RUSSIA: Maxims for Marxians

Stalin looked at his visitor. His visitor looked at the ceiling. Said Stalin: “Don’t look at the ceiling. You won’t find the answer there. Better look at me and say what you think.”

The visitor was Planemaker Alexander Yakovlev, designer of the wicked fighting plane YAK, and it was the first of many sessions with No.1. Last week Moscow’s Pioneer ran Yakovlev’s intimate reminiscences of Stalin as a man of precepts.

Sample Stalin maxims:

¶If you think you are right, and can tell the reasons why, do not worry over what

people will think. Do what your head and conscience dictate.

¶If you cannot say correctly what you think, you cannot think correctly.

¶Many people are proud because they are brave, but bravery without knowledge

of military technique means nothing.

¶Don’t try to tell us just things we like to hear. … You are not here for us to

teach you but for you to teach us.

When Stalin reads an illiterate document, Yakovlev reported, he growls and says: “Look what this illiterate man says. But if one tries to tell him about it, he will say he is illiterate because his parents were peasants or workers. That is no excuse. Our enemies do not wait to ask about our parents.”