BS a ae ey ener

ee gt es ee

was.

Per,

au

+ .. to be a leader in Soviet
Conditions means to be worthy
of the high honor and trust of
the People. . .. Leaders come
€nd go but the people remain.
Only the people is immortal.
Everything else is transitory.
It is, therefore, necessary to
know how to value the confi-
dence of ihe people.”

—Joseph Stalin, in an address
to Soviet metal workers, Oc-
tober 29, 1937.

*

JOSEPH STALIN knew how to

value the confidence of the
People,: and he received it in
fuller measure than any popular
leader in history.

Born of the people (his father
Was a cobbler and shoe factory
Worker, his mother the daugh-
ter of a serf), a reigning passion
of his life, a recurrent theme
of his speeches has been; the con-
Viction that} a modern revolution-
ary leader draws his strength
from the people.

“Contact with ‘the masses,’ he
told his asseciates in 1937, “the
Strengthening of these contacts,
readiness to listen to the voice
of the masses—in this lies the
Strength and impregnability of

Bolshevik leadership.”

It was then that he told the
ancient Greek fable of Antaveus,
son of the Goddess of Earth.
Antaeus was invincible because
“every time he was hard pushed
in a struggle with an opponent,
he touched the earth, his moth-
er who had borne and fed him,
and thus regained new strength.
But Hercules discovered his se-
cret, lifted him in the air, and
thus throttled him.”

“I think,” Stalin concluded,

_ “that Bolsheviks remind us of

Antaeus. As long as they keep
contact with their mother, with
the people, they have every
chance of remaining invincible.”

That insight guided. him as a
youth of 19 when he served his
apprenticeship as a revolution-
ary among the railway workers
of Tiflis, in his native Georgian
province, and again. when he be-
came, as he put it, a journey-

man’s helper in the revolutionary ©

movement among the Baku oil
workers during and after the
1905 revolution.

Despite Tsarist persecution, he
remained within Russia, among
the people, in pre-revolutionary
days. Arrested six times, he
spent nine of the 15 years be-
tween 1902 and 1917 either in
prison or in exile.

Through the Revolution and
the Civil War, where the issue
was in the balance, there Stalin
In November, 1917, he was
the head of the directing centre

’

‘Only the people

*

Is immortal’

This historic photograph of Premier Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse-tung, chairman of the People’s

Republic o

of the revolt. And later, when
the infant Soviet republic fought
for its life on a dozen fronts,
Stalin was where the fighting was
most. critical. i

A Ukrainian folk song cele-
brates his civil war exploits:
Soar, my song, unto the sky,
Tell the tale, repeating

How we forced our foes to fly,
White. Guard bands defeating,
Stalin, leader, captain, friend,
Everywhere was with us,
Through Siberia, Ukraine, :
Marched with troops victori-

ous. ‘

Malen

(Eck MALENKOV is the man
who niade the historic report
of the,central committee of the
Communist Party of the Soviet
Union, to the party’s 19th Con-
gress in Moscowdlast October.

Malenkov was 18 when he
fought with the Bolshevik arm-
ies in the civil wars after the
revolution. He became a mem-
ber of the Communist party in
April, 1920.

From 1925 to 1933, he worked
in the party’s central committee
and in 1930 became organizing
secretary of its Moscow section.

Later he was put at the head
of the personnel department of
the central committee.

When Nazi Germany attacked
the Soviet Union in 1941 he was
one of the secretaries of the cen-
tral committee and a member
of the Supreme Soviet. , ;

Malenkov was then appointed
one of the eight members of the
State Defense Council. e

Since the end of 1946 he had
been a deputy chairman of the
Council of the Ministers — vice-
premier. He ig,52 years old.

In his historic report to the
19th Congress of the Communist
Party of the Soviet Union, Mal-
enkov included this passage on
the international scene: .

“The ruling circles of Britain
and France have been devoting

The late Michael Kalinin, as
president: of the Soviet Union,
wrote of this period:

“Between 1918 and 1920 Sta-
lin was the only man whom
the Central Committee kept
sending from one front to an-
other, to the point at which
the Revolution was in the
_ greatest peril.”

In 1922, with V. I. Lenin, foun-
der of the Soviet state, ill, Sta-
lin became general secretary of
his party’s central committee.
After Lenin died in 1924, Stalin
continued his work.

{ China, was taken in 1950 on the occasion of Stalin’s 70th birthday.

“T am merely a pupil of Len-
in,” Stalin told the German
author, Emil -Ludwig, in 11931,
“and my aim is to be a worthy
pupil of his.”

From then’on, the years gave
added meaning to an estimate

of Henri Barbusse, the French.

writer.

- “His history is a series of vic-
tories over a series of tremen-
dous difficulties,’ Barbusse
wrote.

“He is-a man of iron. The
name by which he is known

for victory over fascism,

describes it; the word Stalin
means ‘steel’ in Russian. He
is strong and yet as flexible as
steel. His power lies in his
formidable intelligence, the
breadth of his knowledge, the
amazing orderliness of his
mind, his passion for precision,
his inexorable spirit of pro-
gress, the rapidity, sureness
and intensity of his decisions,
and his constant care to choose
the right man.”
e

His work from 1924 on ean
be divided into three great head-
ings:

V The consolidation of Soviet
power, economic, reconstruction,
collectivization of agriculture —
all these paving the way for the
victory of socialism.

V Leadership of the Soviet
people in the Second World War.

V_ Rebuilding after the war,
creating the economic conditions
and. charting the theoretical
course for the transition to com-
munism, the highest stage of
human development as yet en-
visioned by man.

Any of these undertakings,
and many of their subdivisions,
are staggering in their magni-
tude, and none could have been
begun, let alone completed, with-
out the inexhaustible strength

-of the people.

This is what the mean and
small-minded men in Washing-
ton, London and elsewhere ecan-
not comprehend—that here was
a leader whose strength stem-
med from the scientific vision
and iron will power that gave
expression and direction to the
hopes and desires of the people.

This is what made Stalin a
world leader, who in his own
lifetime developed from the
hunted organizer of a persecut-
ed_ revolutionary movement to
the recognized spokesman of a
great alliance of nations that
encompasses more than one-
third of mankind and is united
by the common goal of commun-
ism.

This is what made Stalin a
world figure who transcended all
national boundaries. During the

-Second World War he embodied

that’ invincible will and the
grand strategie conception that
gave form to the people’s desire
and
since. the war he had given ar-
ticulate expression to the desire
of all peoples for peace.

ov fought in Civil. War

their time since the last war for
preparations for a new one.

“By a whole series of aggres-
sive actions the United States
has aggravated the international
situation, increasing the danger
of a new war. The rulers of, the
United States have openly stated
their aims.” .

Declaring ‘the Soviet Union’s

willingness to cooperate with the
capitalist. countries, he said
peaceful co-existence of capital-
ism and Communism was “per-
fectly feasible.”

Talk of “export of revolution
is rubbish,” he said. If the

‘people of a country desired revo-

lution they would achieve it; if

not there would be no revolution.

The British Empire was being
taken over not by Communists
“put by the American billion-
aires.”

“No enemy of Britain has ever
dealt her such heavy blows as
the Americam‘friend?” who re-
moves het empire bit by bit.”

In this picture, taken at _Lenin’s Mausoleum during the 1952 May Day celebrations, Joseph

Stalin, flanked by Marshal’Nikolai Bulganin (lef ¢)
Kondakova, a pupil at Moscow School 612.

x

and Georgi Malenkov, is embraced . by Vera

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — MARCH 13, 1953 — PAGE 9