Word: commissar
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Well, what could please Commissar Abramski more than a war in Central America? What better way to arm communists in the region, or to destabilize its fragile governments, than to create a war that is sure to destroy much industry and agriculture, to radicalize and embitter the peasantry and to make Soviet allies ever more dependent on aid and military support from Moscow...
Hence, in the Soviet Union, the mentality of the spy is part and parcel of the mentality of the commissar and, beyond that, of the citizen. The relationship between an agent and his source, between a secret policeman and his informer, is not only an honorable estate but an essential...
Reagan and Gonzalez seemed to establish an instant rapport, and even traded anti-Communist jokes over lunch. Reagan told an old one about a Soviet farmer who claims his potato crop is so abundant "it reaches to the foot of God." When a visiting commissar reminds the farmer that "there is no God," the local replies, "There aren't any potatoes either." Gonzalez responded with the one about Karl Marx returning from the grave and going on TV in Moscow to say, "Workers of the world--forgive me!" The First Lady let her hair down as well. During a visit...
...Voroshilov Academy of the General Staff in Moscow. The obituary, however, placed his name alongside those of the chiefs of the Main Political Directorate of the Armed Forces, which oversees the Communist Party's control over the military. If Ogarkov has indeed become a sort of political commissar, it would be an ironic appointment for a career officer with a reputation for being at odds with the party's views on military strategy. The precise reason for his demotion remains unknown; Western military analysts suggest that the marshal might have been dismissed because he favored a conventional over a nuclear...
...future is probably Hu Yaobang, 68, General Secretary of the party. A peppery personality, Hu ran away from home at the age of 14 to join the Communists; trooped with them on the Long March to north China; served against both Japanese and Nationalists, rising to political commissar of an entire army group by the end of the Liberation War. He was once private secretary to Liu Shaoqi, and during the war was close to Deng too. His punishment by the Cultural Revolutionaries was years in the stables, eating and sleeping with sheep and horses...