The Press MONDAY, MARCH 9, 1953. Stalin’s Successors

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 26984, 9 March 1953, Page 6

The Press MONDAY, MARCH 9, 1953. Stalin’s Successors

Stalin’s power has passed to an obviously prearranged working

machinery comprising three principal parts—Mr Malenkov, Mr Beria, and Mr Molotov. Mr Malenkov is Prime Minister, and Mr Beria and Mr Molotov are two of four Vice-

Premiers. The two other VicePremiers, General Bulganin and Mr Kaganovich, are smaller cogs. General Bulganin is the civilan head of the Army, and Mr Kaganovich is a Jew and a distinguished organiser; for various reasons neither has aspired to supremacy. Stalin lived too long for Mr Molotov’s aspirations to the highest office to be fulfilled. Mr Molotov was once regarded as the chief disciple of Stalin and the man most likely to succeed. His record as one who joined the Communist Party in 1906, spent a year in a Tsarist gaol and two years in Siberia was a great advantage. But in the last five or six years others have moved up, and Mr Molotov’s prospects have correspondingly waned. Two stood out in particular—Mr Malenkov and Mr Zhdanov, with Mr Beria (the head of the M.V.D., the vast internal security erganisation which includes the secret police) in the background, but probably more powerful than either. Mr Malenkov and Mr Zhdanov came to be regarded as rivals for the succession, a rivalry made apparent to the outside world when the two men expounded different themes about foreign affairs when they were speakers at the foundation meeting of the Cominform at Warsaw in September, 1947. Mr Zhdanov died in August, 1948: in January this year his death was alleged to have been contrived by a number of Jewish doctors. By some observers these charges were interpreted as being oblique allegations against Mr Beria, whose security arrangements would be shown to be at fault if the charges were proved. If that was indeed a correct interpretation, events have moved too fast for Mr Beria’s position to be influenced. After Mr Zhdanov’s death a quiet elimination of his followers and their replacement by followers of Mr Malenkov were noticed. Quite early in his career Mr Malenkov saw the key importance of, the party machine for advancing his ambitions, and with Mr Zhdanov out of the way, Mr Malenkov’s hold on the party expanded and strengthened. Mr Beria, of course, was always there, but though his prestige was marked by the fact that he delivered the anniversary of the revolution address in November, 1951, his long association with the M.V.D. has been held as a reason why it would not be politic for him to appear as head of the State. Possibly the new arrangement is principally a duumvirate of Mr Malenkov and Mr Beria, with Mr Molotov conveniently providing a bridge between the prerevolution Bolsheviks and the postrevolution generation. If that is the case, a joint Party-M.V.D. grip will not easily be loosened, even though the third of the rival corporate elements in the hierarchy—the Army-may not be satisfied with its place. The new Prime Minister, Mr Malenkov, is regarded as the archetype of the men who have risen to power under Stalin through a combination of favouritism, enormous industry, talent and intrigue. He is known as an energetic, merciless organiser. But Mr Malenkov’s qualifications for his new task are offset by some obvious disadvantages and, indeed, by some ironies. Mr Malenkov’s prime weakness is his ignorance of the outside world. His speeches, the only index the outside world has of his thinking, suggest that he takes fairly seriously the stereotyped Russian propaganda view of capitalism and its “ horrors ”. In his keynote speech to the Communist Congress last October, Mr Malenkov told the delegates that the American “ wirepullers ” had come to the conclusion that war must be made on the uAs.R. and the other peoples’ democracies, and they were “ pushing other peoples along “ the path to new war ”. Such views are not reassuring to persons inclined to look for better things from the new Russian Regime. Elements of irony in Mr Malenkov’s succession are in the facts that the “land of workers and peasants” is now m led by one who has never been either a proletarian or a peasant, and that the mantle of the chief theoretician of the Communist world—the successor in Russian

eyes to Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin—falls on one who has never uttered a single new theoretical igea. In brief, it seems that though the grip on Russia will still be strong through the combination of Party and M.V.D. in control, the quality of leadership of both Russia and the Communist world will deteriorate. That may well impose new strains on the Russian empire; and the manner in which probable strains are met will be vastly important to the outside world. The great danger is that the new regime may incline to assertion and rashness; yet if Mr Malenkov has learned anything from Stalin, in whose shadow he has lived for so long, he should have learned patience and caution. Mr Molotov’s return to the Foreign Ministry puts him .in a position where he can, if he wills, usefully advise his new leader against underestimating the powers of the free world.