Evening star., 1953-03-06
Continued From Preceding Page.

ary Military Committee, Stain
served as a political commissar
with the Red forces. His most
conspicuous action, and the feat
on which rested his military
reputation before World War II,
was the defense in 1918 of the
lower Volga city of Tsaritsin
against Gen. Krasnov and his
Don Cossacks. Trotsky suddenly
and ineXplicably recalled him
from this battle while the fight
ing was still in progress.
If Trotsky acted out Of jeal-
ousy he acted too late. Stain
had already won the battle. At
least. his victory became Russian
tradition, recognized by a change
In the city's name.
They called it Stalingrad.
Marching Through Georgia.
Stain saw further service at
Leningrad and helped clean up
his native Georgia, driving out
the last elements of the cppres-
sive regime which had so CALLED
him when he was student in
TifliS. In 1919, the same year
in which he took over the post
of Commissar for Workers and
Peasants Inspection. he was
awarded the Order of the Red
Banner for his work in the civil
war.
Also in 1919, aged 40, he mar
ried for the second time. His
bride was Nadia Sergeyevna Alli-
luieva. II. a shy, quiet, attractive
girl from Ossete, whom he met
in Leningrad. Her father was a
revolutionary colleague of Stall
ms. Her mother was Georgian.
She herself spoke practically no
Russian. She was to bear him
two children, a boy, VASTLY, and
a girl, Svetlana.
The following year found Stall
in at the Polish front. He failed
to enhance his military reputa-
ton there, but was made a men,
ber of the War Council and
graduated to the Council of
Labor and Defense, the six men,
bers of which were regarded as
closest to Lenin.
Slow But Sure.
Slowly, unostentatiously, he
was moving up. Lenin was i'm
pressed, and Trotsky displayed
signs of uneasiness. But no one
appears to have recognized the
full significance of that steady,
relentless advance to power.
The critical year was 1922. Be-
ginning to feel the effects Of
the sickness which was to take
his life in two years, Lenin Of
fered TrotSky the post of party
secretary. Trotsky refused it.
The mistake cost him his po-
litical career
Stain was not likely to make
the same mistake. He under
stood enough about the workings
of bureaucracy to see that here
was a position offering him con-
troll of the effective party ma
chinery, which meant control of
the new state. Lenin turned to
Stain when Trotsky declared his
lack of interest. and Stain. Of
course. accepted without hesi-
tation.
Trotsky's failure to understand
what was at issue in the offer Is
understandable in the light of
the background and tempera-
nent of the man. A Jewish in
tellectual, a supreme egotist. he
was bored by the grubby realities
of practical revolutionary poll
tics. He refused to grapple with
developments on their own level,
He had been content to stay out
Of Russia while the revolutionary
spadework was being done; as
Commissar for Foreign Affairs
he had held impishly aloof from
internecine party struggles TAX
ing place around him; later, as
Commissar for War, he failed to
take the elementary precaution
OF gaining, personally, the al
legiance of the Red Army. This
new job looked to Trotsky like
the most pedestrian sort of hack
work.
It was the kind Of hack work
which Stain appreciated.
Victory Assured Early.
From the moment he took over
as party secretary, Stalin's VIC
tory over TrotSky and his other
colleagues was assured. But the
effect and extent of his triumph
were not apparent for some time
What happened is of special
interest today, for it may well be
that. with Stain gone, Russia