The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-02-01
Hr IrIIus osrMANN

Berlin, January l5.-(Speciai.) )-Ipak Yen, Chinese ex-barber, bids fair to be soviet's Russia's greatest man. lit is almost as great man as Nicholas Lem inc. He is greater than Grasine, the comynissary of communications than the censor general. who has lately risen to power; than the spitfire Madame Radek, wife of the head of boshevist propa- ganda, whose vitriolic tongue and mascu- line brain are the real sources of half of the soviet policy.
 But Ipak Yen does more. He is Lenine's closest adviser; he is the mod est, indirect inspirer of many schemes; he is smooth, uspple insnuating, req sourceful, industrious, indomtable con" stunned by overmastering ambition. Among tough and slow-braned Russians he plays the mighty role which, in the eighteenth century was played at the court of Con- stantinople by the Phanariot Creeks.
 Ipak Yen is the only soviet magnate of high rank who is good terms with nearly every one. He is not only Lem ines confidant he manages also to be the confidant of Lenine's foes, the extra ordinary commission for combating coun- ter revolution, the aim of whose bosses the Pole Dzerzhinsky, the Lett Peters and the woman Krousfsio-set mighty Ienine himself before the firing squad.
 Ipak Yenlives in state. fpak has work rooms in the Grand Palace of the Krem- lin, where Lenine dwells; he tenants the Solodovnikoff Palace in the Arbat su- burb; he has two automobiles, three secretaries, four country houses, i've wives He is the most masterful graft ot Asia or Europe since the Tartar Baty Khan sat in his harem on the Volsa and dictated policy to Russia in pre-Roman- off days.
 Ipak Yen is not a genuine Chinaman. He is a Confucian Buriat from southern Siberia. who, 15 years back, was peace fully shaving hairy citizens boards Tn lively Manchuria. The Russo-Japanese war was his destiny. Rennenkampf, one of Kuropatkin's most fiery generals, des- tined to inglorious notority in the great war, caught Ipak prowling and wanted to hang him as a Jap spy. Ypak was no spy; but he knew that deniafs would not avail, so he told Rennenkampf that he was in- deed Jap spy, a full-blown Jap gem eral in fact And he added that II ms life was spared he, would disclose tle Jap staff's plans. He disclosed them, making them up as he went along. Rem nenkampf rewarded him wit ha good dln- ner and let him go A week later the Russians made us of Ipak's information, and suffered a ruinous defeat
 Having so learned vhat Russians are sullible folk, Ipak migrated back to Si- beria: settled in Blagovostohonak, and
  while telling yarns of the help he had given the Russians during their war against the Japs.
 In the spring of 1918, just six mortns after Lenine had expelled Kerensky rom power in Russia, Ipak, now a first-rate Russian scholar, reached Moscow, Trot- zky was then creating his red army and wanted industrious helpers. Russians are never industrious, but Chinamen are. Tn a month Ipak Yen was Trotzky's right hand man. He did all the buying. lie became known for his power; he appoint sd commanders; he moved troops.
 The bolshevil Bulgarian who edits the Moscow newspaper, 'Pravda," attacked him for meddling, and declared that ne had accumulated 100000 rubles-this Tn a hungry preletarian land. And 'ortho- dox communists tried to throw him.
 Ipak Yen propitiated them. He propiti- ates all. men. He is the only foreigner who really ever understood the Russian soul: the only foreigner who could ever nronounce the famous Russian hard I.:" the only foreigner who could stand Russian vodka ad lib, who could pro- duce a dozen bottles of it under pro- hibtionist regime.
 Ipak' s next job was controller or army accounts. which eminence he reached in August. 1913. But it did not please him. After three months controlling he sent