DISMISSALS OF MINISTERS

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27094, 18 July 1953, Page 7

DISMISSALS OF MINISTERS

“Wave Of Unrest” In Soviet States

LONDON, July It. The Ministerial changes in the Soviet republics, all concerned with internal security, follow persistent reports of unrest in the Communist-ruled countries of Europe from East Germany to Hungary, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. They also follow the sensational dismissal of Lavrenti Beria, the Soviet security chief, now branded as a traitor. The latest dismissal, announced by tha Kiev Radio today, was that of Pavel Mashik, Ukrainian Minister of the Interior.

Twenty-four hours earlier, the Communist Radio reported the dismissal of Vladimir Dekanozov, the Interior Minister of Georgia—the home State of Beria and Stalin.

The dismissal of the East German Minister of Justice (Max Fechner) also fits into the pattern of the new security administration without the Beria influence.

With the dismissal of Dekanozov, an Estonian Communist, the newspaper “Rahva Haal” reported that Russianborn Nikolayevich Ussenko had been replaced as Minister of Justice in Estonia by an Estonian, Valter Raudsalu.

Control by Beria Beria himself controlled the internal security and secret police as Minister of the Interior for the whole of the U.S.S.R. At least two of the dismissed Ministers in the Soviet Republics ’were appointed after Beria took up his Ministerial post on the death of Stalin in March. Meshik and Dekanozov took up -their posts in April. In Meshik’s case the tables are turned. He himself succeeded Timofiv Abrosiyevich Strokach as Minister of the Interior. Now Strokach is brought back to replace him. The Kiev Radio gave no. indication of what had happened to Meshik. Meanwhile, in Moscow, the Army chiefs lined themselves up with the Prime Minister (Mr Malenkov) and the central committee of the Soviet Communist Party in denouncing Beria. A resolution pledging complete support of the central committee and of the Government was passed at a meeting of the Defence Ministry of the U.S.S.R. The meeting was addressed by the Defence Minister (Marshal Nikolai Bulganin). Other military and naval chiefs who were stated by Moscow Radio to have taken part in the discussion were Marshal Georgi Zhukov, the “saviour of Moscow.” and the war-time military hero of Russia, who now is DeputyDefence Minister, and Admiral of the Fleet Nikolai Kuznetsov, a former Navy Minister. Marshal Vassili Sokolovsky, tho Soviet Army Chief of Staff, and the former Soviet Commandant in Berlin, and Marshals L. Gororov, Semyon, and Budenny also spoke. Marshal Budenny, famous as a cavalry leader and World War IT commander, was an old colleague of Stalin. “Defeat for Imperialists” The Soviet Government newspaper, “Izvestia,” states in an editorial today that the “unmasking of the criminal Beria adventure must be considered a great defeat for the imperialists." Mikhail Sholokhov, the Soviet author who wrote “And Quiet Flows the Don.” in an article in the “Soviet Literary Gazette," linked Beria’s downfall with recent events in Korea and East Germany.

Sholokhov argues that Eeria’s “overseas masters” set out on an “adventuristic" crusade in two directions at once. They tried to step across the frontier of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), and gave their blessing to Dr. Syngman Rhee in blasting the Korean truce. “The master was in a hurry and Beria got busy, but Beria’s masters miscalculated—and so did he,” says Sholokhov.

Reuter’s correspondent in Paris quotes French exoerts on Soviet affairs as saying that Dekanozov’s dismissal in Georgia marked the first Moscow admission that Beria’s liquidation was being followed by a major purge. Unofficial reports reaching Paris spoke about a wave of arrests in Moscow since June 27—the most probable date of Beria’s fall from power.