"Stalin's Foster Children"

Newly completed Sverdlov Hall inside the ancient Kremlin Fortress was used for the first time last week by the newly-elected Congress of the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic, the largest legislative unit of the Soviet Union. Moscow papers hailed the 727 delegates, most of them young (between 20 and 30), as "Stalin's Foster Children." They are the newest of New Bolsheviks, milkmaids, mechanics, primary teachers and such, straight from the farm, shop or classroom. Most cannot remember Nicholas II, many have only dim recollections of Lenin, and all were on tiptoe last week to roar cheer on cheer for Stalin, completely halting proceedings every time his name was mentioned.

In a crisp white blouse, Foster Father Stalin appeared on the rostrum, took the cheers of his very newest Bolsheviks, while doom appeared to hover over two New Bolsheviks who were still high in favor last spring, Vice Premier Stanislav Kosior and Finance Commissar Vlas Chubar. Dynamic New Bolshevik Kosior carried out the purge of Old Bolsheviks and other anti-Stalinists throughout the Ukraine; Kosior launched the thesis that Leon Trotsky was responsible for instigating the assassination of Stalin's friend Kirov and made this the piece de resistance of the Moscow trials; and Kosior last spring started the hunt for traitors among members of the Soviet Arctic expeditions (TIME, April 11). Meanwhile, purged Finance Commissar Grigory Grinko was replaced by New Bolshevik Chubar, prime Stalin favorite. Last week Kosior and Chubar were both absent from Sverdlov Hall, although every other member of the Politburo was on the dais with Foster Father Stalin. All over the Soviet Union last week the newly-elected local Communist Party conferences were electing their steering committees, each electing Stalin and all immediate members of his entourage, but each ominously omitting Kosior and Chubar.

The announced planned average wage of Soviet workers is 309 rubles per month, equivalent in buying power to at least $65. This week Stalin's Foster Children jubilantly voted themselves 100 rubles daily expense money for as long as their session may last, plus year-round salaries of 600 rubles per month, plus free transportation throughout the Soviet Union. They welcomed with cheers an extremely long speech in the form of a poem declaimed by Deputy Vasily Lebedev-Kumach, expressing his support of Stalinism. Poet Lebedev-Kumach is the author of Moscow's catchy song of the moment, jazzed and whistled all over the capital: If War Comes Tomorrow.

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