Word: commissars
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...paintings presuppose a knowledge of Russian society, and above all a saturation with its period propaganda, that few in the West can claim. Why did it matter for political purposes that the writer Maxim Gorky should be depicted taking lessons on the rifle range from Marshal Voroshilov, the commissar of war? It mattered because Gorky, though a literary favorite and a devoted friend of Lenin's, was opposed to shooting, and this bothered Stalin...
...republic is cursed by its own demography. In that sense, it is a microcosm of the U.S.S.R. More than 80 nationalities share a territory half the size of Arkansas. The new, breakaway leadership tends to behave toward its minorities the way the Kremlin -- starting with the Bolsheviks' first commissar of nationalities, the Georgian Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, alias Stalin -- has treated the more than 100 peoples within the U.S.S.R. No wonder many of Georgia's Abkhasians, Adzhars, Armenians, Azerbaijanis, Ossetians and Russians do not regard Gamsakhurdia as their president...
...Blind Mayer" explains, "It's not the old Warsaw anymore. Gone, buried. Once everyone had his own territory. Now the worst lowlife comes here. Nobody knows anybody else...In my day, Commissar Voynov drank brandy with us. The sergeant used to bow to me and show me respect, may I live to be buried in a Jewish cemetary...
Something else I know. When Stalin came to Leningrad to investigate Kirov's murder, he ordered the commissar who had been personally responsible for guarding Kirov that day brought to him for interrogation. The truck taking him to see Stalin crashed, and the commissar was killed...
Much later, there was an attempt to find and question the people who were escorting the commissar at the time of the accident. They had all been shot. I suggested looking for the driver. Fortunately, he was alive. He told us there hadn't been a serious accident at all, just a dented fender. But he did recall hearing a thump in the back of the covered truck. That was the end of the commissar...