Evening star., 1950-03-16

THE CONSTITUTIONAL government
l. OF the q. s.. s. r. is the Supreme
Soviet. the group which was elected"
last Sunday. This is a two-chamber
affair Of delegates from all over the
Union. who may or may not be impor-
tant Communists.
Elected every four years, they meet
twice year for ten days at time in
very fine hall inside the Kremlin, have
grand time in Moscow, and ratify
the legislation enacted in their absence
by their Presidium. The Chairman OF
this Presidium, now the ex-trade union
leader Shvernik, is the titular head of
the State.
One of the chief functions Of the
Presidium is to appoint the Council Of
Ministers; the Chairman of the Council,
or Prime Minister, is Stain. Imme-
diately under him are the Deputy
Chairmen, or Vice Premiers; they
mostly each control a group of Min
istries, and it is they who, with Stain.
make up the inner Cabinet of the
U. S. S. r.
In theory. the Vice Premiers like all
the other Ministers, are appointed demo-
cratically by the Presdium. But in
practice the Vice Premiers owe their
place and power to quite another source.
They are where they are because they
are leading members of the Politburo;
and we must now ask exactly what the
Politburo is.
The Communist Party of the u S. s.
r. has Central Committee of II men,
bers, elected at the party's annual
Congress. But the Congress last met
in 1889, so for ten years the Central
Committee has gone its own way and
Since II members are an unwieldy
number for day-to-day business. the
Central Committee appoints various
standing subcommittee One of these is
the Politburo, presided over by Stain;
and through the Vice Premiers it holds
all the main strings of administrative
power.
But not all the strings that count;
some very important ones-the most
important of all where questions of
personal rivalry and promotion are con-
cerned-are held by second standing
subcommittee, the Secretariat, which
supervises the other subcommittee and
allocates the resources they are to get
for their work. And over the Secretariat
Stain also presides, this time in his
capacity as General Secretary Of the
party.
Stain was appointed to this key post
by Lenin in 1922; he has used it,
patiently and ingeniously and ruthlessly.
to break his enemies and promote his
friends. And when, through the Secre-
tariat, he had gained control also of the
Politburo. he had under his hand the
two main instruments through which
the real government of Soviet Russia is
carried on.
The members of the Poltburo fall
roughly into four categories. marking
different phases in Soviet history In
the first category are Stain and Voro-
shilov, the only survivors from high Office
in Lenins Russia. Voroshilov, an old
army sergeant. is perhaps there chiefly
as company for Stain, his one remaining
comrade from the old revolutionary days.
In the second category are the men,
still in their f1fties. chosen by Stain
to support him in his fight for power
They are Molotov and Mikoyan, the
only two members known personally to
the West; Lazar Kaganovich, the only
Jew. Stalin's brother -in-law, and a
genius for industrial organization; and
Andreyev, a sour puss who looks after
party discipline, goes to the country
when there is trouble with the peasants,
and has just been raped over the
knuckles himself-not for the first time
The third category consists of good
Stalinists who have only lately achieved
the Politburo, after plugging away for
many years at making Stalin's Russia.
Here we find Khruschev, party secretary
for the Ukraine: Shvernik, who sue
ceeded Kalinin as chairman of the
Presidium of the Supreme Soviet; and
Bulganin, an able politician and organ
izer who is younger than the other two
and probably carries more guns.
In the fourth category-much the
most interesting for the future-are the
younger men who have risen to power
inside Stalin's machine and owe every
thing to it.
They have all achieved the Politburo