Evening star., 1953-03-06

helped plan the appropriation"
Of $170. 1000 from the state bank.
The money was being taken to
the bank under inadequate Cos
sack guard, and party funds were
low. A few well-thrown bombs
dispersed the escort. and the
party treasury was $4,000
richer.
This project, which cost the
lives of three and resulted in the
wounding Of more than so SOL
diers and bystanders, was the
target of considerable criticism
within revolutionary ranks, and
for his part in the plot Koba was
temporarily expelled from the
party. His role, however, was
strictly that of stage manager: q
lieutenant named Kamo led the
group which did the job.
Again arrested for under
ground activity. Koba was exiled
to Siberia q second time in 1908.
Again the sentence was three
years. He escaped the following
year. was quickly rearrested, sem
fenced to six years in exile. once
more escaped within q year and
this time made his way to st.
Petersburg. Police caught up
with him there a few months
later and sent him to Vologda
Province. He escaped after serv-
ing one Of his three years. In
1912 he was exiled for the fifth
time, but Immediately escaped.
He went back to st. Peters,
burg. That same year he di-
rected the Bolshevik campaign
for a state parliament and helped
edit two revolutionary journals.
including the new Pravda, the
first issue of which he later re-
ferred to as "the cornerstone Of
the victory Of bolshevism in
1917" He was leader Of the
Bolshevik section of the Social
Democratic Party in the Duma,
the Cars meaningless "advi-
sorry Parliament. And he was
now Joseph Stain, aged 80.
Distinguished Company.
The pot was coming to a boil
in 1912. The Balkans were seeth-
ing-the Titanic went down-the
King of Greece and the President
of Mexico were assassinated. A
frustrated painter in Vienna, 23-
year-old Adolph Hitler, was
nearly starving to death as an
odd job workman and decora-
tors assistant. In the United
States, the Democrats held their
convention in Baltimore; Wood
row Wilson got strong support
from a fledgling New York State
Senator, Franklin D. Roose-
! velt, so.
In Britain q 38-year-old boy
wonder, ex-soldier, ex-war cor
respondent, Winston Churchill.
newly named First Lord Of the
Admiralty, was building the
Royal Naval Air Service in prep
aration for the coming war. It
later became the Raj. At %,
Harry Truman was spending the
"happiest years" of his life,
working on the family farm in
Missouri. At %, Dwight D. Eli
senhower was learning the SOL
dier's arts at West Point.
Only one of Stains famous
contemporaries showed a devel-
opment closely parallel to his
In 1912. Benito Mussolini. 20,
was better known than Stain.
But he, too, was an earnest young
revolutionary. just elected a di-
rector of the Italian Socialist
Party. AS editor of Avanti, he
blasted away at the evils OF cap
italiSm and the church.
Stubborn Police.
If Stain was stubborn, so
were the Cars police. They ar
rested him again in March. 1918,
and this time made sure of the
job. The Arctic prison camp of
Kureika held him for nearly four
years; until, in fact, all political
prisoners were released by the
first provisional government when
the monarchy was suddenly over
thrown in March, 1917.
According to a man who was at
Kureika with Stain, he had kept
apart from other prisoners and
lived in almost complete solitude,
occupying himself with hunting
and fishing. Trotsky commented
wryly that "the hunting was
without a gun-Stalin preferred
to use traps"
Set free, Stain rushed back to
Moscow. If he was unprepared
for the revolution when it finally
came-the revolution for which
he had worked and waited II
years-so was many a more
prominent plotter than he. Here,
for the first time, the boy
from the Gori cellar emerged
into the political major league.
His entry was not conspicuous.
But he began a series of moves
which, while they attracted small
attention, made him undiSputed
master of the new Russia at the
end Of six years. Stain was pos
sibly the only person who was
not surprised.
Meets the Big Shots.
At this point, he came into
more or less intimate contact
with the big men of the Socialist
movement. He had met some of
them before, but it is more likely
that he remembered those meet