army is for defense only—not for “conquest.” which has been considered abominably Capitalist.

“The workers and peasants who achieved the great Socialist Revolution dreamed of creating an army which would stand like an impassable wall,” explained Pravda. “The Red Army today is such a power that it not only is capable of defeating any invader but can destroy a hostile army on its own soil!”

Grooming popular Defense Commissar “Klim” Voroshilov for his expected appointment as “Marshal of the Soviet Union,” Pravda called Klim “the personification of a true Marshal of the Revolution.”

¶ Communist was the elimination of “Capitalist competition” between Soviet stores and the issuance of food cards entitling Russians to buy below the “open shop” price in extremely limited quantities from State stores. Last week Russia’s food cards were historically abolished, and the Government moved to encourage competition between storekeepers of all sorts as the best means of inducing them to raise the standard of their service and goods.

That this step was possible last week meant that the Soviet Government believes Russia has surmounted her ”quantity crisis.” That is, although goods now for sale in Moscow stores are still of inferior quality, there is beginning to be for the first time a sufficient quantity to go round. Lest comrades go on a wild buying spree in reaction from their long years of being card-rationed, the State took precautions last week. Warned Izvestia: “Under no circumstances should lines of buyers be permitted to form, for the class enemy will take advantage of such a thing to spread doubt and panic and create a speculative fever.”

Signifcance. Not a retreat from Communism, but an evolution and Russianization of this internationalist doctrine the decrees of Dictator Stalin constantly transgress original Communist tenets. Doing lip service but not much more to Marx & Lenin, Stalin has his country on the march to a future not primarily Communist but primarily Russian. He forced dissolution not long ago of the Society of Old Bolsheviks, pure Communists who kept muttering that the Dictator’s acts no longer square with Communism as they know it—and who should know better than an Old Bolshevik? Tourists have been treated in the Soviet Union this summer to less propaganda for Communism, more for Russia. Girl guides who used to brag mostly about what Communism was going to do, now brag more about what Russia has done—a subtle distinction, but significant. Bragging points: Moscow’s new 1,000-room hotel for foreigners and 800-room hotel for Russians; the new “World’s Most Beautiful Subway” (TIME, May 6); the thrilling fact that Russia has developed national pride and self-esteem to the point of beginning to refuse to sell her national art treasures to Capitalists like Andrew William Mellon.