Word: commissar
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Throughout World War II. the ex-policeman's job was to look over the shoulders of the fighting men as a political commissar, spying for Stalin. During the advance on Warsaw, he was attached to Rokossovsky's army, and it was he who (after consulting Moscow) prevented any help from reaching the" Warsaw uprising. One day in 1944, Bulganin reported to U.S. Ambassador W. Averell Harriman that a certain U.S. officer had been overheard cursing President Roosevelt and voicing his hope that the President would be defeated. When Harriman appeared unexcited by the tip, Bulganin was overheard...
Lusty old Lazar M. Kaganovich, wartime commissar for transport, reputedly Stalin's brother-in-law, made toast after toast, in loud, rambling, unguarded speeches. Toasting "the great friendship of the Soviet peoples," he ran down the list of Soviet nationalities: "Tadzhiks, Uzbeks, Kazakhs...
Into the Darkness. "Justice," in its peculiar Soviet connotation, had a special meaning for Mikoyan that day. An Armenian who served Stalin in the transCaucasus area during Stalin's early struggle for power. Mikoyan was made commissar for trade in 1926, not only survived the purges, but is credited with having brought Lavrenty Beria to Stalin's attention...
George Tobias, as a Russian Commissar of Art, and the rest of the cast are blameless; they did the best they could. Silk Stockings is two and a half hours of testimony that Messers. Porter and Kaufman...
Flowing Venom. In 1950, when Russia occupied the three Baltic states and then staged a dummy plebiscite to legitimize their absorption into the U.S.S.R., Vishinsky masterminded the Latvian deal and became Vice Commissar for Foreign Affairs. During the war he sat in on the allied conferences at Moscow and later at Yalta, where Roosevelt asked him if he had ever been abroad. Vishinsky replied: "Not often. And the first time I left Russia, a funny thing happened. I went to Latvia. One morning there I woke up-and I was back in Russia." At war's end, he organized...