THE RUSSIAN MYSTERY
vrH E execution of the eight Soviet generals in Moscow on Sunday defies rational explanation, though the sinister routine of arrest by secret police, secret cross- examination, public confession and execution is so familiar that it is rather the prominence of the victims than the methods invoked that creates astonishment. By now it is accepted that M. Stalin governs like an Asiatic despot, who strikes suddenly and swiftly where he will. Judicial forms are little more than a conveni- ence. No one who read with an impartial eye the verbatim reports of last year's sensational political trials, in which Kameneff and Zinovieff, Radek and Pyatakov were in- volved, is convinced that the accused were guilty of all the crimes for which they were executed, or indeed that any 'crimes beyond the murder of Kirov had been committed. In this last case even less evidence is offered ; it is con- fined to the brief statement of Marshal Voroshilov that the eight generals had conspired with Germany and had betrayed military secrets. No attempt has been made to connect this conspiracy with the plot of the " parallel centre " or the activities of Trotsky, except to include the eight soldiers with the " wreckers, Trotsky- ists, spies " with whom the U.S.S.R. is said to be riddled.
As evidence Marshal Voroshilov's statement has little value and less probability—not, indeed, for the reason given by the German Press, that no German officer would think of conspiring with such men ; the German General Staff would be only too glad of any information Marshal Tukhachevsky could provide—but it is unlikely that it would be provided. r The eight generals were among the most trusted leaders of the Red Army ; its r present strength and efficiency are largely due to them ; and their every interest was in the safety and security of the U.S.S.R. They had everything to lose and nothing to gain by a conspiracy.4 The character and career of Marshal Tukhachevsky especially, who joined the Bolsheviks in the middle of the civil war, who de- feated Denikin, drove the Poles back to the very walls of Warsaw, and afterwards played a brilliant part in building up the Red Army, make the charge of conspiracy with Germany hardly credible.
r It is necessary to realise, however, that the alternative explanation given of the execution is not really an alterna- tive. It is that the generals were guilty, not of treason, but of opposition to the regime of M. Stalin. But treason itself involves political opposition, so that both theories agree that, in some form or other, the generals had come into conflict with Stalin ; in the U.S.S.R. that in itself
cause for a capital sentence. Of that conflict various explanations have been given. It is said that Marshal Tukhachevsky had criticised Marshal Bliicher's campaign in Siberia ; that his military theories, for which he has been praised by Trotsky in his recent book, involved a more revolutionary interpretation of the art of war than would suit the conservative Stalin. Neither of these explanations can be taken seriously, though each may have had its effect ; and indeed there appears to be a better reason why the generals should have fallen into disgrace. Largely because of their efforts, the Red Army enjoys an unbounded prestige in the Soviet Union ; it is technically efficient and until recently has held a posi- tion of political aloofness, which may be compared with
that of the Reichswehr in republican Germany. Stalin has recently condemned this " unpolitical " attitude ; and the purpose of the military councils established in the 13 districts of the Soviet Union was explicitly de- scribed to be the political education of the Red Army gaud the re-establishment of the Party's control over it. Two of the members of each council of three are to be the representatives of Stalin ; and It is certain that the effect of the decree, if "carried out, will be to destroy the independence of the Red Army as a State within the State and to reduce the power of professional comman- ders. It is _likely also that to them such changes would seem dangerous to the efficiency of the Red Army. `The decree, and the policy it represents, is sufficient to explain why the generals should have fallen into opposition. Whether that was pushed to the point of treason is another matter ; but a struggle for power over the Red Army would certainly mean death for the losers?
The generals were not alone in their opposition, and the " purge " of the officers, and of the military academies, continues. For the moment the effect can only be to weaken the army. Of its trusted and most experienced commanders only Voroshilov, Galen alias Blucher, and Budenny remain ; and even they cannot feel wholly safe. r0I1 the Soviet's allies the effect of the executions has been disastrous ; no one can feel confident in the support of a State which loudly proclaims that its most gifted soldiers have betrayed their secrets to a potential enemy ; no one can feel confident in the strength of a State where such violent measures are necessary to suppress treachery or opposition,) To the enemies of the Franco-Soviet Pact in France, the purge will come as a gift. from Heaven. Yet they should be careful how they exploit it; for a belief is being per- sistently voiced that M. Stalin intends to seek that accommodation with Germany which has " never been wholly out of the question. " It would be a mistake, more- over, to assume that the executions necessarily mean 'a weakening of the Soviet' State or its mffitary power ; if it is true that the executed generals resented control by the Party, the political centre of power, there could be no choice but to remove them, and the State will be the stronger and not the weaker for the removal. No State can be strong, even militarily, in which the Army is independent of political control, and Stalin, for all his faults, is too good a politician not to know this.„
In one sense at least Stalin may be compared with " the late Prime Minister of this country ; in questions of political sagacity he rarely makes a mistake. His methods are more violent because he is the dictator of what in some respects is. an Asiatic State, and not the Prime Minister of a constitutional monarchy. 7" In such a State as Russia, with its immensely rapid progress, combined with its uneven development, there are inevitably social strains and conflicts which, as in other States, seek to find expression ; when that expression is denied, divergences from the party line must inevit- ably be represented as treason 'and their exponents meet with a violent end. The " spies," " Trotskyisti," " wreckers," " foreign powers," are only metaphors for political opponents whom a dictatorship must necessarily, consider as traitors...
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