THE RUSSIANS CAN BE HAD
The Russians Can Be Had Part 1— The Pravd Correspondent Talks By Bad IT IS GENERALLY ASSUMED that although tho Russian masses dislike the Siidin dictatorship, there is a strong, hard core of...
...Russians whose sole desire was to return at once to the Soviet Motherland...
...But when we entered the Press Club, the young DP behind the cloak room counter whispered with a knowing smile: "Tho Russians are here...
...Yuri Korolkov was a lifelong Bolshevik and a correspondent for the official organ of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union...
...At our table were newspaperman Manning Williams, who had spent 15 months in Moscow, and his beautiful wife Kathy, who was born on an Indiana farm...
...They wanted to get home as fast as possible...
...I pointed out that'once atom bombs started falling, it would be too late, but that there still might be an alternative...
...His acquaintance with some of them dates back to 1945...
...Shmeliov fidgeted nervously and said it was getting very late...
...he asked...
...I replied...
...Well...
...His face had regained its composure...
...But Shmeliov...
...No word in defense of Stalin was spoken by the Pravda correspondent...
...Beria fights fascists and enemies of the people," he answered with ringing lack of conviction...
...He eould tell that to Beria—but not to himself...
...And who is going to bring us freedom—the Americans...
...As we parted, we told the Russians we hoped to see them in Moscow in a few years—without the atom bomb...
...They're terribly busy there...
...He listened attentively, then made this unexpected comment: "Wall, whet of It...
...Maybe some seven-year-old Russian kids believe the Soviet Union is a democracy...
...Korolkov was asked how many Russians he thought there were in Soviet concentration camps (after he had branded the figure of 10 million as "incredible...
...Berlin, once Hitler's capital, was now the capital of the cold war...
...It was the dismal city, plunged in man-made darkness, where Americans and Russians, separated only by a single subway stop, were further apart...
...Korolkov went on eating...
...I wasn't in Russia during the war," replied Williams, "I'm talking about what I saw in Moscow in 1947...
...I remain an atheist and a good Bolshevik...
...Sitting beside me in that crowded freight car was a young Russian student...
...from now on we'll be treated as beasts...
...Beside him sat Shmeliov, a blond young man in his early thirties on the staff of the Taegliche Rundschau, the official Soviet organ in Germany...
...I DON'T PRETEND TO KNOW what had happened that moment inside the slight man with fine features who sat opposite us in the U.S...
...I told Shmeliov that most readers of Kravchenko seemed to have been deeply moved by his description of the hardships inflicted on the Russian peasants during Stalin's collectivization drive...
...He seemed pretty intelligent," I said, and then told him that at tlie Elbe shore, as the Russians started climbing aboard the .waiting Soviet ferry, a girl from Kiev left me with these words: "Until now we've been treated like human beings...
...Why don't you let them go home...
...Did the Ministry of State Security (MGB) or the Ministry of the Interior (MVD) handle political prisoners sent to forced labor...
...Korolkov laid aside his knife and fork and stared at me in grim disbelief...
...I told him that back in May, 1945, I had traveled to the Elbe in a freight car with one of the first transports of homeward-bound Russians...
...she repeated...
...But here they were, seated in the cocktail lounge of the U.S...
...But if we have to fight again, I'll do it...
...But tell me, where was Konstantin Simonov during those winter months when women and children used to stop me on the streets of Moscow to beg for bread...
...Lenin's political testament is carefully suppressed in the Soviet Union...
...When the Germans attacked Poland, they hadn't expected England to fight, yet the easy Polish campaign turned out to be World War II...
...having observed firsthand the day-to-day reactions of the Soviet Military Government officials...
...In any case, what followed was something possibly only Tolstoy could explain...
...I added, however, that since Soviet statistics themselves revealed that more than five million peasants perished during collectivization, the 6tory was tragic enough without Kravchenko's dramatic touch...
...the same Konstantin Simonov, who described the horrors of American capitalism, for example...
...No, what did he tell you...
...When queried whether that included Stalin, Korolkov replied blankly: "What are you talking about...
...asked Korolkov...
...The elite of the Communist party and the NKVD are with Stalin one hundred percent, or so the theory goes...
...Someone said he could not believe that both Beria and Tolstoy spoke for the Russian people...
...He began to say something...
...Konstantin Simonov, who wrote the heavily promoted anti-American play The Russian Question, had just blasted the author of J Chose Freedom...
...Shmeliov, who had made a second phone call, reminded his companion it was time to go...
...You read that piece about the Negro millionaires...
...and having talked for over three hours recently with the Prarda'.s Berlin correspondent, I know how vulnerable these men are...
...There are subtleties and key silences in Boris Shub's account of his talks with the Russians...
...Do you know what he told me...
...Kathy began describing to Korolkov her steamboat trip down the Volga to the Black Sea...
...So you think you can beat us with your atomic bomb...
...Press Club...
...I'm not so sure I know what you mean," I replied...
...Williams replied it wasn't that simple...
...Not so Shmeliov...
...That one slowed down Korolkov long enough for Katfiy's husband, Manning Williams, to remind him that there were millionaires in Russia, too...
...Freedom...
...Press Club, where no Russian had been seen in months...
...Korolkov hesitated a moment and stammered: "Yes, there was some of that during the war...
...Kathy's electric blue eyes looked into Korolkov's and she asked with passionate simplicity: "Where is Gqd...
...Oh, I know what you mean," replied Kathy...
...he asked skeptically...
...he retorted, giving the proper Party reply...
...The Pravda correspondent seemed to relax and enjoy it...
...Berlin blockade, he continued to maintain contact with leading Soviet writers and diplomats...
...Where is God...
...The older of the two, a man of about 40, of slight build, with small, fine features, introduced himself as Yuri Maximovich Korolkov of the Pravda...
...He had certainly appeared often enough before tough inquisitors of the Party Central Committee and the MVD to give the approved answers demanded by the hard dogma of Leninism-Stalinism...
...He picked as his target Kathy Williams, who had been telling him what a wonderful host the late Russian film director Sergei Eisenstein had been during her Moscow-stay...
...The Russians Can Be Had Part 1— The Pravd Correspondent Talks By Bad IT IS GENERALLY ASSUMED that although tho Russian masses dislike the Siidin dictatorship, there is a strong, hard core of monolithic Bolsheviks who would back it to the hilt...
...Both before and after the start of the...
...I mean the bigshots who now sound off so loudly against "Wall Street" and the U. S. 1 know because I've been talking to them in Eerlin for the last two years, in their own language, Russian...
...Boris Shub has just returned from Berlin, where he spent two years as political adviser of RIAS...
...Yes...
...The Russians don't...
...It was finally broken when Korolkov was asked what he thought of MVD Chief Beria...
...KOROLKOV STRAIGHTENED UP...
...And by "the Russians" I don't mean the small fry...
...Choosing his words slowly, he said: "Our regime is somewhat totalitarian, I admit...
...This was the ninth month of the Soviet blockade...
...God is in the human heart 1" exclaimed Korolkov...
...Perhaps'the name Tolstoy made something click in Kathy Williams...
...The reminder of Stalin's deal with Hitler was outright blasphemy...
...If Yuri Korolkov were asked later how he had committed this unpardonable sin against the Communist dogma, he would probably reply: A moment of foolish sentimentality...
...Maybe Henry Wal. lace thinks the Bolshevik Party is serving up a satisfactory subsiitue for freedom...
...And what in the human heart is God...
...A moment later, annoyed for having said it, he announced in his best official tone: "I was a soldier in the last war, I don't like war...
...Shmeliov was silent, too...
...It was a long, embarrassing silence, yet more eloquent than anything that had been said all evening...
...I know there is deep-rooted anxiety—increasing as the cold war gets hotter —right up near the top of the Soviet power pyramid...
...We'll see," said Korolkov...
...I asked Korolkov how he reconciled the official Soviet line portraying Stalin as Lenin's favorite disciple, with Lenin's political testament urging the removal of Stalin as General Secretary of the Communist Party...
...KOROLKOV'S EYES GREW REMOTE and he stared off into space...
...Korolkov thought he hadn't heard right or that Kathy's Russian grammar was peculiar...
...He had already left the table once before to make a phone call...
...Who'll start a war...
...the American girl was beautiful and silly...
...The lights still burned in the Press Club, but mo6t of Berlin was plunged, as every night since last June, in the darkness of the Soviet blockade...
...He sat- there, staring out of the open door and said: " 'Russia is a wonderful country, the Russians are a wonderful people—but we've got a Party—do you know what the Bolshevik Party is like—have you ever heard of the NKVD?'" Korolkov replied icily: "In such cases the question is what sorfof a Russian you were talking to...
...he asked...
...Korolkov thought the old Soviet favorite of class injustice in the United States was a better theme...
...And if the Soviet Government doesn't have the solid loyalty of the men at this level, there may still be a cheaper way of cracking open the Stalin regime than by fighting an .atomic world war...
...I read somewhere," said Korolkov, "that there are only 20 millionaires in the United States...
...But Shmeliov, still rankling over the conversation in the cocktail lounge, asked: "Have you read what Simonov said about Kravchenko...
...Having put in long sessions of plain talk with a deputy of the Supreme Soviet who is on the editorial staff of one of the Kremlin's main propaganda papers and wears the Stalin badge for his wartime novel...
...when he was with the Army's Psychological Warfare Division...
...AFTER THE FIRST ROUND of martinis and after we had exchanged American cigarettes for long cotton-filled Russian papirossi, Korolkov led off with a straight-faced plea for the tens of thousands of poor Russian DPs detained by the American and British in "fascist-run" camps in Western Germany...
...But Yuri Korolkov, despite himself, was born a son of Russia, whose people, whether simple peasants or towering giants like Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, have never learned to live without God...
...The worst mistake wo can make is to assume, as so many hasty observers have done, that the Russian people believe the line dished oAt by tho Politburo and the Comlnform...
...She repeated the question as though it was the most natural thing in the world to ask a Pravda correspondent...
...I'm certain the Soviet government won't and 1 don't think the Americans will, do you...
...What did Simonov do to help these people...
...we present a ringing indictment of that theory by a man who has spent a good part of the last four years talking to the Russians—in their own language...
...Having thus restored himself to the Party's good graces, he sat back...
...Freedom in Russia...
...They both speak Russian...
...It was at the U. S. Press Club...
...Korolkov beamed...
...But I m»y not get the answer...
...The question was cruel, because Korolkov was both a Russian and a Stalin man...
...This was to be a quiet dinner with friends- There had been fireworks enough during the tension-packed year I had been in charge of political broadcasts over RIAS, the U. S.-controlled Radio Station in the former German capital...
...that there was a difference between the regime and the people...
...It was hard to judge from Korolkov's poker face whether this was new to him...
...Did Korolkov consider the Soviet one-party system democratic...
...he blurted out...
...What's that...
...Pressed to define "fascist," the Pravda correspondent shot back: "Anyone who collaborated with the Germans...
...1 quoted Lenin's description of Stalin as "too rude" and recommending his replacement by someone "more patient, more loyal, more polite, less capricious...
...Lenin merely attacked Stalin aa an indivlduall" This was virtually treason...
...I've never met a grown-up Soviet official who does...
...In two articles by Boris Shub...
...I am an atheist...
...the U.S.-directed German radio station, frequently hailed as "America's number on* propaganda weapon in the cold war...
...By this time we were getting pretty hungry, so we moved upstairs to the Press Club dining room...
...Then he blushed furiously, adding hastily: 'But by freedom, we mean the happiness of the people—the entire people—not what you mean...
...changed his mind and dug into his food...
...asked Korolkov...
...Both seek out traitors and fascists," Korolkov replied drily...
...But here is whaKpuzzles me," I continued...
...That was to be the first of his many revealing silences during the long evening...
...THE RUSSIANS CAN BE HAD...
...They know that sooner or later—and perhaps soon—the choice must be made...
...a » » SOMEHOW THE UNHAPPY QUESTION of forced labor in the Soviet Union came up...
...In today's Russia, Lenin's mythical love and admiration for Stalin is high dogma...
...I SPENT MY LAST EVENING in Berlin with Yuri Korolkov, the Pravda correspondent...
...Only people like you can do the job—if you succeed, you'll save Russia from a frightful catastrophe...
...It was pointed out that one of our difficult jobs in Berlin" was to persuade the Germans that Hitler" was wrong about the Russians...
...DID KOROLKOV THINK a distinction should be made between Stalin and the Russian people in planning future relations with his country...
...A non-Russian Communist would have replied that you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs, or would have called me an anti-Soviet liar...
...You talk about class differences in America," Williams continued...
...Shmeliov remarked I was being rude...
...But the implications of these subtleties and silences are vital to an understanding of RussoAmerican relations...
...I asked ycu a simple question...
...God," "the human heart" and "freedom" were, as he well knew, the deadliest antithesis of the Bolshevik creed...
...In any event, he asked with what seemed genuine curiosity: "Well, what did Lenin write about Stalin...
...then pretended he hadn't heard it...
...Well, tell us," I insisted, "does Stalin speak for the Russian people...
...who was born in Kharkow and had vivid youthful recollections of the collectivization-made famine in that area, listened darkly, frowned and said vaguely: "So—Soviet statistics—" and dropped the subject of Kravchenko...
...he replied...
...It was now close to midnight...
...asked Korolkov...
...They understood exactly what was meant...
...Til ask them at the Ministry—when I return to Moscow...
...They wanted to go home, didn't they...
...When our policy begins to be shaped by the knowledge that the Russian wants exactly the same rights as the average American, the cold war will be decided' on terms satisfactory to ourselves and to the Russian people, and not 6n the phoney battlefields picked by the Politburo...
...His voice sounded like an echo out of the past...
...Brought up in a land of silence, trained to imply more between the lines, than any other people on earth, they knew that "without the atom bomb" could only mean without the present regime...
...No," I said...
Vol. 32 • May 1949 • No. 20
