SEVERE ACTION

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 20, 25 January 1937, Page 7

SEVERE ACTION

RUSSIAN DISCIPLINE BLACK MARK ON FAMILY An incident graphically describing how members of families and friends of Communists accused of opposition to the ruling regime in Soviet Russia are held responsible for the alleged misdeeds of their relatives and associates, has been published in "Pravda," official organ of the Communist Party, writes the Moscow correspondent of the. "Christian Science Monitor." The following account is translated from ''Pravda'' No. 247 (6853): I

• "A worker named Grauber, member of the Central Committee of Trade Unions in the State Trading Trust at Rostoff-on-Don, made a doubtful speech at a meeting of the Young Communist League in 1927, while he was still a Young Communist. His doubtful position was explained to him, and he voted the same night for the majority Communist faction (headed by Joseph Stalin). During the following nine years he worked faithfully as a party member.

"But during the recent 'purge' Grauber was expelled from the party as a Trotskyist. It was revealed that Grauber still entertained doubts which he concealed from the party, and it is right that he should be penalised, although expulsion seems severe. "The significant point is that Grauber's expulsion has been used to make enemies of several members of the party and of the Young Communist League. In a Rostoff factory, Grauber's 19-year-old brother and 17-year-old sister worked as Stakhanovists and exceptionally active Young Communists. EXPULSION OBTAINED. "But as soon as it was learned that their brother had been expelled,, the secretary of the Young Communist League in the Factory insisted upon the expulsion of both of them. The factory newspaper, 'Enthusiast,', reported that the Young Communists 'have driven out the remnants of counterrevolutionaries in the Grauber family.'

"Two other young people were expelled from two other Young Communist groups for no other apparent reason than that they were members in 1927 of the same Young Communist group as Grauber, and failed to denounce'him. A party unit expelled another brother of Grauber for failing to denounce his brother.

"A woman was expelled from the party because she worked with Grauber in the same state trust and failed to denounce him. An elderly woman, member of the: party since 1920, was expelled because she had recommended Grauber for party membership. She was formally charged with 'assisting the enemy to crawl into the party.' "Another worker was expelled for the same reason, although he had defended. the thesis. of the party majority at the same meeting in which Grauber made his doubtful speech. A worker in the Fishery Trust was expelled because he had been friendly with Grauber during recent years. OTHERS PUNISHED. "The incident was not confined to these expulsions of innocent persons from the party and the Young Communist League. Leaders of State trusts and trade union groups expelled and discharged from their jobs many other, innocent persons' because they wished to avoid any suspicion of their own disloyalty." It is necessary to point out that expulsion from the ruling party is like-ly-permanently to jeopardise careers. The black mark of expulsion remains on the record, and often is used against its possessors in the frequent "party cleanings," when all members submit to a rigid investigation of their pasts. Few persons with expulsions on their records can hope to attain high positions subsequently in the state hierarchy. In this instance, as "Pravda" pointed out, it is doubtful whether Grauber ever was actually involved in opposition to the ruling Communist group. Nevertheless, not only he but his family and friends were made to suffer. 1 "Pravda" commented that "Bolshevik vigilance becomes unwholesome when Communists, in order to reinsure themselves against any suspicion of disloyalty, discover all sorts of alien enemies."

If a family and friends were "rooted out" in this instance, one can imagine what happened to the * relatives and associates of those more directly involved in the recent Moscow .conspiracy trial. The official Press published several instances of the discharge of relatives of defendants in the trial.