TANNU TUVA: Advancing Light

To Generalissimo Stalin, 50,000 Tuvinians indited a note of thanks for allowing them to withdraw from the capitalist world and enter the Soviet Union. The occasion was the 25th anniversary of the country’s former independence. Tannu Tuva (pop. 65,000) is a Mongolian farming, mining and cattle raising area about the size of Nevada, between Siberia and Outer Mongolia. Its assumption to Russia was a fact unknown to the rest of the world until it read the names of Tuvinian delegates on the election lists to the Supreme Soviet last October.

The Tuvinians promised to “unite even closer around the party of Lenin, Stalin and the Soviet Government,” and promised to turn their country “into one of the blooming corners of the Great Soviet Union.” They added that since Russia “provided us with the opportunity to bypass the capitalistic path,” Tannu Tuva has revised its alphabet (now modeled on the Russian), has organized state and collective farms, tractor stations, wagon works, shoe factories, and developed gold, coal and salt mines.

Said the letter: “We now have our own intellectuals.”