The 50 Years Ago column from the December 1990 issue of the Socialist Standard
In the meantime events of another kind were taking place in Russia. While the Russian ambassadors abroad were hobnobbing with choice gangs of Nazi and Fascist thugs in honour of the Russian "revolution". Russia at home was showing the kind of corruption to which Bolshevik State Capitalism naturally lends itself. The first case was reported in the News Chronicle from their Moscow correspondent:
Moscow,-Friday.—Eight people will face a firing squad and 34 others have received prison sentences up to ten years, as a result of the Moscow slaughterhouse theft trial.
Two gangs of thieves working undisturbed for two years, sold artificially—created meat surpluses to State-owned stores whose directors took half the proceeds of retail sales.
Thus, 500.000 roubles worth of meat had been pilfered since 1938.—(News Chronicle, November 2nd, 1940.)
The other case was reported in the Manchester Guardian twelve days later:
Four Russian industrialists were sentenced to death at Kiev yesterday on charges of "damage to the State", costing 1,240,000 roubles, the Moscow wireless announces. One of the condemned men was the head of the Kiev State vodka factory, Mr. Galperin. It was alleged that he and his confederates stole petrol and spirit from the factory and sold it to private illegal dealers. Fourteen members of the group were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment.— (Manchester Guardian, November 14th. 1940.)
[From the Socialist Standard, December 1940.]
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