- NEWSLETTERS
- MOBILE APPS
-
ADD TIME NEWS
International: WE HAVE BEEN NAUGHT, WE SHALL BE ALL
This picture shows 22 leaders of World Communism gathered in Moscow's Bolshoi Theater for Joseph Stalin's 70th birthday. Between them they rule one-third of the human race. Most of them lived obscurely until tapped by the Kremlin's magic wand; thus they fulfill one prophetic line of the Internationale: "We have been naught, we shall be all." Left to right:
Palmiro Togliatti, son of a poor Genoese bookkeeper, who fled from Fascism in 1926; between foreign assignments for the Comintern (which included organizing the Garibaldi Brigade in the Spanish Civil War), he studied revolutionary strategy and wrote polemics in Moscow. He thrice escaped death (he was condemned to death by Mussolini, stabbed in Spain, shot at in 1948 in Rome). Shortly after U.S. troops invaded Southern Italy he flew to Naples, became leader of Italy's 2,283,000 Communists.
Alexei Kosygin, Soviet Minister of Light Industry.
Lazar Kaganovich, Politburo member since 1930.
Mao Tse-tung, son of a Hunanese peasant, who, said Mao, "gave me neither eggs nor meat." Mao was once expelled from the Party Central Committee for opposing Moscow, led the Chinese Red army (with Commander-in-Chief Chu Teh) on the famous 6,000-mile "Long March" from Kiangsi to Shensi in 1935, last year became the ruler of the world's most populous nation.
Nikolai Bulganin, son of a factory clerk, who first became known abroad when in October 1942 he organized Moscow's defense. He is now an alternate Politburo member and a marshal of the Soviet Union.
Stalin.
Walter Ulbricht, once a Leipzig woodworker, who became a Comintern agent during the Spanish Civil War, returned from Moscow to Germany with the Red army after the war, became Politburo member of Eastern Germany's Socialist Unity Party. Last month he stepped into the acting premiership of Eastern Germany when Premier Otto Grotewohl was reported ill. In imitation of Lenin, Ulbricht wears a trowel-like beard.
U. Tsedenbal, secretary general of the Mongolian Communist Party.
Nikita Khrushchev, once a Donbass coalminer, Politburo member since 1939. Longtime boss of the Ukraine, last month he became a secretary of the Bolshevik Central Committee.
Johann Koplenig, onetime shoemaker, served on the Comintern's Executive Committee, is now chairman of the Austrian Communist Party.
Dolores Ibarruri, called "La Pasionaria," born the daughter of a coalminer, worked as a washerwoman. She won her nickname for her fiery speeches during Spain's civil war (sample: "Women of Madrid! Do not hinder your husbands from going to war. It is better to be the widow of a hero than the wife of a miserable coward"). She is now secretary general of what's left of the Spanish Communist Party.
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, son of a laborer. He became a railway electrician, spent 1935-44 in prison for organizing unions, helped found the Cominform in 1947. As secretary general of the Rumanian Communist Party, he last month announced that he had completed a purge of "undesirable [Titoist] elements."
Mikhail Suslov, member of the Bolshevik Party's Orgburo.
Nikolai Shvernik (hands folded after concluding the opening speech), once a metal-turner, now President of the Supreme Soviet.
- 1
- 2
- NEXT PAGE »
Most Popular »
- Another Snowstorm: What Happened to Global Warming?
- Are the Bible's Stories True? Archaeology's Evidence
- Who Were the First Americans?
- Spain's Troubled Economy: Why Europe Is Worried
- Counterterrorism: The Debate Moves Right
- Facing Death and Divorce at the Same Time
- Obama and Republicans Jockey for (Bi)partisan Advantage
- Asian Carp in the Great Lakes? This Means War!
- Should Europe Lift Its Arms Embargo on China?
- Another Snowstorm: What Happened to Global Warming?
- Are the Bible's Stories True? Archaeology's Evidence
- Spain's Troubled Economy: Why Europe Is Worried
- Obama and Republicans Jockey for (Bi)partisan Advantage
- Asian Carp in the Great Lakes? This Means War!
- Who Were the First Americans?
- How to Tame the Budget Deficit
- What Is Robert Gates Really Fighting For?
- Counterterrorism: The Debate Moves Right
- The Problem with Football: How to Make It Safer





RSS