SOVIET MACHINE SLOWING UP SAYS PROFESSOR HOPPER

A slowing up of the general tempo in Soviet Russia is evident at the present time since the set-back in the capitalistic world has removed the prime cause for feverish development and expansion," said Bruce Hopper, Assistant Professor of Government, and widely known interpreter of Russian political and economic theory, in an interview yesterday. "A possible explanation might be that the Bolsheviks, having stolen three years from history' by starting the Five Year Plan before the depression, now feel sufficiently strong to give themselves a taste of the better things of life.

"There has been a marked decline in the working strength of the Russian people owing to an inadequate supply of food. The depression in the rest of the world affords an opportunity for at least a temporary rest from the feverish activity of the last three years. The regarding of industrial production is being enforced by the government, as a political move for strengthening the popularity of the communist party, by giving the working classes a chance to regain their energy. It is also using this opportunity to improve general welfare," Professor Hopper continued.

Since early in the fall, the bread ration cards have been abolished and new stores have been opened everywhere. The open market, strictly prohibited by early communistic practice, is now being tolerated, and thus a wider list of commodities is available to the Russians. Likewise the handicraft workers, put out of business by the Socialists in 1928, are again allowed to contribute to the market. "This indicates a slight concession to private initiative," Professor Hopper explained. "The general trend is to increased production of consumer's goods, rather than to manufacture for the state.

"The social changes I consider most important," Professor Hopper declared. "There is now a differentiation in wages, instituted to arrest the equalizing tendency which has destroyed the incentive for learning of skilled trades. The wages of skilled workers were raised 30 percent on October 1. The 'former' people, especially the bourgeois specialists, have now been granted the privileges of the proletariat. Since the time has passed when class war demanded removal of such people from the party, Russia hopes to produce from these people a trained personnel to operate its industries more efficiently than specialists from the proletariat.