Russians tried hard to laugh about the shortcomings of their new Five-Year Plan and the purges that came in its wake. The humorous weekly, Crocodile, ran a cover cartoon of a man filling milk cans at a water pump. Each can bore the legend "100% fulfilled." The caption: "Chief milkmaid, or how Tovarish Figure-Chaser fulfills the plan." To make the picture still funnier, P. V. Smirnov, the head of Russia's meat and milk production, was promptly fired. But the comedy was still strictly official. For in Russia last week a full-fledged purge,...
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