Business & Finance: Steel Stalin

Stalin, Stalin, Stalin. Nothing so disagrees as prophecy, yet there has been scarcely a comment as to Russia’s future that has not mentioned Stalin, Commissar of Police.

It is the name that came out of Russia last year. It is an assumed name a derivative from the Russian word for “steel.” Ivan Stalin. Russians think he resembles inflexible steel.

He was, they say, Lenin’s most intimate friend in the inner Communist circle. “Minister of Nationalities,” he was chiefly responsible for binding the outlying provinces to the Soviet régime. He himself came from Georgia—was once a clerk there.

The other two members of the triumvirate supposed to succeed Lenin are Jews—Zinoviev and Kamenev, brother-in-law of Trotsky. Rykoff is also mentioned.

Trotsky himself has been banished by the triumvirate on account of “ill health.” But no one expects that so powerful a man as Trotsky will abandon rule without creating a commotion. There are rumors of a “Napoleonic” coup.

Either there will be discord, possibly developing into civil war between Stalin and Trotsky, or matters will continue much as if Lenin had not died— such is the trend of opinion.