Nobody Really Knows

Moscow crisply announced last week that Premier Georgy Malenkov, "at his own request," had stepped out of one of the three jobs he inherited from Stalin.

The job he gave up, that of secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, is the one through which Stalin fashioned his real control over Russia, and Malenkov his claims to the succession. Now it will be occupied by a reorganized secretariat of five men, headed by Nikita S. Khrushchev, 58, the tough, slow but steady climber in the hierarchy of Soviet power, who won notoriety by his ruthlessness in putting down discontent in the Ukraine.

Washington guessed that Malenkov would not abandon so important a job voluntarily, and that, therefore, this was proof that he is not yet in full control. London guessed just the opposite: that this was proof that Malenkov is so firmly in control that he could safely relinquish one of his heaviest assignments. Outside the Kremlin, no one really knew.

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