The Kremlin's Huckster

In the Politburo sits a jaunty little Armenian who dreams (almost heretically) of a U.S.S.R. clattering with the newest U.S.-style consumer gadgets. He is Anastas Mikoyan, an Old Bolshevik and, like most Armenians, a born salesman. In 1936 he visited the U.S. and was bowled over by its beehive trade in consumer goods, sparked by innovation, advertising, packaging. Back home he planned a great advertising crusade to teach the people to want and use new products. "We should not surrender before the old custom of living on borsch and mush," he said. He even tried his hand at writing a slogan about soap: "He who does not wash himself several times a day is a candidate for the hospital."

Fortnight ago Mikoyan made a fresh start on his life's hope: to give the sluggish

Soviet economy big transfusions of live-wire salesmanship. In a major speech at Erevan in his native Armenia he said: "It is time to think seriously of the organizing of trade advertising, and of intensifying it."

Molding Female Legs. The newspaper ads which Mikoyan wants to revitalize are poky and unimaginative. Only a few are illustrated, with poor-quality half-tones or amateurish line drawings.

A cut of three mousy women adorns an ad saying, culturally, "To inform the population: The Moscow Clothing Trust sells all-readymade women's dresses of silk, wool and cotton." A woman's stocking ad cries up the virtues of "a new fiber called Kapron," presumably a Soviet nylon. "They mold the leg nicely, wash easily, keep shape and color."

The Mineral Waters Trust announces in an ad that it has just received from the Caucasus some bottled waters "good for health." The Ministry of Commerce has weighing scales available. "Goods can be bought for cash," it notes.

Many of the newspaper ads are for cheap food. One such, with a picture of an attractive housewife at her stove, is for "Moscow Meatballs." The Russians have developed soybean food substitutes for flour, cheese and kefir (fermented milk), and these are plugged frequently, along with Kabul, a soya sauce for meats. "Soya cheeselets," the ads say, "available sweet with currants to commercial enterprises. Cost four times less than animal-produced cheeses."

Wine and cognac ads appear infrequently, vodka ads almost never, but the Liquor Trust recently ran an ad saying: "Bring your empty, cognac and wine bottles to the Moscow Liquor Factory."

Because of the nature of the Soviet economy, odd items will crop up in advertisements. "Glass dolls' eyes now being made," the public is told. The Soviet Sculptors' Trust informs collective farm and union centers that it "has ready a sculpture of Lenin by D. P. Schwartz, 2 meters 25 cm. high, made of concrete. Price 3,500 rubles ($875); time of delivery, 2-3 months. For orders, telegraph Moscow Skulpcombinat."

The Medical Manufacturing Shop attached to the First Moscow Psychiatric Hospital "will make cardboard boxes for shoestores, drugstores, etc." But the buyer must supply the cardboard.

This self-supply gimmick is s.o.p. for the Artels (small cooperative groups of artisans), which place numerous ads. One ad, by the Metal Workers' Artel, prints a photo of a huge office safe, offers to make such safes for any comer--provided he brings his own iron.

Flirting With a Bogy. Some of the best Soviet advertising appears in the LIFE-like magazine Ogonek, which uses U.S.-style layouts. Many Ogonek ads are similar to U.S. wartime institutional advertising, i.e., they boost goods not pres ently available. Other Ogonek displays feature the Mikoyan Meat Trust and that old Russian delicacy, caviar (see cut). Price: only 40 rubles ($10) a Ib.

Mikoyan in his speech stressed the need for salesmanship, not only in advertising, but in the stores ("Every worker in a store is an agitator for Soviet goods") and in distribution ("We have to make full use of such means as business contracts and orders in advance").

He said: "We have to eradicate the prejudice that trading is easy and simple . . . The planning of trade has to take into account factors which are liable to continuous fluctuations: the relationship between supply & demand, the needs of the consumer, local peculiarities and climatic conditions. I should say that a man who is planning trade must--in order to assess these factors accurately--possess a creative instinct, a kind of commercial intuition."

This is about as close as any Bolshevik can get (and live) to praising that old Bolshevik bogy, the market economy.

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