Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1953-02-15
Secret Police
The Russian NkVD Is q Multi-Edqed
Weapon in the Struggles for Power
By MichoeI B. Grohom


The current purges in the Soviet
Union and Eastern Europe have set
OF speculation that a policy shift
may be under way or, perhaps, that
another struggle for power may be
going on in the Kremlin.
The STRAIGHTFORWARD theory was
bolstered when Lavrenty Beria's
secret police were criticized publicly
for their handling of the doctor
prisoners" case. Beria is a top con-
tender for the aging Stains Job.
Did the criticism mean he was losing
favor?
Whatever the current unrest may
prove ultimately to indicate, it is
automatic that q struggle for power
within Stalin's intimate circle is
always being waged at any given
time. And this struggle. no matter
what personalities are involved,
must always center about, the secret
police. For in totalitarian state.
whoever controls the police controls
the state.
The Soviet secret police was or
ganized in 1917 along the lines of
Czarist Okhrana. But unlike the
Czarist police. it was uninhibited by
restraints placed on its powers Of
investigation or on the "adminiStra-
ton of justice" The first head Of
the new Communist secret police,
then known as the Cheka, was Felix
DzerzhinSky, an old professional
revolutionary and close collaboration
with Lenin and later with Stain. AS
member of the inner party coun-
ellis, Dzerzhinsky asked for and ulti-
mately received complete freedom Of
action for his Cheka.
Reign Of Terror
DzerZhinSky instituted such a
reign Of terror that even Lenin, him.
self an ardent advocate of terrorism,
had to curb him. Nevertheless,
from 1921 onward, when it became
obvious that the Soviet government
could not maintain itself without
it, all public criticism of the secret
police ceased, and it was installed
as a permanent institution. Stain
has used the secret police to main
tain Red rule over Russia ever since.
In 1922 the Cheka was abolished,
but in its place the GPU-State
Political Administration - was inn
mediately created.
In those early days Stain also
was quick to note the usefulness of
the secret police in internal battles
for power. He used the services of
'DzerzhinSky in his struggle against
Leon Trotsky. That struggle did
not end until 1910 when TrotSky
was assaSsinated by having an ak
buried in his skull in Mexico City.
The murder is credited to the secret
police.
In 1926 Dzerzhinsky died of
sudden heart attack-apparently
genuine after delivering a speech
before the Communist Party Cen
trail Committee. His place, was
taken by his deputy, Vyacheslay.
Menzhinsky, sickly man. who del
egated most of the active work of
the secret police to Henry Yagoda,
a man of no principles but fertile
Imagination. Menzhinsky made the
plans, Yagoda did the dirty work.
They continued the program of
merciless suppression of anything
that might possibly be counter
revolutionary or anti-communistic.
At the same time they perfected
and refined the methods and en-
larged the scope of police activities.
Yagoda poisoned Menzhinsky in
1884 and became the supreme head
of the secret police.
First General Purees
It was under Yagoda that the first
general purgeS began in the early
sos. eliminating in the now all-but-
forgotten trials of Soviet engineers
and foreign technicians on charges
of economic sabotage. Many were
sent to Yagoda innovation, ''cor-
rectional labor" camps.
In that early purge, the secret