RUSSIA: Stalin Laughs! | TIME

So secretive an Asiatic is Josef Stalin that up to last week not even the leading U. S. correspondents in Moscow were positive that he has a wife,* how many children he has, or their sex.

Correspondent Eugene Lyons of the United Press obtained last week the second interview ever granted by Comrade Stalin. (His first was granted four years ago to a fellow Asiatic, the correspondent of Japan’s Osaka Mainichi Shimbun.) At Correspondent Lyons’ request, the Dictator confirmed a general impression that he has a wife (no picture of her is known to exist), stated that he has three children: a son, 22, who is “studying technical railroading in school”; another son, 10; a daughter, 5.

“I warn you, Mr. Lyons,” he chaffed, “that your little daughter will probably turn out to be a Red Pioneer.”

Commenting on the fact that he is called Russia’s Dictator, Comrade Stalin exclaimed with another hearty laugh: “It is just very funny!”

He pointed out that legally he is only General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party—which is quite true, although as such he dictates to all Russia.

Russia’s Roosevelt. “Glimpsed from afar Stalin seems cold and harsh,” cabled Correspondent Lyons, “but at close range his outstanding feature is a broad smile almost as full of teeth as Roosevelt’s and, like Roosevelt’s, overshadowed by his shaggy mustache. He speaks slowly . . . with broad, oriental gestures. . . . His mind seems automatically to organize its materials into simple forms and words comprehensive to any working man. . . . Stalin and [War Commissar Clemence] Voroshilov [present during the interview] addressed each other by the familiar ‘thou’. . . . Intimacy and informality pervade [Stalin’s] entire establishment . . . immaculately clean and hushed as a library, contrasting in these respects with the usual noisy, littered Russian offices.”

Commenting on U. S., world and Russian affairs Josef Stalin expressed himself thus:

Recognition. “If it cannot establish political ties with the United States the Soviet Union at least desires to strengthen its economic ties with America. And America being a great, wealthy, technically progressive and developed country, must appreciate the advantages of such economic intercourse as much as we do.”

Dumping. Flatly denying that Soviet Russia is dumping or has dumped anything, Stalin declared: “For many years our home market will absorb all we can manufacture and a lot more. . . . In two years we shall be the world’s largest grain producer. . . . But all talk about selling below cost, employing ‘forced labor’ et cetera, is sheer nonsense!”

In Washington last week the Treasury Department announced that new regulations have been drafted, with Soviet Russia primarily in mind, to exclude from the U. S. all imports produced by forced or convict labor.

World Revolution. Quizzed about the prospects of the World Revolution of the World Proletariat, Stalin said: “If I must answer in two words, they are: ‘prospects good!’ ”

Revolts, Mutinies, Counter-Revolution. Both War Commissar Voroshilov and Comrade Stalin denied all current rumors of revolts or mutinies in Russia, affirmed with equal vehemence their belief that persons leagued with the secret agents of capitalist states have recently been caught red-handed in Russia plotting counterrevolution.

“Why does the press of the world countenance so many lies?” asked Voroshilov, and Stalin said, “They want to make the world think the Soviets started this counter-revolutionary trial [TIME, Nov. 24] as a smoke-screen to hide our supposed starvation, unrest and what not.”

Apologizing for his refusal, up to last week, to be interviewed by any white foreign Correspondent, Josef Stalin genially remarked: “Interviews don’t fit very well into my personal five-year plan.” To make amends, he motioned Correspondent Lyons hospitably to a typewriter, and while the interview was being typed, plied him with sandwiches, tea.

*Dictator Benito Mussolini has a wife, but neither the Italian Embassy nor the Prime Minister’s office will divulge the place or date of his marriage, which antiFascists charge never took place.

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