STALIN AT WAR

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 41, 12 November 1937, Page 17

STALIN AT WAR

The Enemies At Home A LARGE-SCALE PURGE The Soviet Government is preparing for the twentieth anniversary of its existence, and the celebration is to culminate in a great festival, said the Riga correspondent of “The Times” recently. The changes in the creed, the policy, and personnel of the Government—and the party behind and above the Government?— have been many, but one factor has remained practically constant for all this period. Bor 20 years Russia has been ruled by what is officially called “extraordinary emergency law.” The civil war over and “won,” the Government produced their first “Gode of Criminal Laws,” published in 1922. which proclaimed the abolition of tho death penalty as one of the greatest boons for Soviet citizens., A reservation was added, however, that—the penalty of death shall be inflicted only in cases of extreme emergency and . . • in districts where martial law has been proclaimed. Several half-hearted attempts have been made to convert the abolition of capital punishment into a fact, but the "supreme measure of social defence” (as it is called) has remained in practice, and the fear of it dominates the lives of Soviet citizens to-day no less than it did in the early stage of this 20-year period.

Over All Russia. The country is at war. The civil war has never really ended. As in 1917, the “front” to-day is spread over the whole of Russia. The newspapers tell their readers every day that organisations anil groups of the “enemy” have been captured and shot. Who are these “enemies,” and what are their methods of fighting? In the early years of the revolution they were labelled monarchists, class aliens, expolicemen ; the offences laid at their door were chiefly those of bearing arms against the Government, plotting revolt, failing in duty, or possessing an unsatisfactory past. The “supreme measure” is being inflicted to-day chiefly on members of the ruling Communist Party, who then and until recently occupied responsible political and administrative posts; the crimes of which they are found guilty in elude almost invariably espionage, trafficking with Trotsky and foreign enemies, sabotage, conspiring to revolt, and anti-Soviet terrorism. A large proportion of provlnvial officials are charged in addition with nationalism, propagating separatist tendencies, disseminating disease among the crops, fomenting discontent among the collectivised peasantry, poisoning food and drinking water of the people. If brought into court they nearly all confess docilely to these monstrous crimes, and are sentenced and shot. Some who have warning in advance escape this ignominy by suicide. The present period of crisis and internecine strife within the Communist Party came to a head in 1935, when the glamour of the collectivising and industrialising plans was fading. Stalin threw a sop to the broad masses of Russia and launched a vigorous offensive in the upper strata of the Communist Party. The sop was the promise of a Constitution, which he called a new charter of .liberty and equality for the people of the Soviet Union; the offensive was against those leaders of the party who had shown and were showing a tendency to criticise or question the wisdom and prospects of his fiveyear plans. The promised new Constitution has been worked out and, according to plan, is soon to come into full operation. While propaganda and agitation have sought to concentrate the political attention of the masses on the gradual evolution of this Constitution during the last two years, Stalin has continued his offensive, successively dissolving the organisation of Old Bolshevists, “executing” a number of his former rivals and associates, and is now engaged in an attempt to destroy the most formidable of his enemies, the hydra of inefficiency, with heads in every branch of urban and rural Russia. Fatigue in the System.

Thus there is scarcely a department of Soviet life which is not being subjected to a. violent purge. The heads or deputy-heads of the central departments of foreign affairs, defence, police, justice, transport, communications, trade, timber, agriculture and industry have been removed, degraded, or shot within the last few months. The remaining organs of Government in Russia proper and the capitals of the other six republics which compose the Soviet Union, and all the local administrations down to the village Soviets, are going through the same process. Parallel with this a similar purge is going on in all the urban and rural committees of the Communist Party. There have been general, purges 'before, reaching even deeper and more thoroughly into the rank and file, and therefore directly affecting more persons than the present one, but there has been none in which the death penalty has been administered to Communists on so large a scale. The reason? for this drastic policy were obsc«ed for a time, but are now becoming plain. For all the favourable statistics and all the appearances of progress in some of the privileged first-class zones, the Stalin system of planned industrialisation and collectivised rural hubandry it is still far from being the success it promised to be. After nine years under this system the mass of the people are still underfed, overworked, and badly clothed. In the gigantic industrial machine which has been produced the human and the mechanical elements are fatigued. It is therefore impossible to keep up the required standard of production either in quantity or in quality. Two years ago an attempt was made to stimulate output by the introduction of the so-called Stakhanofii shock-sys-tem, enabling workers to earn higher wages by achieving greater and better results in less time. Individual workers managed, indeed, to double and treble their wages by this method, but the impulse scarcely became general before it began to Wane. Factory plant was overstrained, and, as repairs were neglected, the machinery became less efficient. The practice became common for enterprising workers to carry out rough and ready repairs of the machines for which they were responsible with parts taken from the machines of less alert neighbours. It is said that for this and other reasons many Soviet works and factories are now in need of capital repairs. Instead of openly recognising the real causes, the authorities attributed defects and failure to fulfil plans to the malign acts of “wreckers” and “enemies of the people.” Delinquents are sought to bear the brunt. Tlio Red Army. The stimulation of efficiency by dragooning his officials is not the whole purpose of Stalin’s present policy. He is striving also to restore unity of aUe-,

glance and control in the party and the Government machine. His authority has not been seriously challenged for many years; but when this present offensive began, the hitches in fulfilment of his plans for industry and agriculture were tending towards a loosening of his grip on the minds of his underlings, and his sway was becoming less absolute.

The Red Army was the most obvious potential challenger of his regime. This had been raised to a high state of efficiency, but was slipping from the influence of Communist doctrines and the Communist Party. Stalin jerked it out of this “false course” by destroying the group of high Commanders who, to his way of thinking, were leading it astray. There can be no doubt that he thereby weakened the fighting efficiency of the military machine, but, for a time at least, he has strengthened his own relative position in the country by “stunning” a potential rival. If the Army has any articulate mind, this is now in subjection to the Communist Party again, and through the party to Stalin personally, for his obedient puppets are in the chief key positions, irrespective of their qualifications as organisers and military leaders. To effect and consolidate his early moves in the present phase of chequered manoeuvring, Stalin, relied chiefly on his police, the reorganised Cheka. But Yagoda, the chief of this organ of government, was obviously another potential rebel. A few adroit moves, and Yagoda was a dis-

graced convict inside the central prison he had done more than any other living man to create.’ The source or instrument of Stalin’s strength is still the police, and Yezhoff. its new chief, is a staunch and obedient supporter from whom Stalin has little to fear for the time being. Yezhoff is Stalin’s chief executive.