ears law": From 1927 to 1934, Krylenko was a member of the Central Control Commission of the Communist Party. Sport positions In the 1930s Krylenko headed the Soviet chess, checkers and mountain climbing associations. He was one of the pioneers of the Pamirs mountain climbing, leading the Soviet half of a joint Soviet-German expedition in 1928 as well as expeditions to the Eastern Pamirs in 1931 and to the Lenin Peak in 1934. Krylenko used his positions to carry out the Stalinist line of total control and politicization of all areas of public life: According to British Grandmaster Daniel King, Krylenko's work promoting Chess was an extension of his role in the Soviet anti-religious campaigns; "The Bolsheviks' motives for promoting Chess were both ideological and political. They hoped that this logical and rational game might wean the masses away from belief in the Russian Orthodox Church; but they also wanted to prove the intellectual superiority of the Soviet people over the capitalist nations. Put simply, it was part of world domination. "With Chess, they hit upon a winner: equipment was cheap to produce; tournaments relatively easy to organize; and they were already building on an existing tradition. Soon there were Chess clubs in factories, on farms, in the army... This vast social experiment quickly bore fruit." In 1935, Krylenko invited the former chess World Champion Emanuel Lasker to Soviet Union, where he settled until 1937. Theorist of the Soviet Justice System According to his brother in law Max Eastman, Krylenko was "gentle-hearted and poetic in his youth" but "hardened up under Lenin's influence" to become "a ruthless Bolshevik". Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, he wrote dozens of books and articles in support of his philosophy of "socialist legality." According to Krylenko, political considerations rather than evidence needed to play the decisive role in deciding the verdict and sentence before trial. He further argued that even a confession obtained under torture constituted proof of a defendant's guilt; material evidence, precise definitions of a crime, or judicial sentencing guidelines were not needed under socialism. Mikhail Yakubovich, a defendant in one of the show trials, described meeting with Krylenko after weeks of torture by the OGPU to discuss his upcoming trial: Krylenko promoted his views on socialist legality during the work on two drafts of the Soviet Penal Code, one in 1930 and one in 1934. Krylenko's views were opposed by some Soviet