Disgusting Traditions

Amid the forest of oil derricks which surrounds Baku, the captain and crew of the S. S. Soviet were tried by the maritime division of the Soviet Supreme Court last week for failing to tow into port a disabled tanker containing over $7,000 worth of the Soviet State's oil.

An explosion aboard the tanker set it afire while being towed by the Soviet in the Caspian Sea. Promptly Captain Krivonosov of the Soviet conferred with his political adviser, the Communist Party official assigned to most Soviet merchant ships. This worthy, Comrade Miguschenko, agreed that even with $7,000 worth of Government oil at stake, the danger of a major explosion aboard the tanker which would flood the sea with blazing oil and perhaps destroy the S. S. Soviet was too great to risk. The only thing to do, the Captain decided, was to cut the tow rope.

Seven sailors aboard the Soviet warned that they would surely catch it from Moscow if they cut that rope. Nine sailors were for cutting it. The rope was cut. Aboard the blazing tanker 27 lives were lost but the Soviet stood by at a safe distance all night, picked up next morning two members of the tanker's crew clinging to an overturned life boat.

All this occurred last May. By last week the Soviet prosecutor had worked up as roaring an indictment as was ever broadcast to remind Russians that whatever else they do they must save State property. The fact that the Communist Party's own agent aboard the Soviet had endorsed the captain's decision failed to baffle the State Prosecutor. "I denounce you, Comrade Miguschenko," he cried. "You should have led a mutiny against the order to cut the tow line! You should have taken charge of the men, locked up the captain as an enemy of the proletariat, and led the crew to the rescue of the tanker!"

It was no defense, the Court held, that Comrade Miguschenko, like most political advisers of Soviet sea captains, knew nothing of seamanship himself. The prosecutor next flayed the seamen for not mutinying anyhow to save the tanker: "We must abolish the outrageous behavior of some seamen who still cling to the disgusting traditions of Capitalist fleets!"--i. e. obedience to captain's orders.

Finally the Court sentenced Captain Krivonosov to death, after calling him a "coward." To sentence the Party official to death would have made too much news. He got ten years. Nine sailors received various prison terms for the crime of "observing capitalistic traditions." The seven who had warned their captain that he would hear from Moscow were acquitted.

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