FORMAL DESTRUCTION OF OUTWORN SOVIET SYSTEM

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27912, 8 March 1956, Page 12

FORMAL DESTRUCTION OF OUTWORN SOVIET SYSTEM

STALIN’S FUNERAL

[By B. D. SINGER oi the "Economist"} [From the "Economist" Intelligence Unit!)

LONDON. February 23. The official burial of the Stalinist heritage has been staged less than three years after Sta’in’s death. This is the symbolic significance of the twentieth congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. With no hosannas, amid a disapproving silence, with Anastas Mikoyan acting as the chief grave-digger, the demigod of yesteryear was hoisted down, ohort History of the Party.” destined to perpetuate his fame, was thrown after him. and so was. scornfully, his last pamphlet on economic problems. All this amid anpeals for the rehabiliation of his victims, for the rewriting of Soviet history, and a return to party principles of the Lenin era. Iconoclasts had attacked the cult of Stalin immediately after his death. Then various attempts were made to preserve the Stalinist pattern. But there was something inexorable in this process of destruction of an outworn system and the congress provided an opportunity for an official inauguration of a new post-Stalinist epoch. Not all the Soviet leaders may have been aware how far-reaching the consequences of their work of demolition may turn out to be. It is not very far. really, from the first rehabiliation of the victims of the purges to the disavowl of the bloody Moscow trials or to the restoration of. say, Trotsky to the revolutionary pedestal, where he properly belongs. The promise of a return to Leninist principles may also lead them much further along the road of internal party democracy than they at present envisage. The forces unleashed, possibly unwittingly, at this congress will inevitably drive them in this direction. Contradictions

Though there was obviously a general agreement to do aws y with Stalinism and the various speeches have been clearly concerted, there was no absolute uniformity at this congress. Mr Mikoyan was leading the funeral marches with Nikita Khrushchev, the secretary of the party, dragging along at the tail. Mr Khrushchev in his marathon speech still referred to “Trotskyites and Bukharin ites” as the enemies of the people., Mr Mikoyan, on the other hand, spoke of “party leaders. . . who were wrongly declared to have been enemies of the people many years after the events described had taken place." Though the general line of the congress has undoubtedly been worked out in preparatory meetings, these contradictions and differences in emphasis are probably not accidental. They rather reflect differences of opinion as to the proposed pace of the reshaping of Soviet society. Thus, the struggle within the collective leadership is not yet over. At the same time, though Mr Khrushchev has been allowed to play first fiddle at the congress, the task has now been made tremendously difficult for anybody trying to hold singlehanded the reins of supreme power. Not because so much has been said in favour of collective leadership, but rather because of the vices of personal rule have been described in such vivid terms. Much of the congress was taken up with an analysis of the damage to Soviet life, economic development, and foreign policy resulting from Stalin’s personal dictatorship. This, clearly, is lot the way to prepare the ground for a new period of absolute rule. A truce has probably been accepted by the various factions. The twentieth all-union congress broke less new ground in its debates on foreign policy. The passages dealing with “peaceful co-existence” were, after all, a restatement of a now accepted doctrine. The only seemingly new concept referred to the possibility of establishhg “socialism” by parliamentary means. Yet this departure from the established Marxist pattern was hedged by the proviso that this will be posdble only where capitalism is not strong enough to defend itself. This reservation leads one to believe that Khrushchev and others had in mind the countries of South-East Asia rather than the older capitalistic states, or eren France and Italy. The text itself, however, provides no definite guidance. Though conciliatory in tone, the message of this congress to the Western world does not seem to foreshadow and radical concessions. The reasons for this Soviet self-confidence were not for to seek. Mr Mikoyan. Marshal Zhukov, and others, in turn.

proclaimed that the Soviet Union now not only has the mc)t fearsome nuclei weapons, but also the means to them on Americarf soil. Hurling thj« challenge from tin platform of the congress, the Russians could wen argue that deterrtnts are really > double-edged weapin. Ultimate Victory Economic . The Russians hive reasserted that time is the ally if the Soviet bloc. Unlike wars, capitilistic crises remain in their opinion, hcvitable. This was repeated. in subtler form than previously, together with an analyse of contradictions within the Western bloc and a list of factors which must finally bring abect a slump. While the West’s slowjr progress should thus be arrested by major upheavals, the Soviet bloc is to march relentlessly forward. Clina is beginning it* industrial revo jition. The East European satellites are to drop the goal of individual autarky and gather the fruit of co-operation and division of labour. The Soviet Union itself enters its sixth lap under the signs of the atom and jutomation.

Driving eastward for the economic conquest of Sibeaa, producing a mass of skilled engineers and other technicians. Russia |rill try to use the technological rexblution to fulfil its old dream of “retching and exceeding America.” It is] essentially through foregoing the eccfoomic might of their bloc and the Rulians expect to bring about the ultimate victory of communism. On the threshold of the new era Stalin’s hdrs are facing the Western world with greater self-con-fidence than the dead leade? ever really possessed.