Sovietisms

Lev Davidovitch Trotsky and the 99 other prominent Opposition leaders who were recently expelled from the Communist Party (TIME, Dec. 26) were further expelled, last week, from the Union Central Executive Committee or acting legislature of the Soviet Union. Expulsion was voted unanimously by the 21 members of the potent Presidium or Standing Committee, which held that: "Persons expelled from the Communist Party are not fit to be members of the legislature." A similar act in the U. S. would be for the Republican Party (having suppressed all other parties) to expell from Congress even the "Insurgent Republicans."

The recently legalized death sentence for proven corruption in a Soviet official was applied, last week, for the first time in the case of Director Poliakov of the State Bank Grain Department and an assistant, M. Telesnin. Their crime: granting concessions to private businessmen in return for fat bribes.

Comrade* Otto Schmidt, 37, learned editor of the Soviet Encyclopaedia (in six volumes), long prominent as Director of the State Book Publishing Monopoly, was announced by Moscow journals, last week, as the new Soviet Ambassador to Italy.

* An honorary title possessed only by members of the Communist Party.