Crucial Election For Parliament Of Soviet

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28536, 15 March 1958, Page 13

Crucial Election For Parliament Of Soviet

MOSCOW.

The Soviet Unipn’s 120,000,000 Voters will go to the polls on Sunday, March 16, to tick a “yes” against tlie names of 1364 nominees for tlie Supreme Soviet (Parliament). These are men and women from all of the Soviet Union’s 15 republics put forward by the Soviet Communist? Party and workers’ organiststions for election. There is no choice of candidate. But all, or nearly all, the voters are sure to agree. At the last elections in 1954, 99.98 t>er cent, of the electorate approved their candidates. In spite of the absence of choice', the Soviet voter, from 18 years of age and upwards, will have one major ambition when he ticks his ‘‘yes.’’ Like millions of ordinary citizens elsewhere, he will be voting oh how to spend his money. This year, as they drop their single name votes with guaranteed sfecrecy into the ballot box. they can be moderately sure of one thing. The new Parliament which takes office for four years this March will usher in the best time that Ivan has ever known. Compared with Paris, New York or London, Moscow may look as grey as a shadow, but Moscow today compared with five years ago is a land flowing with milk and honey, or in the less biblical phrase of Mr Khrushchev, a land flowing "with meat, milk and butter.”

The Soviet peasant under 40 has never had a life as good as now. After Stalin's regime came to an end, the State began paying more for farm produce. Other incentives were also introduced Grandmother, from the farm in the deep south of the Soviet Union, nowadays comes by jet aicraft to Moscow to buy guitars, gramophone records and nylons for the family. Today, iii Mos-

cow, lorries unload 100 new refrigerators outside a State Store. As each enamelled box goes into the store, the "sold” sign is placed on it. The customers are queuifig. Carpets, curtains, furniture, skis and cameras disappear as fast as the queue of customers can be cleared. It seems that Ivan Ivanovich is learning at last how to begin to keep pace with the Smiths, the Duponts and the Brauns in Western Europe. Mr Malenkov was indiscreet enough in 1954 to suggest producing more consumer goods. He later confessed his "deviation” and lost his post as Prime Minister. Today, no-one says outright that consumer goods must be given higher priority. But the stores fill up all the time with new and better articles for the masses.

Barring a war or a convulsion at the summit of party leadership, the next four years of Parliament will seem to the 200,000,000 people </f the Soviet Union very good years.

Inevitably, the new era will come to be spoken of as the "Khrushchev era.’’ Soviet officials frown on Western journalists when they link one name too frequently with major trends Jn Soviet policy. The "cult of personality” is supposed to have died with Stalin. But the new Supreme Soviet is certain to be an effective instnp ment of the party leadership of which Mr Khrushchev is chief spokesman and salesman. It will play its part in the introduction of the seven-hour, and possibly, in some branches of industry, the six-hour, working day. It will give reports on the Soviet nations’ attempts to outstrip the United States in per capita production of meat, milk and butter. Under its surveil-

lance, housing is to bo provided speedily. Mr Khrushchev’S Idea of bestowing greater authority upon republican and regional organisations will win him, and the ntw Parliament, strong support in the countryside. In industry, too, the workers will enjoy having a greater say in their output schedules and annual factory plan, &S now promised by the party. While Mr Khrushchev'S followers must presumably expand, it is not easy to foresee the role which other leading Soviet statesmen will play during the life of the next Supreme Soviet. In the nominations for the - Supreme Soviet, Mr Bulganin, for example, lost his Moscow constituency and will in future represent the town of Kaykop (700,000 inhabitants) in the Nortn Caucasus.

Changes in Government leadership can take place at any time, but it is more likely that a new Council of Ministers will be announced at the first session of the Supreme Soviet after the elections, probably in April. A report on the record of the expiring Supreme Soviet is customary at election time. This will refer to the scheme to open up virgin land to the plough in Siberia and Kazakhastan (the Khrushchev Plan for Agriculture) to the reorganisation and decentralisation of industry (the Khrushchev Plan for Industry) to increases in pensions and wages, and to the abolition of certain forms of taxation.