LEADERS IN RUSSIA

Evening Star, Issue 23130, 2 December 1938, Page 7

LEADERS IN RUSSIA

RISE OF UNKNOWNS BIG POSTS CONCENTRATED EFFECTS OF PURGES The Supreme Soviet of the D.S.S.R. frequently proclaimed in the Soviet Press to be the “ world’s newest and most democratic Parliament,” concluded its second session during the latter half, of August after a series of almost daily sittings in the Kremlin extending over 12 days, writes the Moscow correspondent of the ‘ Manchester Guardian.’ The time was devoted almost entirely to hearing reports from Government officials and-to discussions of them which amounted to amplifications of the reports. The discussions never could have been said to have developed into debate, and there was no record of a negative vote having been cast throughout the proceedings. What could not escape observant eyes when the two Houses met for the' first time since January was the absence of a number of faces which had been prominent during the historical first session. Some of these absences were entirely expected. The official dismissal of three commissars had been announced during the interval—Bakulin, of railway transport, Popov, of State procurements, and Pakhomov, of water transport. What further has happened to them has not been divulged, as is usually the case tiese days. MISSING COMMISSARS. They belonged to the dozen or more commissars named by the Premier, Molotov, in January who had no national reputations, and who were virtually unknown to the Soviet public generally. Rumour had involved the names of other commissars. Eiche, the Commissar of Agriculture, who disappeared from his post about May 1, was not a nonentity, but a Bolshevik and revolutionist of long standing. Just before the session opened it was reported widely in Moscow that the first commissar of the newly-created Commissariat of Naval Affairs, P. A. Smirnov, had been removed for unknown reasons. Earlier there had been similar reports involving four little-known commissars —Bruskin, of machine building, Gilinsky, of food industry, M. P. Smirnov, of internal trade, and Boldyrev, of health. None of these men attended

the Supreme Soviet sittings, and seats iu the box reserved for the Council of People’s Commissars were noticeably empty. An announcement on August 28 that “ wreckers ” in the Naval Commissariat had been “ liquidated ” probably points to the fate of P. A. Smirnov. MORE IMPORTANT MEN. Two other members of the Council of Commissars whose rumoured disgrace was confirmed by their non-appearance at the Kremlin session were more important in the Soviet hierarchy than any of these. They were the members of the all-powerful Communist Party Polit-bureau, V. Y. Chubar and S. V. Kosior, who had been elected in January vice-chairmen of the council, or Deputy Premiers. Both were Ukrainians, and it is believed _ their sudden downfall from an eminence surpassed only, by Stalin in the Soviet Union was connected with the new “purge” in the Ukraine in the late spring, which has not yet been satisfactorily explained. Chubar had become recognised as the oratorical mouthpiece of the Kremlin, and his talents had been employed in January to denounce “ enemies ” and “wreckers ” to the deputies. The veteran President of the Ukraine, G. I. Petrovsky, a vice-chairman of the Supreme Soviet, was reported involved with Chubar and Kosior, but hcappeared at the recent session. It was observed that he was given no part to play, and his post in the Ukrainian Government has been filled. )Ehe score on the Council of Commissars may be summed up by reporting that of the 28 members nominated by Moltov for his Cabinet in January eleven apparently have been cast into limbo in six months’ time. OTHER DISAPPEARANCES. Two figures raised up by the Supreme Soviet to prominence also have passed into the shade—Segisbayey and Levitski, vice-chairmen respectively of the Council of the Union and the Council of Nationalities. The Supreme Soviet was called upon to deal with only six of the 11 vacancies in the Cabinet. It confirmed interim appointments of L. _M. Kaganovich as Commissar of Railways and N. I, Yezhov as Commissar of Water Transport, and named three little-known men to the machine-building, food industries, and procurements posts. Kaganovich was also made a Deputy Premier, but in whose place was not revealed, as neither Chubar nor Kosior was mentioned, even to denounce him. This gives Kaganovich three portfolios, for he remains Commissar of Heavy Industry. It is recalled that in January Chubar and A. I. Mikoyan relinquished posts as commissars in becoming Deputy Premiers, because it was stated to be a policy not to have Deputy Premiers hold other portfolios in the Cabinet. The fact that two of Stalin’s most

trusted lieutenants, Kaganovich and Yezhov, have undertaken the leadership of the ■ commissariats of railway transport and of waterways respectively, in addition to the arduous tasks already imposed upon them as commissars of heavy industry and of internal affairs respectively, reveals a tendency which the Soviet Union, in contrast with the other dictatorial regimes, had not previously displayed. LEADERS NOW RARER? The new development suggests that the Kremlin is experiencing difficulty in finding men experienced in directing the unwieldy economic apparatus who at the same time are trustworthy and display the dynamic qualities which the present situation in Russia calls for from its leaders. The purge, through its executions and arrests, took heavy toll of the front-rank administrators. With these men disappeared as a rule ail the men of second rank who might have been prepared to take over the vacated posts and fill them with a show of experience and familiarity with the responsibilities. They had to go with their chiefs because they inevitably were suspected of having been in complicity with them or, at least, of having failed to reveal their alleged wrong-doings. This accounts for Cabinet appointments of men little known to the public. One of these was A. _Y. Bakulin, who had already been acting a_s Commissar of Railway Transport since L. M. Kaganovich relinquished the post late' in 1937 to become Commissar _ of Heavy Industry. _ Now Kaganovich, whose drastic tactics in the Railway Commissariat won him the sobriquet of the “ Iron Commissar,” has displaced Bakulin, taking on his stolid shoulders at the same time the two most Herculean and heartbreaking tasks in the Soviet Union —the piloting of Russia’s chronically chaotic railway system and the co-ordinating of the heavy industry. And, as if this were not enough, he also has become Deputy Premier.