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One night in the following May at Moscow's Bolshoi Opera House, a lusty Soviet audience loudly celebrated the 100th anniversary of the birth of the greatly lyrical "Russian weeper"—Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky. To the cheers of the crowd, in a box there appeared Joseph Stalin, Premier Viacheslav Molotov, Marshal Kliment E. Voroshilov, and a new figure in the Stalin entourage—General Semion Konstantinovich Timoshenko.
That day the General's name had not yet appeared in the Soviet Encyclopedia. But that day, together with Generals Kulik and Shaposhnikov of the Finnish victory, he was made a Marshal of the Red Army. And while Marshal Voroshilov was kicked upstairs to the office of Assistant Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, Marshal Timoshenko succeeded him as People's Commissar for Defense.
Since that time Marshal Timoshenko has behaved like both an illustrious military leader and a People's Commissar. For, while he has designed for himself and his comrade marshals a special gold and platinum star studded with diamonds, he has also visited in full regimentals his native village of Furmanka, where he embraced his brother Efrem, whom he had not seen since 1914, kissed many of his old friends, and joined in an all-night carousal in his honor.
Fortnight ago it was rumored that Marshal Timoshenko was the leader of a Kremlin clique who dared to oppose Joseph Stalin by opposing the appeasement of Adolf Hitler. If so, the Marshal has obviously had his way. Last May Day he declared: "The present international situation is pregnant with all kinds of surprises. . . . [Russia is ready] to offer an annihilating rebuff to any encroachment by imperialists." Last week, the Greatest Imperialist of them all having sprung a major encroachment, it was up to Marshal Timoshenko to produce Russia's rebuff.