Weight of the German pressure has not been relaxed in the Pskov region southeast of Lake Peipus, and in the vital Polotsk and Smolensk areas.
Apparently there was a lull in German operations along the front south of Smolensk as far as Novograd-Volynsk. Official communiques merely stated that nothing of importance occurred on the other fronts.
The communique said that successful guerilla operations were developing to the rear of German troops and the enemy was said to be suffering heavy losses. Simultaneously, the Red Air Fleet on Sunday blasted enemy motorized and mechanized troops.
The communique corrected the previous communique covering air activity on July 18 and claimed that 71 German planes were destroyed instead of the originally announced Two Commissariats Merged Official communiques revealed yesterday that the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet had ordered merging of the Peoples Commissariat of Internal Affairs with the Commissariat of State Security because of the nation's transition from a peace-time to a war-time basis.
M. Lavrentii Pavlovich Bena was appointed Commissar of Internal Affairs. supervising duties of both Commissariats. while M. Vsevolod Nikolaevich Merkulov was appointed his deputy. The amalgamation order will apply to the U.S.S.R. as a whole and also to local similar bureaus in the autonomous republics, territories and regions.—United Press.
Moscow, July 21. Russian capital has not yet suffered any air raid, but the blackout is stricter than ever.
When an alert sounds all traffic is suspended, and everyone goes to air-raid shelters.
Moscow is still looking normal and, according to press reports, the same is true of Leningrad, where shops are opening normally and factory workers are steadily stepping up production.
In Moscow's famous shopping street Kuznetsky, there is a vast display of anti-Hitler cartoons, posters and even oil paintings, some with comic verses attached, One painting recalls an incident dating from 1242. when armoured Teuton knights were drowned in the neighbourhood of Leningrad, The painting shows German submarine prisoners arriving and fishes remarking: "The same chips ain!
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.