RUSSIA: Gay-pay-oo

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For purposes of punitive action the G. P. U. has what amounts to its own army: a hard-featured personnel equipped with every engine of warfare, including gas. Let an uprising occur and this force moves upon the uprisers with a speed, a determination and a power which has thus far never failed.

Where the trouble is of a more personal character, the G. P. U. is equipped to carry an individual through the stages of arrest, interrogation, sentence and if necessary execution without going outside its own organization. For this reason it is said that "The Ogpu is the State." But as Josef Stalin controls both the Ogpu and the Government it is more correct to say that he is the state, or that in Russia there are two parallel states.

Patriarchs & Grafters, This "stately" aspect of the G. P. U. is even more evident in its function of general supervision. Anywhere in Russia, or outside it for that matter, a Soviet citizen or Soviet official will think twice before ignoring the suggestion or the order of an agent of G. P. U.

In a local emergency, such as the arrival of a carload of perishable foodstuffs with no one about to unload them, an agent will simply command all men within the sound of his voice to begin unloading, and will probably also command the station master to pay them for their trouble.

At its best the G. P. U. is patriarchal, at its worst it is the most efficient means for extorting graft ever devised.

Propaganda & Intelligence, An organization operating throughout the world, often in conflict with local laws, must move secretly and be ready to defend itself against inevitable exposures.

For this purpose an entire section of the G. P. U., it is understood, constantly fabricates bogus "secret documents" resembling the G. P. U.'s confidential papers. Theory: when the police (of Bangkok, for example) seize the effects of a G. P. U. agent a great many of his papers will prove to be "forgeries" (forged by the G. P. U.) and in the public mind (of Siam, for example) the work of the police will be discredited.

To Anglo-Saxons such involved methods may seem unreal, but Russians have always enjoyed intrigue and devious means more than any other game. In the cities of New York, Chicago, Washington, etc. the G. P. U. is believed to maintain numerous agents, and is believed to believe that they find things out. Perhaps there is nothing to be found out in the U. S., perhaps nothing escapes the free and vigilant press; but if President Hoover wants to find things out in Russian cities he will have to send spies there. In Moscow, where they know that their own press and that of more than one European country hushes everything that the Government wants hushed. Soviet statesmen believe, not unnaturally, that they are being smart by sending spies everywhere.

Faults &Horrors, The worst fault of the G. P. U. is that it intensifies the worst qualities latent in Russians: hesitation, laziness and the attitude of What does anything matter?