TRICKSTERS

1. N. T. GOSHA was arrested by the Ukrainian NKVD. He had escaped from a concentration camp and had tried to pass himself off as a member of the VKP(b). GOSHA was arrested in Berdichev while attempting to obtain money by means of a spurious money order. During the search, the following objects were found on his person: a party card and a party registration card in his name, the seal of the Kiev Regional Committee of the Ukrainian Communist Party (Bolshevik), all sorts of certificates from various institutions, as well as spurious postal money orders for the obtaining of significant sums of money. An investigation has established that he joined the party in 1930 while working in a cooperative society in Zhitomir as an unskilled laborer. In 1932, while working near Kiev as chairman of the village soviet of Dvortsy of the Troyanovsky district, GOSHA was sentenced to 5 years of imprisonment in the Dmitrov labor camp for a whole series of acts of malfeasance. It was then that his party card was taken away from him. In May 1934, having stolen 200 rubles from the camp commissary, GOSHA escaped from the labor camp and hid for some time. Arriving in Zhitomir, he met with his relative, former party member KRAVETS, secretary of the workers' committee of the Zhitomir motor tractor station. The latter, having in his possession blank forms of party registration cards and a rubber stamp of the Troyanovsky District Committee, fabricated for GOSHA a party registration card. With this card in hand (without a party card) he showed up in June 1934 at the Berdichev City Party Committee, which put him at the disposal of the chairman of the city soviet, which, on that very day, ordered him to go to a village by the name of Bolshie Gadomtsy to assume the post of chairman of the village soviet.

Two weeks later, GOSHA was summoned to the Berdichev City Party Committee to be registered. He presented his spurious registration card. Deputy Secretary of the City Party Committee Zubareva returned it to him in view of the fact that it lacked the stamp indicating a purge and suggested, without drawing any conclusions about the identity of GOSHA, that he officially register his card with the Troyanovsky District Committee. No one at the Berdichev City Party Committee asked to see his party card. The next day, GOSHA escaped from Berdichev to Cherniakhovsky district, showed up at the district committee, presented his forged registration card to Drachinsky, the secretary of the district committee, and to Klikht, the office manager. At Drachinsky's suggestion, Klimenko, the chairman of the district executive committee, sent GOSHA to the village Zabrode to serve as chairman of the village soviet. At the Cherniakhovsky District Committee, as at the Berdichev Party District Committee, no one asked GOSHA for his party card. Two months later GOSHA reported “the loss” of his party card. Registering the loss of his party card, in accordance with Drachinsky's instructions, by putting a notice in the press, GOSHA received a party card from the Cherniakhovsky District Committee in 1934. It is characteristic that he was not even summoned to the district committee buro which was reviewing his application. In July of that year, GOSHA was removed from his post for perversion of the party line and given over to trial. In this connection, he escaped from Cherniakhovsky district, once again traveled to Zhitomir and, with the assistance of KRAVETS, made for himself a registration card for the second time and arranged for himself an official trip in the name of the Department of Cadres of the Kiev Regional Committee to the Kalinovka District Committee to be placed at their disposal. Then GOSHA and KRAVETS made three counterfeit postal money orders. With the help of a woman telegraph operator working for them, they intended to use the money orders to get their hands on up to 5,000 rubles. The investigation is still going on. KRAVETS is being sought.