The Chummy Commissar

(See Cover)

It was the first press conference ever held by a Premier of the Soviet Union. Some press conference. Flanked by the other Soviet delegates to the Parley at the Summit-Khrushchev, Molotov, Zhukov and Gromyko--Marshal Nikolai Bulganin marched into a wood-paneled conference room within the Kremlin's walls and, stationing himself beneath a portrait of Lenin, read a three-page statement to 65 waiting reporters. Questions were not allowed, and the other Russian leaders said not one word. Their presence simply confirmed the obvious fact that Nikolai Bulganin spoke for all of them--for the Communist Party, the Soviet government and the Red army.

The Soviet delegation, said Bulganin, would make a "great effort" at Geneva to secure a period of peace. "We have never intended, and do not intend, to attack anybody in the future."

Russia is anxious for a temporary letup in the arms race, he implied. "Inflated military budgets are an enormous burden upon the shoulders of the masses . . ." But no one should think Russia would be leading from weakness: "We have an army and, in our opinion, a very good army--with all the necessary equipment."

The soft words flowed on: "Some people think that capitalism is better than [Communism]. We are convinced that the opposite is the case. But this argument cannot be settled by force, through war. Let everyone prove in peaceful economic competition that he is right. There are many unsettled questions in the world. And this will be the case in the future. Such is life."

"It would be naive to think," he concluded, that at Geneva, "we shall solve all the complex international problems. But if all participants show good will ... we undoubtedly will be able to find common ground, and chart ways for an effective settlement."

Premier Bulganin is something less than the boss of all Russia, but he is considerably more than a figurehead. Under the rules of the game as it is played in the Soviet Union, he has proved himself in many fields a first class administrator. In the rough and tumble of Communist politics, he has shown himself clever, adaptable, tough. He is a dedicated Communist, versed in its dialectic and a prisoner of its rigidities, but his whole career has shown him also to be a flexible operator with a talent for survival.

Little Kremlin. The day after his speech to the press. Marshal Bulganin emplaned for Geneva along with his two portly comrades, Khrushchev and Zhukov. Ahead of them by one day had gone stony-faced Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov and Stony-Face the Younger, Andrei Gromyko, First Deputy Foreign Minister. With such a constellation at his side, Bulganin established a Little Kremlin, within five miles of President Eisenhower's Little White House, on the shores of Lake Geneva.

With Khrushchev also in the party, there could be no doubt, as Bulganin told a U.S. consular official, that the talks would be "at the very summit." The American answered that he did not think that one delegation member was at the highest level. Quick as a flash, Bulganin asked, "You mean Zhukov?" And then, without even hinting at the possibility that the Communists hope to capitalize on Marshal Zhukov's old-soldier friendship with Dwight Eisenhower, he set out to justify Zhukov's inclusion. "How can questions of disarmament be solved without him?" asked Bulganin. "Zhukov might not agree with the decisions we take without him, but if he is there, we can all agree together."

The Russian "we" at Geneva was plainly meant to demonstrate that there is not yet a Russian "I."

Bulganin, as Premier, officially heads the mission, and thus a great deal at Geneva may depend on the character and personality of this 60-year-old marshal. Only in recent months, in the searching and candid lens of foreign cameras, has the world had a good look at him. All his life he has served Communism and his country--as policeman and purger, businessman and bureaucrat, Defense Minister and Premier. Yet, until six months ago, he has made little more impact on the Western world than a splendidly caparisoned beefeater, opening and closing the door through which more ambitious men approached the Soviet throne room.

Nikolai Alexandrovich, as the comrades call their Premier, is a marshal of the Soviet Union. With his shoulder boards bouncing and his chestful of medals ajangle, he can cut a fine figurehead of a military man. Yet Marshal Bulganin has never actually commanded anything more formidable than a posse of secret policemen.

Liaison Man. In the roster of Soviet eminence, Bulganin until recently took a back seat, not only to the party bosses, Khrushchev and Malenkov and Kaganovich, and the government officials, Molotov and Mikoyan, but even, in some respects, to his subordinate: Hero of the Soviet Union Georgy Zhukov. Bulganin learned self-effacement in the hardest school of all: Joseph Stalin's, where self-effacement was often the price of survival. On the dictator's 70th birthday, every member of the Politburo was required to compose a paean of praise for the Soviet newspapers. Khrushchev contrived to include 45 separate mentions of Stalin's name and Malenkov 57, but Bulganin topped them all. He mentioned the boss 108 times in his piece--easily a record.

In the wary balancings of power that have gone on since Stalin died, Bulganin has a unique qualification: his experience as liaison man between the untrusting masters of the Kremlin and the untrusting brasshats of Moscow's Frunze Street, the Red army GHQ. The Kremlin used Bulganin as "the eye of the party on the army." At one point, his job was to cut down to size such wartime heroes as Zhukov and Konev. But Bulganin also seems to have ingratiated himself somewhat with the military people by becoming a lobbyist in the Kremlin for better weapons and higher army pay.

Soviet Schweppesman. When Khrushchev nominated Bulganin to become the Soviet Union's sixth Premier, he told the Supreme Soviet: "We all know Nikolai Alexandrovich ..." The fact was that few in Moscow did know him. But within a matter of weeks the marshal had become a hearty, back-slapping adman for a Soviet campaign of sweet reasonableness, with a quip, a smile and a "come and see my place in the country" for almost every foreign diplomat in Moscow.

When Nehru arrived in Moscow, Bulganin set a precedent by driving through the streets with him in an open car. Last week he offhandedly refused the barbed-wire fence which the Swiss offered to build around his Geneva villa. At parties and receptions, Premier Bulganin has set the style for the new aggressive chumminess, or coexistence by cocktail party.

Bulganin enjoys his new headman role, which fits him as neatly as his custom made pin-stripe suits. Unlike some of his colleagues, who parade their ill manners as a proof of their proletarian ancestry, he can be effusively polite, a man of mellifluous phrases and old-fashioned courtesy. Bulganin never bellows or uses foul language, as his old friend Kaganovich does; he has polished manners, clean fingernails, and never spills his soup, as Stalin used to do. In different circumstances, Bulganin might have let his beard grow and become a Soviet Schweppesman, peddling bottled charm.

Women find Bulganin a regular old smoothie ("A real gentleman," cooed one of the chorus girls of the touring Comedie Franc,aise, after Bulganin paid a visit backstage at the Bolshoi). Nikolai Alexandrovich returns the compliment. During the Russians' visit to Belgrade (TIME, June 6), a Western newsman watched Bulganin ogle a girl translator. Later, at the ballet, Tito remarked that Belgrade's dancers were easier on the eyes than negotiators. "Yes," mused Bulganin, eyes onstage. "Khrushchev never had legs like these."

Hand of Terror. At 60, the Premier of Russia is hearty and handsome, an erect, vigorous little man. Struggling to characterize his bluff good looks, the New York Times, in a single article, compared Buiganin to "the concertmaster of a prewar provincial German band," to "that traditional turn-of-the-century figure, 'foxy grandpa,' " to "a Brussels banker" (Bulganin once ran the Soviet State bank). He also has the look of a riverboat gambler: the courtly grin is matched by an appraising eye.

In a face softened by comfortable living, the appraising eye is the one conspicuous reminder of Bulganin's unamiable past. As a 24-year-old Chekist (secret policeman), he sacked every non-Bolshevik trade union and peasant cooperative in his home town, Nizhni-Novgorod (now Gorky), and earned a local reputation as "the hand of the Red Terror." Today his outward benignity and a certain dignified reserve gain by contrast with the party secretary, Khrushchev, though both grew up in the same hard school.

Where Khrushchev, the proletarian, overflows with animal vigor, Bulganin exudes good manners 1;and a faint whiff of eau de cologne. Khrushchev's idea of fun is to strip off his shirt and wrestle with his colleagues; Bulganin's sport is fishing, and he loves ballet. "Dress Bulganin up in striped pants and a black coat, and he'd look at home in any European Parliament," says one Western diplomat. "Khrushchev in the same garb would still look what he isa tough proletarian."

Watching Bulganin take hold of his new job as Premier, Moscow's foreign diplomats have been impressed by his relaxed manner and self-confidence. Once, referring to Stalin (six months after Stalin's death). Bulganin remarked casually: "He messed everything up." To one veteran U.S. observer, Bulganin seems "reasonable, intelligent and able." "He talks freely about delicate problems," said a Dispatch to the Quai d'Orsay. "He is a master at creating an atmosphere of relaxed tension." Recently, before deciding to go himself to Geneva, Khrushchev remarked at a garden party: "I trust Bulganin. No one has to hover at his elbow."

The Committee. Western diplomats and analysts are in general agreement that Russia now has a committee government, in which no one has clearly emerged as No. 1, because most of the committeemen are resolved that no one should. Khrushchev, as party boss (Stalin's old job) and by force of personality, is the man with most to say. But the rest do not jump to do Khrushchev's bidding as they did in Stalin's day. At least not yet.

Though top-level strategy is hammered out collectively, execution and considerable power of discretion is often delegated to one committee member. Thus, Molotov at San Francisco agreed to pay half the cost of a U.S. plane shot down over the Bering Strait, after only the most casual refer-back to Moscow. Mikoyan, negotiating the economic clauses of the Austrian state treaty, accepted a sizable reduction in Austria's reparations payments without leaving the room.

A rough consensus of Western diplomatic opinion on the committee members:

KHRUSHCHEV: "A brute," says a senior Western ambassador. Khrushchev meddles in all fields but, except for the mechanics of powergrabbing, is really knowledgeable in none. A headlong, rough-house character with more drive and gusto than the others, he also has a peasant's cunning. He is gradually packing the Politburo with men of his own choosing, and seems not to have suffered for making a drunken spectacle of himself in Belgrade.

BULGANIN : The only man among them who has experience in every aspect of Soviet leadership--police, party, industry, state and army. "He has no blind side," says one French authority. An American diplomat judges that Bulganin is stronger than most Westerners suspect. "I got the impression," said another, "that he takes orders from no man." In public appearances, however, he seems content to let Khrushchev steal the show.

MOLOTOV: The world's most experienced diplomat; a tenacious, relentless negotiator. As an Old Bolshevik, he has considerable Kremlin prestige, but is not regarded as a contestant in the power stakes.

ZHUKOV: Perhaps the most popular man in Russia, as the result of his World War II victories. Should the power struggle break out again, the army's--and Zhukov's--role might prove decisive. But Zhukov is not in the Politburo, and so far, the evidence is that he has not exerted his strength for other than army ends.

KAGANOVICH: An old hand, perhaps the most self-effacing of the lot, and therefore apt to be underrated on the outside, but regarded as a steadying influence among rival factions.

MIKOYAN: A shrewd, sharp Armenian and a wizard at trade and barter. Intellect: brilliant. Force of character: limited.

MALENKOV: . The only party boss in Soviet history to lose his job and keep his head. A senior Western ambassador rates him as the "shrewdest, most intelligent and most competent of them all," but his influence seems currently to be in a waning phase.

Vacant Seat? "Observing these men and the way they behave among themselves," wrote Walter Kindermann. the official translator who accompanied the Austrian delegation to Moscow, "there seems to be hardly any doubt that [Stalin's] place is vacant at present. All these men are strong personalities. One or the other may at a given time be in the limelight for a short while. But I certainly did not get the impression that there is one among them who ruled over the others."

In the long run, the pull of personal ambition, the bent of Communist doctrine, and the lessons of Soviet experience (both Lenin and Stalin engraved personal dictatorship on the heart of the Communist state), are likely to impel one or another power-grabber to get too grabby. For the time being, however, Khrushchev, Bulganin & Co. seem to be resolved to make their committee work. Theirs is a community of interest in a good thing that they want to hang on to; a scuffle for power that jeopardized their police state might be the end of them all. One thing in their favor is that they have been at it together for 30 years or more: they are used to one another, they have killed and survived together, and are not apt to make sentimental mistakes about each other.

"Next Day-Pfft." Bulganin's career illustrates this interlocking of interests among the Kremlin gang. As a Chekist in home-town Nizhni Novgorod, he served under Kaganovich (1918), Molotov (1919), Mikoyan (1920). The official Soviet biography makes Bulganin a proletarian, born of a "worker's family," but his father was probably a clerk, and sufficiently beyond the proletariat to be able to send his boy Nikolai to technical high school, where he got a solid grounding in math, physics and German.

Bulganin joined the party at the age of 22, a few crucial months before the Revolution. He thus qualifies as one of the few Old Bolsheviks still in power in the Kremlin (the others: Voroshilov, Molotov, Kaganovich). Bulganin served his apprenticeship as an agitator, making trouble among the textile workers. After the fighting, he switched to the Cheka, where he bloodily put the agitators down. It was Kaganovich who sent Bulganin to Moscow to serve on the High Soviet of People's Economy. The High Soviet's appointed task: "To catch up with and surpass America."

Bulganin was appointed director of the huge Moscow Electrical Station. He knew little about engineering, but the official biography explains that he "completed his education on the run, from the technicians under him." A Swiss engineer, selling machinery there at the time, says that overnight, slackness vanished in the plant. "When a man was no good," says the Swiss engineer, "he would be there one day and next day--pfft."

Mayor of Moscow. As a result of Bulganin's efforts, the Moscow Electrical Station fulfilled its target in the first Five-Year Plan in less than three years. Bulganin's reward was an assignment to succeed Kaganovich as chairman of the Moscow Soviet--in effect, Mayor of Moscow. Bulganin built boulevards and six bridges across the Moskva River. From Britain and France he imported such "improvements" as a fleet of trolley buses and a set of spanking white gloves for the capital's traffic cops. Bulganin worked with Kaganovich and Khrushchev, then a district party boss, on the building of the Moscow subway. With Georgy Malenkov, then the chief of Moscow party cadres, he purged the party apparatus. One day Voroshilov complained that his limousine was constantly being held up on a narrow boulevard. Bulganin personally supervised the widening of the entire street.

Bulganin, as mayor, traveled widely in Western Europe. Another mayor, Konrad Adenauer of Cologne, asked him how he handled "Moscow's 4,000 city councilors." Bulganin answered in fluent German, as if explaining everything: "We simply hold our meetings in the opera house." Said Adenauer 20 years later: "I had an excellent impression of Herr Bulganin. Meanwhile, he has become Premier and I have become Chancellor. We both have done quite well."

Jack-of-All-Trades. Bulganin's administrative talents soon caught Stalin's eye. He was--,and still is--an energetic jack-of-all-problems, in business, bureaucracy or statecraft. Knowing little about banking, he became head of the Gosbank, Soviet equivalent of the U.S. Federal Reserve. Neither chemist nor metallurgist, (serving alongside Molotov) he whipped Russian production of explosives and gun metals to record heights in 1939.

When Hitler attacked Russia, Bulganin, a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, made a name for himself by being the first high Soviet official to "volunteer" for war service at the fighting front. Bulganin became the civilian organizer behind Marshal Georgy Zhukov's defense of the Soviet capital. Since he has become Premier, his biography has been edited to paint a picture of Bulganin at the barricades. He was never at the barricades but he--and Moscow's embattled citizenry--did the necessary job. As a reward, Bulganin got a general's rank in the Red army and rapid advancement to the post of political commissar. While Khrushchev, in the days of German retreat from Russia, was liquidating the rebellious peasants who had sided with the Germans in the Ukraine, Bulganin was doing the same job in Belorussia.

On the Rise. Attached to the victorious army of Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky (now National Defense Minister of Red Poland) Commissar Bulganin coldbloodedly prevented any help from reaching the "premature" Polish patriots when they rose against the Nazis in Warsaw. Bulganin came out of the war loaded down with decorations, and liked to clank around in them. Not Hero Zhukov, of whom Stalin was jealous, but Commissar Bulganin became Minister of the Armed Forces.

By 1948, Bulganin had arrived. Stalin made him a full-fledged member of the Politburo. While Malenkov, Zhdanov and Beria jockeyed to succeed the failing dictator, Bulganin bided his time. His sister Nadezhda was a confidante of Stalin's wife, Roza Kaganovich, and through their "women's letters," says a Red army officer who defected recently, Bulganin was always apprised on which way the struggle was going. He stayed out of the way.

On his fiery charger, Bulganin would review Red army parades and make the customary we-are-peace-loving-but-we-are-strong speech. Once, when the High Command expressed its irritation at the performance of the Minister of Military Aviation, Bulganin packed him off to Siberia. Bulganin's control of the military machinery paid off handsomely soon after Stalin died. The party, in the person of Malenkov, pounced on Lavrenty Beria, but it was.Bulganin who called out the tanks of the Red army garrison to disarm Beria's MVD battalions.

Not long afterwards, Malenkov lost his job too, and who should be there to take it but Nikolai Alexandrovich Bulganin. To a visiting U.S. journalist, he described himself, with mock humility, as "a young Prime Minister" who feels "just like anybody else does when picked for a job like this."

Cocktail-Party Premier. Bulganin, as Premier, has laid aside his marshal's uniforms and taken to soft, dark suits, silk socks and cambric shirts. His office is in the Kremlin, but he lives in a spacious dacha outside Moscow. His plump, 55-year-old wife, Elena Mikhailovna, teaches English at one of Moscow's high schools. They have a son and daughter, both married. Interviewed by a Danish journalist, who asked about the Premier's private life, Elena Bulganin said that she and Nikolai Alexandrovich discuss their work with one another "like all married couples do." She added: "We have Sundays and the holidays together, and many evenings when we visit the theater or cinema."

Nowadays Bulganin spends many afternoons and evenings appearing with other Soviet leaders at diplomatic gatherings, showing off their capacity for good fellowship. Sometimes, if Khrushchev gets a little too liquored up, Bulganin pulls him away, usually with a phrase such as, "Come, Nikita. It is time for you to go."

Corks & Coexistence. On his own, Bulganin has at times surprised Western diplomats by his uninhibited outspokenness. Once, when the other committeemen were out of town, he accepted a toast to the Soviet government: "I can drink to that. Tonight, I am the Soviet government." Bulganin's pet refrain since he started partygoing has been that the Soviet Union is determined to avoid war. "Down with war," he shouted at a recent reception. "I say that as commanding general of all the armed forces of the Soviet Union." Later, a champagne cork popped loudly, and Bulganin quickly added: "Let's use these instead of cannon." The cannon, however, are also still available.

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