Sting & Purge

Like a bee on a bear's nose, the Communist Party is a little group of 3,200.000 from all Russia's 164,000,000. Last week the bee smartly stung the bear, with the most ambitious Government decree in history. It divided all Russia into three Zones. Zone No. 1 includes all Russia's ticklish spots: the big cities, big industrial centres, a 62-mi. strip along the western border and the chief cities along the eastern border. In these, the hide and the vital organs of Russia, only certified loyalists may live. "Undesirable'' Russians must move out. They may be allowed to settle in Zone No. 2, which includes all other cities and industrial sections. Russians permitted to live in these two Zones must have passports, may move around a little. Zone No. 3 will take in the rest of Russia: villages and farm lands. There Russians will have no passports, no freedom to roam.

Plain were the beauties of this arrangement. It would insulate Russia from the world with a strip of Russians of purest ray serene. It would scatter masses of ordinary Russians where their "lack of cooperation" could do the least harm. It would provide a citizen army at the border in case of war.

All the Soviet Government must do is to shuttle millions of people on an inadequate railroad system. Furthermore, it must feed each Russian in transit. Each must know to what province and village be is to go. When he gets there he must find a locking and a way of making a living. Multiplied by millions, this is practically and theoretically impossible. Observers saw that, if attempted wholesale, it would leave a lot of Russians sitting around on curbs.

At the same time last week the Communist Party issued an order. It commanded all members of the Party to brace themselves for a thoroughgoing Party purging (chistka) on June 1. Then every Communist must stand up before committees and answer questions. He must prove that 1) he is an active Communist, 2) understands what he is being active about, 3) has led a clean personal life, 4) has not been guilty of drunkenness, anti-Semitism or bourgeois tastes, 5) has had no contacts with antiCommunists. Those who are "double-faced," "undisciplined" (free-thinking), "degenerate" (bourgeois), "demoralized," careerists, bureaucrats or spies will be purged out of the Party. "Insufficiently trained" members will be demoted to the candidate ranks. The Party warned its members that the June Chistka may change the status of about one-third of them.

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