RUSSIA: Nipples

David Josefovich Zaslavsky is the Westbrook Pegler of the Russian press. He has slashed at General Douglas MacArthur, Military Critic Hanson Baldwin, the late Wendell Willkie, William C. Bullitt. Last fortnight Zaslavsky slashed at Soviet bureaucrats. His theme: the scarcity of nipples in Russia.

“We said to the Chief of the Production Section of the Technical Department of the People’s Commissariat of the rubber industry: ‘We are interested in the nipple.’

“The Chief looked at us thoughtfully, seriously, benevolently, and asked: ‘Nipple? What aspects of the nipple?’ We answered: ‘The nipple in its philosophical and historical aspects—also why is it that a nipple is nowhere to be found?’ It soon became clear that the question of aspects was not irrelevant. Aspect means view. Views of nipples these days are extremely limited. There are views—but almost no nipples. . . .

“In February 1944, Comrade Borovik desperately appealed to the Department of Rubber-Technical Goods: ‘Soska!’ [nipples]. He was not answered. At the beginning of September and the middle, he wailed: ‘SOSka, SOS SOS SOS!’ Silence. . . .”

Said Zaslavsky: “Wives write to the editors: ‘When will there be nipples?’ We give the following information: there will be nipples just as soon as the people who are charged with important business busy themselves, not with aspects, but with real work.”