ELECTIONS IN RUSSIA

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26031, 7 February 1950, Page 5

ELECTIONS IN RUSSIA

SEATS IN SUPREME SOVIET

NAMES OF CANDIDATES ISSUED (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 8.30 p.m.) * LONDON, Feb. 6. “The Kremlin’s most intensive propaganda drive since the war went into top gear yesterday, when “the names of candidates were announced for 1339 seats in the Supreme Soviet (the Soviet Parliament); which will be formally elected on March 12,” says the Stockholm correspondent of the “Daily Mail.” “The names of Mr Stalin, Mr Molotov, and other leaders stood on the electoral list issued yesterday alongside those of leading workers in arms factories. > “Each constituency has only one candidate.

“Soviet newspapers and radio stations have been boosting ‘the most democratic election in the world.’' The objects of the compaign seem to be to make the election a propaganda demonstration of the unity of the Soviet for both home and foreign consumption, to tie up the coming poll with a big new drive for increased industrial production, and to distract attention from the fact that elections for the Communist Party’s congress—which were to have been held last year and are of far greater importance to the actual working of the Soviet Union than the present elections—have been indefinitely postponed, apparently on the advice of the party secretary