Moscow News 1936

Moscow News Weekly Edition dated September 16th 1936

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The English language Russian newspaper Moscow News was founded by the American socialist Anna Louise Strong and originally ran from 1930 until 1949. The paper was revived in 1956 under Communist Party control.

The front cover picture would look just as appropriate as part of a Hitler Youth recruitment poster.

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Page 2 sets the tone for the rest of the paper with an article about the success of Soviet military manoeuvres.

Kliment Voroshilov (picture above) was Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (i.e. Head of State) from 1953 to 1960 when Leonid Brezhnev took over. Voroshilov and Semyon Budyonny (the other man in the picture) were 2 of the first 5 Marshals of the Soviet Union, the other 3 were to die in Stalin’s Great Purge. 

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The trial of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center, which Lenin’s widow (Nadezhda Krupskaya) is writing about in this article, was the first Moscow Show Trial and set the stage for subsequent trials based on trumped up charges. 

Gregori Zinovyev, Lev Kamenev and 14 others were charged with, among other anti-Soviet actions, conspiring to murder Joseph Stalin. The defendants were found guilty on August 24, 1936.

Prior to the trial, Zinoviev and Kamenev had agreed to plead guilty to the false charges on the condition that they would not be executed, a condition that Stalin accepted. Immediately after the conviction, Stalin ordered their execution.

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And for your reading pleasure the transcript of the Show Trial. I don’t think it’s available on Kindle, although I see you can get it from Collet's in the Charing Cross Road.

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Drawn by Boris Yefimov who had a career as a political cartoonist from 1919 until his death in 2008 at the age of 108!

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In 1949 the Editor-in-Chief Mikhail Borodin, was tried for being an enemy of the State (i.e. Joseph Stalin), and he died 2 years later in a Siberian prison camp.

Anna Loiuse Strong was a strong supporter of Russian Communism until 1936/37 when Stalin’s Great Purge started. She went back to America and switched her allegiance to the fledgling Chinese Communist cause. She spent the last 20 years of her life in China and died in 1970.

The strength of the Red Army was much appreciated a few years later when Russia's help in defeating Hitler was critical.

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Vladimir Kokkinaki was a test pilot that set numerous records from 1932 until 1960. In 1936/37 he broke his own altitude record 6 times.

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The Nottingham tournament was the first victory by a Soviet chess master outside of Russia and Mikhail (Michael) Botvinnik went on to be the World Chess Champion for 13 years.

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This article by Anna Louise Strong herself shows how obsessed with productivity the Soviets were.

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It is now known that Joseph Stalin was a monster who had the blood of millions on his hands - not only those who died in the Gulags but the countless peasants that died as a result of his Collectivist policies. And who was his biggest trading partner? The UK.

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The 1936 Nuremberg Rally or The 8th Party Congress was known as the "Rally of Honour". Leni Riefenstahl filmed the 1934 Rally as ‘Triumph of the Will’.

The Soviets calling the Nazis hypocritical is a bit like the pot calling the kettle black.

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The name Dynamo Moscow goes back to 1923 when the team was managed by the head of the Russian Secret Police (CHEKA). In 1936 they won the Soviet Championship. Who can forget such players as Mikhail Semichastny, Vasili Pavlov, Vasili Smirnov and Sergei Ilyin? I just have.

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If all this jollity has whetted your appetite why not visit the USSR? Oops too late.

Random Ad - Men's Clothing Sales (1940's)

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It's hard to decide which would suit me best,  the Humphrey Bogart trenchcoat and trilby ensemble or the schoolboy look in strong union flannel.

The chap in the top left-hand corner looks suspiciously like a member of Oswald Mosley's Blackshirts.

Random Cuttings - Zeppelins (1915 & 1916)

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Air raids are normally associated with World War II rather than the Great War, but Zeppelin airships were used in over 50 bombing missions over Britain. 

The top cutting is about the first Zeppelin raid in January 1915. 4 people were killed and 16 injured.

The photograph is of the grounded Zeppelin L49 from January 1916.

500 In Sea Crash Drama

The Evening News dated Wednesday May 6th 1953

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British Railways passenger steamer "Duke of York" on route from the Hook of Holland to Harwich collided with the United States troopship "Haiti Victory" about 40 miles off Harwich. The "Duke of York" was carrying 437 passengers and a crew of 72 and, in spite of the remarkable success of the rescue attempts, 8 passengers lost their lives.

At a hearing in Clerkenwell Court it was found that there was enough evidence against John Christie to warrant a charge of murder and a trial. 

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In 1949 Timothy Evans wife and daughter had been murdered at 10 Rillington Place in London. Evans was tried, found guilty and hanged.

In 1953 several bodies were found at the same 10 Rillington Place and John Reginald Christie, who had been living in the house at the time of the Evans’ murders, was arrested. Christie confessed to 7 murders including that of Timothy Evans’ wife. He was tried, convicted and hung.

It is now generally accepted that Evans did not murder either his wife or his child. Too late.

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Major Charles Wylie was in charge of the 350 porters and 35 Sherpas attached to expedition that conquered Everest on May 26^th 1953 when Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the summit. Some say George Mallory got there first in 1924 but we shall never know.

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Crime was very hands-on in the 50’s. None of your white-collar computer fraud. Cosh gangs, murder and stealing from Churches were the order of the day.

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1953 was of course Coronation Year and all things Coronationy were popular. A for-runner of 'QI' perhaps?

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Names to conjure with – Eddie Fisher, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Guy Mitchell, Danny Thomas… whoa there… who was Danny Thomas? He was a film actor, a stalwart of US TV from the 1950’s until the 90’s, a TV producer whose credits include ‘The Andy Griffith Show’, ‘The Dick Van Dyke Show’ and ‘The Mod Squad’.

He also founded a children’s hospital in Memphis, won a Bob Hope Humanitarian Award and had a US Postal Service stamp issued in his memory.

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The history of 3D cinema goes back as far as 1900 but it wasn’t until the release of ‘Bwana Devil’ in 1952 that it became popular with the paying public. The craze died out by 1955. In the early 1980’s there was a small revival with films such as ‘Comin’ at Ya!’ which I saw and wished I hadn’t. The recent revival (e.g. ‘Alice in Wonderland’) is a great improvement on the previous incarnations of 3D but may, in the not too distant future, be replaced by Lenticular 3D which does not require the viewer to wear glasses.

Director John Huston’s argument that effects were being used instead of good story telling is still relevant.

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The radio adventures ‘Paul Temple’ were created by Francis Durbridge in 1938 and continued until 1968. Some lost episodes were remade over the last 7 years and pop up on BBC Radio 4 Extra. The amateur detective has also appeared in films, TV and novels. This ‘Paul Temple’ strip was published from the mid-1950’s until the early 1960’s.

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When, as a kid, I started my life long total disinterest in football the only names I knew were Stanley Mathews and Nobby Stiles. I didn’t know who they played for, but I knew they were footballers.

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I only include this because I recognised John Arlott’s name. If such a thing were feasible I am less interested in cricket than I am in football.

Random Ad - Shell X-100 Oil (1950's)

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If I was casting a film role and wanted a 1950's salesman I'd pick Mr Barrow* complete with 1950's moustache. This advert might explain why just about the only pre-1960 car you regularly see on the road is the Morris Minor.

Random Cutting - Ban smoking? (1980's)

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I'm not sure when in the 1980's this was published, but it took until 2006 in Scotland and 2007 in the rest of the UK to ban smoking in public indoor spaces. Now all they need to do is ban 'piped' music in the same places and I can die a happy man.

Condoms in Court

Daily News (New York) dated Thursday March 28^th 1991

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Judge Gustin Reichbach was a student activist at Columbia University during the 1960’s and then became a lawyer in New York. This condoms incident happened just three months after he became a judge and had been assigned to the ‘grave-yard shift’ or Night Court. As a result of the Daily News front page he was transferred to the Civil Court. A long and sometime controversial career followed and he died of cancer this year (2012).

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Alfred Visconti was apparently murdered because he was gay and/or a police informer, neither of which would have been tolerated by his Mafia bosses.

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4 men escaped from a high security (obviously not high enough) prison in upstate New York but 2 were retaken the same night. Kenny Ryan was arrested as he left the 53^rd Street subway station in Brooklyn on March 20^th and George Gatto was caught on April 16^th.

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For any ‘Dr Who’ fans that are interested there is a YouTube film of the Bonhams Auction here at the end of which a Dalek is sold for £6400.

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Aldo Ray started his film career in 1951 and by 1955 was co-starring with Humphrey Bogart and Peter Ustinov in ‘We’re No Angels’. By the 70’s he was appearing in small roles in small films and had been diagnosed with throat cancer. Hollywood, showing its infinite good will to all men, revoked his Screen Actors Guild membership because he was acting in non-union films just to pay his medical bills. 

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Democrat Douglas Wilder never made it to Pennsylvania Avenue. Having declared as a candidate in 1992 he withdrew early in the race. He was the first Black Governor of Virginia from 1990 to 1994 and Mayor of Richmond from 2004 until 2009.

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Anthony Riggs’ wife Toni Cato Riggs and her brother Michael Cato were tried for his murder and Michael Cato was convicted but Toni was acquitted.

And that could have been the end of the story, but a year later an undercover DEA operation accidentally filmed Toni Cato Riggs confessing to the murder of her husband. She was re-arrested, tried and convicted.

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Donnie Walhberg went on from ‘New Kids on the Block’ to join his brother Mark Walhberg as a film actor.

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Elevator surfing apparently became a popular way of killing one’s self at American University campuses (campi?) in the early 1990’s and is still going on.

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Chester Gould created the Dick Tracy comic strip in 1931 and he wrote and drew it until 1977 when Max Allan Collins took over the writing. By 1991 it was being drawn by Dick Locher who carried on until 2011.

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Doonesbury has been written and drawn by Garry Trudeau since its creation in 1970. Both Dick Locher and Gary Truseau have won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning.

Random Ad - Gilbeys Port (1920's)

This 1920's advert for Gilbeys Invalid Port is simple and elegant with a beautifully drawn hand.

Two questions though. Shouldn't there be an apostrophe before or after the 'S' in Gilbeys? Who would buy port that wasn't 'valid'?

Random Cutting - Fight in the Air (1914)

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An aerial dog-fight over Sheerness and a bomb in Dover. The way this is laid-out it reads like a rather macabre free-verse Dadaist poem.

Ruby shoots Oswald

Daily Mirror dated Monday November 25^th 1963

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About 40 minutes after the assassination of John F Kennedy on November 23^rd 1963 a police officer, J D Tippit, stopped his patrol car to question a man he had seen walking along Tenth Street in Dallas. As Tippit got out of his car the man shot him 4 times and the police officer died immediately. The man ran off.

A short while later a shoe store employee saw a man who he recognised as a recent customer acting suspiciously in the entrance to the store. He appeared to be hiding from the police cars that had been called to Tippit’s murder scene. The store man followed the suspicious character to the Texas Theatre cinema and watched him go in without paying. He got the manager to call the police and on their arrival pointed out the man, who turned out to be Lee Harvey Oswald. He was arrested for Officer Tippit’s murder. A witness later claimed that Jack Ruby was among the people in the cinema during the arrest.

Oswald was taken to the Dallas Police Department and questioned. It is not clear when or how the police decided that they had JFK’s assassin but 10 hours after being arrested for Tippit’s murder he was charged with Kennedy’s.

The following day the police decided to move Oswald from the police station to the County Jail. A handcuffed Oswald was led into the basement car-park flanked by detectives Jim Leavelle and L C Graves and past a large crowd of journalists, TV cameras and on-lookers. Suddenly Jack Ruby stepped out and, holding a revolver in his outstretched right hand, shot Oswald once in the stomach. An hour and forty-two minutes later he died.

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Did Jack Ruby kill Oswald because, as he claimed, he ‘did it for Jackie’ or was he eliminating Oswald before he could reveal anything about a conspiracy to murder JFK? 

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Jacqueline Lee Bouvier married John F Kennedy in 1953, became his widow in 1963 and married Greek Shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis in 1968. She and JFK had 4 children, 2 of which died in infancy – one only 2 months before the assassination. Their son JFK Jr died in a plane crash at the age of 38. Daughter Caroline is still alive. Jackie Kennedy Onassis died in 1994.

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Kathleen Heathcote’s killer, Ronald Evans, was caught and sentenced to life imprisonment but in 1975 he was released ‘on licence’. In 1978 Bristol was being terrorised by a rapist nicknamed the ‘Beast of Bristol’.  He was caught by a police woman decoy and turned out to be Evans. He was given a further 9 years on top of his life sentence.  

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Harold Challenor was a Detective Sergeant in the CID in 1963 and was known for planting evidence and beating up suspects. He met his match when he planted a half brick on a journalist for Peace News in order to charge him with carrying a weapon. Other cases then became public knowledge and Challenor appeared at the Old Bailey in 1964, charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, he was deemed to be unfit to plead and was sent to Netherne Mental Hospital with a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia

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On several occasions, when I worked in Essex Street in London in the late ‘60’s, I saw Rupert ‘Maigret’ Davies parking his 1930 racing green ‘blown’ Bentley in the road outside our offices.

‘No Hiding Place’ lasted from 1959 until 1967 With Raymond Francis as DCI Lockhart. When Eric Lander left Johnny Briggs, who is now best known as Mike Baldwin in ‘Coronation Street’, took over as the co-star. 

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I thought the sick joke was a modern phenomenon. Canadian presenter and actor Bernard Braden was a popular figure on TV in the early ‘60’s and always quite outspoken.  The usually very outspoken ‘That Was The Week That Was’ team was uncharacteristically reserved in their tribute to the murdered President.

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Burley has a car-park now. I know because a friend of the family lives there. I don’t think she is related to Lord Shackleton.

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A 1963 newspaper wouldn’t be complete without a Beatles item. 5000 queued all night outside the theatre for tickets for the Beatles Xmas Show. This was before Internet and phone ticket sales, so at least the little darlings weren’t ripped off for using a credit card or having the tickets posted to them.

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The Perishers comic strip was created by cartoonist Maurice Dodd in 1959 and lasted until 2005 although reprints are still being published. 

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It’s always fun to look back at future predictions from the advantage point of that future. I’m still waiting for a home free of plugs and wires and for an end to washing up, ironing and dirty clothes. As for microwave food that ‘tastes good but looks raw’ we’re almost there with ‘looks cooked but tastes like cardboard’.