"Speech from the Throne"

As the All-Union Congress of Soviets convened in Moscow last week this riddle appeared pertinent:

"Why is His Majesty George V like Comrade Vyacheslav Molotov, Prime Minister of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics?"

Answer: "Comrade and King both do as they are told [by Josef Stalin and Ramsay MacDonald, respectively] and the biggest job of each is to open Parliament."

George V opens thus: "My relations with the foreign powers continue to be friendly."

Comrade Molotov, more specific, opened last week by stating that Russia's relations with Turkey are "most friendly"; with Japan, Persia and Afghanistan "also friendly"; with Italy "satisfactory"; with Germany "improved"; with Great Britain "fair." Poland, Comrade Molotov bluntly called a "vassal of France." France he mentioned as "the greatest menace to world peace--the European powder magazine."

1,776 All-Union Soviet Congressmen rose to their feet when Comrade Molotov entered, as the House of Lords rises to King George. They then sat down upon red plush seats provided by Tsar Nicholas II who liked red plush. His Imperial Majesty refurnished the Moscow Opera House wherein the Red Congress meets.

The Congress had met on "International Women's Day." Every Moscow paper was featuring "the need for 1,600,000 women to leave the home for the factory." In his figurative "Speech from the Throne," Comrade Molotov explained this need. Russia's titanic Five-Year Plan has created a labor shortage so acute that womanpower must help manpower. The Plan MUST go through to provide Russia with the heavy basic industries necessary to fight a modern war. This war will be "defensive," according to Comrade Molotov, but it threatens. "The Soviet Government's chief danger today," he cried, "is armed intervention! . . . We alone have solved the employment problem. . . . I will close this part of my discourse by quoting from a resolution passed by the Archangel Soviet:

"It is our rule that He who works not, neither shall he eat. In capitalist countries they have amended it He that worketh shall not eat either.' "

Challenge. After quietly stating that no form of convict, forced or slave labor whatsoever is employed by the Soviet lumber industry, the Prime Minister challenged publishers throughout the world to send reporters to investigate, promised that they would be allowed "to go where and when they please."

Foreign diplomatic or consular representatives of countries which have recognized the Soviet Union were challenged to make similar investigations. "But," Comrade Molotov added, "the Soviet will not allow foreign governmental investigation committees" -- i. e., no U. S. congressional committee will be allowed in Red lumber camps. Sixty thousand Soviet convicts are employed in the lumber regions building roads and canals, stated the Prime Minister:

"They are paid wages of from 20 to 30 rubles a month. . . . They are supplied with food, clothing, barracks and medical and cultural facilities. . . . Their production is no higher than that of free labor, and they work no more than eight hours a day."

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