Over 1,000,000 citizens of Moscow left their homes one sub-zero day last week, turned out in a driving snowstorm to march across the Red Square shouting "Hurrah for Stalin!" They carried heavy wood & canvas floats and tall banners which they struggled to keep Moscow's wintry blasts from whipping from their hands. It was a magnificent show of Russian stamina, celebrating the election with which Russia has "come of age" (TIME, Dec. 20). Stalin, who is a native of the semitropical Tiflis region, did not himself turn out in the blizzard but sent 62-year-old Russian President Kalinin to stand snow-buffeted atop the tomb of Lenin in the Red Square, to receive officially "on behalf of Comrade Stalin" the shouts of acclaim.
Meanwhile, the tremendous work of tabulating returns from 130,000 voting districts, of which 40,000 have no telegraphic or even rail connection with Moscow, went ahead with feverish activity. It was belatedly announced that 94,138,000 Russians registered to vote and that at least 96.5% had voted. All votes counted for the Stalin regime, since only Stalinist candidates ran, and Soviet officials boasted that not a single ballot had come to light which seemed to have been scratched. On the contrary, millions of ballot envelopes when opened were found to contain not only the voter's name signed or printed but also such expressions as "I would give my life for Stalin, let alone my vote!" Also thousands had brought with them to the polls little notes of praise addressed to Dictator Stalin and to Secret Police Chief Yezhov and had slipped them into the envelopes in which they cast their ballots.
According to Pravda, official newsorgan of the Communist Party, the counting of ballots cast in the Stalin District on the outskirts of Moscow, where the candidate was Stalin himself, was an occasion tense with emotion. "The first envelope is slit!" exclaimed Pravda. "All eyes are directed to it. The chairman takes out two slips— and reads loudly and distinctly 'COMRADE STALIN!'
"Instantly the solemnity is broken. Everybody in the room jumps up and applauds joyously and stormily for the first ballot of the first general secret election under the Stalinist Constitution—a ballot with the name of the Constitution's creator!"
There was no other name printed on the ballots which the chairman, could have read, but according to Pravda each time he read out "COMRADE STALIN!" all present went wild in a fresh ovation.