DISMISSAL IN RUSSIA

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28765, 10 December 1958, Page 17

DISMISSAL IN RUSSIA

Security Chief “Transferred” (NJt. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 11 p.m.) LONDON, December 9. The announcement in Moscow of the transfer to other work of Russia’s security chief, General Ivan Serov, was interpreted by most British newspapers today as meaning that he was demoted.

The “News Chronicle” said his dismissal was closely related to the forthcoming Soviet Communist Party Congress.

The congress, the first to be held since the one three years ago at which Mr Khrushchev denounced tyranny of Stalin, was intended to set the final seal on the Russian Prime Minister’s undisputed leader, ship, the newspaper said.

It was believed the congress would pronounce the final condemnation of the anti-party group of Molotov, Malenkov, Kaganovich and Shepilov.

It would be askecfeat the congress why Marshal Bulganin, dismissed 16 months after the others, was not denounced right at the start. . The only answer Mr Khrushchev could give was that for more than a year he was not aware ot Bulganin’s guilty association with the group, the “News Chronicle” said. For this he would be obliged to blame slackness in the state security organisations, whose duty it was to watch over the loyalty of every party member—in other words. General Serov. General Serov, accompanied Mr Khrushchev and Marshal Bulganin, to India, Burma, and Pakistan in 1955. He preceded them to England to make security arrangements for their visit in 1956, and in 1957 accompanied them to Finland and Czechoslovakia. He began his secret police work under Stalin in the 1930’s and shot to the top with Mr Khrushchev. He always personally supervised Mr Khrushchev's own security wherever the Soviet leader went. The formula “in connexion with his taking up other work” (used in the announcement of the change) is regularly used by Soviet propaganda to cover up demotions, the Associated Press said. Career in Secret Police General Serov, 54, balding and freckle-faced, is a hero of the Soviet Union and the holder of four Orders ,of Lenin. They are directly associated with his police career. He is said to have been awarded the first Order of Lenin for organising deportations from Sovietoccupied Poland in 1940. Earlier that year, as Deputy Commissar of the People’s Commissariat of State Security, it was alleged, he had arranged deportations from the Baltic States when they were absorbed into the Soviet Union. , He is also said to have been involved, in the deportations of thousands of Crimean Tartars and other minority groups, the supplying of prison labour to run the East German uranium mines and the marshalling of forced labour battalions for home construction of the Volga-Don canal. Comment in U.S. United States experts on Soviet affairs tonight interpreted the removal of General Serov from his post as a demotion that would start a flood of speculation about the position in the Kremlin hierarchy of Mr Khrushchev, a Reuter correspondent reported. , With only a one-sentence Tass announcement to work on, these experts hesitated to einbark upon this kind of speculation. But one of them noted that the Soviet security chief had certainly been “amenable to Mr Khrushchev’s wishes" in the past. Thus it was hard to see what could have led to General Serov’s removal unless, conceivably, other Kremlin leaders than Mr Khrushchev had demanded his dismissal. Actor Leaves Eyes To Science (Rec. 9 p.m.) HOLLYWOOD. December 9. The actor, Tyrone Power, left his eyes to medical science, it was disclosed yesterday. Mr Power, who suffered a fatal heart attack while at work on a film in Spain on November 15 directed in his will that his eyes be removed and given to the Estelle Doheny Eye Foundation.