Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1957-03-13

memory OF the Russian revolt
seized it, or the civil war whicl
This rs per cent is under thu
rulers is intent on maintaining
Communists. revolution Is un.
thinkable except in the outside
world.
But 40 years ago, revolution
and civil war were tearing Holy
Russia to pieces. The civil wal
began Immediately after a Boil
shevik coup d'etat in Novem-
destroyed the February revolu-
ton" which had ended the an
jcient rule of the cars ano
promised hopeful future.
Bolsheviks, led by Lenin anc
iTrotsky, were in power through
itreachery. Russia's first and only
free election-for a constituent
Assembly to draw up a constitu-
ition-was held in November
jl9l7. and the Bolsheviks were a
poor minority despite the fact
they held the power. The cleo
ton was tossed on what Com
munists like to call "the dust
heap Of history" The constituent
assembly was dispersed by force,
Maintained by Terro.
The Bolshevik party, by now
renamed Communist, maintained
It's power by terror. It organized
the Cheka Extraordinary Com
mission to Combat Counter
Revolution) and its terror made
the Okhrana. the Cars secret
police, seem like a timid amateur.
One Cheka member was an
obscure 22-year-old industrial
worker from Nizhny- Novgorod,
Nikolai Bulganin. His record in
1.-THE Cheka bellies the gentle
lgrandfatherly look of today's
Soviet Premier.
Few of today's leaders were in
evidence then. Men like Georgi
Ndlenkov and Mikhail Pervuk-
hin. now powerful party Presid-
lum members. were teen-agers.
Nikita Khrushchev, present
party boss. was a 23-year-old
revolutionary in the Ukraine, a
mechanic and sheep-herder be-
fore joining the movement which
twas to betray Ukrainian indie
|pendence. v. M. Molotov. now a
Efirst deputy premier. was a ~
|year-old editor. He was helping
p 36-year-old Georgian named
Stain edit a Bolshevik paper.
Pravda. A. I. Mikoyan. powerful
|Presidium 1gure today. was 81.
b revolutionary in the Caucasus,
unknown in Petrograd.
Was Falling Apart
AS civil war began. old Russia
was falling apart. In the south,
Ataman Kaledin proclaimed IN
dependence for the Don Cossacks
and support for the fallen Keren-
sky government. Ukrainiaus in
|Kiev declared independence. So
did Finland. Independent gov
ernments rose in the Caucasus,
Siberia. Poland. Stain. as COM
missar for nationalitieS," pro-
claimed the right of any people
to self-determination, and Rus
STA was made up of many peoples.
The Bolsheyiks proclaimed the
right-but didn't mean it.
Russia was smaller than at
any time since Peter the Great,
two centuries before.
But Russia was to swell again,
bigger than ever, until it would
cover almost 8 million square
miles, greatest land mass under
q single rule in history. 1t would
include a sixth of the earth's
habitable surface, three times
the size of the United States,
stretching 1000 miles east to
west. 5000 miles north to south,
from middle Europe to the Paci-
hc, from the Arctic to the tropics.
Rich in resources, most of its
millions would stay poor.
pounded the ancient Russian
tragedy. They moved the capital
from Petrograd (renamed Lenin-
grad and its window on the
west" to Moscow and its Asian
influence. its forbidding. orr
ental-looking Kremlin. Then be-