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¶ Communist was the elimination of "Capitalist competition" between Soviet stores and the issuance of food cards entitling Russians to buy below the "open shop" price in extremely limited quantities from State stores. Last week Russia's food cards were historically abolished, and the Government moved to encourage competition between storekeepers of all sorts as the best means of inducing them to raise the standard of their service and goods.
That this step was possible last week meant that the Soviet Government believes Russia has surmounted her ''quantity crisis." That is, although goods now for sale in Moscow stores are still of inferior quality, there is beginning to be for the first time a sufficient quantity to go round. Lest comrades go on a wild buying spree in reaction from their long years of being card-rationed, the State took precautions last week. Warned Izvestia: "Under no circumstances should lines of buyers be permitted to form, for the class enemy will take advantage of such a thing to spread doubt and panic and create a speculative fever."
Signifcance. Not a retreat from Communism, but an evolution and Russianization of this internationalist doctrine the decrees of Dictator Stalin constantly transgress original Communist tenets. Doing lip service but not much more to Marx & Lenin, Stalin has his country on the march to a future not primarily Communist but primarily Russian. He forced dissolution not long ago of the Society of Old Bolsheviks, pure Communists who kept muttering that the Dictator's acts no longer square with Communism as they know it—and who should know better than an Old Bolshevik? Tourists have been treated in the Soviet Union this summer to less propaganda for Communism, more for Russia. Girl guides who used to brag mostly about what Communism was going to do, now brag more about what Russia has done—a subtle distinction, but significant. Bragging points: Moscow's new 1,000-room hotel for foreigners and 800-room hotel for Russians; the new "World's Most Beautiful Subway'' (TIME, May 6); the thrilling fact that Russia has developed national pride and self-esteem to the point of beginning to refuse to sell her national art treasures to Capitalists like Andrew William Mellon.