INDICATIONS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL VULNERABILITIES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-00809A000500740035-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 30, 2001
• Sequence Number: 35
• Publication Date: March 24, 1952
• Content Type: REPORT

A~EPPJi~4tbIeA AD/ABC I7 RMPM40I MA000500740035-9
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENfiN%s,...n.. APORT NO
NO.
COUNTRY USSR
SUBJECT INDICATIONS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL VULNERABILITIES
HOW
PUBLISHED
WHERE
PUBLISHED
DATE
PUBLISHED
LANGUAGE
CHP.Nf,E TO
PER REGRADING
BULLETIN N0._.. __-
DATE OF
INFORMATION Feb. 16-24, 19:2
DATE D I ST. 4 4 /Yl A R
C ') d
NO. OF PAGES 4
SUPPLEMENT TO
REPORT NO.
THIS DOCUMENT CONTAINS INFOI:ATION AFFECTING Till NATIONAL DEFENSE
OF THE UNITED STATUS WITHI THE MEANING Of 15 PION AGI ACT MO
U. S. C,. I I Apo !1. A/ ASIMOID. IT/ TNANIIUIEIIOM ON 1111 I1111LATIOA
Of ITS COKTUNTI IN ANT ^ANNIR TO AN UNAU THORI IIO FENIOM 12 PRO.
HIMITI0 IT LAW. IIPMODUCTIUM OF THIS FORM If FIONIIITID.
STATINTL
(Feb. 16-24, 1952)
Army Day (Feb. 23) is accorded the usual wide publicity on the central and regional transmitters.
Writing on the occasion, Dosaaf chief Kuznetsov urges the further expansion of that paramilitary
organization, particularly in the rural areas. The major part of the output on agriculture is
devoted to instances of agricultural statute violations (narushenie selkhozustava) and the
vexing personnel problem, although mechanical deficiencies still claim considerable attention.
Inadequate political propaganda, particularly for the intelligentsia, and Party red tape in
general still account for most of the output on Party activities. The failure of the Komsomol
organizations to increase their membership is the object of official criticism.
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FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
CPW Report No. 23-A USSR
(Feb.. 16-24, 1952)
CONTENTS
AGRICULTURE .................. 1
PARTY ACTIVITIES.............. 3
MISCELLANEOUS ................ 4
Agriculture: Most of the broadcasts on agriculture intercepted during the week of Feb. 16-24
continue to stress the familiar failings which are becoming more threatening with the approach of
the spring sowing campaign.. The major emphasis in the central and regional comment on the topic,
however, is on the adverse effects of kolkhoz charter violations, technical unpreparedness, and
the grave shortage of qualified personnel from collec-~ive farm chairmen to truck drivers.
In a criticism of the continuing widespread practice of squandering public lands, pilfering
collective farm property and produce, and unscrupulous manipulation of payroll fig'.ires, PRAVDA
(Feb. 16) calls for the restoration of order (navesti poryadok) in agriculture and the elimina-
tion of graszters and spongers (rvachi i. darmoyedy). No reference is made in the editorial to
specific places but the extent of the mentioned malpractice is indicated in the statement that
collective farm charter violations are still prevalent "in a number of oblasts, krai!~., and
republics" (v ryade oblastey, krayev, i respublik). This situation is further aggravated by the
apparent reluctance of the unnamed culprits to return the stolen farm land and other property
since not all of it has as yet been recovered: "A considerable part of the stolen land, cattle,
anC pro-per-L-1, has not een returned to the kolkhozes" (kolkhozam vozvrashcheno znachitelnoye
kolichesivo rashishchennoy u nikh zemli, skota i imushchestva). Unfortunately, the paper
continues, land squandering is still going on as is "the buying up of :ollective farm products
for a song" (pokupka kolkhoznoy produktsii za bestsenok). These illegal manipulations are said
to be made possible by the "conciliatory attitude" (primirencheskoye otnoshenie) of certain Party
and Soviet officials toward both the violators of the kolkhoz charter and "their patrons" (ikh
pokroviteli). The papers urge the return of the collective farm properties still held illegally
by the "charter violators" (narushiteli ustava) in the shortest possible time, and their punish-
ment as enemies of the collective farm system (vragi kolkhoznogo stroya). Order must also be
restored in the matter of timekeeping, which does not always reflect the correct distribution of
workdays among the farmers, as well as in the utilization of public funds as specified in the
charter.
ZVEZDA (Feb. 17) admits that the collective farm statute "is still being violated" throughout the
Republic, despite the timely warning against the practice by the Central Committee of the
Byelorussian Communist Party,. "Cases of squandering of collective farm property still occur both
with regard to land and livestock as well as to produce and financial funds." This is particularly
frequent in the "young" collective farms of the western oblasts which are presumably less efficient
and experienced than their older counterparts elsewhere. The editorial is also stern about the
covert methods employed by some farms to by-pass the charter.:
The statute is often infringed upon in a camouflaged way,
as for example by making the land available to various
enterprises and institutions in exchange for services rendered.
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Of some interest in this connection is the adit.orial reference to the Republic's "organs of
justice and public prosecution" which, in *. .he paper's view, "are also responsible" for the
infringements of the statute. Their ineuff.cient attenti.n to cases of property squandering
and the failure to prosecute the guilty serve as a tacit encouragement to further violations.
Collective farm property squandering and my^orrec7: computation i.nepravi.inoye ischi.t~lenie) of
labor days on the farms also provide the substance for a SOVETSKAYA SIBTR editorial of Feb. 19.
Lack of proper control is held responsible i or t.hc squandering of collective farm property
including livestock, fodder, and milk. Thy, per enjoins the collective farm bookkeepers to
exercise stricter control over property disposition and payrolls, both of which are admittedly
out of control in the following rayons Chgrepanovskiy, Legostayevsk_iy, Irmenskiy, Ordynskly,
Kuibyshevskiy, and Kyshtovskiy., The hint that dishonest bookkeeping on the farms may be a
factor in contributing to losses is contained ir. the editorial appeal to the ay r. p iate Party
and Soviet organizations to help the kolkhozes "select and train ... conscientious accountants."
"Anti-state and anti-Party" activities in the form of squandering, pilfering and payroll
manipulations are still in evidence in Smol,nsk Oblast, according to RABOCFIIY PUT (Feb. 3)).
Much work has already been done toward the elimination of "serious" statute violations in the
,oblast but it appears that they "have not yet been fully liquidated." The paper refers to the
"great harm" already inflicted on the oblast agriculture by infrequent and inadequate auditing,
and urges the immediate liquidation of "all sorts of statute violations" by the institutic-n of
the spot check method. of control (proverka na mestakh.),
Criticism of the general ineptitude characterizing ;.he, maintenance, repair, and utilization of
farm machinery still claims a considerable part of the comment on agriculture.. Most of the
transmitters stress that the number of tractor repair_ never catches up -with the number of
breakdowns. Frequent reference is made also to the poor quality of repair work which., as one
paper points out, is to a large extent responsible for the breal;do'-rns. STALINSKOYE ZNAMYA
(Feb. 16) complains that. the majority of the oblast machine-tractor stations are more than 30~
behind the repair plan, while some of them are "still worse off," This ~ltuation, the paper
admits, is not new since many of the machine-tractor stations have failed to honor their pledges
and collective agreements "from year to year." Only a"shocking lack of sense of responsibility",
the editorial asserts, can produce such a slate of affairs, and only self-sacrificing work,
strengthened labor discipline, bend the disrh.rding of the "handicraft methods" (kustaraLe sposoby)
of work will remedy the situation., Taking pup the aubjec.tr_ on Feb, 17, the paper declares that
further delays An. the preparations for spri. _g soi ng will not be tolerated and that. the Party
and agricultural officials had better take closer look at the shortcomings since the slow
agricultural rayons. are "not taking energet~c measures" to eliminate them. Knrabli.nsk_iy,
Troekurovskly, ;-e:%rtolatovskiy, and other rayons are 1.rted as the most critical a.rees.
While censuring the unsatisfactory per forma ce of the oblast tractor-repair shop:., S AI..INGRADSKA1A
PRAVDA (Feb. 19) Is not unmindful of other actors 'which, in its opinion, act as a brake on
technical progress. The 'leveling of wages" (uravnilov ka), for one, is said to have a
deleterious effect on the better mechanics and tractor operators.. This practice aho:;ld be
"liquidated" at once and replaced by Social at competition.. The quality of repairs in the
oblast as a whole is low enough to "cause strious alarm", and no quant t-:;atisb' indices can
possibly cover that. deficiency. A recondit,oned tractor, the paper says, should be able. to do
more than merely roll out of the repair shop on its own pov r. But this is just vhat the chief
engineers and station heads consider a job Well done. TN?elve rayons are listed as being far
behind their repair schedules and at least seven others, according to the editorial of Feb. 22,
are doing "particularly bad repair work.," They arei Khopetskiy, Mikhailov-skiy, Macheshanskiy,
Medveditskiy, Molotovskiy, 0_lkhcvakiy, Star io-Poltavalsiy, and other rayons. Various technical
hitched slowing the preparations for the spring sowing are reported also from Sway (Feb. 19),
Odessa (Feb. 21), Saratov (Feb. 23), and Ps ov (Feb. 2L)
PRAVDA (Feb. 18) finis that, despite the officially encouraged trend toward filling responsible
agricultural posts with agronomists and other specialists, tthe latter are still kept out of
executive positions in a number of obiasts,kraia, and republics.. In Kirov Oblast, for example,
only some 100 out of the available 5,OCO agricultural. experts were able to obtain positions
as collective f&--m chairmen. Similar discr~mination against specialists, according to the paper,
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is observable in Kostroma and Kaluga Oblasts as well as1,, tai Krai. STALLNr DSKAY PRAVDA
(Feb. 21) discusses the farm-chairman problem along similar lines. The paper also contends that
the need for highly qualified kolkhoz chairman is all the more imperative now that mot of the
collective farms have been consolidated into larger agricultural units where techniL:alHknowledge
is a sine qua non. Some of the rayon Party Committees. It is claimed, look upon the periodical
report of the kolkhoz chairmen which is followed by Party advice as an end in its".lf without
realizing that a well-qualified and yell-'educated chairman could cope with his own pto lems and
would need less advice.
Party Activities: The activities of the Karelo-Finnish Communist Party, according to PRAVDA
article by Petroveky (Feb. 16. not broadcast), are characterized by substantial shortcomings
(suschestvennie nedostatki). The confusion in the Central Committee itself is said to be so
great that it is not unusual for it to take "several different decisions on the same question"
(neskoiko resheni.y po odnomu i tomu the vaprosu).. This was particularly obvious in the case of
the Central Committee's four decisions "on the eliminatior_ of Komsomol shortcomings" taken at
four different sessions.. The fifth session which was called for the same purpose ft ally
adopted a proposal to make no more decisions on Xomsomol activities but to try to implement the
ones already made. And ao, Petrovsky concludes, it; took about 2 months to draw such a simple
conclusion (itak, potrebovralos okolo dvukh mresiatsev, c.htoby pritt.i k. takomu prostomu yyvodu).
Much disparaging comment is heard on the regional transmitters on the tendency among Party
propagandists to pay "too much attention to the quantity of lectures at the expense of their
quality." The Party Committees of IY.ikhovshchinsky and Yelnitsky rayons and Smolensk and Roslavi
towns have been pretty consistent. in that malpractice, according to RABOCHIY PUT (Feb. l17).
ORLOVSKAYA PRAVDA (Feb. 17) warms against a similar trend in Orel Oblast where lecture ipropaganda
is "still backward," An incidental admission that the quantity of lectures to be delivered is
still a factor to be borne in mind is contained in an editorial reference to certain lecture
groups which are "still failing to fulfill their plans," that is, the quantitative endlof the
propaganda plan.
As for the political and ideological level of most of the lectures, the paper points out that it
is indeed so low that in at least one ray6n--Mtsensk--lectu;.ee for the intelligentsia had to be
"completely discontinued.." The situation! is said to be still worse in Zadonsky Rayon ;there only
9 out of the available 25 lecturers are sufficiently qualified for their work.. Therre is virtually
no control" over lecture propaganda in Krasnozorenskiy., Volynskiy, and UritFkiy -,a;r and the
dissemination of political and ;,cient-ifi.cknowledge "is badly organized" in KhabenelskJy,
Novosilskiy, and Pokrovskiy Rayons.
PSKOVSKAYA PRAVDA and ORLOVSKAYA FRAVDA (Feb. 17) are critical. of the Party propagandists who
prefer to "stray off into theoretical abstractions" Instead of using the Marxist-Leninist theory
to "explain contemporary problems." The results of this year's studies in the Party school
network, says PSKOVSKAYA PRAVDA, show that many of the 3tuaents are going about their work "in a
superficial manner," and memorizing "unconnected facts and figures" and. in some cases are still
employing the "long condemned" methods of questions and answers. Such scholastic methods., the
paper asserts, will never "find the link"' ::between historical materialism and. our times which is
the main object of political education;
....the mastery of Marxist-Leninist theory means under-
standing the essence of this theory -- the knowledge of how
to use it in solving practical questions under various
conditions of the proletariat's class struggle.
The fits-and-starts methods employed in political propaganda are criticized in a summarized version
of a VELIKOLU1cSKAYA PRAVDA editorial (Feb.' 20) which remarks that major events are usually
preceded by animation (ozhivlenie) and followed by a lull Izat?ishye). The Party must always
remember, the paper declares, that political agitation, intraparty or -among the messes,'is not an
occasional affair but a serious aspect of their work which is not to be neglected.
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A summarized arti.cle by Tsyrilenko broadcast, from Bobruisk on Feb. 16 reveals that some Komsomol
organizations, under Party pressure to expand their membership, resort to figure-juggling to show
favorable results. The hlichurin rural K:moomol orranizatton, for instance, listed its membership
in a report to the rayon Committee at "over 50", -nereas a checkup established the actual number
of organization members to be 29. Tsyrilenko also discloses that 52% of'the industrial and 30%
of the rural Kcmtsomo1 organizations in the oblas, "did not admit a single new member" into their
ranks in the second half of 1951.
PRIZYV (Feb, 20) is sharply critical of the Vladnu r Oblast Communists for keeping aloof from the
intelligentsia, such as teachers, doctors, agronomists and others, and refusing to make use of
them in mass agitation work. This attitude, the paper implies, is a hangover of the past and shows
"lack of appreciation" of the rural intelligentsia as a great force capable of helping The Party
"to mold the Communist awareness of the workers." There is no indication as tcc10-ther the
intelligentsia under discussion is understood to consist of P&c"ty members since this does not
always affect the decision of the Party Committees. As indicated in previous braadcaats, and
implied in the PRIZYV editorial, the tendency of various Party Commi.ttees to reserve the job of
Party-political agitation to their own "professionals" (apparatchiki) explains their reluctance
to broaden the agitation activities by the inclusion of "outsiders."
As a republican publication on theoretical and political questions, the monthly magazine BOLSHEVIK
BEIARUSSII is not up to its noble calling and must "seriously improve" (seryozno ul.uchshit) its
work, according to Lukovets in PRAVDA (Feb, 24, not broadcast). The author takes issue with sun
of the articles recently published in the periodical. Which do not reflect the historical truth,
that is, "the leading and directing role of the Party" (rukovodyashchaya i napravlyaushchaya rol
partli) in all the people's' activities from the wartime guerrille. warfare to the present con-
struction of Communism.. Apyakln's article on the gradual eluninatior. of "all the vices peculiar
to a capitalist society" {use poroki svoystvennie kapitalisticheskceau obshchestvy), for example,
does not place due emphasis on the gigantic job done in. this connection by the Communist Party.
Other articles appearing i.n! the louxnal. do not assign the Party a leading part in the partisan
'warfare in Byelorussia and behind the enemy's front line The failure to comment on Gutorov'a
book, "The Esthetic Foundations of Soviet Literature," 'which is full of great errors and short-
comings, is held to "lover the level" isnizhayet urovenl of the magazine. "Planlessness, and
fortuity" (besplanovost i elucha.i.-lost), Liikovets concludes, are the general character i ettic s of
BOIZHEVIK BELORITSSII, which often resembles a departmental gazette (vedomstvenniy vee-nik.) rather
than a theoretical and political
Miscellaneous: A report from Vilni.us., Lithuania (Feb,, 19), tells of a collection of articles and
other documentary evidence on American counterrevolutionary activities in that Country recently
published in book form, Among the documents quoted in the book is one "proving" that the United
States demanded 72 million dollars in. return for it.= contributa-on to the suppression of the
Soviet regime in Lithuania in 191.8-1919..
Moscow in English to the United Kingdom (Feb. 15) says that credit for the exact determination of
the earth's shape and dimensions should go to Soviet scientist I:zotov who proved the previous
findings on the subject -- by Bessel and Hayford -- inadequate. The earth's radius at the
equator, Izotov finds, is 850 meters greater than indicated by Bessel and 1140 meters smaller
than Hayford's figure? Soviet geodetical work is said to have confirmed this.
An item from Tallin (in Esthonian, Feb, 20) lists the names of the officials and 'workers of the
"Rovu" State farm in connection with their general activities. All those mentioned appear to have
Russian-sounding names.
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