HOAX IN MOSCOW

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 164, 9 April 1934, Page 9

HOAX IN MOSCOW

Fictitious Trust Created Humour is none too common in tlie Soviet Union to-day, and Moscow is consequently chuckling all the more heartily over one of the most amusing hoaxes perpetrated since the Revolution, says the “Observer.” Its author was the editorial board of “The Crocodile,” a magazine which might be described as a Soviet “Punch”. Its victims include an unspecified number of the country’s “captains of industry.” beads of State, industrial and commercial organisations. With a view to testing the credulity of Soviet business men the editors decided to create an entirely fictitious trust "for the exploitation of meteoric iron.” Knowing that nothing ean be done in Russia without a stamp, and that with a stamp almost all things are possible, they placed an advertisement in a newspaper to the effect that the “trust” had lost its stamp. When the non-existent stamp was. of course, not returned, an application was filed with the bureau which issues stamps, and an actual stamp, henceforward' affixed to all the correspondence dispatched in the name of the trust, was obtained. Armed with a stamp and with an imposing name, the business of the "trust” made remarkable progress. One State official after another expressed enthusiasm at the possibilities of developing meteoric iron. Food cards were issued for a number of employees of the trust. Orders for furniture, for office equipment, even for a lorry, were fulfilled unquestioningly. Despite the red tape which normally surrounds Soviet transactions, no one seems to have thought of the precaution of calling up tlie Commissariat for Heavy Industry and inquiring whether such a trust actually existed. The stamp and tlie magical name "meteoric irou,” at a time when tlie second Five Year Plan was very much in the public eye, carried all before them. Demands for iron began to pour in. An appropriation for 100,000 roubles was very nearly received from lhe Commissariat for Finance. The stumbling-block which put an end to a prolonged joke was encountered in tne Commissariat for Education. Here an official to whom a “representative” of the “trust” had applied for some assistance, became suspicious, discovered that his visitor possessed no genuine credentials, and called in the police. Although the trick was played in all good faith, with the idea of exposing the absence of effective precautions in Soviet economic life, it has apparently been decided that the details -f the story, which excited a mixture of amusement and chagrin in higher Soviet circles, should not be published. News of the hoax spread rapidly, however, as such incidents are apt to do in Moscow; and it was generally pronounced one of the best, jokes ‘The Crocodile” has ever cracked.