Newsgroups: biz.americast.samples
From: usa-post@AmeriCast.Com
Organization: American Cybercasting
Subject: Sample Moscow News art.216 Sat, Aug 22 1992
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 92 22:04:19 EDT

This is an actual portion of the electronic edition of the Moscow News as
distributed by American Cybercasting.  For more information, send e-mail
to usa@AmeriCast.com or write to POB 575, Aurora, OH 44202.

    DATE(YYYY/MM/DD): 1992/08/19
    TITLE: Kolya, President of Taiwan
    BY: Valentin Zaitsev
    SUBJECTS: 21
    SECTION: 9
    
    ***
    
    SUMMARY: A story about the "Soviet period" in the life of Chiang Kai-
             shek's  son, who later became President of Taiwan.
    ###
         
         Kolya, President of Taiwan
         or How Chiang Kai-shek's son used to be a
         rank-and-file communist in the Urals
         For many  years, this photograph from the family album of Mikhail
    Bannikov, a  journalist, had  to be kept away from the public eye. Our
    secret services  could just  as well  as evince  an  interest  in  the
    picture. But  now the  time has come to tell, at last, who is depicted
    in what seems to be a quite ordinary group portrait.
         On the extreme left is Bannikov himself. In the upper row next to
    him  is   Yekaterina  Krasilnikova,   staff  member  of  a  Sverdlovsk
    newspaper. Down  below are  journalists A. Panfilov (the father of the
    now famous film director) and S. Bubenchikov.
         And in  between them,  wearing a  tie and  a service  cap, is the
    chief  culprit   of  the   sensational  photograph   --  the   son  of
    Generalissimo Chiang  Kai-shek. True, on the photo he turned out worse
    than the  others, with  a face  like a  mask. As a matter of fact, his
    destiny made him change masks on more than one occasion.
         More than  half a  century ago,  he  had  a  Russian  surname  --
    Yelizarov (he  was said to have assumed it after meeting Lenin's elder
    sister --  Anna Ulyanova-Yelizarova).  His first  name and  patronymic
    were Nikolai  Vladimirovich. It  is  this  pseudonym  that  the  young
    Chinese Chiang  Ching=kuo received  when, on a recommendation from the
    CPC Central  Committee, he was sent to study in Soviet Russia. Here he
    graduated from  the Sun  Yat-sen University of the Peoples of the East
    and the  Military-Political Academy. He worked as a metal craftsman at
    the Dynamo  plant and as chairman of the October Revolution collective
    farm near Moscow.
         The Ural period of his life was carefully hidden for a long time.
    Thus, in  autumn 1932, "Kolya" (Russian diminutive of Nikolai) arrived
    on a  party assignment  at the disposal of the Ural Regional Committee
    of the  CPSU(B) and  became an  assistant to the superintendent of the
    first mechanical shop of the Uralmash engineering complex. Then he was
    offered the  post of  editor of  a factory  newspaper.  Bannikov,  who
    worked there  at the  time, reminisced  that  the  novice  immediately
    proved his  mettle as a good journalist. The editorial morning usually
    began with  him calling in the managing editor and inquiring about the
    state of  the current issue. And if a "hole" happened to be on a page,
    he reassured  him: "It's  OK, Misha,  don't worry, I'll close it right
    away."
         For a  long time, Mikhail Bannikov did not even suspect about the
    editor's unusual  genealogy. But  once, during  a regular  check-up on
    personnel's biographical  particulars, he read with amazement: "Son of
    the leader of the Kuomintang."
         "Kolya" did  not stand  out among  his colleagues.  Together with
    other newsmen,  he used  to go to the country and attend parties where
    he gladly  performed oriental  dances with  a knife  between teeth and
    sang Russian  folk songs.  He took  part  in  mass  rallies  and  read
    lectures on the international situation.
         Nikolai Yelizarov  married Faina  Vakhreyeva, a  turner  who  had
    completed a course at the factory workshop school. Her best friend was
    Tatyana Karelina,  who subsequently  became a Merited Master of Sports
    and a  world recordholder  in speed  skating. Tatyana  has preserved a
    curious photograph  of Faina.  On the  back there  is an  inscription:
    "Tanya, it  may happen  that the  waves of  light will  soon carry  me
    somewhere, so  may this  little face  remind you  of the  words 'don't
    forget'."
         The dedication  turned out  to be prophetic. The internationalist
    couple even  became the  prototype of  the main characters of the book
    Morning Shift by the well-known writer Lev Ovalov, who once lived side
    by side with the newlyweds in a house in the "socialist township". The
    book gave  a story  of the  emigre named  Zhou who fell in love with a
    Ural girl  named Zina  Dyomina. True,  when, according to the plot, he
    went home "to make revolution", the object of his love did not dare to
    share his unclear destiny with him.
         In real life everything turned out in somewhat different fashion.
    When still  at home the Ural girl bore a son, Erik, for Yelizarov, and
    then boldly followed her husband on a far-away "business mission".
         Becoming a  candidate member of the CPSU(B) when still in Moscow,
    at  the   Uralmash,  Yelizarov  submitted  an  application  requesting
    admission as full member of the party. Prior to this, he disavowed his
    father who  had carried  out a  counter-revolutionary coup in China in
    1927. In  his autobiography,  Nikolai wrote: "If I happen to meet with
    Chiang Kai-shek,  I shall act mercilessly and make short shrift of him
    and his  people as  befits every   member  of  the  Communist  Party."
    Recommendations were  gladly given  him by  five authoritative people,
    including Leopold  Averbakh, secretary  of the  Ordzhonikidze District
    Party Committee,  a prominent man of letters and critic, more known as
    the persecutor of Vladimir Mayakovsky.
         Then  came   the  time   of  party   purges  and  check-ups.  The
    recommendation as  such from  Averbakh who had become an "enemy of the
    people" could  evoke suspicions.  Party bodies received a denunciation
    on  "a  Japanese  spy  who  had  entrenched  himself  at  the  factory
    newspaper". It  was said  that Yelizarov  did not even evade temporary
    arrest.
         He had  to quit  the factory  newspaper. He  worked at  the  City
    Executive Committee  and shortly  after,  mysteriously  vanished  from
    Sverdlovsk. On  the eve,  Faina hinted to someone that her husband had
    been summoned  by "Stalin  himself". But  a different  supposition  is
    closer to  the truth  -- in view of the existing circumstances "Kolya"
    deemed it reasonable to return home as soon as possible.
         Vigilant party  instances came  to once  the bird  had flown  the
    coop. The  City EC  sent an  inquiry to the NKVD but they replied that
    such and  such was  "not on their register". And in February 1941, the
    Buro of the District Party Committee resolved to consider Yelizarov as
    having mechanically  dropped out  of  the  party  ranks  "in  view  of
    severance from  the party  organization in  the course  of three and a
    half years".
         In the meantime, Chiang Ching-kuo already made up with his father
    who he had once condemned. In Xinjiang, bordering on the USSR, he held
    different high  posts. Depending  on the  situation he  exposed former
    colleagues-communists, then called upon them to unite with him against
    the Japanese.
         Chiang Kai-shek's "Sovietized" son was occasionally remembered in
    the Soviet  Union as well. In 1944, he came by air to Moscow on behalf
    of his father for talks with Molotov about aid in the struggle against
    the samurais. But a perfectly detective story occurred in 1969 when we
    had strained relations with the PRC.
         On my  return from  the Ussuri River, where an armed conflict had
    broken out  with the  Chinese, I  happened to  read the  Western press
    which wrote  a lot  about developments  in the  Far East.  I read with
    surprise about a contact alleged to have taken place on Taiwan between
    Chiang Ching-kuo  (already Defence  Minister) and  the well-known, yet
    mysterious Moscow journalist, Victor Louis.
         After his  father's death,  the  former  Kolya  Yelizarov  became
    President of  the Republic  of China  in Taiwan.  Despite his  "Soviet
    upbringing" the  policy of Chiang Kai-shek's son was perfectly in line
    with his father's.
         "Kolya" died  three years  ago. His  76-year-old widow,  who paid
    tribute to  the  deceased  in  a  wheel  chair,  remembered  her  good
    acquaintances in  Sverdlovsk and  even wished  to put  through a phone
    call to  this city.  Her conversation  with this strictly guarded city
    did not take place, of course.
         I happened  to visit  the Anikeyev family who were old friends of
    Faina's. Maria  Anikeyeva told  me some curious details. It turned out
    that it  was her  husband, now deceased, Fyodor, then secretary of the
    YCL branch  at  the  first  mechanical  shop,  who  once  acted  as  a
    matchmaker between  Faina Vakhreyeva  and Nikolai  Yelizarov.  I  also
    learned that  it was  this family  that was  the last among Sverdlovsk
    people to have seen the Yelizarov couple on Soviet soil.
         One night, they were summoned with a cable to come to the railway
    station to  the international car of the express Moscow train. Nikolai
    and Faina  with their  crying one-year-old   Erik,  wrapped  up  in  a
    blanket, walked  out from  the  compartment  onto  the  platform.  The
    stopover lasted  a mere 15 minutes. And only a few letters, written in
    familiar handwriting, were received later from abroad.
                                      Valentin Zaitsev
         
         
         
    ***
    ***
This article is copyright 1992 The Moscow News. Redistribution to
other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American 
Cybercasting Corporation.  For more information, send-email to 
usa@AmeriCast.COM

This article is copyright 1992 The Moscow News. Redistribution to
other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American 
Cybercasting Corporation.  For more information, send-email to 
usa@AmeriCast.COM