Kak Vsegda

The Soviet Union's best display of what it calls a "people's democracy" is the annual budget session of the Supreme Soviet. Deputies, elected on a one-party, one-candidate ballot, assemble to rubberstamp a budget. Last week in Moscow, the show was put on again.

Stalin was up front, on the tiered dais which faced the assembly. He walked in with his customary slow, firm, dignified tread, wore his customary beige uniform with the wide, red, single-starred marshal's shoulder boards. His appearance? Reported TIME Correspondent John Walker, who was there: "I only hope I can look as well if and when I reach 68."

Facing Stalin in the long, vaulted, white, brown and yellow Andreevsky Hall, 1,300 deputies sat at school-bench desks. Round-eyed, shaven-pated Russians in business suits sat beside slant-eyed Uzbeks and Tadjiks in embroidered tyubeteiki (skull caps). They were handed the biggest budget in Soviet history: 387.9 billion rubles ($74 billion). The military would get 17%, compared with 18% of a 371 billion ruble budget in 1947.

For all their gala differences, none of the deputies differed. In due course the budget would be approved unanimously --"kak vsegda" (as always).

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