SUCCESSOR TO LENIN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19453, 8 October 1926, Page 14

SUCCESSOR TO LENIN.

" THE MAN OF STEEL." DOMINATING MAN IN RUSSIA. STALIN'S RISE TO AUTHORITY. [from our own correspondent.] LONDON. Ang. 34. Internal dissensions continue in Soviet Russia. Stalin's repressive measures against the Opposition loaders continue, notwithstanding warnings from many quarters that such action simply serves to drive the movement which he is striving to suppress into subterranean channels, where it will be more difficult to, tackle. A special resolution excludes Ossovsky from the Communist Party because he refuses to retract opinions expressed in a widely-distributed pamphlet, which the leaders repeatedly cited at that fateful July session of the Central Committee, during which Dzcrzhinsky suddenly died, and the present discords came to the surface. In view of Stalin's rise to power it is interesting to read of his career as set out by a well-informed correspondent of the Sunday Observer. Josef Djugoshvili is Stalin's real name. He is a Georgian by birth and his revolutionary name of Stalin means "The Man of Steel." For over two years he has been the dominating figure in Russia. His power continues to increase. Ho controls the machine that controls Russia. "Between him and Lenin," says tho writer of the article, "there are, of course, vast differences. Lenin dominated by intellect and personality. He belonged to the race of super-men. Stalin dominates by efficient organisation. Lenin was a man of personal charm, who could be rough and hard when occasion needed it, but who preferred as a rule to speak softly. Stalin is rough, blustering and impetuous. In Csarist days the police described him, then a political prisoner in the Caucasus, as 'rough, insolent and disrespectful of authority.' He is the 'strong man' of the type loved by lady novelists. "Stalin has deliberately wrapped himself up in an atmosphere of mystery. It was long his boast that he never gave a newspaper interview, never influenced a newspaper article, never sought publicity and never, so far as he could stop it, allowed publicity about himself. Recent events may have broken down this policy, bnt it is certain that world correspondents who reached Moscow in the hectic years of the Revolution soon learned that it was easier to see Lenin and Trotzky and tho whole of the rest of the People's Commissars than to have a word with Stalin. A rough young Revolutionist, he took part in the fierce fighting that swept over the Caucasus in 1905, following 'Bloody Sunday' in St. Petersburg. Then came months in prison and years as a revolutionary organiser. When success came to the Communists in the autumn of 1917, Stalin was an efficient and active official, not in the front ranks with the giants, like Lenin, Trotzky and Zinovicff, but close behind. Ho made a big success of his first great administrative post, that of Commissar for the Outer Nationalties. A Statesmanlike Achievement. "When the Communists took control of Russia they declared as part of their programme tho policy of the right to self-determination for the different nationalties forming the old Russian Empire. But when they came to build np new Russia, they found that it would bo disastrous to allow tho many nations, small and large, to set up as independent States. The Kerelians might declared themselves free, the Ukrainians set, np their Republic, and even the Oriads, on the Mongolian border, their own State. Some of these nationalities wished to do so. On Stalin fell the -work of keeping these peoples within the Republic by goodwill, not force. Except in tho case of his own race, the Georgians, he succeeded in a very clever and statesmanlike way.' , r "Stalin next- came prominently before the world by his management of the Russian Communist Party, of which he was secretary. This party, as all the world knows, controls the Government of Russia. While nominally democratic, it became under Stalin increasingly bureaucratic. Lenin had kept his followers together by his individual authority. Stalin tried other means. Every Communist group has its own presiding officials, who are supposed to be elected by the members. Stalin sent his delegates to tho different groups when election time came, with instructions that they should be chosen. This brought about tno famous dispute of the end of 1924, when a group of . malcontents, protesting against Stalin's autocracy, found a mouthpiece in Trotzky. tt . , "Stalin had prepared for this. He had noted Trotzky's tendency to more liberal ways, He had enlisted on his side tjie two most powerful leaders, Kamenev, brother-in-law of Trotzky, and Zinovieff, head of tho Third International. Trotzky and Zinovieff were traditional foes. Moderates Sent Into Exile.

"Helped by these, and with the power of the machine behind him, Stalin purged the partv drastically. Ho secured tho establishment of a rule that no groups or factions inside tho party are to bo permitted and that no men are to come together to form a group for any purpose. No factionalism, he declared. He had a large number of the Moderates who had protested against his autocracy di'ummed out of the patty. Many were sent into prison and exile. Large numbers of uneducated workmen, malleable material, were brought in, men who could be relied upon* it was thought, to vote blindly for the policy of Stalin. "Had Stalin ended here, he would have shown himself nothing more than a clever organiser. But, having reached this point, he amazed friends and foes alike by moderating his policy in the hour of his triumph. It was he and Dzerjinsky who called back Trotzky from exile, when Zinovieff would have had him shot. It was he who aided Trotzky back to limited power. When ho found that Zinovieff's extreme Communist tactics were offending foreign Powers and producing economic chaos in Russia, he discarded Zinovieff like an old glove. Zinovieff struggled in vain. Tho machine — in other words, Stalin—was too strong." The writer goes on to say.—"What is Stalin's aim'! Efficiency and successful administration. Ho is a practical politician, who is willing to modify theorist doctrines to meet actual events. Ho recognises tho need of foreign aid, of business efficiency, of the strict organisation of labour. A man of the south himself, ho knows that the peasant will in the end decide the fata of Russia. This man is no idealistic dreamer. He is a shrewd, practical politician. "Can Stalin with all his cleverness continue to control the machine? The annual congress of the Russian Communist Party this year showed that the delegates are no longer willing to sit in silence, to do what they are told when they are told. This year they criticised with tho utmost freedom. Stalin has to make good, and ho can only make good by restoring prosperity to Russia. Can he control tho new spirit of independence'! Can ho harness it and make it into a driving power in tho battlo for efficiency? If so, Communist Russia, despite storms and troubles yet ahead, is at the begining of better days."