Newspaper Page Text
Page 18
—Griffin Daily News Saturday, December 23, 1972
Russia in war and peace
Stalin’s death brought change
EDITOR’S NOTE: The death
of Stalin in 1953, followed by
the arrest and execution of his
grim security chief, Lavrenti
Beria, brought a new time to
the Soviet Union—the time
Nikita S. Khushchev. In this
seventh chapter of a series on
his four decades as a Moscow
correspondent, Henry Shapiro
tells that story.
By HENRY SHAPIRO
MOSCOW (UPI)-With Josef
Stalin dead and the overly
ambitious Beria exe
cuted, 1954 ushered in for the
Soviet Union what was in effect
another Russian revolution.
Gradually the concentration
camps were opened to disgorge
hundreds of thousands of
political prisoners, some of
whom had languished since the
early 19305.
During the latter 19505, the
lot of the peasantry was
substantially improved by for
giving old debts, lowering the
quotas for compulsory grain
deliveries, increasing the fixed
prices paid the farmers and
pumping more consumer goods
into the villages.
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Rev. Harry Hawkins
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Material incentives for work
ers and farmers were raised.
The dread midnight knock at
the door was done away with
and arrests for “dangerous
crimes against the state” were
discontinued.
In foreign affairs an effort
was made to normalize rela
tions with the United States and
other capitalist powers as well
as Yugoslavia and all of
Russia’s neighbors.
Ilya Ehrenburg’s novel “The
Thaw” (which became the
description of a new era), the
first of a series of literary
works, for the first time
frankly described the evils of
the Stalin era.
The literary magazine, Novy
Mir (New World), under the
brilliant editorship of liberal
poet Alexander Tvardovsky,
discovered a constellation of
poets and prose writers who
brought on a remarkable
revival culminating with the
publication of Alexander I.
Solzhenitsyn’s “One Day in the
Life of Ivan Denisovich.” The
latter was the first realistic
description of a Stalin era
concentration camp.
Voices of cultural dissent
were apparently too loud,
However, and grew too fast for
First Secretary Nikita S.
Krushchev who, obviously
alarmed by the development,
began cracking down with
speeches against “mavericks”
in late 1962 and early 1963.
The return to cultural ortho
doxy which was to be
intensified under Khrushchev’s
successors was dramatized by
the late premier’s quip against
abstract painters:
“A donkey with his tail in a
pail of paint could do better
than these abstractionists,”
Khrushchev pronounced, and
ended all public display of
modern art.
I missed two years of the
“Soviet thaw.” I took my wife
and daughter to America where
I spent two years as a Nieman
Fellow at Harvard, doing some
writing and public lecturing.
When the Kremlin agreed to
participate in the first post-war
summit conference with Pres
ident Eisenhower and the
British and French prime
ministers in July, 1955, United
Press sent me to Geneva to
help cover that historic event.
From my transatlantic view
point, I had watched what
appeared to be the zigzags of
Soviet foreign policy reflecting
strong disagreements between
V. M. Molotov and Khrushchev.
At the Berlin conference of
foreign ministers which I had
attended in February, 1954, it
was clear the Germany ques
tion —“the problem of prob
lems” —could not be immedi
ately solved. The Molotov hard
line which paralleled the
Western policy of “contain
ment” and “roll-back” of
communism made agreement
impossible.
Khrushchev at the time was
arguing for a more flexible
Soviet position only to be told
off by Molotov at a central
committee meeting: “Waging
foreign policy is not so simple
as raising corn, Nikita Sergeye
vich,” Molotov told him.
There was more hope at
Geneva than at Berlin. First
direct contact between the West
and post-Stalin leadership had
been made and a dialogue was
started which not only prevent
ed a new world war but
eventually led to East-West
detente.
On a more human basis what
struck me singularly was the
free and easy movements of
the Soviet delegation. The head
was then Premier Bulganin and
other members were Molotov
and Marshal Georgi Zhukov.
The Russians walked and
drove about Geneva in open
cars shopping and enjoying
themselves without the army of
bodyguards I had been accus
tomed to seeing in Moscow for
years. By contrast Eisenhower
arrived in a closed car with his
usual retinue of Secret Service
men.
When European newsmen
began making the inevitable,
invidious comparisons between
the informality of the Soviet
leaders and Eisenhower’s
remoteness and his bodyguards,
the U.S. President also began
driving about in an open car.
After the first Summit session
I ran into Charles E. Bohlen
whom I had not see for two
years. “Bulganin may be the
leader of the Soviet delega
tion,” the astute U.S. ambassa
dor to Moscow said, “but there
is no mistaking Khrushchev. He
is the boss.”
I was to get confirmation of
tliis the following year in
Ixmdon and later in Finland
and elsewhere when I saw the
ebullient Khrushchev upstage
Bulganin either by interrupting
him or insisting on a speech of
his own in which he could say
"I do not agree with my friend
Bulganin.”
The friendship lasted until
1957 when Khrushchev made
himself prime minister—one of
Uie first of his mis-steps which
led to his downfall in 1964.
Al Geneva, Bohlen filled me
in on changes in the Soviet
Union since Stalin’s death and
new opportunities for coverage
which had attracted more
Western correspondents to Mos
cow than any time since the
war. I was easily persuaded by
the United Press to return to
my Moscow post.
Leaving my family behind in
Cambridge, Mass., I arrived at
Moscow’s 1-eningradsky station
in the fail of 1955 where I was
handed an invitation from the
Canadian Embassy to a recep
tion for Foreign Minister Lester
Pearson.
I could not believe my eyes
when I got there and saw about
half of the presidium—Molotov,
Anastas Mikoyan, Georgi
Malenkov, Lazar Kaganovich
and others—chatting, drinking
and joking with foreign di
plomats.
It was a scene that could
have occurred only in the early
era. In the long Stalin
epoch Soviet leaders had
become impersonal, faceless
and invisible.
Khrushchev had already
stamped his personality on the
Soviet leadership and intro
duced a life-style that was to
last only as long as he
remained in office.
His first great coup came at
’die 20th Party Congress in
February, 1956, when he
launched his famous de-Stalini
zation campaign, the full
consequences of which are not
yet in sight.
The published speeches in
dicated a universally agreed
policy to rectify the notorious
injustices of the Stalin era, to
rehabilitate the victims, in
troduce legality and eliminate
abuses of unfettered power.
Molotov, Malenkov and
Kaganovich denounced “the
personality cult” of Stalin and
the “one-man tyranny” as
much as did Khrushchev and
Mikoyan.
But there were differences of
degree and method. This
became clear a few days later
when Moscow started buzzing
with reports of a secret speech
by Khrushchev in which he
branded Stalin no less than a
common criminal, an incompe
tent war leader and the source
of all evil since his assumption
of absolute power in 1934.
Excerpts of the speech were
read to thousands of gatherings
of party members and universi
ty students. Its highlights
became known to me at almost
the same time. Censorship
killed all references to the
speech although there was
plenty of material in the daily
newspapers about crimes con
nected with the personality
cult.
The full text of the secret
speech was never published
here. It was released by the
U.S. State Department June 4
of that year. Western Commu
nist parties suffered the embar
rassment of using the American
text.
The speech was a bombshell.
While it encouraged many to
believe the evils of the past had
been uprooted and better days
were in sight, a whole
generation of citizens reared in
tlie Stalin legend was shocked
and traumatized.
Khrushchev himself blew hot
and cold on the subject—one of
his many inconsistencies. Some
times realizing he may have
gone too far he would say, “We
all are Stalinists.” This is what
he did in 1957 in a speech to
students of Moscow University
where he joined the visiting
Mao Tse-tung in praising Stalin.
Earlier that year he managed
to oust Molotov, Kaganovich,
Malenkov and others for
alleged “anti-party fac
tionalism.” This was when the
majority of the Presidium, fed
up with Khrushchev's antics
and led by Molotov, tried to
deprive him of the party
leadership.
It was the first time the
Presidium was defied and
defeated in an attempt to purge
its ranks. Arguing that he had
been elected to the job by the
Central Committee and not by
the Presidium, Khrushchev
hastily called a plenary meet
ing at which the Presidium was
over-ruled. The former peasant
and coal-miner again outwitted
such battle-scarred and sophis
ticated statesmen as Molotov
(whom John Foster Dulles
called the ablest foreign minis
ter of our age) and came out on
top—the unchallenged (as yet)
ruler.
Marshal Zhukov, at the
Central Committee, had defend
ed Khrushchev “on behalf of
the armed forces,” a persua
sive position perhaps in winning
over the members to support
the First Secretary. But al
though the act elevated Zhukov
to the Presidium, the first time
a professional soldier had
reached such heights, it actual
ly amounted to his political
suicide.
The Army had never been
permitted to exercise judg
ments independent of the party
or to speak as a separate
instrument of government.
From I>enin to Leonid I.
Brezhnev the party has been
aware of the possible dangers
of a “man on horseback” and
saw to it that military policy
was made by it and not the
military leaders.
The divergences between
Khrushchev and his associates
revived talk abroad of an
imminent takeover by the army
especially after Zhukov, war
hero number’ one, became a
member of the Presidium.
During a short trip to
Cambridge in 1956 I got myself
involved in a discussion with
two eminent Harvard Krem
linologists who offered to bet
me SIOO that within a year
Zhukov would seize power and
establish a military dictator
ship. My reply then: “Khrush
chev can get rid of Zhukov in
five minutes.” Which is exactly
what he did less than a year
later.
Upon returning from a trip to
Yugoslavia and Albania in late
1957, Zhukov was greeted at the
airport with a report that he
had been discharged as defense
minister. The act was followed
by a violent press campaign
against Zhukov accusing him of
trying to place the army above
tlie Party. Khrushchev success
fully emulated Stalin who, too,
after tlie war, had downgraded
Zhukov and relegated him to a
relatively minor provincial
command. He was brought
back to Moscow only after
Stalin’s death.
A few weeks after Zhukov’s
ouster Khrushchev gave me his
first exclusive interview to a
resident correspondent. I had
had many talks with Khrush
chev. I had developed a good
rapport with him. and could ply
him with questions at diplomat
ic and Kremlin receptions
which in the early years he
attended frequently.
Often he would desert a
group of ambasadors encircling
him and come over to me to
exchange quips and answer
questions. Perhaps one of the
reasons was that I was one of
the few Western correspondents
who spoke Russian although I
did not know as many
anecdotes as my interlocutor.
Since these conversations
were public I shared the
information with my col
leagues, but I also had several
private opportunities to talk
with the premier and his aides
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liere and abroad. However, it
took me two full years before I
persuaded him to give me an
exclusive interview. Following
his political successes in 1956
and 1957 that put him in full
control, Nikita S. Khrushchev
was riding high at the Kremlin.
It was in this circumstance that
he gave me a long-sought
exclusive interview.
I raised with him the question
of government stability in the
Soviet Union, noting that within
a matter of a few weeks more
than half the Presidium had
been ousted, including the
Defense Minister, Marshal
Georgi K. Zhukov.
“Stability?” Khrushchev re
peated with a twinkle in his
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eye. “We easily removed (V.
M.) Molotov, the man who for
so many years was second to
Stalin alone, and (Lazar)
Kaganovich and all the others.
You call this instability?
“As for Zhukov,” the premier
went on, “he fancied himself a
Stalin. What a man Stalin was.
Well, Zhukov was not even half
a Stalin or a quarter of Stalin.”
The question of the position
of the military is frequently
raised again whenever the
present Defense Minister Mar
shal Andrei Grechko makes a
diplomatic trip or a political
speech. His appointment at the
death of Marshal Rodion
Malinovsky in 1967 was inter-
(Continued on page 20)