Old Bolsheviks, New Credits

In Moscow last week Comrade Alexander Alexandrovitch Troyanovsky, poker-faced Soviet Ambassador to the U. S., was surrounded by an eager court of U. S. manufacturers. They hoped at last to get the huge Red orders expected one year ago when President Roosevelt recognized the Soviet Union (TIME, Nov. 27). In Washington the State Department's attitude, according to Assistant Secretary of State R. Walton Moore, was one of "strong hope."

Comrade Troyanovsky is supposed to have gone to Moscow to tell Comrade Stalin that the President is now willing to have Washington's Export-Import Bank guarantee 75% of credits to be extended to Russia by U. S. firms on the basis of Red orders in a volume of some $50,000,000 per year. Part of the interest charged Bolsheviks on these credits would go into the U. S. Treasury as indirect repayment of the Tsarist and Kerensky debts which Stalin & Co. positively refuse to acknowledge as such. It was this refusal, still maintained, which caused Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes to lay down the doctrine: no payment, no recognition (TIME, Dec. 31, 1923).

In Moscow last week, as Dictator Stalin considered President Roosevelt's reputed offer, were aggressive President Vincent Bendix of Bendix Corp. (airplane equipment, automobile starters, brakes); General Motors Vice President T. W. Tinkham; White Motor Truck Vice President Colonel Everett Gardner; and representatives of United Aircraft & Transport Corp., ace builders of battle planes. Though Washington spoke of Red orders for U.S. heavy industry, the supersalesmen actually in Moscow last week all seemed to offer equipment to motorize the Red Army against Japan.

At this delicate juncture Ambassador Troyanovsky as never before needed to play the discreet diplomat. There are some things an ambassador simply does not say. Ambassador Troyanovsky said nearly all of them in an address last week to the Society of Old Bolsheviks, Moscow's most select club. The S. O. B. had invited him to submit to questions and give them the low-down on President Roosevelt and the New Deal. "Exactly why do you think President Roosevelt recognized the Soviet Union?" asked an Old Bolshevik.

"Well, for one thing he was afraid of Japan and wanted an ally in the East," said Ambassador Troyanovsky. "Also he realized that recognizing Russia would contribute to his personal prestige."

With a chuckle as infectious as the President's, the Ambassador answered a query as to whether the U.S. can be counted on to fight with Russia in a Soviet-Japanese war: "The future," he chuckled, "will show."

Old Bolsheviks learned that "A revolution in the United States is not at all imminent."

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