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When Yudin speaks, Russia listens. For Moscow University Professor P. F. Yudin is to Soviet dialectics what Eugene Tarle is to Soviet history--the nimble scholar who can trim theory to fit practice. Last week the gist of a talk Yudin gave a group of Moscow intellectuals on April 17 reached the U.S. It was important because it put into clear, connected words a picture of how Russian leaders see their country. Introverts & Extroverts. Yudin gave an exegesis of the revised revelation on one of Marx's key texts: that once the classless society has been achieved, "a special repressive force, a state, is no longer necessary. . . . The state is not abolished, it withers away." What needed explaining was the hothouse growth of state power in Soviet Russia.

With a brisk dialectical handspring, Yudin showed that this was not only necessary but logical: "To bring about the abolition of the state, the state itself must be consolidated still further.... Stalin has . . . proved that the state must be preserved. . . . The Soviet Union will strengthen the army and all state organs." The additional army is needed because "the victory of socialism cannot be regarded as definite and final while the Soviet Union is surrounded ... by capitalist states which are constantly sending in a stream of diversionists and spies."

But the Red Army must not be confused with bourgeois armies, which are really repressive. Explained Yudin: "In capitalist states the army is used for home oppression. It has an introvert function. But in the Soviet Union this introvert function is no longer necessary, as the enemies of the proletariat have been liquidated here. So in the Soviet Union the army has a purely extrovert function."

Hours & Working Conditions. Yudin painted a rosy picture of the Soviet future: "Communist society will consist of cultured and developed people. As a result of technical development, the working day will be shortened and there will be more time for education.. Thus, the problem of 'professionalism' will solve itself. People will have time to acquire skill in many fields and be able to move about from one profession to another."

Before he cabled the Yudin speech, TIME'S Moscow correspondent Craig Thompson showed it to a Russian acquaintance, who asked: "Where is the news in any of that?"

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