Echoes of the Terror

Both halves of the world--the non-Communist and the Communist--shook under the impact of First Party Secretary Nikita Khrushchev's no-longer-secret speech to the 20th Party Congress (TIME, June 11), but, whereas the non-Communists quickly absorbed the information given by Khrushchev, the Communists this week were still reeling.

Even those who had reason to know the truth about Stalin's reign were nevertheless startled by Khrushchev's brutally direct account of such monstrous crimes as the deportation of millions of people from their homelands, the futile and meaningless killing of thousands of party intellectuals, and the hideous miasma of murder and mayhem around the Kremlin. So harrowing was Khrushchev's tale that the U.S. State Department (which had got the text from an undivulged source) debated on the value of releasing it, thinking that many readers might be moved to accept Khrushchev's picture of himself and other top Stalin aides as innocent men caught up in a web of terror against which there was no possible protest. What finally decided the release of the text was the fact that the speech revealed such a sordid picture of Communist intrigue that it could not but have a demoralizing effect on Communist Parties outside the Soviet Union. As it turned out, this was the wiser counsel.

The Hoodwinked. Most of Europe's' top Reds were in Moscow when the speech was made to the Party Congress last February, and (though barred from the secret session for Russians only) had read it in transcript. On returning to their own countries they remained silent about it, while inaugurating piecemeal efforts to downgrade Stalin. Last week, as large slabs of the speech hit the front pages of non-Communist European newspapers, the storm broke over the heads of the cautious

The "gopak" was still missing.

Communist leaders. Angry and confused, party members demanded to know what it meant.

For the first time in the history of the Italian Communist Party, Leader Palmiro Togliatti was caustically critical of the Moscow leadership, described Khrushchev's attack as "brutal and dangerous." Said another veteran Italian Red: "Khrushchev's speech was not Marxism ... it was a personal tirade intended to relieve his feelings after years of bullying." As criticism grew, Togliatti announced an extraordinary series of regional conferences for reorientation of his huge party (2,130,000 members). He told the extraordinary meeting of the 110-man Central Committee that the word must be spread gently: Italian Reds would resent having been buggerato (hoodwinked). For the first time since his return from Moscow in 1944, Togliatti and the Soviet leadership are being criticized at cell meetings (and more openly over wine glasses at the corner trattoria after meetings).

In Paris, Communist Party Leaders Maurice Thorez and Jacques Duclos were also under fire for having failed to divulge any hint of the true nature of Stalin. But, fearful of losing their large following among French intellectuals, they still permitted (in a minor party publication) only mild criticism of Stalin "grown old." But perhaps the best example of the dilemma thrust on foreign Communists by Khrushchev's revelations was the bitter tears being shed by Manhattan's Daily Worker (see PRESS).

The Missing Hour. The 26,000-word released text, evidently a copy of the tightly edited version circulated among Soviet district organizers and some foreign leaders, was about one hour short of the full speech delivered by Khrushchev. Missing from the shortened version (but leaked from Moscow last March) was

Khrushchev's charge that Stalin had been anti-Semitic and had liquidated thousands of Soviet Jews. Nor was there specific mention in the transcript issued by the U.S. of the "murder" of Marshal Tukhachevsky and some 5,000 officers of the Red army prior to World War II.

Also absent from the edited dialogue was the voice of an unnamed delegate shouting from the hall, "Why didn't you kill him?" and Khrushchev's reply: "What could we do? There was a reign of terror." No mention was made, either, of the fact that, at Stalin's order, the elephantine Khrushchev had once performed the gopak, a fast Ukrainian dance. Nor did the transcript record such homely touches as the cob-nosed Nikita in tears as he told of children being tortured, and the fact that 30 delegates had fainted and had to be lugged out of the hall.

But the most significant omission in the edited text was any reference to the effect of Stalin's terror on Soviet foreign policy. Last week Italian Communists were saying that a major portion of Khrushchev's speech was devoted to a searing attack on Stalin's conduct of international relations.

In the unpublished portion of his speech, say the Italians, Khrushchev charged that Stalin 1) needlessly destroyed international good will existing between the Soviet Union and her World War II allies; 2) deliberately planned and executed provocative measures like the Berlin blockade--which proved to be dangerous and humiliating failures, to boot; 3) ruthlessly deprived the Soviet people of the fruits of victory by forcing them to tighten their belts and concentrate on aggressive adventures and military preparations, including the production of outdated arms; 4) started the war in Korea confident that a walkover victory would be accepted by the U.S.; 5) recklessly exposed the Soviet Union to the grave danger of a global war and possible atomic attacks which the backward Soviet air force could have neither prevented nor retaliated.

The Khrushchev indictment means that Russia's entire postwar "peace" campaign was a sham, that Stalin was the aggressor in every cold-war episode. In Korea, said Khrushchev, "Stalin personally ordered the attack to begin," When word of all that gets out, Italian Communists are apt to feel even more buggerato.

Ten Days That Shook. In his welcoming speech at the 20th Party Congress, Khrushchev had said: "The unity of our party was being built up during the years and decades. It grew and became stronger in the struggle with numerous enemies--the Trotskyites, the Bukharinites, the bourgeois nationalists and other inveterate enemies of the people . . ." But in his sensational last-day secret speech Khrushchev told the delegates that the phrase "enemies of the people" had been invented by Stalin to justify the liquidation of thousands, and that in the great purge the real Trotskyites et al. were so few in number that they constituted no opposition.

It is a fair assumption that in the intervening ten days there was, in the upper party hierarchy, not a change of heart but a change of pace. Khrushchev, who was clearly in agreement with the downgrading of Stalin, may not have wished to proceed as quickly as circumstance dictated. Study of the speech shows that, if Khrushchev's hand was forced, it was probably by the army cadres in the party. The version released by the U.S. State Department is full of ingratiating references to the Red army. Khrushchev confirms the fact that Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky, hero of the battles of Moscow and Stalingrad, was a Stalin victim. From the podium he calls down to Marshal Alexander Vasilevsky for confirmation of his story about Stalin planning military operations on a globe. His praise of Marshal Georgy Zhukov shows an artfulness in flattery such as no doubt helped preserve his life in the perilous heights at Stalin's side.

For students of Communist thought processes, the most interesting aspect of Khrushchev's speech is what might be called the Khrushchev Theory of Terror. Khrushchev approves of the terror employed by Lenin against the enemies and victims of the October Revolution ("Lenin used severe methods only in the most necessary cases, when the exploiting classes were still in evidence"), and does not think the terror employed against the peasants during the collectivization of the land worth mentioning.

He abhors terror only when it is employed against party members, against comrades, and it is noteworthy that his panel of investigators is examining Stalin's persecution of top party members only. In downgrading Malenkov and firing Molotov he does not make Stalin's mistake of physically liquidating them, though they are rudely and summarily disposed of. But in the elimination of non-Khrushchev men in the security forces (Beria-ites) and Georgians loyal to the Stalin myth, he is showing himself as merciless as his old instructor.

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