Alone

One hundred and twelve million U. S. inhabitants acknowledge the executive shepherdage of Calvin Coolidge, refuse to "recognize" the 139 million Soviet Russians over whom Joseph Stalin has reared himself a despot. M. Stalin ("Mr. Steel") exerts, simply as Secretary of the Communist Party, a political "boss power" prodigious and all pervasive. A cobbler's son whose actual name and age are doubtful, "Mr. Steel," was born in the remote Transcaucasian land of Vras-tan, Gruzia or Georgia.* Amid the purging flames of revolution, the great Dictator Lenin tested and tempered the Georgian's metal, gave him the prophetic name of Stalin, installed him in the office which he has made the focus of all Russia, the Secretariat of the Communist Party. Last week M. Stalin ordered dropped from the Cabinet of Premier Rykoff--of which he, himself, is not a member--his onetime "Left Hand Man," Foreign and Home Trade Commissar (Minister) Leo Kamenev. Into the vacant Ministry stepped with effrontery and assurance one Mikoyan, like M. Stalin a Georgian, unlike M. Stalin, a mere pliant boy. As everyone knows, Gregory Zinoviev, the onetime "Right Hand Man" of M. Stalin, was expelled during the summer from the potent Communist Political Bureau. M. Stalin, astute, inflexible, omnipotent, has chosen to dictate alone. Why? The look of this Georgian does not suggest a spirit so awfully and terribly aloof. When his stern jaw relaxes he can and does smile with a kindling light in his eyes. But searing experience has shown the man of steel that Russia must be driven, that only one man can drive. Recently Death took from M. Stalin the especial goad which he had set to spur Russian labor on to adequate production -- Felix E. Dzerzhinsky, president of the Supreme Economic Council (TIME, Aug. 2). For the past fortnight it has been touted that M. Dzerzhinsky was murdered by agents of M. Zinoviev and M. Kamenev. To put down any hint of this M. Stalin is sued a manifesto last week, commanded that M. Dzerzhinsky's work of speeding industrial production be carried forward by the Rykoff Cabinet as a whole. For himself, "Mr. Steel" reserves the harsh detachment of a commander. Ensuing months will show whether, without President Dzerzhinsky, he can advance the schedule of Russian production up to the point of taking care of the now overwhelming and largely unsatisfied demand of Russian peasants for manufactured goods at a price which they can pay.

*Previously a Tsarol Russian province. Now the Socialist Soviet Republic of Georgia.