SIGNIFICANCE OF MR MOLOTOV’S ECLIPSE

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27992, 12 June 1956, Page 12

SIGNIFICANCE OF MR MOLOTOV’S ECLIPSE

"DE-STALINISA TION”

[By

ISAAC DEUTSCHER]

London. June 2,-Mr Molotov’s departure from the Soviet Foreign Ministry is an event in Soviet domestic affairs as well as m diplomacy. U marks the progress of the break with Stalinism which has been taking Place for some time now; and it foreshadows the approach of a new phase of deStalinisation.” AH those m Communist Party and in Communist Parties outside Russia who have viewed this trend with misgivings or hostility and have sought to obstruct it have, until now, looked to Mr Molotov for support, if not for leadership. Thej are greatly weakened and disappointed by his departure, and must expect new disappointments in the near future Mr Molotov’s resignation was timed to coincide with Marshal Titos arrival in the Soviet Union Stalin = successors have welcomed the Jugosia. leader by putting before him, metaphorically, his enemy s head on a platter. It would indeed have been a grotesque spectacle for Molotov, who. with Stalin pronounced the anathema of 1948, to assist, as Foreign Minister, at Tito’s triumphal entry into Moscow. But there have been even weightier motives Tor Molotov’s removal. Preparations are now made m Moscow for a series of rehabilitations which, in the long run, will be of even greater ideological and political consequence than Tito’s rehabilitation, and which will be even more embarrassing to Molotov. Rehabilitatin' the Purged

For some time now the Soviet press has denounced as .travesties of justice the purge trials of Stalin’s adversaries which Andrei Vvshinsky conducted m the years 1936-38. Vyshinsky’s assertion that the “confessions" upon which the verdicts in those trials were based constituted valid legal evidence is how branded as a monstrous perversion of the law. The inescapable conclusion is that the defendants in those trials. Zinoviev. .Kamenev. Rykov, Bukharin and others (not to speak of Trotsky) were innocent of the crimes attributed to them. The Soviet leaders have, so far. hesitated to say this clearly and frankly in public; but the logic of “de-St’alinisation” will soon compel them to muster courage to carry out this (from their viewpoint) most difficult act of rehabilitation.

Nothing, would be more incongruous than to proclaim the rehabilitation while Mr Molotov remained in high office. As I pointed out in a previous article, the constitutional responsibility for the major purge trials rests on Mr Molotov for it was under his Premiership. which lasted from 1930 till 1941. that they were framed. Mr Molotov has resigned from the Foreign Ministry, but he still is one of the Vice-Premiers and a member of the party’s Presidium. It remains to be seen how long he will be permitted to hold these offices. The denunciation of all the “perversions of justice” com | mitted while he was Premier has thrown the gravest discredit on him. It should not be forgotten that the new Soviet generation has imbibed the story of the purge trials, in its Stalinist version, from school textbooks. and has grown uu with the idea that the victims were in fact traitors, spies, and saboteurs. The recent revelations have come to this eeneration as a great moral shock. The final and now inescapable rehabilitation will be an even greater shock. People inevitably ask who. apart from Stalin, was responsible for the denounced misdeeds. Only a few days before Molotov’s resignation. Bagirov, the former Premier of Soviet Azerbaidjan, was executed, because, it was said, he framed false accusations and staged false trials. It will be only natural for Soviet citizens to reason that if a provincial dignitary is so mercilessly punished for abuses of power, then surely the. former Premier of the Soviet Union, who presided over much worse abuses at the very centre of power, should also stand trial. Stalin’s Accomplices It is difficult to see how the men of the present ruling group are going to solve this bloody tangle. Nearly all of them have been Stalin’s willing or unwilling accomplices; and so they are not inclined to fix clearly the responsibilties for the past and to inflict punishment on Molotov. Nor can, in truth, the legacy of the Stalinist terror be properly disposed of by new trials and executions—that is, by a wave of anti-Stalinist terror. But intense emotions and passions are now aroused by this issue; and it cannot be ruled out that the present leaders rtiay yet seek to appease these passions by making a scapegoat of the man who was Stalin’s second-in-command over so many years. In foreign affairs the change of Ministers does not foreshadow any dis- • tinct change of policy. For some time • Mr Molotov had already been removed from the effective direction of his de-

partment and made; to suffer humiliation after humiliation. Not he out Bulganin and Khrushchev received important foreign visitors went on missions abroad, and dealt cur * rent diplomatic business. In the central committee Mr Molotov was under strong attack from none other than Mr Shepilov. the new Foreign Minister. Thus the change of ministers puts a seal on a change of policy already accomplished.

Contrast in Character Western diplomacy will find in Mr Shepilov a man very different internner from Mr Molotov; it would, indeed. be difficult to find two more contrasting characters. Mr Molotov was the perfect bureaucrat of the Stalin era. orthodox, shrewd, yet dullminded. suspicious, secretive, and impassive. Mr Shepilov is one of those younger party intellectuals who somehow managed to preserve a certain independence of mind even in the ritualistic atmosphere of the Stalin era. He is quick-minded, sharp-witted, and full of verve. He also appears to be much more educated as a Marxist theorist and an economist than his pre-

decessor. , . . , Mr Molotov was almost a gym do 1 of the isolationism of the Stalin era, with its obtuseness and lack of sensitiveness to the- outside world; and this was reflected in his ignorance of any foreign language. The new Minister brings to his iob a far greater knowledge of world affairs acquired from, among other things, reading much in foreign languages, Molotov’s habits of thought were formed at a time when Western Europe still was. or seemed to be, the centre of world policy: and old Bolshevik though he is. he belonged essentially to the nineteenth century diplomatic school whose horizon rarely transcended Europe. He felt completely out of his depth whenever he stepped into the “Anglo-Saxon world, and in his diplomatic conceptions he made little or no allowance for the rising nations of Asia and Africa. Mr Shepilov is much more a man of Ihis century. The Anglo-Saxon world has

loomed very large on his horizon; he appears to have studied diligently English and American history. And in his diplomatic calculations he gives much weight to the affairs not only of Asia and Africa but also of Latin America. Molotov Under Attack It was on these points that Shepilov attacked Molotov, holding that Molotov pursued his diplomatic action on too narrow a basis, as a game between great powers only, and that he neglected the opportunities open to Russia in the vast “uncommitted” areas of the world. Molotov, indeed, viewed suspiciously the nations that remained neutral in the cold war; and he treated the governments of India. Burma. Indonesia. Egypt, etc., as mere stooges of Western imperialism. Against this. Shepilov insisted on the need for Soviet diplomacy to encourage neutralism and to treat India. Burma. Indonesia, and the Arab States with the consideration and respect due to independent States. He castigated Molotov’s tactical rigidity and lack of initiative. He carried the day within the central committee. His was, to some extent, the initiative for Khrushchev’s and Bulganin’s visit to India; he undertook to fest his line in

Egypt, which h£ did with notable success; and he had the satisfaction of being able to listen to Molotov’s “selfcriticism” at the twentieth congress of the Soviet Communist Party. Mr Shepilov is undoubtedly the rising star in the Soviet firmament He may be expected to conduct foreign policy fortiter in re, mediocriter in modo. He will, to quote Theodor® Roosevelt’s dictum, carry a big stick and speak softly—unlike Molotov, who preferred to >peak rudely. But the contrast between the two Ministers is nrobablv less a matter of personalities than of the different situations in Which each has had to work. Molotov’s outlook fitted a time when the Soviet Union acted from weakness, inferiority, and fear. First it was fear of Europe at large, then fear of the Third Reich, and finally fear of the -American atomic monopoly. Soviet diplomacy then relied on the defences of the weak: secrecy, stone-walling, bluff, and surprise. Mr Molotov carried a rather short stick during most of the time when he spoke so rudely: but he found soft speech rather uncongenial even after the stick had become much bigger. The Bigger Stick Just how much the stick had become bigger was indicated by Mr Shepilov, when at the recent party congress, he pointed out that before the Second World War Communism was in control of only 7 per cent, of the worlcrs industrial output, but that it now controlled not less than 30 per cent., and was rapidly increasing its share. These two figures stand for two different eras of Soviet diplomacy; and the different eras require different men.

It should, perhaps, be added that in one crucial respect the former Foreign Minister probably represented a more conciliatory attitude towards the West than that which his successor is likely to take. Mr Molotov was still vaguely inclined to consider a settlement with the West on the basis of Germany’s unification. This seems now to be ruled out in Moscow. Mr Shenilov will, indeed, sneak snftly, avoid provocation, and make the most of Russia’s “unilateral disarmament”: but he enters the staee with an awareness of the new power . which backs his diplomacy, and with quite a new sense of confidence. (World Copyright Reserved)