STALIN’S FOR AT HOME

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 75, 21 December 1929, Page 33

STALIN’S FOR AT HOME

The greatest menace to Stalin in his practical dictatorship of Soviet Russia is said to be the Red Awmy. It is largely officered by artlstocrats, with a rank and file conscious of the soldier’s contempt for polities, we are told, and it is neither in love with the Kremlin group, nor loved by it. Voroshilov, the Army Commissar, is said to be oue of the few prominent figures not up to now removed by Stalin. But he has played a clever game, and allowed no opening for dismissal, writes Martin McLaughlin in “The Irish Statesman” (Dublin). According to report:— v “Stalin has ready a more favourable successor, but he fears to quarrel with the soldiers, with Whdm Voroshilov is popular. The fact that very many of the rank and file are peasants tends also to make them hostile to Stalin.. A large army is necessary for Russia s safety: she has long frontiers and many foes. But so long as possible, the Moscow Government will avoid any use of the Army defensive action and punitive expeditions are often inevitable —because it realises that victory or defeat alike threaten the march of an army oif Moscow. The shadow of Napoleon still haunts the Kremlin. Stalin himself is not cast for that part. He has been wise enough to put side vain. Messianic dreams. Indeed, so long as.

he mixes mediocrity with caution, while hr develops the machinery and bridles the spirit of Bolshevism, he is likely to remain in the niche he has so cleverly made for himself.” Stalin is undoubtedly an opponent of the peasants, according to this contributor to “The Irish Statesman.” Attacks on Soviet officials in rural districts have grown more frequent of late, it is noted, and the Government’s policy of persecuting the more industrious peasants on account of their wealth has embittered all but the idle sections of the country population. We read then:

“Still, so long as Stalin leaves the peasants de facto, if not de jure proprietors, there is not likely to be any considerable trouble on this score in Russia. Elsewhere. Stalin has notably increased the popularity of the Soviet rule. At one time it seemed likely that the current epidemic of nationalism might lead to the disintegration of Russia. A rising in the Ukraine was only supprest after much bloodshed. Similar revolts threatened elsewhere. But with the advent to power of Stalin and his men of the South, the Soviet Union has been more international, less purely Russian in its government. Recent events in, Manchuria mark the Asiatic trend in Soviet policy.”