During the year 1938, while its industrial progress continued, the Soviet Union showed considerable changes both in internal politics and in foreign relations.
Constitutional Changes.
The constitutional changes of the Soviet Union have caused wide discussion. At the end of the previous year Soviet Russia made the first use of her new Constitution of 1936. In the first election of representatives for the Union legislature (Dec. 12, 1937), Stalin and his organizations had the voters out in big parades to display to other nations the power of the Soviets. The arriving voters found themselves in warm and pleasant rooms where they could that, or listen to an accordion or to a radio, near supervised nurseries in which mothers could leave their children. The voters asked many questions about the meaning and the methods of the voting. They marked their ballots in secret booths, sealed them in envelopes, and dropped them into the boxes themselves. Although Premier Molotov had previously warned the citizens that no organized opposition to the Government would be tolerated, still there was no law or rule to prevent several candidates from running for the same office. In fact, the preliminary conferences usually nominated for the legislature several Union figures and one or two local people; for instance, a locality might nominate Stalin, Yezhov, Voroshilov, Molotov, and the local teacher, and the trade union leader. Since the great figures of the Union were not inclined to accept more than six or eight nominations, the local persons had a good chance. In any case, no office in the Soviet Union seems to have had, ultimately, more than one candidate who accepted the nomination. Whether because of sensitive premonitions, or a disinclination to rivalry, or a silent policy of the Communist Party, competition was avoided. In this dignified election, out of 94,000,000 eligible voters, 91,000,000 voted; of these nearly 1,000,000 either scratched or 'spoiled' their ballots, and 90,000,000 voted for the candidates as nominated. This was hailed by the papers and the public as a great expression of unity.
But the new freedom was partly illusory. It is true that the Bolsheviks have always given attention to public discussion, and their journalists have been lithe and active in leading it. Under the new Constitution, this discussion was allowed to point up to secret ballots that could be scratched and to a more open discussion in a more directly representative assembly than the old Supreme Soviet. Yet the Stalin Dictatorship continued as in former times, to use its great sinews of power; namely: (1) the unique Communist Party, of which Stalin is the supreme teacher and the political boss; (2) the army, controlled through Marshal Voroshilov above and through the party organizations that penetrate all ranks; (3) the secret police, or 'Department of State Protection,' under a chief very close to Stalin and operating in practice almost without legal restrictions; (4) the bureaucracy, dull but comprehensive; (5) control of all the great industries with their influence on prices and wages. So now the man who has in his hard hands these powerful instruments, especially the Party, the secret police, and the army, consents to let public discussion and comment come up more clearly to the capital that he may hear it more easily. It is possible that the Dictator will now be a little more responsive to public opinion.
Sessions of the Supreme Soviet.
The newly elected persons gathered in Moscow on Jan. 12, 1938, for the session that was to last about one week. The Supreme Soviet in its two parts, the Soviet of the Union and the Soviet of Nationalities, comprised not only statesmen — from Stalin, Litvinov, and others down to local party leaders — but heads of industries and collective farms, shop foremen and tractor drivers, union leaders, managers of co-operative stores, soldiers of the Red Army, and also writers, artists, scientists, and inventors. One representative was a girl of only eighteen, and a great many were men and women in their twenties; for Stalin has the support of the younger and the indigenous Communists against the international Old Bolsheviks. Altogether, the Supreme Soviet numbered 1,143 members, two-thirds of them Communists and the other one-third in sympathy with Communism. Probably no other political assembly in the world could show such a large attendance or such a variety of occupations and ages, and only the assemblies under the various fascist dictators could show a more complete lack of legislative power. The meetings were impressive. In the boxes on each side of the platform were Stalin, Kalinin, Voroshilov, Yezhov, Litvinov, Dimitrov, Kaganovich, and various other Soviet Union leaders. Stalin, as usual, took no active part; but in his box, under a mauve spotlight, he was present for several days.
Part of the work was acceptance and confirmation. The Supreme Soviet accepted amendments further subdividing some of the constituent republics and setting up a new Commissariat for the State Bank as apart from Finance; a new one for Food and Cotton, as separate from Agriculture; and a new one for the Red Navy, as apart from Defense. Indeed, an editorial in Izvestia had sometime previously emphasized the Soviet Union's 27,000 miles of seacoast in several seas and had declared that the U.S.S.R. needed a navy equal to any other navy in the world. V. M. Molotov, Chairman of the Council of Commissaries, announced that several Soviet ship-building plants would soon be equipped to produce the largest battleships. Such decisions were already made.
On the other hand, there was questioning and criticism from the floor. Consulates were under fire. The Government had recently ordered closure of the Leningrad consulates of Great Britain, Norway, Sweden, Estonia, and Latvia, to the expressed annoyance of Great Britain. In the Soviet session, the Leningrad Secretary of the Communist Party, Zhdanov, after praising Commissary Litvinov's great work for world peace, asked why there were so many consulates in Leningrad, many of which, he claimed, were there not for business but for anti-Communist propaganda. During the ensuing two months the Soviet Union closed the only Finnish consulate in the Union (Leningrad); Turkey and the Soviet Union agreed to the closing of three Turkish consulates, leaving each country only one consulate in the other's territory, at Istanbul and at Batum. Seven other consulates were closed. In March, in spite of some objection from Berlin, the Reich and the Union decided to close all consulates on each other's soil. This rather bourgeois timidity about propaganda seems to have moved the Government to begin closing consulates before Zhdanov's attack.
Zhdanov referred also to the Japanese detention of a Soviet mail plane that had grounded in Manchukuo; he asked if firmer measures could not be taken toward 'the impudent, hooligan, and provocative actions of the agents of Japan.' (Storm of applause.) Then, swinging around at France, Zhdanov asked why a friendly country, an ally, should tolerate on her soil organizations aiming to terrorize the U.S.S.R.
Secondary criticism from the floor was directed against the Commissary of Water Transportation, for wrecks, for insufficient training of personnel, and for inefficiency in getting oil from Baku to the Volga; against the Committee on Soviet Art, for tolerating the eccentric Meyerhold instead of encouraging talented young artists; against the Commissary of Justice, for much mountain-climbing and chess-playing to the neglect of the bench. In all such discussion and the driving home of questions and criticisms, each speaker gave repeated assurance of his enthusiastic loyalty to the Communist régime and its policies; and the houses gave frequent applause, especially for Stalin, chief of the Party, and after him for Yezhov, chief of the secret police, and for Voroshilov, Commissary of Defense. The spirit was harmonious, and the language fluent.
During its few days in session, the Supreme Soviet set up certain committees. The Council of the Union and the Council of Nationalities each set up standing committees on the budget and on foreign affairs. A joint meeting of the two councils set up the joint Presidium (really an executive committee). Kalinin was at the head of it as before; and it included Stalin, L. M. Kaganovich, Marshals Budenny and Bluecher, Mme. Krupskaa, Zhdanov, Fedko, and also Lorenti Beria. The Presidium was empowered to hold referenda; to interpret laws; to make important appointments; to issue decrees, that are law until the next meeting of the Supreme Soviet; and, by amendment, to declare war and peace. Thus the Presidium is still the apex of the Soviet Government, the high point of juncture between the legislative expression of opinion and the executive power for action. Branching down from the Presidium, representing it and yet mixing more in the heat and dust of actual government, is the Council of People's Commissaries. The list of Commissaries, as submitted for the approval of the Supreme Soviet, contained all the famous names — Molotov, as Premier; Voroshilov, for Defense; his former assistant, P. A. Smirnov, for the Red Navy; Yezhov, for Internal Affairs, etc. — and new names for the Commissaries of Justice and of Water Transportation and for the Chairman of the Committee on Soviet Arts. At the end of the year (Dec. 8, 1938), there was an important change in administration. On account of frail health, N. I. Yezhov was relieved of his office as Commissary of Internal Affairs (including police), though he continued to serve as Commissary for Water Transportation, to which he had been appointed during the summer. The new Commissary of Internal Affairs was the handsome Georgian, Lorenti Beria, a devoted friend of Stalin, who had long been leading Party Secretary and chief of the Political Police of the Transcaucasian Republic.
A second session of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union was held Aug. 10-21. Although Finance Commissary Zveriev made a speech quite stupendous with its figures from the budget, the representatives immediately opened the discussion; the chairman of the Soviet budget committee analyzed the budget, and his amendments were accepted by the Soviet. As accepted, the budget was the largest to date — 125,000,000,000 rubles, the official ruble being about 19 cents; and one quarter of the budget was assigned to education. The remainder of the session was spent on a variety of discussions.
Elections in the Constituent Soviet Republics.
There is a single-chamber soviet in each of the eleven constituent republics, and during the spring the press gave much of its space to the elections of the Supreme Soviets in the various soviet republics. Contrary to the former Bolshevik ideal of submerging the individual in the class, the papers even gave life stories of the candidates and pictures of them talking to voters. The elections took place in the early summer. Again the voting rooms were agreeable, the booths secret; and many questions were asked. In these cases, however, nearly 99 per cent of the citizens voted, and only about 1/2 per cent of the ballots were scratched.
The elected representatives soon became prominent, for they were constantly called upon by their constituents to bring this or that matter to the attention of the officials. These functions were loudly recorded in December 1938, on the anniversary of the first Union election, which the papers presumed to look back upon as the 'freest and most democratic election in the world's history.' For the anniversary, many elected persons wrote to the papers, telling how they had cut red tape; one for more cleanliness and better food in a hospital, another for the payment of a delayed maternity allowance, and a young woman of Kursk for better city water and paved streets. The confidence of elected persons would doubtless help them to cope with the officials. As Alexander II had used the zemsky men, so Stalin uses elected people to criticize and spur the bureaucrats. Stalin had even told the citizens that to elect representatives for the four-year term was not enough; that they must watch their representatives and make use of the recall, if necessary. The assemblies, too, even though their meetings seem to be staged, may stimulate the bureaucrats and at the same time make the people feel as if they were important in the Government. Of course, the elected soviets may not discuss any essential question of internal politics or industry, such as Party rule, industrial policy, or the secret police. The Government sets narrow limits to the subjects of discussion and the degree of opposition; it permits no such free wit and wisdom as grace English Parliaments. If a man like Zhandov speaks with a little show of daring, it must be only because he has ascertained in advance the exact direction and distance he is permitted to go. So if the Constitution of 1936 gives Russians a bit more liberty, it is probably because Stalin perceives that more direct elections can be a useful instrument of dictatorship.
The 'Purge' of 1938.
The other side of the dictatorship was seen in the treason and sabotage executions. Although these were not so destructive of life in 1938 as in 1937, the purge did not cease. There were dark omens; in Izvestia a letter from Kalinin and Molotov praising the great struggle against spies and saying, 'Long live the N.K.V.D., the punishing hand of the Soviet People!'; the bestowal of the Order of Lenin on officers of the secret police; in February, a speech of Commissary Voroshilov and a letter of Stalin in Pravda, both stressing the constant danger from surrounding capitalist states and defying them to attack. Then March 2-15 brought the trial of 21 important persons, the 6th conspicuous group-tragedy since the assassination of Kirov. Among the defendants were: Alexander I. Rykov, who, after Lenin's death, had been the moderate Premier for almost seven years; Nicolai Bukharin, former President of the Comintern and for years Editor of Izvestia, a favorite in the Party and, after Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin, one of the greatest of Bolshevik theorists; G. G. Yagoda, who had himself been chief of the secret police from 1934 till early 1937; N. Krestinsky, Commissary Litvinov's first assistant and one of the earliest members of the Political Bureau of the Party; Kristian G. Rakovsky, by birth a Bulgarian but by political career and literary work a Russian, a generous and widely cultured man of 64, who had been a founder of the Comintern, a Premier of Ukraine, Ambassador to England and to France — one-time follower of Trotsky, making his peace with Stalin in 1933; several other ex-officials of republics or of the Union; 3 eminent physicians.
These men were accused of being agents of a vast plot by divers parties — Trotskyists, Rightists, Mensheviks, bourgeois nationalists of the border republics, etc. — all combined to overthrow the Soviet System (which seemed to be identified with the Party). Guided by the spy services of capitalist enemies and counting on their invading armies, the conspirators, supposedly, planned to wreck troop trains, blow up key industries, raise kulak rebellions in the rear of the Red Army, and thus to restore capitalism and carve up the Soviet Union to the rich advantage of Germany and Japan. Moreover, some of the accused were to have compassed the assassination of Stalin, Voroshilov, Molotov, and Kaganovich just as, according to the accusation, they had tried in 1918 to remove Lenin, Stalin, and Sverdlov but had only succeeded in wounding Lenin and killing Uritsky and Volodarsky.
N. Bukharin confessed that he had been directing the plot, and that Ukraine was to be given to Germany, and Transbaikalia to Japan; but he denied any connection with any plot to assassinate any of his leading colleagues in the Party. He also denied any connection with the Austrian police — except that he had been arrested by them. Sketching the ideology of the conspirators, he said they had begun by idealizing the peasant; on this basis they had demanded freedom for the kulak and for the individual trader, foreign concessions, slower industrialization, freedom of parties, and a coalition; but, by the end of 1932, they began to plan to overthrow the Government by force.
Rakovsky reported his spying for British, German, and Japanese secret services. He said he had lain in prison for 8 months resisting his investigators until, learning of the recent ruthless aggressions of Germany, Japan, and Italy, he was appalled; then he broke down and admitted his guilt.
Two of the doctors testified to killing Maxim Gorky and his son by prescribing exactly the wrong treatments for illness. They said they had done this to protect their families from the reprisals threatened by Yagoda, who was acting as agent of Trotsky to kill Gorky.
The trial was staged in a way to make it plausible, at least in part. As compared with the Kamenev trial, the charges were more grandiose, but the confessions were less exaggerated. One American journalist at the trial thought that only Bukharin's theorizing hesitation had saved the Soviet Union from overthrow.
There were also deep doubts. A prominent Communist exile in Paris, W.W. Krivitsky, said that when Gorky tried to mitigate the Government policy of terror, Stalin's relations with him became so strained that he suddenly refused Gorky a visa to attend a writers' conference in Paris. Krivitsky thought that Stalin, rather than Trotsky, would seem to be Gorky's enemy.
Trotsky, as usual, confessed nothing. But, in writing from Mexico to The New York Times, he indicated other views. He pointed out that Stalin's government had first shot Tukhaschevsky, then reported that he had been in treasonable relations with other governments, then, within a year, reported that his was not ordinary treason but a plan to seize power himself. Trotsky thought Stalin had suggested to Yagoda that he neglect to defend Kirov and that now Stalin was sacrificing Yagoda to save himself. It seemed possible also that Yagoda knew too much about the way the former treason trials had been arranged. If, on the other hand, this vast conspiracy of most of the veteran revolutionists did actually include Yagoda, chief of the secret police for three years, it seemed all the more strange that the conspirators had got no further than to kill a writer or two and, possibly, Kirov. Lenin would have been shocked. So Trotsky wrote. He had also been informed, he said, that the prison inquisitors, working in relays, had kept Rakovsky (64) for 18 hours at one stretch, without food or drink, answering their questions under a spotlight. He said that those who, like Karakhan, refused to confess were shot as a warning to the others. This all sounds much like the 3rd degree as practiced in many countries. Mussolini's prison officers are said to allow 6 to 8 months to break the will of a good man, the same period Rakovsky mentioned in his confession. Or, on the other hand, the Government may simply have confronted each prisoner with a few clever spies whom the prisoner had previously taken for comrades. Trotsky also pointed out that Pravda, on Feb. 28, had already declared that the accused would not escape execution. This was almost correct. Rakovsky, a doctor, and one other were given long prison sentences; the 18 others were executed March 15. Paul Scheffer, a journalist who had spent seven years in Soviet Russia, spoke of the defendants as the victims of fiction rather than justice.
Though there is little agreement about these trials, most judges seem to look for truth somewhere in the middle. There must have been, within the Communist Party, an opposition to Stalin and his ruthless progress. Some may have resented being out of office and have accepted bribes from governments coveting Russian resources. Doubtless many devoted Communists — the older, more cultured, and international group — were inclined to condemn Stalin and his less educated younger aides. Either kind of opponent may well have been joined by little officials in doubt which way to jump and by peasants with a grudge to pay. Bukharin, though vain at times, impressed his associates as a man of high ideals and intelligence. His remarks about ideology seem to indicate that he, probably along with men like Rykov, Kamenev, and Tomsky wanted to advance Russia more slowly and thus permit more freedom to individuals. His reference to the end of 1932 as the definite break with Stalin doubtless referred to the Government's use of organized famine in the southern regions; i.e., causing the death of some three or four million people in order to discipline the peasants to the collective agriculture in which the Stalinites firmly believed. On that occasion the break probably became acute and mutual, but Stalin was not then ready to act against his colleagues.
In the trials, the Government would naturally exaggerate the accusations to impress the public with the depths of crime, to find excuses for industrial failures, to respond to the feeling of dangers surrounding the Soviet Union, and to increase that feeling. As Lenin freely exploited hatred of other classes for political purposes, Stalin exploits hatred of foreign powers to promote nationalism and defend existing institutions. Exaggeration of confessions probably resulted from the third degree, the staging of the trials, and the great desire of the victims to spare families and friends.
In reflecting upon the trials, one finds it easier to believe in opposition and sabotage than in the fantastic treasonable schemes very vaguely connected with Russia's enemies and always implying that Trotsky and Hitler are collaborators.
Behind these aspects of Soviet political life, one can see, as Harold Denny has pointed out, that Stalin has been steadily gaining in power at the expense of the Communist Party. In 1934 he put the Party under bureaucratic control, abolishing its cells; the next Party Congress was to have been held in 1937, but is still to come. Stalin swept away the Old Bolsheviks. Stalin made his trusted friend, Yezhov, Chairman of the Party Control Commission and Commissary of Internal Affairs with control of the secret police, and extended his influence in the army by increasing the power of the political commissioners (1937). Finally, there has been a campaign to enhance Stalin's popularity. Personally, he is bleak enough; but he personifies the power which most men admire, especially after they have been brutalized by the rule of tsars or dictators.
It is regrettable that this able man, with his ideals for Russia, should have found so many men to suspect and condemn. After the March trial, executions continued, but were carried out half secretly. As in Germany, a man would disappear. Weeks later his execution would be mentioned, and perhaps his name sullied. It was admitted in August, by Commissary Smirnov of the Red Navy, that Admirals Orlov, Sivikov, and Ludry had been executed, apparently by this simple method. In December, two prominent Red Army doctors were reported executed. Yet the executions reported in 1938 reached no such figure as those reported in 1937. Apparently oppression is heaviest in Ukrainia, which groaned also under the tsars. Ukrainia was one of the regions that suffered most in the famine at the end of 1932; and it has been disaffected ever since, in spite of purging in the Party and in the republican government. Finally, in January 1938, a 'hard-hitting, 100 per cent young Stalin man' was dispatched to the Dnieper to 'purge the purgers.' Since Ukrainian grain, coal, and iron, and the port of Odessa are coveted by Hitler, he may find right there the political weakness of the Soviet Union.
In view of the 'democratic' government, in which the personal liberties are not respected, contradicted by the powerful, practical, and pervasive despotism, it is interesting to see that the old Marxian doctrine about the withering away of government was at last given up. In November, the monthly organ of the Central Committee of the Party carried a 16-page article setting aside this doctrine, largely because disaffected persons could be used by hostile Powers. It was a realistic attitude underneath the laborious explanation.
Economic Development.
The economic development of Russia in 1938 followed the familiar lines of progress. The Third Five-Year Plan (January 1938-January 1943) promises to be similar to the second, not so strenuous as the first. During 1938, there was more railroad building: some completion work along the Baikal-Amur line, put through the previous year to open rich areas for settlement; and the building of the Baikal-Mongolian line to Ulan Bator. Meanwhile, the old railroads suffered another transportation crisis, and (April 5) L. M. Kaganovich was again appointed Commissary of Transportation to relieve business of the burdensome delays.
The year 1938, following an excellent harvest, was marked by considerable prosperity and, in the early months, by an increase in savings 2½ times the increase of a year earlier. A specimen Ukrainian family, studied by Jos. B. Phillips for the American Quarterly of the Soviet Union (April) was able in one year to buy a sewing machine, a crystal radio, a gold tooth, and a bicycle, although it is admitted that this family had only 5 members and had raised cotton under state promotion. In July, moreover, it was reported that deposits in savings banks were three times what they had been three years earlier; and when the Government floated its loan of the Third Five-Year Plan, bonds for 5,000,000,000 rubles (the ruble being officially about 19 cents), marketed in the usual way through the savings banks, aided by press and radio and committees in factory and farm, the subscriptions from both city and country came in more rapidly than had been expected. Savings banks pay 3½ per cent interest.
Production.
Production, however, showed no essential advance. Heavy industry, the darling of the first Five-Year Plan, has increased a normal small per cent, reaching about 92 per cent of the ambitious schedules, e.g., in iron, steel, and coal; 39 new coal mines were soon to be opened. The new plan calls for a great increase in farm machinery, railroad cars, and even street cars.
Trade.
Trade with the United States promised to reach about the figure of the previous year, $60,000,000; i.e., 50 per cent more than the Soviet trade agreement promised. This makes American trade in Russia almost double that of Britain and dwarfs German trade, now down in seventh place. Before American recognition of the Soviet Union, German trade was first while American trade was only $12,000,000 per year. These facts were pointed out by Izvestia on the fifth anniversary of American recognition (Nov. 16). This does not put the Soviet Union among the top customers of the United States, but it is very desirable business.
Light industry was to have produced 17 per cent more consumers' goods than it produced the previous year; but its increase reached only 11.6 per cent, and not even this in the most important industries. In cotton goods, greatly in demand, the production of the spring months was actually less in quantity and variety than in the spring of the previous year. Shoes and stockings were especially hard to get. By October these essential articles were so scarce that one might get into line long before dawn and yet, upon getting into the store, might find the cotton and shoe and stocking shelves all empty. Russians said they were the richest people in the world; they could not spend as much as they earned. There was real scarcity also in glassware, kitchenware, iron beds, and bicycles. Of course these shortages were in part the result of the previous good harvest and the extra money in peasant hands (so the money often went to the savings bank). But it was also true that the cotton goods industry was far behind its schedules and very late filling orders.
Again, the timber industry, which had been something of a scandal in 1937, was even worse in 1938. Timber would seem the next thing for Mr. Kaganovich to reorganize, so that the Government will not run short of paper for propaganda to the new voters. A secondary cause of these failures seems to have been a new form of the profit motive: some of the trust managers turned their factories toward the less essential goods in order to show a larger profit for the Government.
Some secondary articles such as phonograph records, clocks, and watches were sold in numbers 25 or 30 per cent above the previous year, and there was twice as much ice-cream sold — 12,000 metric tons. The total trade for the year was expected to show an increase of about 12 per cent over the trade of 1937. One substantial gain was that of the canned food industry. The Commissary of Food, A. I. Mikoyan, after a visit to the United States, had introduced American canning machinery. The output of canned goods then increased steadily each month and was expected to exceed the year schedule. The Soviet automobile industry was also well ahead of its modest plan — 700 cars and trucks per day. At the end of the year the automotive engineers agreed that it was time for the experimental production of a low-priced car, probably a four-cylinder, three-or-four-passenger car of low fuel consumption, to sell for about 3,000 rubles, whereas the present lowest-priced car sells for 9,500 rubles. In general, the two reasons for some lameness in the light industries seem to have been the ordinary inefficiency plus considerable nervousness about making mistakes that might be called sabotage.
Agriculture.
Agriculture was disturbed. The Commissariat of Agriculture was disorganized by the loss of its chief, Robert I. Eikhe, an alternate member of the Political Bureau, who nevertheless disappeared during the summer. For months his place was not filled. Pravda gave a dismal picture of agricultural machinery standing unrepaired and idle in various parts of the Union, while urgent messages to the Commissariat were passed around for weeks or months because executives were afraid to take responsibility.
Nor was nature kind. In the summer a drought started at the Caspian Sea and spread, fanwise, into the southern half of European Russia. Moscow was short of fresh fruits and vegetables. Yet many other parts of the Union had excellent conditions. In October, the effort to get the Siberian grain threshed led to the execution of 14 'wreckers' at Novosibirsk (not far from Tomsk). Some of the charges were: burning grain, damaging agricultural machinery, putting broken glass in grain for the Red Army horses.
At the end of 1938 experts estimated the total grain crop at 75-80 per cent of the excellent crop of 1937. So the new Five-Year Plan began without brilliant work in industry and without a good harvest.
Social Conditions.
In the ranks of labor there was a general increase in productivity that permitted wage increases of 5-13 per cent. On the other hand, labor discipline seemed to be a problem as late as December. At that time the Government announced that, in the following month (Jan. 15, 1939) and thereafter, every worker would be required to carry a worker's booklet containing the record of his jobs, successes, and failures or serious negligence. This regulation is to restrict nomadism, prevent absences for drunkenness or laziness, and stop the changing of jobs to get double vacation. There had been also a maternity racket; women often took jobs a few months before childbirth, then, after childbirth, got pay for about 3 months, then resigned their jobs. The new booklets promise to cut down costs and improve skill and quality.
Medical Service.
Medical Service was improved. In April, the Government decreed the establishment of some 11,000 rural medical clinics regularly staffed by physicians and decreed 11,000 additional medical dispensaries. In October. Dr. Ralph A. Reynolds, of San Francisco, returning from his third visit to Russia, reported that the transport workers of Moscow now have four times the medical facilities that he observed there in 1929 and are served by a somewhat larger number of doctors. For a very nominal sum per year the worker may come to the clinic by appointment or, if unable to come, he is visited by a physician in his home.
Religious Persecution.
Relations between State and Church were not improved. The State won a victory when the Metropolitan of Leningrad wrote to an atheist journal that he had abandoned 'religious lies' and would thenceforth devote himself to the building of socialism. At Easter, the famous midnight services were celebrated in hardly more than a score of churches in Moscow (a city of 3,500,000), so that crowds estimated at 50,000, unable to enter the churches, stood in the churchyards in the rain. The Government selected Easter Day to announce the arrest of 25 persons, including an archbishop, a bishop, 6 priests, 2 nuns, and a count, on charges of sabotage and espionage. In June, 49 churchmen were executed on similar charges. Yet religion seemed to increase. Oct. 23, the Teachers' Gazette summoned teachers to a renewed struggle against religion, which seemed to be reviving among the children; that children liked to sing Christmas carols and carry candles in Easter processions was attributed by the Gazette to the 'influence of enemies of the people.'
Music and Drama.
In April, Moscow was given illustrations of a decade of Azerbaijan Music and Drama. The leading theater of that Caucasian republic gave three contemporary operas, a musical comedy, and a ballet, 'Prisoner of the Caucasus' of 1823 but with new music. Furthermore, at a piano contest held in June at Brussels and participated in by musicians from Germany, France, England, Belgium, Norway, and Italy, a British performer won second place; but Russian pianists, Emil Gillels and Jacob Flier, won first and third prizes. There was also a gain on the Soviet screen, for on Dec. 4 Eisenstein was restored to Communist favor. He was working on a picture of Alexander Nevsky and his 13th-century defense of Russian soil against the Teutonic Knights.
Aviation.
In June, the International Aviation Federation awarded medals to the Soviet fliers Gromov, Iumashev, and Danilin for their spectacular flight of the previous year from Moscow over the polar regions to San Jacinto, California. The fliers received these medals in Berlin. A little later two veteran aviators, Kokkinaki and Briandinsky, made a non-stop flight from Moscow to Vladivostock (4,700 miles as they flew) in 24 hr. 36 min. This was not a new record, but it demonstrated the accessibility of the Far East. In September, three women — Gribodubova, Osipenko, and Raskova — flew from Moscow 4,000 miles before grounding not far from the Pacific. Indeed, there has been a wide interest in flying; and among the new recruits called in 1938 some 10,000 could already fly planes and use parachutes. In December, when the famous flier Chkalov was killed in an accident, his ashes were put into the Kremlin with a state funeral attended by Stalin, Voroshilov, and other Union leaders.
In addition to exploits of these aviators there was the rescue of the polar meteorological expedition. The explorer Ivan Papanin and three companions, who had established a station at the North Pole in the summer of 1937, drifted southward until, in the early part of 1938, their ice floe was dangerously near Greenland. By Feb. 19 the two ice-breakers Taimir and Murman broke their way to the camp and saved the party, their specimens, and their notes. The reading public were relieved and proud.
Army and Navy.
The Soviet army numbered 1,300,000 as opposed to the German army of 1,000,000. On the first of May in Moscow there was the usual military review, followed by a procession of a million workers, while Stalin and other leaders stood for hours in the rain on top of Lenin's tomb. Commissary Voroshilov spoke to the soldiers of the success of socialism in Russia as a loud tocsin ringing in the hearts and minds of proletarians over the world. The banners carried by the marchers expressed hatred for spies and saboteurs; one showed serpents in the form of a swastika; another showed the Berlin-Rome axis as a cannon, with the British Lion's tail wound around it. Foreign military observers noticed the smaller quantity but the excellent quality of the tanks, planes, and artillery; and for the first time they saw heavy guns. The tanks ranged from swift little whippets to land dreadnoughts. One critic commented on the mistake of using tanks en masse and on a general stiffness and conservatism in all their military tactics. It was estimated, however, that the Soviet Union had some 3,000 planes of the first line, of which about one third were in the Far East, and that the training and methods of the pilots were almost up to French and English standards. Colonel Lindbergh was entertained in Moscow in August. During the Munich crisis, the statement attributed to him that the Soviet air fleet was in a chaotic condition and that the German air fleet could defeat the combined fleets of Britain, France, Russia, and Czechoslovakia, came as a blow to the Russians. On Oct. 10, eleven prominent Soviet fliers sent a letter to Pravda in which they denounced these statements as untrue and very injurious, giving Chamberlain the excuse to back down before Hitler.
There was a serious question about the inner strength of the vast Soviet army and whether the execution of the 'generals' had shaken military morale and weakened Soviet foreign policy. Indeed, in London, it was estimated that half the Soviet officers had been lost by execution or dismissal, and it was learned that young officers and even cadets were being promoted precipitately. Could one still depend on such an army?
This question involved both Army and Party. In 1934, in the Party, authority was unified by the appointment of secretaries and the abolition of the elected cells. The next year, in the Army, the regular official ranks were restored, except one — the title 'General,' because of its offensiveness in the trite slogans about 'Landlords, Capitalists, and Generals.' To be an officer, however, one still had to be a member of the Party and the son of a workman or a peasant. Of course the Bolsheviks had always been concerned to keep the soldiers firmly indoctrinated Marxians. There was always a factory to 'adopt' a regiment so that the workers could keep intellectual and social contact with the soldiers; e.g., in a joint dramatic club. Also, Party and Komsomol were very active in the Army and among the prospective recruits. But, in May 1937, in contrast to the policy in the Party, the authority in the Army was divided, put into commissions of 3, of whom one was always the political commissioner instructed (thenceforth) to assert authority equal to that of his military colleagues. Stalin, the great manipulator, seemed to trust his grip on the Party better than his grip on the Army.
About one month later, Marshal Tukhaschevsky and 7 other high commanders were shot, and Marshal Gamarnik had committed suicide. According to some commentators, Tukhaschevsky was the agent of a grandiose plot with the German General Staff to set up a military dictatorship in Russia and draw it into alliance with Hitler. Trotsky, however, (New York Times, March 7, 1938) opined that such an accusation was made because it suited Stalin not to break the morale of the Red Army, but that the real cause was the old struggle between civilian and military. The political commissioners interfered in the Army and accused some good officers. When the Marshals and Commanders came to the defense of their officers, Stalin backed the Party commissioners, suspected the Commanders, and, in order to be sure, had them swiftly executed. So, said Trotsky, it was not the world-wide but the inner struggle that caused the tragedy. From other sources one learns that Marshal V. G. Bluecher, the ablest of Soviet generals, managed to set definite limits to the authority of the commissioners in the Far Eastern Army. He had under him 400,000 such well-trained troops that he was able to keep the best Japanese troops immobilized in Manchukuo. But, in the middle of the Munich crisis, it was learned that Commissary Voroshilov was suddenly in the Far East; a little later there were rumors in Moscow and Paris of Bluecher's arrest; then two other men were mentioned as commanders in the Far East. The politicians must have got Bluecher. Communist society seems to agree with bourgeois democracy in distrusting any man of really distinguished ability. On the other hand, if a state is to remain essentially civilian, it must be very severe in controlling the officers of its conscript armies. Furthermore, although the purges seem to have addled some of the administrative offices, no observer in Russia has reported any real evidence to show that public morale is shaken or that the confidence of the Army has been impaired. On the contrary, in the Manchukuoan border battle with the Japanese at Changkufeng (near the Korean border), the Russian soldiers, encouraged by the political commissioners, fought bravely and recovered the disputed positions. (See also JAPAN: Changkufeng Clash.)
For a number of years the Soviet Union had a large fleet of excellent submarines on which they relied for defense against even the battleships of Japan; but in 1935, the same year that Germany gained England's permission to build a fleet, the Soviet Union began to plan large battleships. Premier Molotov mentioned a large navy in January, and in June President Kalinin spoke of the enemy as the capitalist world and said that the Union needed a navy greater than even the British navy. This costly and laborious enterprise was further promoted by a moving picture, 'Men of the Sea,' which showed how Kronstadt and the Red Navy had saved the Revolution, and prophesied for the Soviet Union the finest fleet in the world. The Arctic fleet, already adequate for the defense of Murmansk, could be moved quickly through the new canal to the Gulf of Finland and the Baltic Sea. The papers carried reports of new shore batteries and the clearing of the population from the coast of the Gulf of Finland and the coast of the Sea of Japan. Heavy armor plate presses were being purchased in England and the United States. The chief naval bases were to be Murmansk, Kronstadt, Nicolaev (near Odessa), Komsomolsk on the Amur River, and Nicolaevsk on the Sea of Okhotsk.
Foreign Policy.
It is interesting to see how Soviet statesmen and journalists dealt with great diplomatic events. Commissary Maxim Litvinov combined clear policy, considerable energy, and a thorough understanding of the diplomatic scene. His policy was the same as in previous years; to pursue peace collectively in the League of Nations and to take a firm stand against aggressors.
The Moscow press was also well informed. In April and May, Izvestia was dismayed by Chamberlain's submission to Italy and his attempt to take France with him, the policy which Anthony Eden had tried in vain to oppose. Izvestia called it 'Flutes in London, Drums in Rome.'
When the League Council met in Geneva in May, Litvinov, almost alone, took a strong stand against the exclusion of Ethiopia and in support of the demand of Spain that she be allowed to buy arms to defend herself. The others were full of evasions. The Soviet Union was the only Great Power represented at Geneva whose rulers and people had reasoned convictions for which they were willing to make sacrifices.
In the first days of May, the Moscow press already saw danger latent in the Czech elections set for May 22. On May 21, when the Czech Government mobilized troops to keep order in the Sudeten areas, Litvinov immediately affirmed the obligations of the Soviet Union under the treaty of 1935. France was firm. England gave vague support. A series of moderate articles discussed 'the German Threat to Peace,' and 'Czechoslovakia, Bastion of Peace.' The Press pointed out the correlation between Italy's support of Franco and Germany's support of the Sudetens and insisted that Czechoslovakia's firmness had averted a catastrophe. (See CZECHOSLOVAKIA.)
Then came the Russo-Japanese clash at Changkufeng (July 11-Aug. 10, armistice). When Ambassador Shigemitsu suggested a resort to force, Litvinov is said to have replied: 'If the Ambassador thinks it is good diplomacy to use threats, he must understand that he will not gain anything by that sort of thing in Moscow.' By the time of the armistice the casualties must have reached 1,500 for each side, but the Russians had recovered the position and made Japan agree to an equal commission to delimit the border. A year earlier, the Soviet Union had given up two islands under Japanese pressure.
In the Czechoslovakian crisis, Soviet Russia offered France and England her military support in the defense of Czechoslovakia. They did not wish it. Even though the Soviet promise of support to Czechoslovakia was contingent upon French support, the Soviet Union finally offered to go alone to aid the Czechs; but Bohemia's conservative agrarian party prevented Prague from accepting.
After what the Soviet statesmen had seen in London, in Spain, and in Geneva, they cannot have been surprised at the outcome. But they were bitter. They returned to their policy of isolation and absorption in domestic progress. Germany continued to be the chief danger. About the end of the year the eastern end of Czechoslovakia, erected into the autonomous province of Ruthenia, sent out a call for the unification and independence of the '50 million' Ukrainians, of whom Poland rules a fraction and the Soviet Union the rest. A German air line, Berlin-Athens-Rhodes-Bagdad-Meshed, opened in April, could not possibly pay (according to the Russians) and was only a means of getting German 'specialists' into positions of influence in Iran and getting a base from which it would be easy to bomb Baku.
Thus the Soviet Union completed the three periods of her foreign policy: 1917-21 World Revolution; 1922-33 aloofness from Europe, except for a limited friendship with the German Republic; 1934-38 cooperation with the League, France, and England for collective security against aggressive powers. See also COMMUNISM; ARCHITECTURE AND HOUSING; JAPAN; Russo-Japanese Fishery Disagreement.
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