Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1956-06-24
What's Next
In Russia
Grim Sega?
BY FRED THEROUx

ing the Western world specializing
on what Russia's future course will
be and what impact her internal
actions will have on the nom Com
munist nations. Perhaps para
mount among the unanswered
questions is whether the collective
leadership. personified by Com
munist Party Secretary Khrushchev
and Premier Nikolai Bulganin, will
prove to be an enduring one.
The scepter of Russian power
has followed a tortuous and often
bloody path since the snowy day
in March. 1917, when Gear Nicholas
II abdicated his throne on a rail-
road train en- route to Petrograd
A look at the nearly four decades
that followed provides q setting
against which to judge the develop
ments in Russia as the collective
leadership moves on to It's destiny.
Democratic pterlude
When the ancient autocracy of
the Romanoffs crashed into ruin in
the general disaster of military re-
verses and civilian chaos, pro-
visional government was set up
along lines of parliamentary de-
mocracy. Its first prime minister
was a nobleman and a landowner
of moderate political persuasion,
Prince Georgi Lvov. Continuing
confusion and deepening hardshipS
never gave the first cabinet q
chance and in July, 1917, the
strength of the left-wing parties
in the provisional government
reached the point where Alexan-
der Kerensky, Socialist revolu-
tionary, was able to displace
Prince Lvov.
There were those in the Russian
revolutionary movement who saw
in the overthrow of the absolute
monarchy chance to establish q
Marxist Socialist state rather than
a democratic republic on the West
ern style. They were called the
'Bolsheviks" majority of the So
cial Democratic Party. Their
leader was brilliant Marxist theo-
retician, vladimir Ilyich Ulanov,
who had long used the party"
name of Nikolai Lenin. With the
aid of the KaiSer's Germany, Lenin
was brought to Russia from his
exile in Switzerland and immedi-
ately began organizing his followers
for an assault on the tottering Ke-
rensky regime.
Bolshevists Toke Over
A premature attempt in July,
1917, was suppressed by Kerensky
and Lenin fed into hiding; a Sec
ond attempt in October, aided by a
badly timed counter-revolutionary
military movement which aroused
the Petrograd populace, succeeded.
The Bolshevists, tiny minority
but superbly organized, seized the
reins of government and the de-
feated Kerensky fled the country.
He still lives in exile.
From 1917 until 1920 the new
Communist government had to fight
an almost continuous battle for sur
vival against foreign Intervention,
counter revolution and civil war.
When the fighting ceased the So
Wet rulers controlled q battered
Russia. its economy smashed, its
people hungry. Lenin, with the aid
of another former exile, Leon
Trotzky, and few stalwarts of the
Communist Party's Central Com
mittee, set to work to put the radi-
cal new government on its feet.
Almost from the outset, strug-
gle for dominance of the dictator
ship of the proletariat, among the
top men of the Central Commit
tee was evident, but the personal
prestige of Lenin prohibited any
open battle for leadership. Lenin,
after a series of strokes, died in
January, 1924, and Immediately
the party echelons were torn into
deeply contending factions.
Stolin Energies
By 1927, collective leadership"
had vanished and the general Sec
A@NoAJ VA Vic Pot W, OOoC1 v. OVdllllt
had emerged as the supreme power
in the party and thus in the gov
eminent BY means of a ruthless
and cynical playing-off of groups
against groups and individuals
against individuals. he was success
full in eliminating all his immediate
rivals for power. BY 1880 he had
exiled Trotsky and reduced his
other rivals to impotence. They,
their followers and thousands of
suspected sympathizers, were wiped
out in the bloody purgeS of 1886
and 1887 Trotsky was assassi-
mated in Mexico City in 1910.
Between 1927 and his death in
1858, Stain. man of Steel" ruled
Russia. With complete control Of
the sinister secret police and with
his closest supporters in every key
post, his power was absolute.
Under the gI1 n-faced dictator, the
Soviet Union reorganized its gov
ernmental machinery, completed
naturalization of all industry and
forcibly collectivized the unwilling
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