RUSSIA AFTER KHRUSHCHEV—II COMING PARTY CONGRESS WILL TEST THE HIERARCHY

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30688, 2 March 1965, Page 12

RUSSIA AFTER KHRUSHCHEV—II COMING PARTY CONGRESS WILL TEST THE HIERARCHY

(By

Isaac Dcutscher.)

This second part of Isaac Deutscher’s article about the postKhrushchev regime in Russia begins with a continuation of Mr Deutscher’s analysis of the powerful lobbies and group and sectional interests which press on the leadership. Three groups discussed in the first article were the Nuclear Scientists and their associates; the Chief Planners and Managers of heavy industry; the Trade Union Lobby. Others, in approximate orders of importance, are:—

(4) THE LOBBY OF MUNICIPALITIES overlaps partly with the trade union lobby. Its importance arises from the fact that since Stalin’s death, in the course of only 12 years, the urban population of the U.S.S.R. has increased by about 50 million souls, by as much as the entire population of Great Britain, or France, or Italy. The demand for housing has grown incomparably faster than the housing space provided; and the municipalities and the trade unions have had to press that demand on the ruling group, especially in the last few years, when construction has been falling short of the Plan. (5) THE AGRICULTURAL INTEREST is represented on the one hand by the wellorganised and influential chiefs of the State-owned farms, the “Sovkhozy,” and, on the other, by the timid and, rather unrepresentative spokesmen of the collective farms, the “Kolkhozy.” State farming had gained much from Khrushchev’s decision to bring under the plough vast areas of virgin land —the new farms on those lands are State-owned. However, since the partial fiasco of the experiment, the “Kolkhoz” lobby has been gaining some ground; and it has been further strengthened since Khrushchev’s departure. (6) It is not quite clear where exactly in this list the OFFICERS CORPS of the conventional military forces ought to be placed. Its influence has violently fluctuated in the post-Stalin era. Twice it reached culmination; at the moment of Beria’s downfall, in the summer of 1953; and by the time of Molotov’s and Kaganovich’s demotion, in the summer of 1957. The phantom of a Soviet Bonaparte then hovered over the Soviet scene; but it was laid in the autumn of 1957 with Marshal Zhukov’s eclipse. There are signs of a recent rise in the influence of the officers’ corps, possibly in connexion with the recovery by the conventional forces of part of their old strategic importance. However, for a variety of reasons (the continuing predominance of the nuclear services and the ageing and exit of the famous Marshals of the last war), this lobby is not likely to recapture the power it had between 1953 and 1957. (7) The LEADERS OF the many ACADEMIC INSTITUTES and their coteries derive much influence from the relevance of their research to issues of national economy. In combination with the nuclear

scientists and advanced managers, this lobby has been pressing hard for speeding the tempo of automation, for the modernisation of planning techniques, for the extensive and systematic use of com(B)e,Thee jOURNALISTIC and LITERARY LOBBIES are important for propaganda: and so the Party leaders and the men of the Party machine are sensitive to their pressure, but they are frightened of the dissent spreading among young writers. The power of that dissent showed itself lately in Moscow’s Union of Writers, when in an election an overwhelming majority rejected the official candidates and elected “heretics” to the Union’s Board. Lines Of Division Any classification and characterisation of these lobbies is bound to be schematic; it cannot reproduce the immense reality of the pressures and counter-pressures that are active in a quasi-socialist State with nearly 230 million citizens. Across the lines of division described here run the divisions between the geographic regions and the nationalities, (Great Russian, Ukrainian, Byelorussian, Georgian, Armenian, Kazakh. Uzbekh and others). All this produces an infinite complexity and variety of interests and aspirations acting on Party and State from within and without. And the lobbies and pressure groups are themselves subjected to the pressures and counter-pressures coming from the depth of society, from the mass of workers and peasants. Khrushchev’s overthrow was brought about by the exceptionally wide front which the lobbies and pressure groups had formed against him or his Government. I have in the course of the last year repeatedly discussed here the two major critical developments that brought about this situation: the disastrous state of agriculture and the conse r quent scarcity of food; and the steep decline, in consequence of the Russo-Chinese feud, of the Soviet influence over the Communist camp.

Another factor in the crisis was the widespread and explosive discontent of the working class, a discontent caused in the main by the wage freeze which Khrushchev had been tacitly imposing on industry in the course of four or five years. The full impact of this factor is becoming apparent in the light of the latest information from the U.S.S.R. According to certain Soviet opposition circles, which may be described as near-Trotsky-ist, Khrushchev’s downfall

was preceded by a strike of [all workers in Moscow's 'great ZIS Motorcar Factory and by many turbulent strikes all over the Donetz coal basin. In the Donetz basin troops were allegedly brought out, and bloody clashes followed in which 200 strikers were killed or wounded. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the reports about the events in the Donetz basin, but I have reason to believe in the complete truth of the information about the strike in Moscow. The strikes were economic, without, it seems, any political element in them; and they induced the trade union lobby to turn against Khrushchev and assist in his overthrow. Wage-freeze Cancelled While the Soviet Press has not given its readers even an inkling of these events, Khrushchev’s successors have had to begin their term of office by cancelling quietly his wage freeze and promising an immediate and radical expansion of the housing programmes. These are the real issues and pressures that shape Soviet policy. They are much larger and far more dramatic than any of the personal rivalries at the top of the party heirarchy which fascinate most Western Sovietologists. These fundamental issues decide the outcome even of the personal rivalries; they determine how. in what direction, and in whose favour, the lobbies and pressure groups exercise their influence at the level of the Central Committee. This fact accounts for the cagey behaviour and the silence of Khrushchev’s successors: the situation is too tense and grave for them to speak out and take risks. The lobbies are far more powerful and active than they were under Stalin and Khrushchev: and there is no saying how they may be affected by the restive moods of the intelligentsia, the workers, and the peasants. Public Debate And, amid all the international alarums and domestic difficulties, a major political event is approaching: the 23rd Party Congress due to be convened in the second half of this year. Before the Congress assembles there must be a simulacrum of a public debate, and the debate might even become real. At the Congress itself the leaders will be expected to report on the Central Committee’s work since 1961, to give some account of the Khrushchev crisis, to define their own attitudes and policies, and to try and gain the prestige and the public confidence which they so urgently need and still so conspicuously lack. The Congress may, of course, be postponed beyond the statutory four-year term. But in that case the leaders would merely admit that they were daunted by their tasks. Such an admission would underline the lack of any ideological and political authority at the top of the Party hierarchy and would deepen and aggravate what is already a national crisis of confidence. —World copyright reserved by Isaac Deutscher.