Word: commissars
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1930-1939
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Busy at Leipzig last week drafting the new German Penal Code called for by Adolf Hitler, Judiciary Commissar Hans Frank said it will "contain a new category of punishment, 'Civic Death,' reducing the status of the condemned to that of a permanent outcast." As an afterthought, Dr. Frank recalled that the ancient Huns had a somewhat similar procedure of driving an offender out of the tribe to starve or be eaten by wild beasts. "We are in fact reviving," he observed, "an old German custom...
...Moscow last week came a significant change. News that Adolf Hitler is building war boats caused popular Defense Commissar Klimentiy ("Klim") Voroshilov suddenly to summon Russia's best naval experts. They found "Klim," a cavalryman, eager to learn with fierce concentration in a few days all about their specialty...
...best jazz orchestras blared near a frisky goat, four droop-eyed sheep, a cageful of songbirds and roosters. Two bear cubs, borrowed by Ambassador Bullitt from the Moscow Public Zoo, spent most of the evening in each other's arms. Revelers in white ties included Soviet Foreign Commissar Maxim Maximovich Litvinoff, Education Commissar Bubnov, Foreign Trade Commissar Rosengolt. Only the most old-fashioned Belshevik guests such as Publicists Nikolai Bukharin and Karl Radek, came dressed in proletarian sack suits. Tossing off the Ambassador's champagne, they sported all night with the excuse of waiting for his cocks...
...furious if ill-directed digging, largely by volunteer workmen, there are many things about Moscow's new subway to cause serious engineers to shake their heads, but it easily lives up to its motto: "The most beautiful subway in the world." Built, in the words of Transport Commissar Kaganovich, "to show people what the future will be like under Socialism." all the stations are panelled in rare marble, decorated with huge murals in fresco and mosaic, lit by solid bronze fixtures. The gleaming red-&-buff cars are staffed by attendants in red-&-blue uniforms...
Breaking the old Bolshevik rule that railway casualties must be concealed, new Commissar of Railways Lazar Kaganovich last week revealed 62,000 accidents on Soviet lines in 1934, with destruction of 4,500 cars, damage to 7,000 locomotive and 60,000 cars, "material loss" of 500 cars, damage to 7.000 locomotives and 60,000 cars, "material of 60,000,000 rubles and the deaths of "hundreds of persons." Editorialed the Party newsorgan Pravda next day: "The previous policy of concealing railway wrecks was wrong...