"Political Cockroaches"

Something happened in Soviet Russia, last week, which Dictator Josef Stalin took every means to conceal--and his means are efficient, ruthless.

Correspondents in Moscow believed for several days that what had happened was the exile to Siberia and other remote Russian provinces of all the opposition leaders who were recently expelled from the Communist Party and from Parliament (TIME, Dec. 26 and Jan. 16). Chief Oppositionist Lev Davidovich Trotsky, famed "father of the Red Army," chief disciple of Lenin, was reported banished to remote Astrakhan, on the Caspian Sea, whence comes caviar.

Subsequent mailed and smuggled despatches did not fully clear up a mystery which Soviet censors would not permit to be mentioned in cables. Seemingly Dictator Stalin was holding the sword of banishment in suspension over opposition necks, waiting to see if opposition heads would kowtow.

When copies of Soviet Government newspapers were received, they bristled with propaganda tending to prepare the public for the descent of the sword upon Trotsky and his followers who were described as "political cockroaches" . . . must . . . be sent away out of the proletarian family.