New Commissars

Like a fertile polyp, another of Russia's vast, unwieldy government bureaus subdivided itself last week, continued to function. In obedience to Dictator Stalin's injunction for decentralization, the Supreme Economic Council was subdivided into three new commissariats: Heavy Industry, Light Industry, Lumber.

One of Booth Tarkington's favorite stories is about a colored cook who returned from lodge meeting with the announcement that she had just been elected "Supreme Exalted Ruler of the Universe," but explained that there were eleven other members of the lodge higher than that. Russia's Supreme Economic Council is in fact one of eleven commissariats in the Russian Cabinet or Union Council of People's Commissars. It has charge of all factories, mines, mills, is a super-Department of Commerce. Its chairman, Grigoriy Ordzhonikidze, is to Josef Stalin as Herbert Hoover was to Presidents Harding & Coolidge. Last week Stalin's Hoover took charge of the new subdivision of Heavy Industry (coal, iron, steel, et al.) and the Soviet press spent much time explaining that he lost no prestige by so doing.

Busier was another Commissar last week, Andrey Andreevitch Andreev, recently appointed Commissar for Transportation. Fortnight ago he utilized his new powers by condemning four railwaymen of the Trans-Siberia Railway to death for criminal negligence (TIME, Jan. 11). Last week he attempted to counteract this unfortunate impression by announcing that a special de luxe train on the Trans-Siberia run will in future make the trip from Poland to Manchuria in seven days instead of eight. The good impression did not last. Three days later news got around of an accident even more dreadful than usual.

Nine miles outside of Moscow a local train, packed with commuters, halted at a switch-head before taking a spur track. Without warning another local swept round the bend and smashed full into the standing train's rear, plowed through almost its entire length. Wooden cars splintered like match boxes, dead and dying were strewn along the right-of-way. Peasants running up from the fields did their best to pull maimed bodies from the wreckage. They were laid on the parallel track while telegraph operators wired Moscow frantically for help. Suddenly a freight train, proudly burdened with Soviet goods, bore down from the opposite direction. The wounded could not move. The freight could not stop. . . .

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