Molotov Counter-Attacks With Letter To Moscow

Press, Volume C, Issue 29656, 28 October 1961, Page 15

Molotov Counter-Attacks With Letter To Moscow

(N -Z J’.A.-Rruter—Copyright) VIENNA, October 27. Mr Vyacheslav Molotov was not at his office at the International Atomic Energy Agency yesterday—for the first time since Soviet leaders began making serious accusations against him at the Soviet Communist Party Congress in Moscow.

_. The Allegations against the former Soviet Foreign Minister began more than a week ago. Since then the wave of criticism hu mounted and reached a climax last night when it was announced that Mr Molotov had written a letter to the party* central co<Tan>ittee. Speaker after speaker at the Congress has called for the expulsion of the “antiparty" group from the party, but in the last few days the demand has concentrated on Mr Molotov (who has been described as the group’s ideological leader), Mr Kaganovich. a former Deputy Prime Minister, and Mr Malenkov, a former Prime Minister. Talking Point ■Hie news ot the letter which Mr Molotov sent to the central committee, attacking Mr Khrushchev's 26-yeer-plan for the Soviet Union was the major talking point of the Congress yesterday. He was said to have attacked the committee and to have described Mr Khrushchev’s new draft programme as "anti-revolutionary, pacifist and revisionist”—aome of the worst crimes in contemporary communist jargon. Mr Molotov refused to speak with reporters when he returned from a walk in Vienna yesterday afternoon He appeared annoyed by the growing attention focussed on him since the Soviet leaders began making their allegations against him. As reporters attempted to question him, Mt Molotov said. “Nyet” ("No”) and waved the reporters briskly aside. At the Congress yesterday. Mr Molotov was called an “incorrigible and malicious political speculator*’ by Mr Otto Kuusinen, a secretary of the Soviet Communist Party's Central Committee. Police Chief’s Criticism Mr Alexander Shelepin. who is successor to General Leonid Serov as head of the Soviet secret police, said that the “anti-party’’ group bore “personal responsibility for the physical destruction’’ of prominent party leaders. Mr Shelepin. whose office no longer wields the power it did under Stalin, cited “new facts’’ to back his statement, according to official reports of the Congress. He was ait pains to say, however, that the “antiparty group” had been routed

ideologically and were no danger to the party now. Mr Shelepin declared that the time had come to ask the party’s control commission to consider bringing the group to “strictest responsibility.” Mr Shelepin said that the chief task of the present day security police was to hunt down spies. He alleged that the activities of the foreign intelligence services, particularly the American, had been stepped up. He also claimed that the secret police had “put an end for ever” to the “violations of socialist legality" which occurred under Stalin. "Agents” Found Mr Shelepin said that 4500 Western agents had been discovered in the Soviet Union in recent years, the Associated Press reported. He said American intelligence agents were creating trouble in Berlin, in the Congo, in Cuba and in Brazil Things were getting better for people who fell into the hands of the Soviet police. Mr Shelepin said. “We look for the truth and we let the defendant testify,” he said. “A prisoner can no longer be given a police hearing and condemned out of hand.”

Mr Shelepin said that the old days of the purge periods were gone for ever. “As never before, personal immunity is being observed in our country in accordance

with the Soviet Consitution.” he said. “Actions of spies and other enemies of the State will continue to be punished with the whole force of Soviet law.” The former President. Marshal Klementi Voroshilov, was urged to confess his antiparty sins before the Congress yesterday. The suggestion was reported to be made by the chief of the Stalingrad region, Mr Alexei Shkolnikov, who called on the 80-year-old Marshal to explain his part in the “anti-party" plot to unseat Mr Khrushchev in June, 1957. The Marshal, a member of the party since 1903, has been absent from the Congress since midday on Wednesday.