Red Notes

P:At the close of Red Army maneuvers, French General Lucien Loiseau told the official Red newsorgan Pravda, "In regard to tanks I consider the Red Army the first in the world. Frankly, I wish we had one like it."

P:A Nobel Peace Prize for Soviet Foreign Commissar "Maxie" Litvinoff was urged last week by the Swedish association, Friends of the Soviet Union. Meanwhile Comrade Litvinoff's alert British-born wife, Ivy, won her three-year fight to get Dictator Stalin to order every Red Army soldier to learn "Basic English," a simplified vocabulary of 850 words in which it is supposed to be possible to express almost any thought. First English books to be read by Red Soldiers: Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver's Travels re-written in Basic.

P:Government organs boasted that the Soviet harvest is already 96% complete, several weeks ahead of its completion last year, and so bountiful that for the first time since the "Famine Years" (1931-33) correspondents predicted big Soviet grain exports.

P:In the present second year of Russia's Second Five-Year Plan the State estimated last week that Soviet heavy industry will produce nearly as much in October, November and December 1935 as it produced during the entire year 1928, first year of the First Five-Year Plan. P:"Stakhanovism" was added to the Soviet vocabulary as Dictator Stalin's big-nosed Commissar of Heavy Industry Grigoriy Ordzhonikidze made national heroes of one Comrade Stakhanov, 22, and five other young Donetz Basin coal miners. Accustomed to getting out five tons of coal in each six-hour shift with a Soviet automatic cutting machine, Stakhanov worked out with his proppers and loaders a teamwork system which increased production to 310 tons per six-hour shift.

Overjoyed at this evidence that Soviet workmen are finally getting the knack of how to use Soviet tools, Commissar Ordzhonikidze sent a letter of hearty approval to Donetz' Party Chief Sarkisov. Thereupon Chief Sarkisov promptly ordered: "The Stakhanov system must be adopted throughout the Donetz Basin and executives who attempt to hinder it will be dismissed. Above all there must be no change in the rates of payment. If a miner or group of miners can earn far above the average, let them earn it, because the country needs coal. If miners earn 2,000 or 3,000 rubles a month or more than that, let them enjoy the prosperity that is a reward for the mastery of the technique that Stalin said should be the goal of Soviet industry today!"

With Russian newsorgans clamoring for "Stakhanovism" in all branches of Bolshevik endeavor last week, Stakhanov and his chief assistant were each given a Soviet automobile, feted as heroes.

P: Arriving in Manhattan from Moscow's recent Communist Congress, Earl Browder, No. 1 U. S. Red, said last week: "President Roosevelt's protest to the Soviet Government about the activities of the Congress was one of the most stupid things he could have done. . . . Roosevelt is not a Fascist but if he doesn't oppose Fascism the Fascists will eat him up. ... All of the bloc gathered around Roosevelt is headed toward Fascism."

P:Tickets sold with a rush in Moscow last week as music-loving comrades lined up to buy seats for "the City of Cleveland's Orpheus Male Choir with Claudia Muzio, Richard Crooks, Richard Bonelli and Lawrence Tibbett." When it appeared that the old Soviet ruse of advertising performers who were not even in Russia to spur ticket sales was being worked again, the State Trust for Musical, Stage & Circus Entertainment not only disclaimed all responsibility but blamed Moscow newspapers for not at once detecting and exposing the fraud. "Persons with even rudimentary knowledge," observed the State Trust, "would know that singers of such eminence would not be appearing in a group with the Orpheus Male Choir."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.