STALIN
MR.
LLOYD GEORGE.
SOVIET RUSSIA AND THE CAUCASUS.
Today (December 9th) I interviewed
Mr. Chenkeli who was Prime
Minister and Foreign Minister of’ the Georgian Republic. He said:“I am sure
that the countries of Transcaucasia will become free. This will happen NOT by a war against Russia but by a great
crisis within the Soviet Union. The
Bolshevik policy cannot evolve gradually. Now
there is a struggle between the Council of Commisars and the Politbureau. The
party is split.
The dictatorship has become
personal, STALIN, all power is concentrated in the hands of Stalin.
I knew Stalin; he is a countryman of mine and his real name is
Djugashvili. He is not such a brain
as Trotsky or Kamenev or Zinoviev. He is not of first class intelligence but he is a brilliant
organizer.
He is disinterested, has no
material ambition, is very honest, absolutely ruthless and brutal very brave and
a first-class intriguer. He sits in
his room in the Kremlin and handles men like pawns. He moves one man from one position and raises another.
He knows his men. He continually receives reports about party men throughout the country. His father was a shoemaker and his mother a washerwoman. Stalin is the
real chief’ of’ the G.P.U. an army numbering over a hundred thousand men which is better armed than the Red Army. He is continually changing the leaders of the Red Army and moving them from place to place. Menjinsky (head of the G.P.U.) is the servant of Stalin.