Subscribers enjoy higher page view limit, downloads, and exclusive features.
How the Communists Keep Power In Russia F TROTZKY and Rykov, and Zin- oviey and Kameneff, and the dozen chief men in government in Russia were to die tonight, blown up in some explosion in the Krem- lin, the government of Russian would go on without a break. This is what the capitalizt groups of earth do not realize, tho the workers of the world know it very wel'. There would be another great funeral in the Red Square, there would be a confusion of detail in mafiy govern- ment offices where the organizing head was gone. But the successors to these men would step eutomati- cally into office, or be selected by the appropriate committees, there would not be even a new election needed. - The form of government and all its’ 1.ajor policies would be untouched. The Communist Party. The governing power in Russia lies in the Communist Party, of half a million men and women. They continue from year to year to gov- ern one hundred and thirty . million people. Longer than any govern- ment in the world they have held power. Cabinets and thrones all over Europe rise and fall, in our own United States we have the pe- riodic shifting of parties, as accu- mulating discontent throws out the party that is “in,” and gives a chance to the party that is “out,” until it in its turn disillusions the people, and is replaced by the ever- swinging pendulum of our two-par- ty system. The Communist Party of Russia, ruling by a one-party system, does not worry about accumulating dis- content. It has grown strenger year by year. It expects to keep on growing stronger. It makes plars . for five, ten, fifteen, twenty years ahead, expecting to hold governmen’‘ for an indefinite period. Az far as observations over a thousand miles of Russian territory and contin for two years indicate, it has a good chance of doing so. ~ How does it keep control? The answer is not to be found in: the annual elections. Once eacr year the people of Russia have, theoreti- cally, the chance-of electing an en- tirely different government. Eve from week to week any factory of five hundred workers may recall and replace its respresentative in the city soviet, the only body to whirt it elects directly. Practically. how- ever, the results are known before- hand. Representatives change, dele-: gates are recalled and replaced, but the control of ‘the Communist Party goes on. I visited two elections in Moscow. They take place not by ballot, but in open assembly. _ Any factory or government department or enter- prise with ‘ive hundred workers is entitled to one representative in the city council, the Moscow Soviet. Elections last for an entire week, each factory selecting the afternoon which suits it, holding its election meeting on factory time, so that practically ail workers attend, hear- ing reports and choosing represen- tatives. How They Vote. I went with the emploves of the Foreign Office to see them vote. They had iess than 500 employes, so they combined with the State Bank and a few little factories ta choose their representatives, They gathered in a central hall: they sang the In- ternationale and heard reports. <A man from the Communist Party made the first report, telling what last year’s program had been and how far the government had ful- filled it; what next year’s plans were, in city taxes and water sup- ply and municipal repairs, as wel! as in national issues. His chief ap- peal lay in pointing out that every- one got more wages this yeur. than last and had better food, more clothes, better living. “The rest of Europe is growing continually worse; Russia jis. growing rapidly better; vote for the Communist Party which has improved your con- ditions.” Such was the theme of his speech. The audience was toegg in control of the meeting. They deter- mined how long he should speak, granting -him at first. twenty min- utes and then extending the time. Disappointment swept the hall when no opposition candidates declared themselves. “How dull,” said a Communist sitting near me. “Can’t they even give us a debate?” The factories that had an opposi. tion bragged about it. “We had the best election in town,” said the Amo Auto Factory. “Three different candidates and lots of attacks on the government, A Social Revolu- tionary denounced the Communists for failing to keep their promises. ‘Five years ago they promised you a new world,’ he jeered. ‘Now they offer you a better water-supply and a few more electric lights.’ .'. There is interest in that kind of election.” Yet here also the elec- tion was merely an interesting de- bate; nobody doubted that the Com- munists would be returned to power. Is lt By Terrorism? Is it by terrorism that the Com- munists keep power in euch elec- tions? Certainly none was visible on the surface. The audience laughed and asked questions and made com- ments for and against the speaker. There was no sense of constraint, a good time was had by all. Half a million men do not terrorize one hundred and thirty million by mere openness of discussion unless some other more subtle form of control lies behind it. The Communist con- trol goes farther back into industry and life and is more permanent than any election day meeting. it is a very remarkable organiza- tion—this Communist Party of Rus- sia. Millions of votes are cast for it each year, but these voters do not rank as Party; Memhers. Voting is incidental expression of appfoval; to be a Party Member is a_life- long job. It is to be organized into a compact unit whose purpose takes precedence over every other inter- est. You are a Communist first and everything else afterwards. You are on call always, to go wherever you are sent in Russia, It takes from six months to three years to join the Communist Party, You state in your—application the kinds of work you are fit for. You go into regular classes to fit your- self; you attend discussions on eco- nomies and. international relations and internal problems of Russia. In the far north I met Rimpalle, organizing mica mines and feldspar quarries in an undeveloped region. Hiking ten to eighteen miles daily, wading thigh-deep in swamps, or- ganizing -unlettered peasant labor ‘to develop little mines, At the sum- mer’s end he brought back from his prospecting one hundred thousand dollars worth of mica; he checked it up in a’barn behind the statehouse in the little provincial capitol, and Chicago Hog Butcher for the World, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, By CARLS .- RG Player with_Railroads and the Nation’s Freight Handler; Stormy, husky, brawling, City of the Big Shoulders: They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys. And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true 1 have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again. And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger. And having answered so I turn once more to these who sneer at this my city and I give them back the sneer and say to them: Come and show me another city with lifted head and singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning. Flinging magnetic curses amid the toll of piling job on job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities; : i Strong as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness, Bareheaded, Shoveling, Wrecking, Planning, Building, breaking, rebuilding, Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teeth, Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs, Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a battle, Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse, and under his ribs the heart of the people, Laughing! Laughing the stormy husky, brawling laughter of Youth, half-naked sweating, proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation. By ANNA LOUISE STRONG (Anise) then turned back three days north- ward'to his job. He got for his summer’s work “my food and one resoling of my boots.” ...I asked him if he were a Conmunist, and he smiled shyly and said: “A candi- date.” When Rimpalle has worked like that for a year cr two, he will be admitted to the Party. Sever Discipline. All Communists go under severe discipline which enters into their pay envelope and the kinds of work they are allowed to do. They can- not make money by private trade or by exploiting the labor of another. If they get a wage higher than a certain sum, which was once almost nothing, but is now about fifty dol- lars a month, they must divide the surplus with the Party treasury, which maintains hospitals, day nur- series, sanitariums for the sick and dependents of the Party. If they get even as low as twenty dollars a month, they find it attacked by famine assessments and other emer- gencies, as well as by ordinary par- ty dues. I know men and women who gave their wedding rings to the famine, because it was voted by the local branch of the party. Thus the Party builds itself into one solid family, pooling its re- sources and uniting its forces. This organized force is always ready for action; it can be cast at a word into any part of Russia. When shock troops were needed to stiffen the battlefront, when men were needed to stem typhus epidemics, or to fight famine, or to increase production in some ruined factory or flooded .mine —Communists were mobilized and sent to these jobs. The Commun- ists talk always in terms of “fronts.” First, there was the war on many fronts; then there was the “famine front”; then the “front .of industry,” and now the “front of education.” This means that, lacking sufficient’ men for uil the jobs of cebuilding Russia, they attack one after an- other the most important and crying needs, and throw their organized force for a time in that direction, A girl of my acquaintance was “commissar” of a typhus hospital during the height of the Polish war. She told me how a thousand men were brouzht in and laid on the floor in the - sommandeered high school building. They had no soap, no beds, no bedding, no change of ur.derwear for sick, lousy men from the front, “But we mobilized beds and bedding and underwear,” she said. “How does one mobilize under- wear?” I asked in curiosity. “It was a town of sixty thousand souls,” she answered. “We sent word that every family should give us one suit of underwear. f cours® we could not compel them; we had no authority; it was a voluntery tax. : Except for the Communist; Com- munists are not permitted to refuse. We Comiaunists are makiag the Revolution; we must give whatever is demanded.” “ How Graft Is Punished. Week by week the Communists of my acquaintance receive orders to go on certain evenings to teach reading and writing in factory night schools, or to give certain Sundays to community work. In return for this discipiine, this giving up of all human rights, Communists get the job of ruling Russia. They are given trusted posts and job preference in high offices. They do not get as high pay os the experts and techni- ed to be working for loyalty. The temptations such men are ex- posed to can be easily imagined by the ancient habits desires of human nature. P keeps close watch of cha Their wages éo style of living is a Communi ; the Republic tae ist is caught eet