Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-10-19
RUSSIA'S RED CAR
HAS LIFE OF INTRIGUE
Since the Days of His Bandit Gang His
Life Has Been One of Secrecy
- and Subterfuge.

I And although he never loses his self
control, his anger II terrible.
| Some time ago one FetrosiAn, nick
named 'Kanao' Stains conrade of
Caucasian days, and one Of the very
| few men whom Stain really loved, was
run over by q truck in Tifiis, and died
According TO Mr.. Bessyedovsky, Stain,
enraged. wired laconically to This:
shoot the driver Of the truck" The
! lutely innocent. But, OF course, the
/ local authorities carried out his order
without arguing.
Recently Stain dropped his old wife
and took q young one Che had no time
10 80 to the registration bureau; the
marriage was performed by MALL. He
has the reputation Of q loving and
faithful husband. But in family life,
too, he is heavy despot. When he
Is in . bad mood, Mr.. BaShanov tells
US. "he does not speak for entire days
to his wife and son (from the first mar
riage). His wife never appears any
where: in their house "she lives as in q
harem."
Stain Wins on His Record.
Yet 1t was in the years 1923-1925,
when around the dying and the dead
Lenin o beStially cruel struggle for the
first place in the Soviet Republic, thus
vacated, started among his disciples,
that Stains character revealed itself
best Of all.
Stain did not seem to have the
slightest chance Of winning In the
struggle.
Out of his three main rivals-zin-
oviev, Kamanev and Trotsky-each one
apparently was much stronger than he.
Zinoviev, as leader OF the Third Inter-
national, and Kamenev, as the acting
premier, shared, between themselves, an
enormous power. Yet still more power
full was Trotsky.
An unquestionably clever man who
displayed an amazing gift of transform
ing the whole revolution into a publicity
campaign for himself, an ultra-famous
one Napoleonic pose after the other, the
king Of soap-box orators whose speeches
made the radicals roar with delight.
brilliant political writer-in the opinion
of those who know little about writing
in q word, man who, to use Rus
sian essayist's saying, left behind him
In history q million exclamation points
-Trotsky was (and isl a living con-
trast to Stain. At the SNOWY, spectacu-
lar periods Of revolution there 10 q
great demand for men such as he.
<ALA0 4AObchy uAO . blCdI OCdA AOA baAS
success of bolshevism. At the moment
Lenin collapsed, Trotsky still was
at the height Of his fame. The legend
that 1t was thanks to his genius that
Kolchak and Denikin had been defeated
stil1 was alive. The Red Army was en-
Enthusiastically for him. Finally, the ma.
iority Of Communists regarded him es
Lentn's natural and tnrivaled successor.
was Short on Assets.
What assets did Stain have to de-
feat such q rival? Seemingly, none.
True, he, too, was . general of Com
munism. Arriving, in 1917, in Petro-
grad from his sixth exile, he again be-
came one Of Lenin's chief assistants.
preparations for the overthrow Of
Kerensky's provisional government;
later, he controlled the Red armies
fighting against Denikin, the Poles, etc.
Finally, he became ar-Second-rate-
government minister, the Peoples COM
missar for Nationalities. Yet, although
important, how technical, unspectacular
all these jobs werel When Lenin COLI
lapsed, Stain remained the least
known, the least popular Of bolshevist
How 1t is, then. that, only two years
later, the magnificent Red war lord
In exile, that zinoviev and Kamenev
were politically killed and that he,
Stain, triumphed so sweepingly?
Stain made q discovery-a discovery
extremely simple, yet one which no
Communist made before him.
Lenin ruled over the party land,
through it, over the Soviet government
and over Russia) thanks to his over
whelming mental superiority; there was
genuine genius in the famous inventor
Of bolshevism whether 1t was good or
evil genius is another matter. Now
Stain discovered that one could rule
periority, by merely selling its ma
chinery. And-even long before Lenin's
llness-he set to work.
Gave His Friends High Posts.
In his capacity Of secretary general
of the party Che long had held that
post, which was regarded as purely
technical and unimportant) he began
to secure the nomination Of men inn
peccably faithful to him (often his
brothers In arms Of Caucasian days. to
the posts Of secretaries Of regional, pro-
vtncial and district Communist commit
these committees themselves elect their
secretaries; In reality the unwritten law
is that they vote, without discussion, for
the candidate recommended" by the
center. A Communist voting against
him Is liable to be punished for 'in-
fringing upon the party's iron discipline. I"
These transformations secretaries are
"strategically" important because,
through a similar process of appoint
ments disguised into elections, they
select delegates to the annual All-Rus-
sian Communist Congress, which is the
supreme organ Of the party. Thus he
who controls the close-knit hierarchy of
secretaries controls the congress, and
consequently the party, the government,
Russia.
Thus, while Trotzky scattered his ex-
clamatiof1 points, while Zinoviev shout
ed invectives to "capitalistic tyrants of
the world" Stain, invisibly, inaudibly,
was stealing the ground from under
their feet. 1t may sound simple. Yet
in the long story Of Stains subterra-
mean struggles 1t was q masterpiece Of
conspiracy surprising even his Tiflis
raid. For what a caution, what Oriental
genius Of deceit he had to use In order
to place members Of his faithful gang
on secretarial jobs without arousing the
suspicious Of the partys central COM
mittee, which could have checked him
any day. During Lenin's illness, when
the mastery threads of this intrigue
as yet were too fragile, how brilliantly,
playing on Zinovievs and Kamenev's
jealousy of Trotsky, he concluded with
them an alliance against this strongest
Of his enemiesl (After the war lord
had been defeated, TO throw overheard
these two would be an easy matter)
Was Not in Lenin's Favor.
Apparently in his dying hours Lenin
understood Stains intrigue, and In his
political will" he strongly advised his
comrades to beware Of this brutal man
absolutely unbearable in the position of