KHRUSHCHEV’S RULE

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28321, 5 July 1957, Page 11

KHRUSHCHEV’S RULE

“More Powerful Than Ever”

(Rec. 11.20 p.m.) WASHINGTON, July 4. Nikita Khrushchev emerged today as a far more powerful figure than he had ever been—possibly with the opportunity of building himself into a dictator, John Hightower, the American Associated Press diplomatic correspondent, said today. This was the assessment in Washington in the wake of yesterday’s announcement of the expulsion of four top Soviet officials from the Communist Party leadership, he wrote.

Since Mr Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, had been the dominant leader for several years, the expectation in Washington was that the dismissal of the four—apparently because they wanted to return to Stalinism in some respects —did not mean that basic Soviet foreign and domestic policies would be altered.

On the contrary, Washington experts believed that the policies of peaceful co-existence, negotiating with the West on disarmament, leeking to extend Soviet influ-

ence in Asia and the Middle East, and trying to develop the Soviet Union internally would be pursued, perhaps even more vigorously than before. In the simplest terms, Hightower said, Mr Khrushchev appeared to have succeeded in ridding himself of several “no” men in the presidium, the policymaking body of the party and the real centre of power in the Soviet Union.

The expulsions excited intense curiosity in the highest official quarters in Washington. While there had been some sign of spectacular events in the making, the actual removal of men whose names had been prominent in Soviet leadership for years took official Washington by surprise. Analysing a leading article in “Pravda,” State Department officials had been struck by its emphasis on the determination of the party leadership to follow the anti-Stalinist line laid down at the 20th Party Congress in Moscow last year. That was the congress at which Mr Khrushchev made his direct attack on Stalin. The significance of this seemed to be that Mr Khrushchev was in control of the party line, Hightower said. Ever since Stalin’s death in March. 1953. there had been periodic argument among tnp United States specialists on the Soviet Union as to whether the system of committee rule which replaced Stalin’s dictatorship could survive.

The one point on which there seemed to be general agreement was that Mr Khrushchev, who had sometimes been described as “first among equals’’ or the “chairman of the board.” stood out now as a very powerful man. able to decide the fate of those who too long and too persistently disagreed with him.

“Cleavage With Stalinist Era”

(Rec. 12.30 a.m.) MOSCOW, July 4. The expulsions from the top ranks of the Soviet Communist Party consolidates the enormous power of the Central Committee behind the stocky figure of Mr Nikita Khrushchev, who is now not only first secretary of the Party, but prime mover in all the essential policies. The expulsions remove from the political limelight those old Bolsheviks who rose to eminence tmder Stalin and who looked iskance at party moves expressed

through Mr Khrushchev and who were against his schemes in agriculture, housing, and industry. Mr Khrushchev’s insistence on heavy industry was pointed out in today’s “Pravda” leading article, which spoke of “attempts to depart from the party’s general line for priority development of heavy industry—an attempt which has not succeeded.” The removal of such old Bolsheviks as Mr Kaganovich and Mr Molotov, who were senior members of the party *when Mr Khrushchev was struggling upwards,. was taken as a final cleavage with the remnants of the Stalinist era.