Tombstones & Wolf Traps

How much had Russia accomplished by the great ruble reform (TIME, Dec. 22)? Ever since Lenin decreed the creation of a nonprofit society in Russia, peasants have made trouble and speculators have made profits. Last week, hard on the heels of a reform designed to squelch troublemakers and profitmakers, both were busy.

Censored dispatches painted a rosy picture of Soviet plenty, but uncerisored reports told a different story. With rationing off, demand up, and Soviet bureaucracy malfunctioning as usual, the supply of bread, butter, eggs and other commodities in the state stores was not enough to equal demand. Stores imposed their own rationing, limiting what customers could buy at one go. Some customers queued & queued to get what they needed. Others adjourned to the peasants' markets, where supply was more plentiful and price ceilings off. Result: peasant market prices soared to three times the controlled prices, and peasants began to get back rubles recall had taken from them.

Britain's Ambassador Sir Maurice Peterson kept wires to Whitehall humming with reports of a "chaotic state of affairs."* But speculators perked up. In a not-so-fabulous fable, Leningrad's Pravda told of one speculator whom it called Evlampy Khapuga ("Grabber").

According to Leningrad's Pravda, Khapuga, acting on rumors of impending currency reform, took the rubles he had hoarded in his boots and bought everything he could find for sale. His purchases: one wolf trap; one wolfhound; two accordions; one well-preserved Egyptian mummy; one plaster bust of Julius Caesar; five tombstones; 100 quarts of bug poison. When he heard he would have to give up his remaining rubles at ten for one, he was so upset he stumbled over his wolf trap, upsetting a tombstone which broke a bottle of bug poison, the fumes of which drove his wolfhound mad.

From this Daliesque debacle, Speculator Khapuga last week made a fabulous recovery. "But," said Leningrad's Pravda, "we will finish him off yet."

* Foreign missions in Moscow, who must now pay currency equivalents of 12 1/2 -c- for rubles which formerly cost them 8 1/3 -c- each, have been especially hard hit. In the U.S. Embassy, clerks clamored for transfers to less expensive posts.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.