The Daily Worker Newspaper, February 28, 1931, Page 12

Page Bighi pAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1931 Py | _ By K. Voroshilov. | leadership into his’ own strong | hands, he relentlessly broke through | difficulties, and turned the corner, During the 1918-20 period, Com-| saved the situation. Stalin himself rade Stalin was probably the only | wrote about it in one of his letters person whom the Central Commit-j| to the Central Committee in 1919 tee despatched from one fighting! saying that “he was being trans- front to another, choosing always | formed into a specialist for clean- tho jlaces most fraught with| ing out the stables of the war de- danger for the revolution. Where} partment.” ; comparatively quiet, andj a we had successes, Stalin was not to be found. But where for various reasons the Red Army was cracking up, where the counter-revolutionary forces through their successes were menacing the very existence of the Soviet Government, where confu- sion and panic might any moment flevelop into helplessness, catas- trophe, there Stalin made his ap- pearance. He took no sleep at aight. he organized, he took the STALIN AND VOROSHILOV —_ ything going smoothly, where} I remember, as though it were | today, the beginning of August 1918. The Krasnov Cossacks were | attacking Tsaritsyn, trying with |one concentrated drive to throw back the Red Army units to the Volga. For many days the Red troops, headed by the Communist division composed entirely of work- ers from the Donetz Basin, with- stood the extremely powerful at- tacks of the excellently organized | Cossack units. These were days of great trial. You should have seen Comrade Stalin at that time. Calm as usual, deep in thought, he liter- ally had no sleep for days on end, distributing his intensive work be- |.tween the fighting positions and the Army Headquarters. The posi- | tion at the front became almost catastrophic. The Krasnov trcops, commanded by Fitzhalauroy, Ma- montov and others, by a. well- | planned manoeuvre, were i our exhausted troops, wi ready suffered great losses enemy front, formed into a a horse- shoe, with its flanks resting on the Volga, pressed closer every day. We had no way out. But Stalin had cared nothing for this. He was in- spired with one single thought— victory! To smash up the. enemy whatever happened. And-this in- domitable will of Stalin was passed on to his closest colleagues, and de- | spite the almost hopeless position, | nobody doubted in our ultimate vic- tory. We were victorious. The enemy was beaten and thrown far back in | STA the direction of the Don. * * * In in varying, the Civil War, LIN General Secretary of Communist Party of U. S. S. R. > N AND THE VICTORIOUS RED ARMY complicated circumstances, Comrade Stalin, with an enormous talent for revolutionary strategy, always cor- rectly, estimated the chief direc- tions to be taken for the main blow at the enemy; and, skilfully using the tactical method appropriate to the circumstances, obtained the de- sired results. This quality of pro- letarian strategist and _ tactician have remained with him since the Civil War. This quality of his well known to the whole Party. Trotzky and his friends could best relate about this, who have paid full sore for the attempt to substitute their petty-bourgecis ideology for the great teachings of Marx and Lenin, The right opportunists, who only quite recently suffered complete defeat, also know this only too well. | Comrade Stalin in peace time also, together with the Leninist Central Committee of the Party, is conducting a no less successful and relentless struggle against all the voluntary and involuntary enemies of the Party and of the building of Socialism in our country. But at the same time, while long ago he ceased formally to be a military man, ‘Comrade Stalin has never ceased to gecupy himself most seriously with questions of the defense. Of the--proletarian | state. Now, as in past years, he knows the Red Army and is its nearest and dearest’ friend. ; * In connection with the Thirteen Anniversary of “the Red Army, which occurred on February 23, we ; are reprinting excerpts from an ar- ticle written by Comrade Voroshi- lov, written on St&lin’s fiftieth birthday, celebrated last year thru- out the world, COM. VOROSHILOV’S FIFTIETH BIRTHDAY On the 5th February 1931 Com- rade Voroshilov, the Commander- in-Chief of the Red Army, was fifty years old. Comrade Voroshi- lov was a mechanic and knew noth- ing of military affairs, knew noth- ing of military strategy and tactics, but he rose to be the leader of the victorious workers and _ peasants army of the Soviet Union. One of the workers who fought under Voroshilov during the dark- est days of the civil war, Comrade Strokatenko, tells how he arrived in Pyatichatki and was received by Comrade Voroshilov. Voroshilov ordered me to take over the command of a detachment and attack the cossack Ataman Gri- goriev and his troops. I was in a quandary and objected to his or- ders. ‘How on earth shall I take command of a detachment’, I asked. ‘I do not know anything about it.’ Whereupon Voroshilov shouted at me: ‘Am I a General because I’m commanding an army? Go and do it, it’s enough that you come from the Don Basin.” It was this invincible confidence in the power of the revolutionary proletariat that replaced for Voro- shilov the Military Academy and made him the leader of the Red Army of workers and peasants. He comes from a purely proletarian family and at the age of 7 years he went out to earn his living. He became a mechanic, The factories of Altchevo, Yuryevo and Lugansk were his schools. Intense exploita- tion was the order of the day. It was not long before Comrade Voro- shilov came into the working class movement. and as a young man he was the leader of a series of strikes. In 1899 he organized a strike of the cranemen and mechanics in the Yuryevo foundries, and from that time on he was constantly under police supervision. In 1903 Comrade Klim Voroshilov 4oined the Bolshevist Party and the second schooling began and turned him into an iron revolutionary, trustworthy in all situation. Dur- ing the 1905 revolution Voroshilov was in Lugansk, The 24 year old worker became one of the recog- nized leaders of his class. He was elected chairman of the delegate meeting of the workshops’ which then developed into the first Soviet of Lugansk. The strike movement swept through the Lugansk district. Voroshilov was its leader. ° * . In 1906 Voroshilov met Lenin at the Stockholm Party Congress. In the years of the reaction following on the 1905 revolution Voroshilov experienced banishment, flight and illegal revolutionary work in Baku and Petersburg. He was imprison- ed and again banished. This was “ Comrade | the career which steeld him for the greater tasks he was called upon to perform as leader of the prole- tarian and peasant battallions. When he took command of the re- volutionary detachments in the Don district he had had 20 years of re- volutionary struggle and experi- ence. His army occupied Zaritsin (Stalingrad) and defended it against the white attacks for a whole year. Voroshilov and Com- rade Stalin organized the defence. He was always to be found at - VOROSHILOV Head of Red Army and Navy of U. S. S. R. the most dangerous posts. He gave : up his position as People’s Commis- sar for the Interior in Ukrainia in order to take charge of a. handful of brilliant soldiers and wipe out the bands of the Ataman Grigo- riev. At the head of the XIV Red Army he dealt the counter-revolu- tion in the south one heavy blow after the other. Voroshilev himself was constant- ly in the firing line. His personal courage and steadfastness fired on the men and strengthened hesitat- ing detachments. An old comrade Rakitin describes the taking of No- yograd-Volynsk: “The Poles had fortified Novo- grad-Volynsk strongly. For four days the red cavalry division bat- tered their heads against its walls. Exhaustion and disheartenment was the result. The detachments began to waver and lose confidence. And then Comrade Voroshilov ar- rived and took over the V division. His firm, clear voice, his fire and conviction gave new life to the tired soldiers. He went from detachment to detachment, from squadron to squadron, Voroshiloy led the attack. The exhausted men took on a new lease of life: the hungry ones pulled in their belts, the pessimists re- ceived new courage. The charge of the V division swept all before it and drove the Poles helter-skelter out of the town.” * " * The civil war came to an end. The organized white armies were wiped out or driven out of the country, but banditry and revolt still delivered severe blows at the revolution. On the way from Northern Caucasia to the Polish front the red cavalry under Buden- ny and Voroshiloy rounded up the Machno bands in Ukrainia. After the close of the civil war the red cavalry made its headquarters in Ekaterinoslav. In the days of the Kronstadt re- volt Comrade Voroshilov crossed the frozen bosom of the Gulf of Finland with the most daring fighters. He practically led this most complicated operation. In the streets of Kronstadt he took part in the fighting as a simple fighter. é ‘ When the death of Comrade Frunze left the post of People’s Commissar for the Red Army and Navy free, there was only one name mentioned—Klim Voroshiloy. “Fhe victorious leader of the Red Army, the steadfast bolshevist, the un- bending fighter for the Party po- licy became the leader of the Red Army and Navy. Under his leader= ship the imperialist mercenaries in the Far East have received a taste of the fighting qualities of the Red Army. Under Voroshilov’s leader= ship the Red Army is concentrating on technical and mechanical €ffi- ciency. On the fiftieth birthday of their leader the soldiers of the workers and peasants Red Army declared: “Should the imperialists attack us, we shall fight against them with the fierce passion of a free people. We know that we are fighting for the whole of humanity, and we know that we shall be vice torious!” Leis Torry mae \/- # SS RuyeenBEac Sy Harwood 4 IT FEAR THEM EAD_AS MUCK PID Widens ¥.C.1, ON RUTHENBERG’S DEATH “We express deepest regret over the death of Comrade Ruthenberg, one of the founders and outstanding leaders of the Party, and sympathy to the whole Party. We call upon all Com- munists to close their ranks for struggle against capitalism.”