RUSSIA: Molting Hero

Like a stern grey cat clawing feathers one by one from a gaudy canary Dictator Stalin of Russia has spent eleven months mercilessly divesting of his powers the once great Gregory Zinoviev, “spiritual son of Lenin,” “bomb-boy of Bolshevism,” arch-director of plots in every land to subvert world capitalism.

The cat and canary interlude began at the close of 1925 when the All-Russian Congress of the Communist Party voted through Joseph Stalin’s program for 1926 by 559 to 65, thus signalizing the eclipse of Gregory Zinoviev and his adherents who had violently opposed it. Later M. Zinoviev was dropped from the Political Bureau of the Communist Party: the dictature over which Joseph Stalin now presides, ruling all Russia. Last week M. Zinoviev molted the last feather of his prestige when he was forced to resign as President of the Third International, the Communist world bureau for subversion, espionage and odd job propaganda. Citizens of Leningrad, once M. Zinoviev’s political bailiwick, signalized his utter downfall by changing the name of Zinoviev University to the University of Leningrad. . .

When the Third International Conference met at the Kremlin to choose a new president, Dictator Stalin snapped his whip and Nikolai Bukharin whom Stalin had already placed in the vice presidency was elected President. Bukharin is hand in glove with Stalin’s policy of retrenchment in world revolutionary activities, but last week he was obliged to coddle the delegates by a fiery speech promising support of Chinese and Javanese Communists, the only Communist factions now actively embattled in their respective countries.