Inside Russia

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27096, 20 July 1953, Page 8

Inside Russia

Though the full scope of changes in internal policy in Russia has not yet been revealed, an article printed recently in the Communist Party’s newspaper “ Pravda" gives clear expression to the one change that has been most significant since the death of Stalin. No other sign of the revulsion against autocracy has been so emphatic or authoritative as the “ Pravda ” article. “ The “ supreme principle of party leadership in our party lies in collective “ leadership ”, says “ Pravda ”. “Decisions made by one man only “ are always, or almost always, one- “ sided decisions. The collective “ wisdom of the Party Central “ Committee, supported by the “ scientific foundations of the “ Marxist-Leninist theory, ensure “the correctness of party leader-

ship”. Everyone reading this in Russia and outside is bound to assume that the Stalin cult is being criticised. There could hardly be a clearer expression of revulsion from the autocratic rule of Stalin, or a more emphatic contradiction of the fulsome praise that was bestowed on Stalin in his lifetime as the great leader and teacher, and the fount of all wisdom. The “ Pravda ” article goes on to complain about leaders who are “keen on keeping “away from criticism or making “ light of it. These leaders cannot “get it into their heads that in the “party there can be no magnates

“ immune from criticism Stalin, of course, advocated self-criticism, “ without which the party could not “live”; and there were various public examples of it during the Stalin regime. The most striking and searching were found in “ confessions ” of men and women who were the objects of purges within the party. There was some criticisnf in the newspapers of bureaucracy and of shortcomings in the trading organisations; but most of it was petty and obviously controlled and directed. It is indeed a change to notice “ Pravda’s ” exhortation to keen self-criticism by the party’s leaders; and there is even greater change in the implication that criticism from below is not only tolerated, but actually encouraged. This suggests a remarkable change from a state of affairs in which every criticism of the regime could be called counterrevolutionary activity.

In the outside world at present, only provisional interpretations can be made of the new insistence in Russia on collective responsibility and the revulsion from personal rule. One obvious reflection is that the trend does not square with the theory that Mr Beria was removed merely to clear the way for the assumption of personal rule by Mr Malenkov. Some students of the Soviet system hold that it cannot permit the supreme authority to be shared; and, in keeping with this

belief, an apparent trend towards collective responsibility could be a tactical move to encourage internal stability until the succession to Stalin is conclusively* determined. But on the face of the “Pravda” article, the insistence on collective responsibility and the revulsion from personal rule are so strong that the trend may indeed be part of the “spontaneous healthy evolu- “ tion ” which Sir Winston Churchill suggested recently might be occurring in Russia. Certainly it may be said that somebody or other who at present is in a position to lay .down doctrine is erecting formidable obstacles to a reversion to autocracy.