MORE ARMAMENTS FOR SOVIET

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22478, 12 August 1938, Page 11

MORE ARMAMENTS FOR SOVIET

Large Expenditure Announced ONE-QUARTER OF BUDGET FOR WAR MATERIALS. (UKITKC PRESS ASSOCIATION— COPYRIGHT.) (Received August 11, 9.30 p.m.) MOSCOW, August 11. The Commissar for Finance (M. Zveryev) announced at the session of the Supreme Soviet Council that armaments would absorb one-quar-ter of the current Budget. The military budget is 27.000. roubles, compared with 20.000. roubles last year. In addition there is provision for 7.500.000. roubles for defence industries, and 4,300,000,000 roubles for the Department of the Interior, which controls border troops and industrial and military projects. The total expenditure is 123.000. roubles, and the revenue is estimated at 125,000,000,000 roubles. Health expenditure amounts to 8.000. roubles, and education 20.000. roubles.

The rouble is nominally worth 21 i pence, but its equivalent internal value is unquotable. The ravages of the recent purge were apparent at the opening of the Supreme Council. Nine of the 25 People’s Commissars chosen in January, 1938, have disappeared. Those missing include the Vice-Premier (M. Chubar) and the President of the Control Commission (M. Kossior), both members of Stalin’s political bureau. The others are the Commissars for the Navy, M, Peter Smirnov, Internal Trade, M. Mikhail Smirnov% Agriculture, M. Robert Eikhe, Machine Industry, M. Alexander Bruskin, Public Health, M. Mikhail Boldyrev, Food Industry, M. Avram Ghilinsky, and Grain Collection, M. Mikhail Popov.