LEADERSHIP IN RUSSIA

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27894, 16 February 1956, Page 13

LEADERSHIP IN RUSSIA

Khrushchev Keeps Control

(NZ Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 11 p.m.) MOSCOW, February 15. Mr Nikita Khrushchev, ebullient former miner from the Ukraine, has emerged as the apparent master of the Soviet Union, according to Western observers in Moscow. All the 11 members of the present ail-powerful Presidium of the party’s Central Committee were elected to the 39-member Presidium (or collective chairmanship) of the congress. Membership of this body carries no specific powers, but has a certain prestige value. The congress began the session this morning with a report by Mr Peter Moskatov, chairman of the party’s revision commission on internal party administration. Meanwhile copies of Mr Khrushchev’s long speech were being pasted on bill boards throughout Moscow. It covered almost ten pages of specially enlarged editions of “Pravda” and “Izvestia.”

His position as the most powerful voice in both foreign and internal policy appeared unchallengeable after his six-hour oration to the Communist Party Congress in the Kremlin yesterday. His 50,000 word speech was likely to become a “bible” for post-Stalinist Russia, observers said. Western observers also said that it did not seem likely that there would be any changes in the top levels of the party hierarchy. Mr Khrushchev laid considerable emphasis on “collective leadership,” but this phrase remained unexplained.