MOSCOW, Jan 15 (AFP)
The Russian interior ministry on Friday admitted police had failed in the fight against
organised crime and set political and
economic crime as their main targets for 1999, news agencies said.
�Despite adopted measures, the police failed in its fight against organised crime which
undermines Russia�s foundation by crawling
into all levels of the power structure,� ministry officials said Friday, according to a
message to employees quoted by the Interfax
news agency.
�Crime is rising in all countries. Criminals have become tougher, more aggressive, more
resistant to the authorities and are even
prepared to kill police officers,� the text read.
Interior Minister Sergei Stepashin said the ministry�s main task this year would be to
maintain order ahead of legislative elections in
December and a presidential vote in the summer of 2000, Itar-Tass reported. Thewministry
will take measures to prevent political
crimes, Stepashin said. Russia was shocked by the November assassination of influential
Saint Petersburg deputy Galina
Starovoytova just days before a local election, in a slaying many political figures called
a �political crime�. No one has been arrested
for the killing.
The ministry also set the fight against economic crime as a goal, highlighting the need to
combat corruption, which is rampant at all
levels including the top layers of government, Stepashin said.
The ministry also plans to fight alcohol smuggling. In 1998, more than 3,000 illegal vodka
plants were dismantled and more than
4.5 million decalitres of ethyl alcohol was confiscated, the ministry�s press service
said, quoted by Itar-Tass.
�Since the August financial crisis, offences, especially thefts, have increased,� and
the trend is expected to continue, Stepashin told
Russian television RTR. �The people must stop fearing the police, otherwise we will never
be able to put an end to crime,� he said.
During the period January-November 1998, police registered more than two million crimes
and misdemeanors, vice-minister of
interior affairs Vladimir Kolesnikov said in early December.
by Victoria Loginova
MOSCOW, Jan 16 (AFP)
Stalin�s grandson, Yevgeny Dzhugashvili, a retired professor of military history, never
met his illustrious relative, though he
believes he has �inherited his authority� and would like Russia to recover the power and
influence it wielded during the Stalin era.
With his bushy mustache and piercing dark eyes, 63-year-old Yevgeny looks so like his
grandfather that a few years ago, he was
hired to play the role of the dictator in the film �Yakov, son of Stalin�.
Dzhugashvili was the real name of Josep Vissarionovich, who swapped his Georgian patronym
for that of Stalin (man of steel)
round about 1913.
In his drab overcoat and fur hat, Yevgeny looks quite ordinary. However from his career as
instructor at a military college, he has
kept the soldier�s rigid bearing, firm handshake and a natural authority when speaking.
�I saw my grandfather only once in my life when I took part in a parade on Red Square
when I was a cadet at the Suvorov military
academy. The second time, I saw him in his coffin when I was 17,� Yevgany Dzhugashvili
said, in an interview with AFP.
�He had no time for his eight grandchildren,� he said, apparently without rancour. For
him, Stalin was never �papy Josef� but
�Comrade Stalin�, the �leader and commander in chief�.
Yevgeny said he �fully understood� why Stalin refused to exchange his son Yakov -
Yevgeny�s father - who was a prisoner of the
Nazis, for the German officer, Marshal Friedrich Paulus. Yakov was executed.
�Stalin could not have done otherwise. It was a sacrifice for his people, for his
country. I understand,� Yevgeny said.
He said he did not believe his grandfather had been a cruel man. The reports about tens of
millions of people who perished during
the Stalin era, were �a legend invented by (dissident writer) Alexander Solzhenitsyn�,
he said, adding: �An empire of
disinformation has been erected around Stalin.�
According to figures generally cited today, 50 million people fell victim to Stalinist
repression and of them 20 million are believed to
have died.
Yevgeny Dzhugashvili said he was proud to be a descendant of Stalin, saying he had
�inherited his authority� and hoped to use it so
that �Russia will once again be as great as it was during the Stalin era�.
He said he not hesitated to accept when the leader of the extreme left, Viktor Anpilov,
asked him to become one of the leaders of a
new �Stalinist Bloc for Socialism�. The bloc whose formation was announced on Tuesday,
comprises two parties: the Union of
Officers and Russia of Labour.
�Our principal goal is to get rid of the government... through constitutional means...
for the moment,� he said in true Stalinist style.
He said he hoped to rally support among the soldiers with whom he had worked all his life.
After studying at the Jukovsky air force academy of military engineers where as Stalin�s
grandson he was admitted without having
to pass an entrance exam, Yevgeny worked with Sergei Koralyev, the renowned rocket
builder.
Having written a thesis on the role of the �US aviation in the war of aggression in
Vietnam�, he went on to become a teacher of
military history.
Today, Yevgeny Dzhugashvili lives in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital. He and his wife share
a four-roomed apartment with their two
sons, Yakov, a painter who studied in Britain, and Vissarion a cineast, their
daughter-in-law and grandson Josef, nicknamed Sosso
just like Stalin.
�My sons have been influenced by anti-Stalin propaganda and sometimes there are stormy
discussions. But I tell them what is
what,� Yevgeny said.