Many a child-bearing Russian housewife, already beset with a scarcity of salt, sugar, matches, soap, etc., last week faced the prospect of didying her infant with her own platok (kerchief) because of an acute shortage of diapers. The Government organ Izvestia revealed that of the 1938 quota of 3,170,000 diapers, the Commissariat of Light Industry had managed to turn out only 765,900 in the first nine months of the year. To make matters worse, Izvestia somewhat puzzlingly added, "many of these failed to reach the ultimate consumer." Presaging a "purge" of...
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