Posted on 07/29/2008 5:41:20 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
“In the past few months a great purge was carried on, and it still continues,” the newspaper says. “The bolsheviki of Primorsk Province will smoke from their holes all spies, wreckers and terrorists to the last man.”
The newspaper, published at Khabarovsk, in the region of the scene of recent border incidents between Red soldiers and detachments of the Japanese army of occupation in Manchukuo, says the purge was started “on the initiative” of Joseph Stalin, secretary general of the Russian Communist party.
The Pacific Ocean Star says:
“Under the direct leadership of Comrade Stalin, the militant capacity of our party organization is increasing daily, also the strength of our red-bannered Far Eastern front and our Pacific Fleet.
“If Japanese rabble poke their noses into Primorsk Province they have only themselves to blame for the consequences. They will be scattered by a hurricane of fire from the air, sea and land.”
The newspaper declares the purge is necessary because “Japanese imperialists resorted to their favorite methods of espionage and terrorism – first sending to Primorsk Province fascist agents and Trotskyist and Bucharinist spies and terrorists.” It continues:
“They tried to break the iron unity of our party, shake its discipline and ruin the military effectiveness of our army and navy. They wanted to destroy our strength from the inside.
“But they have not succeeded and will never succeed. The great Stalin with the perspicacity of Lenin saw through the enemy plots in the far Soviet Primorsk Province. On the initiative of Comrade Stalin began the merciless uprooting of enemies wherever concealed and however masked.”
Izvestia, the Moscow government organ, today disclosed a shakeup in the Soviet Health Resort Department and confirmed removal of Gregory Petrovsky from the presidency of the Ukraine republic by announcing the election of Leonid Kornitz as Mr. Petrovsky’s successor. Mr. Petrovsky, an old Bolshevik, had held office nearly twenty years.
The health resort department shakeup followed an investigation of twenty-two sanatoriums in South Crimea. They were found to have been mismanaged. The acting director of the department, M. Vikhreff, and three other officials were removed.
HSINKING, Manchukuo, July 28 (AP).-Manchukuo has no desire to fight Soviet Russia, but is fully prepared to resist invasion, Naoki Hoshino, chief of the Manchukuo General Affairs Administration, said today. [Mr. Hoshino is a Japanese.]
Recent troop clashes along the roughly defined Siberian-Manchukuoan border created a bitter period of diplomatic tension between Russia and Japan, Manchukuo’s protector.
“I do not believe these recent outbreaks can lead to serious consequences now,” Hoshino asserted. “A negotiated settlement seems assured.
“Nor will war arise from incidents likely in the future, because of our 3,300 miles of poorly defined frontier, unless Russia disregards the rules of international conduct too much.
“Relations theoretically are friendly, but they are very unsatisfactory owing to the extreme isolationist policy regarding Manchukuo.”
He predicted relations would not be improved in the near future for the same reason.
CARCROSS, Y. T., July 28 (Canadian Press).-Premier Hepburn of Ontario took a train and boat today as the next step in his tour of Western Canada, while his plane took off on a direct flight to Vancouver.
The Premier and Benjamin Smith, New York broker, boarded the afternoon train of the White Pass and Yukon Route for the eighty-mile rail trip to Skagway. There they will board the Canadian Pacific coastal liner Princess Alice and proceed to Prince Rupert.
They left Toronto July 17 and have visited the Northwest territories.
The party’s plans include fishing at Campbell River, Vancouver Island. The flying tourists left Dawson yesterday, stopped briefly at Whitehorse, forty miles north of here, and proceeded in the direction of Juneau, Alaska., but bad flying conditions sent them back and they spent the night here. Unsettled weather along the coastal route today persuaded them to give up their plane for the present.
HEPBURN QUITS AIR, TAKES YUKON TRAIN
Attention headsonpikes and kanawa - News from our neighbors to the north.
Kim Philby probably could have gotten some inside poop.
You know, we could do that in America, too. What we need is a civilian national security force, as large, as well trained and as well funded as the military. That would allow us to not have to rely on the military all the time for our national security...
Kim Philby WAS ‘inside’ poop.
A toast! Here's to GRRRRR. Freepin' since this day, 1998. So tell us what it was like to be a Freeper back in the twentieth century. Did you have electrical connections or did you have to use a treadle to power your computer, like my Aunt Lois did with her sewing machine? Anyway - Cheers!
Ahhh.....the good old days of Stalin’s purges. I’ve read a few biographies of Stalin as well as some histories of “The Terror.”
An unbelievable time.
The 2:00 a.m. knock on the apartment door. The husband vanishes, the family moves out in silence the next afternoon....
Military officers called for a mass meeting. Their side arms are taken at the door by the NKVD troops. From the group, names of “traitors” are read out and they are taken away. Some officers, fearing the worst, commit suicide before entering the room.
Stalin’s purged his officer corps of some very competent leaders (and admittedly, some hacks). The remainder were paralyzed by fear. They would not exercise ANY initiative and would follow orders to the letter, no matter how ridiculous (even that would not save them when the war came). So these men were advanced to the vacant posts above them.
At the same time, Stalin expanded the Red Army from a standing force of 1.5 million to about 5 million men. Now the new formations need officers, so the cowed, inexperienced officers who survived the purge are advanced two or three ranks to staff the new horde. They had no idea what they were doing in their jobs, and any failure meant a death sentence.
Is it any wonder the Red Army was wiped out in the field in a matter weeks during the German onslaught in 1941?
1998! That was back when you had to Freep on the back of a shovel, and Pings were carried my messenger pigeons.
Congrats.
The Red Army was caught with their pants down, all right.
The weird thing about this article is that, other than the headline there is no mention of a purge of the sort you describe. It is really about the beginning of an incident at the Siberia-Manchukuo border where Soviet and Japanese army types started shooting at each other.
The incident probably turned into the battle of Khalkin-Gol, fought in a remote area along the Manchurian-Siberian border (heck, what part of the world there isn’t remote?).
The Soviets gave the Japanese a bloody nose, which helped convince the Japanese to go south, not north, in 1941. It also began the rise of a little known Soviet general named Zhukov, who barely missed being purged himself.
"It also began the rise of a little known Soviet general named Zhukov, who barely missed being purged himself."
I even argue that this battle was actually the "turning point" of the war, and apparently the Germans never even knew of it -- in short, Hitler was defeated before he even started the war.
If that sounds strange (surely it does!), it's based on the following: given the preponderance of force on the allied side, Hitler's only real chance to win was to knock the Soviets out before taking on the Americans.
And the only way for Hitler to defeat Stalin was to have the Japanese pin down Stalin's Far East army.
But after the battle of Khalkin-Gol, the Japanese had little interest in tangling with the Soviets again. Japanese officials who favored such a step were removed in 1941.
So Stalin was left free to bring his Far East divisions back to Moscow. The rest, as they say, is history...
BroJoeK, that’s a very good take on Khalkin-Gol.
The place name I keep running into in these stories is Changkufeng. Khalkin-Gol is new to me. Are they the same?
Your post caused me to do some checking. They are not, and the incidents are actually a year apart. My mistake for assuming the incident you discussed was Khalkin-Gol. Here’s the quick summary:
Changkufeng refers to a series of hills along the Manchurian/North Korean border about 50 miles from Vladivostok. In 1938 (when this article was written), the Japanese 19th division occupied the hills, which were claimed by the USSR. The Soviets responded, mostly by sealing off the hills and pounding them with artillery & air strikes. The Japanese eventually called a cease-fire and quietly withdrew.
Khalkin Gol was a year later along the Mongolian Border.
Hmmmmmmm... Where did I hear that suggestion before? ;-)
Homer, fergit this Ted Williams kid they're talking about. The Sox can bring him up from AAA but he's never gonna make it as a major league ballplayer.
It was a bad year to be a baseball fan in St. Louis or Philly.
I’ll say! A combined 96 games back. The season can’t end soon enough for those fans.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.