Men and Events in Soviet Russia
SHUB, DAVID
Men and Events in Soviet Russia Review by DAVID SHUB BUILDING LENIN'S RUSSIA, Hy Simon lAbtrman, University of Chicago Prtu, Chicago, 1946. 2V!8 pages. $3.00. THIS is a book about men and events...
...His work, the high position he occupied sa a specialist in the Soviet apparatus, snd his personal contacts gave him the •pportonity from 1917 to 1926 to lie a close witness of everything taking place in the Kremlin...
...President Grace of Bethlehem Steel has voluntarily reduced his own Salary to $221,046 a year...
...The sentence Is suspended if the worker accepts a proffered job, at around $1.60 or $2.60 a day...
...It provides for a minimum of 1,20(1 hours annually for every worker with at lcaat t\ve years' seniority...
...The pious Association does not mention In its circular that at present it is under investigation by the New York State Fair Employment Practice Commission because of its consistent discrimination against Negro physicians and • ii rgeons...
...Many incidental remarks scattered through the book convey the Impression that Liberman could tell enough about the backstage politics of the Soviet Government to cause a sensation all over the world...
...Stalin at that time was not even a candidate for the Polit-bupro...
...that under his leadership the AMA has been proven completely wrong on every issue on which it took a stand...
...The committee operates by means of an expensive smear campaign financed mainly by the large drug cartels...
...Lenin hated Karl Kautsky much more thsn he hated Churchill or Kernel Pasha...
...The sessions of the Soviet Government, in those days, Liberman tells, were like meetings of a revolutionary committee of an underground organization...
...There is one way that you can guarantee your right to the private practice of in rtlie tii e , , . Join the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons snd thereby contract and agree with your colleagues throughout the nation that you will not participate in schemes of political medicine...
...Of the seven members and alternates of that lime, three Lenin, Sverdlov and Dzerzynski died a natural death, while Zinoviev, Kamenev and Kvkov were shot at Stalin's orders, and Trotsky was assassinated in Mexico City...
...The events are those of the Bolshevik Revolution, the men, the leaders of that Revolution...
...A recent National Labor Relations Board election victory will result, in tha formation of the first Amalgamated local in Alabama...
...Lenin immediately stopped the discussion snd proposed sn immediate vote on Dzerzhnski s plsn...
...1 was shaken In my innermost being...
...iSimua Liberman served for nine yesrs », sn economic adviser to the Soviet Government and hia book fives both insight bjto and background for much that is new transpiring on the Soviet scene...
...Acting on his specific orders, the police ef the city hsve been rounding up laid off war workers and delivering them to the municipal court where they are sentenced ss vagrants...
...Although willing to make concessions to foreign capitalists seeking a modus viv*ndi with them, Lenin and his party felt'the same bitter hostility towards foreign Socialists as they did towsrds the Socialists in Russia...
...The A FL contract contains the same provisions for seniority...
...But notwithstanding, it is an interesting book which throws much light on Ihe history of the Russia Revolution,'and on the present Soviet regime...
...Introduced their new bill, which includes compulsory health insurance, and which, if passed by Congress, will destroy the freedom of American medicine...
...You should see him, I think...
...Liberman himself on several occasions was in danger of being shot by the Choka, as were thousands of other specialists who did not belong to any party but who occupied high positions with the Bolsheviks...
...Liberman reported to Lenin on the sad state of the timber industry ss a result of the Soviet decrees...
...The contract, however, guaranoes 50 weeks of work annually at 40 hours a week...
...Only Lenin always occupied 1he soft chair prepared for Ihe chairman, and his secretary would take her seat near him.- Lenin was not only the chairman, but also the dictator of the party...
...When a dozen or two of them are shot, the rest will tackle the job in earnest...
...But we are learning from our errors, and are glad we csn correct them...
...The Association of American Physi-eutn* and Surgeon* circularises physicians as follows: "May 24, 1945, was 'SR...
...There cannot be revolutions without errors...
...Fish-hem neglects to add that a few years ago he opposed all forms of group medicine snd that court action was necessary to enjoin the AMA from penalizing physicians who voluntarily participated in such gioups...
...Day' (start of regimentation) for American physicians...
...Liber man's statement in the "Epilogue" that "what we see in Kussis is a social demorrsry within the limits of a political dictatorship" is far-fetched...
...Liberman met...
...For more than a year," Liberman writes, "I had known that executions were decimating Russia—but here I, myself, was present, while a five-minute discussion doomed scores of totally innocent men...
...He ass brought ms important information on what is going on in the timber industry...
...Like all other non-Commu-aista among the intelligentsia, Liberman realised that the policy of confiscations and "nationalisations," and of placing at the head of nationalized undertakings ignorant and inexperienced Communists, would lead the country to the brink of the abyss...
...But what Liberman does tell is in itself extremely interesting...
...Lenin for the first time In 1918, when the Civil War was in its most violent stages, after the Soviet government, under Latin's influence, issued the famous decree socializing industry and agriculture...
...Once, as Liberman sat at Krassin s office, the latter telephoned Lenin snd ssid: "Liberman is here In my room now...
...If not, he is sent to the "hoosegow...
...We ourselves keep Ihe decrees of the Paris Commune before our eyes as a model...
...Complete economic eaaos reigned in the country, and the Bed Terror was in full swing...
...It carries on its letterhead some of the most reactionary names in organized medicine...
...Our government may not last long, but these decrees will lie part of history...
...Dzerzynski, then chairman of the Cheka, proposed, that, "should the peasants tail to deliver their quota of wood, the foresters responsible for them are to be shot...
...The question under discussion was how to get the peasants to supply the government with the fixed quota of wood...
...No one dsred vote against Lenin snd Dzerzhnsky, and the proposal was adopted automatically...
...The Typographical Union, AFL, signed a similar contract with a publishing house in Detroit...
...THIS is a book about men and events in Soviet Russia...
...We stand for voluntary health insurance plans under the control of physicians and universally applied...
...All patriotic citizens will applaud bis action and do likewise...
...All hours worked by the employee, including overtime, are credited against this minimum...
...Under the leadership of Morris Fish-bein, the national AMA has become frenzied in its denunciations of the proposed bill...
...Llberman's assertion in the lsst chapter of the book that a "new democracy" was born in Russia is violently contrsdicted by the facts he himself relstes, ss well by whst we know of the present social and political system in Kussis...
...Many of the Commissars and Soviet Ministers sat in their overcoats or leather jackets...
...A satirical antidote to military and nationalistic pomposity, it has been banned by Benes...
...Unemployment "retlem Solved • Mayor Whitehead of Jacksonville, Florida, has successfully solved the employment angle of reconversion...
...All references in Czech papers to the party's anti-Hitler activities are deleted...
...The AMA, says Fiahbein, is not ajpsinst health insurance as such, it is only sgainst "political medicine...
...Although in his younger days a Social-Democrat, Liberman retired from revolutionary activity to a business career ¦when a wave of reaction swept Russia after the abortive Revolution of 1905...
...By thus shamefully abdicating their professional and ethical responsibilities the members of the AAPS hops to sabotage any plan for national health insurance, irrespective of the wishes of the rest of the nation...
...FIRST ANNUAL WAGE IN STIIL T * 1 HE first guaranteed annual wage contract in the steel industry was recently signed in Pennsylvania by a local of tha United Steel Workers, CIO...
...There wsi an uproar...
...Later many foresters were indeed executed...
...Nor ran the implacable determination of Benes to militarily expell and expropriate the Sudeten minority be Interfered with by any popular memory of the heroic anti-Nazi struggle of the So cialist Party of the Sudeten Germans...
...Pea anaj Sword Department 9 The Bene* Government, which does not fesr totalitarian contamination from its mighty Soviet neighbor, does fear a small volume of Czech prose: "The Good Soldier Schweik...
...A cough was choking me, but it was more than the cough of one of my winter colds...
...As for the latest decrees criticized hy Liberman, Lenin remarked: "Don't forget that we are in the midst of a revolution...
...This brilliant idea came to him, Whitehead said, sfter he had "received many reports from employers complaining that their former employees would not return to peacetime jobs at reasonabla wages...
...But he is reserved and tha careful reader who is more or less familiar with the history of the Russian Revolution and the Soviet regime iuu a feeling that the author refrains from relating the whole truth about certain individuals and events, trying to gloss over any facts which may place the Soviet regime in too unfavorable a light...
...People vers shot, says Liberman, "for what they had done and for what they merely might have done...
...He often discussed the matter with Leonid Krassin, who was of tha ssme opinion, although he was an old Bolshevik, highly regarded by Lenin...
...But Lenin ordered that the item about shooting the foresters should not be entered into the minutes...
...This is also believed to be tha first of its kind in this industry...
...Lenin was ready to place the Menshe-viks in important jobs, but not to share power with them...
...All authority was concentrated in the Central Committee of the Communist, party...
...On that day Senator Wagner (N...
...WAGNE*.MURRAY DINGELL BILL S EVERAL groups among organized medicine are fighting the Wagner Mur-ray-Dingell Bill: Thi American Medical Association...
...Although Liberman refrains from using hsrsh words about the present Russian rulers, the rhspters desling with the suthor's personal experiences with Soviet < ommlsssri snd the Cheka furnish the strongest indictment of the Communist dlrtstorshlp, which has hardly changed since Llbermsn's departure from Kussis...
...Libeiman wss alwsys saved by Lenin's defense...
...I^enin interrupted him: "Of course, we raske mistakes...
...The Amalgamated Clothing Workers are preparing a large-scale organisation campaign in Alabama, heart of the low-wage area...
...All questions of principle were decided in advance at the sessions of the Politburo, the members of which, in I91K, were Lenin, Trotzky, Zifioviev, Sverdlov, and Kamrnev, with Dzergynski ami Ky-kov as two alternates...
...Y.) and Representative Dingell (Mich...
...The National Physicians' Committee was formed for the specific purpose of fighting every attempt by the public to improve national health through legislation...
...Many sat on chairs scattered all over the room, rather than at the table...
...ORGANIZED MEDICINE VS...
...In the event that the company does not provide work for the full 1,200 hours, the employee is paid st straight tima for the unworked balance...
...LlBKRMAN was present at a session of the Supremt Council for Labor and Defense, of which Lenin was then the chairman...
...Some wore their thick sweaters and leg-trmgs ill wintertime...
Vol. 28 • November 1945 • No. 44
