Lunacharsky v. Religion

With the new Soviet anti-religious campaign now in full cry (TIME,Jan. 14), Commissar of Education Anatole Lunacharsky released, last week, a cinema drama called Salamander. Heroine: Mme. Lunacharsky, strikingly beautiful, known to her intimates as "Natalia." Author: M. Lunarharsky.

Plot: The pious folk of a Russian provincial town fiendishly conspire against a kindly atheist professor of zoology and his wife (Mme. Lunacharsky). The professor is expelled from his post, after the Christians "frame" him in such fashion as to make it appear that he is a pervert. Reduced to penury, the professor's wife is seduced by the man who framed him; and this "Holy Devil" then proceeds to poison her.

Thenceforward the professor's misery grows more and more Tolstoyan until, as the grand climax, Commissar of Education Anatole Lunacharsky appears upon the film in his official capacity, raises up the professor from lowest depths, and places him in a Moscow laboratory where, among congenial atheists, he can complete his "Great Experiment."