LENIN'S CHIEF ADVISER.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XLIV, Issue 14007, 11 March 1920, Page 6

LENIN'S CHIEF ADVISER.

CHINESE BARBER TO BE .RUSSIA'S GREATEST MAN.

(Dy Julius Ostmann.)

Ipak Yen. Chinese ex-barber, bids fair to be Soviet Russia's. greatest man, He is almost as great a man ai Nicholas Lenin. He is greater than Krasine, the commissary of communications; than Suritz, the" censor-geiw-ral, who has lately risen to' power; that the 1 ' spitfire Madame Radez, wile of the head of the Bolshevist propaganda, whose vitriolic tongue and masculine brain are the real sources of hair of the Soviet policy. . But Ipak Yen does more. He is Lenin's closest adviser; he is the modest, indirect inspirer - of many schemes; he is smooth, supple insinuating, resourceful, industrious, indomitable, consumed bv overmastering ambition. Among tough and slow-brained Russians he plays the mighty role which,'in the 18th century was played at the court of Constantinople by the Phanariot Greeks.

lpak Yen is the only Soviet magnate of high rank who is on good terms with nearly everyone. He is not. only .L/eniii's confidant; he manages also to be the confidant of Lenin's foes, the extraordinary ~commission for combating counter-revolution, the aim of whose bosses—the Pole v Dzerzhinsky, the Letts Peters and the woman Krouse—is to set mighty Lenin himself before the firing squad! Ipak Yen is not a genuine Chinaman. He is a. Qonfucian Buriat from Southern Siberia! who 15 years back, was peacefully shaving hairy citizens' beards in lively -Manchuria. The Russo-Japanese war was his destiny, Bennenkampf, one of Kuropatkin's most fiery generals, destined to inglorious notoriety in the great war, caught lpak prowling and wanted to hang him -as a Jap spy. Ipak was no spy; but he knew that denials would not avail so he told Rennenkampf that he was indeed a Jap spy, a full blown Jap general, in fact. And he added that, if his life was spared, he would disclose the Jap staff's plans. He disclosed them, making them up as he went along. Rennenkampf rewarded him with a good dinner and let him go; a week later the Russians made use of Ipak's information and •suffered a ruinous defeat. Having so learned that , Russians are rnillible folk, Ipak migrated back to Siberia; settled in Glagovestehensk;. and again made his money by shaving beards while telling yarns of the help he had given the Russians during their war against the Japs. In the spring of 1918, just six months after Leniu had expelled' Kerensky from power in Russia, Ipak, now a first-rate Russian scholar, reachecl Moscow. Trotsky was then creating his Rod army and wanted industrious helpers. Russians a re. novel" industrious but Chinamen are. In a month Ipak Yer> was Trotsky's right-hand man. all the biiying. He became known for his power; he appointed commanders; he moved troops. The Bolshevik Bulgarian who edits the Moscow newspaper Pravda attack-: ed him for meddling, and declared that ho had accumulated three million roubles—this is a hungry proletarian land. And "Orthodox-Communists" tried to throw him.

Tpak Yon propitiated them. He propitiates all men. He is the only u\toignnr ..who roallv ever understood the Russian soul; the only foreigner who 1 could ever bronounce tho famous Russian "hard T<:" the only foreigner who could stand Russian vodka ad lib, vho could- produce a dozen bottles of it under a prohibitionist regime. Tpak's next job was controller of armv accounts, whfoh eminence ho reached in August. 1918. But it did not him. After three months' controlling he «ent Trotsky a report declaring that all the army commissiriesi "were thieves; their accounts impudent Havino- himself accumulated J1.00f1.000 roubles ho set his faco sternly norfiinst graft.

Trotskv sent him down the Voltra to organise onposition to tho Dcnikini«te it Tsnritsin. Tpak Yen found that imno'viblpi,. Po. be planned fl better "nun TTo organised n peasant risin" in T»mn'irin's rear and forced the whole Doiikin armv t/» nrecinitnto retreat. Two" mon+'hi InW Tnak Yen pot bis final promotion. Lenin heard of him. Lenin seeks foremen like Ipnk

Yen. Being tough, unyielding,: irritable, slow himself, he wants men who are' quick, facile, accommodating,, resourceful and popular. Ipak was his rnaii. _ Lenin was then m trouble. He w»9 iio=lVtino- the-extraordinary j commission; he was fighting the Orthodox-Commun-ists, who had impeached him for restoring capitalism; he was fighting the labor organisations which assailed him for re-establishing factory despotism. He took Ipak Yen as his adviser, and Ipak, with his invariable smile and his invariable smile and his ability to his abilitv to pour out liquors, made peace all round. The quarrel with the extraordinary i council was setled by a regularly signed peace treaty, drawn up by Ipak, under which the commission pledged itself to abstain from attacking Lenin, and Lenin guaranteed that Dzerzlnnaky, head of the. council, would keep his job. . Ipak next negotiated with the angry Orthodox-Oommunists and the still angrier labor men. i Everywhere he poured oil on the political waves. Bolshevik -Moscow whispers that Lenin does nothing without Ipak. Ipak lias no obstinate principles that stand in his wav. .He is a cold man without a country, calculating, insinuating, Oriental, who likes his job, his motorcars, his secretaries, his five wivesall Russians, bv the way, and who worships onlv one deity, the deity success. In fofeign affairs, Ipak's advice always overrules Tchicherin's. True, Ipak has never been in Europe proper, and Tchicherin . knows Europe from Lisbon to Stockholm, and speaks six languages. But Ipak is the better man. 'He preaches caution, slowness, conciliation, compromise, practicality. And u Lenin, Tchicherin and Litvinoft have inundated Europe with peace offers ' during the past two months, it is entirely due to Ipak. Ipak doesn_t care a nickel about Bolshevism. He considers that a dozen American capitalists would set ■■■Russia on ' her legs ten times quicker than all the rhetoric of Trotsky and all the hatred of Lenin. So,' in October last, Ipak presented aii ungrammatical but diplomaticllly unimpeachable memorandum to Tchicherin urging that "real efforts should be made for the attainment of a lasting peace" And they are certainly being made. ~ ' - • Ipak's only foe is spitfire Madame Radek. Madame Radek aims at being Lenin's Egeria;" she gives him unasked advice, good and had; and Lenin, who despises all men, somewhat respects her. . .■ • t i 1 •- But of late the insinuating Ipak has cut. her out. Rumor says that Madame spat in Ipak's face and tore his hair; and rumor adds that Ipak all the time smiled, begged madame to he seated, hoped that he had not unintentionally caused her offence, and suggested that he and she should' contract a permanent alliance for the salvation of beloved Russia and their own enrichment. 6 ■