Tadjiks Promoted

Spaciously last week Soviet Dictator Josef Stalin gestured toward the million Tadjiks who industrially grow cotton in Tadjikistan and fluently speak Farsit.

On a great scroll inscribed in flowery Farsit the Soviet Assembly of Tadjikistan recently despatched to Moscow a formal notice of their wish to hop up a grade in the peculiar national hierarchy of the Soviet Union. They were already the Autonomous Republic of Tadjikistan, They would now like to make use of their "autonomy" to proclaim themselves the Independent Republic of Tadjikistan. Would that be all right? Last week Dictator Stalin signified that it would. Straightway grateful Tadjiks changed the name of their capital from Diushambe to Stalinabad.*

Tadjikistan now ranks with the seven other Independent Socialist Soviet Republics: 1) White Russia; 2) The Ukraine; 3) Armenia; 4) Uzbek; 5) Georgia; 6) Azerbaijan; 7) Turcoman. The joker is that all of these "independent republics" are federated with the Moscow Government of "Russia Proper," officially the R. S. F. S. R. or Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic. In theory the federal bond can be cast off by any Independent Republic at its sole discretion, but in practice such a step would bring Red Army divisions hot from Moscow.

Tadjikistan, both strategically and commercially important, abuts on Afghanistan and China, produces not only cotton but gold, coal, oil, iron, zinc and pigeon-blood rubies. Intensive field work by smart agents of Dictator Stalin caused Tadjiks to increase the area of their cotton fields from a mere 4,900 acres in 1917 to 240,000 acres this year. Meantime at the Moscow Government's expense 140 miles of railway are under construction in Tadjikistan, together with 312 miles of highways, 60 medical dispensaries, twelve modern hospitals.

*"Stalinabad" is the Farsit approximation to "Stalingrad," the Russian for "Stalin's City."