Economic Pulse

Alexis Ivanovitch Rykov, who bears the titles of President of the Union Council of People's Commissaries and Chairman of the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic Cabinet, asseverated that Russia's economic pulse was strong and steady, which, he claimed, was certain indication of Russia's ultimate recovery.

In a detailed speech before the International Communist Congress, sitting since last month in Moscow (TIME, June 30), the President-Chairman made the following points :

Present production total is now 45% of the pre-War figure--an increase from 15% in 1920; production of pig iron has increased from 7,000,000 pounds in 1921 to 35,000,000 in 1923-4; oil production leaves a large surplus for export; coal production is entirely satisfactory; stabilization of the ruble has tremendously improved the financial situation and Russia now has a foreign trade balance of 100,000,000 rubles ($11,500,000); unemployment is least satisfactory and figures quoted show substantial increases in each case; agricultural lands now cultivated are between 85 and 90% of the pre-War figure.

Said Alexis aristocratically: "If the terms suit us, we give concessions; if they don't, we don't. We now scrutinize the suitability of the terms much more severely than before. Our demands are higher."

Perhaps more than any man in Russia, Alexis Ivanovitch Rykov is the mainstay of the Bolshevik regime. When Lenin was alive, Rykov was always a great power. Lenin supplied the dynamic energy, the eloquence, the courage to say: "This thing must be done." Rykov, engineer and economist, wielded a static power, the patience and knowledge which enabled him to say: "This is the way it can be done."

Rykov's position in Russia approximates that of Calvin Coolidge in the U. S. He is to a large extent the Chief Executive of Soviet Russia. The fact that little is ever heard of him is merely a silent indication of his character. He works quietly, despises the methods and noise of the demagogue, is exceedingly simple and direct in all his movements. "He is the kind of man who, however violently one may disagree with him, does not stir personal animosity. He never ridicules, never denounces, never even flares up. He seems as incapable of deep hate as of deep love and is in turn neither loved nor hated as Trotzky is.... He never loses his head nor gets in a fit of panic, never fools himself by magnifying irritating details into devastating evils, nor by dismissing serious difficulties as trifles, like so many of his colleagues. Passion has no place in his thinking. Orthodox and insurgent will listen to him with respect and attention because he always has something of value to impart to both."

When Lenin was banished from Russia and became the leader of the Majority wing of the Social Democratic Labor Party (now known as the Bolsheviki), Rykov braved the dangers of Tsarist Russia by acting as his friend's counterpart and personal representative within the country, where he managed to avoid arrest for some time with consummate skill. In his capacity as Lenin's right-hand man and trusted advisor he was able to do much to bring on the Revolution by fostering the radical spirit of the Party which was then being persecuted by the Tsar's secret police. He was able to act as Lenin's liaison officer in Russia and to keep him accurately informed on the course of events.

When the 1917 Revolution broke out Rykov was in prison in Siberia. Released by general amnesty in that year, he returned to Moscow and was immediately elected to the Presidium of the Moscow Soviet, an opponent of the Kerensky regime.

When Kerensky was overthrown, Rykov and his time-proved friend Lenin went on hand-in-hand, for better or for worse, in pursuit of the aims of Communism.