What Malenkov Wants
DALLIN, DAVID J.
The Soviet Premier is a Stalinist conservative??He will not change Kremlin policy at home or abroad, but will try to preserve as much of it as possible What Malenkov Wants By David J. Dallin The...
...When this is happening, the prestige and authority of the United States abroad will sink to naught...
...But this "stabilization" cannot last long, the Kremlin feels...
...The MVD chief is a key leader in any Communist regime at any time...
...Actually, it reflects merely the majestic contempt of the Kremlin rulers toward their human herd...
...The Soviet Premier is a Stalinist conservative??He will not change Kremlin policy at home or abroad, but will try to preserve as much of it as possible What Malenkov Wants By David J. Dallin The chief characteristic of the period since Stalin's death has been the shift of the Kremlin's attention from international issues to domestic affairs...
...The period of industrial prosperity will be followed by the "inevitable crisis," that is, depression...
...He orders thousands of Communists to move into the villages, to revive "backward areas," to take command of inefficient collectives, to check bad administrators...
...Party activists arrive from the city armed with production plans, new instructions and far-reaching powers...
...Everybody in the West would be happy if he could...
...Like any other conservative, Malenkov is timid in his thinking...
...it is sensible to stop frittering away forces in fights with little hope of victory, such as the Korean War...
...unemployment is low...
...new Western weapons are more powerful than those of the U.S.S.R...
...The predominance of foreign policy ceased with Stalin's death...
...According to this group, the most pressing internal problems were not political, but economic: The dissatisfaction in Russia and the satellites was due primarily to economic shortcomings, to the low standard of living...
...According to one view, relaxation of international tension had to lead to relaxation of internal political tension...
...Such stabilization has imparted to capitalism a sense of firmness, self-confidence and the capacity to resist its internal and external foe...
...It is the hope, the promise and the Plan...
...Beria took command of the NKVD in 1938, when the worst chapter in the history of all purges had to be terminated...
...On the face of it, Malenkov's conception seems an ideological extension of Marxian "historical materialism...
...Comrade Stalin...
...Because of his reluctance to change the basic institutions of Soviet life, and his hope that the Stalinist system can survive this test...
...The kolkhoz peasant is known to work diligently on his own tiny garden-plot, in contrast to his reluctant attitude toward work in the collective fields...
...Despite all this, the Soviet people has never attained even the Polish standard of living...
...Soviet public opinion, uneasy and tired of the struggle with the "imperialists," has gladly followed the lead of the Kremlin into a preoccupation with home issues...
...an army which must be maintained so long as the mania grandiosa governs Soviet policy...
...We need not stop the war industries or the atomic research or any of the other expensive projects dictated by our foreign policy...
...Comrade Stalin.'" Are Malenkov's drives any more likely to succeed than those of his master and teacher...
...there is no need for far-reaching concessions to anyone, no reason to shake the time-honored pillars of Stalinism...
...Both Lavrenti Beria and Georgi Malenkov attempted to emphasize the home front, rather than the international field...
...It is also the great test of Malenkov's regime...
...Although Soviet emphasis on internal affairs has been obvious since Stalin's death, there was hardly unanimity among the Communist chiefs as to which domestic problems required most attention and which fields required urgent reforms...
...So long as this situation prevails, it is wise to refrain from decisive battles and real wars...
...regimes and political parties will be rent by internal schisms and their fighting spirit will evaporate...
...in fact, he was a mortal enemy of democracy...
...At the present time, the Kremlin expects no easy victories in the worldwide conflicts with the West, and cherishes few hopes in connection with the negotiations in Berlin, Panmunjom, Washington and elsewhere...
...I: 'How are you doing with the planting drive?' "He: 'With the planting drive...
...For example, Malenkov appeals to his kolkhoz peasants to improve cattle-breeding and to produce more meat...
...And there have been "exact" statistics, too, allegedly proving "enormous progress...
...it is simply unbearable for the people of the Soviet Union...
...This occurred most recently when Malenkov and Khrushchev last summer brought forth their economic program...
...For the time being, during this new era of the "relative stabilization of capitalism" (Stalin's phrase), Malenkov and his party are trying To hold their own in foreign affairs??to prevent the stalemate from becoming a retreat and to avoid yielding any part of their realm (e.g., East Germany, North Korea) to the adversary...
...This formula...
...Tito, the apostate, has drawn the conclusions from a similar situation and has permitted his farmers to leave the collectives??a privilege of which they have made abundant use...
...At such a time, Malenkov reasons, it would be insane to continue the Communist world offensive...
...If internal reforms were necessary, it was the task of the Internal Affairs Minister to initiate them??so it seemed, at least, to Beria and his assistants...
...In addition, concessions were necessary to collective farmers, national minorities, etc...
...True, his successors would prove his movement's superiority over democracy, over Trotskyism, over Beria, and over everyone and everything opposed to Lenin-Stalin-Malenkov...
...Under the Soviet regime, the people's standard of living has oscillated only from poverty to abject misery and back again...
...Newspapers print fewer and fewer editorials on foreign policy, on the Army, on "heavy" (i.e., war) industry...
...Malenkov answers: "Give us two or three years and we will show you what miracles our socialism can perform...
...If a rise in agricultural produce and living standards is desired, why not increase this private garden-plot...
...I: 'And so?' "He: 'There is every prospect of improvement.' "I: 'Yes...
...The Kremlin's standard formula during the past ten months has been "easing of international tension...
...Alas, we cannot believe Malenkov's promises, and we must be more than pessimistic about his reforms...
...He was identified with the purging of the purgers...
...A nation could suffer redundant terror in time of conflict and crisis, but terror would be unbearable when relaxation was being stressed, when "we have a set of well-drawn frontiers" (according to Malenkov) and armed forces which "provide for our security...
...Such an army would be a burden even to the wealthy United States...
...inflation will shatter the capitalist economy...
...After its prostration in 1945-47, world capitalism has attained a degree of stabilization and new strength...
...The other dominant view among the' Communist chiefs after Stalin's death was held by Malenkov and his group...
...It would be a grave error to view Beria as even a semi-democrat...
...This, essentially, was the program of the Minister of Internal Affairs, Lavrenti Beria...
...but how are you doing with the planting drive?' "He: 'With the planting drive, so far nothing has come of it...
...To continue the military buildup??to raise new armed forces in the satellites, particularly in the Far East, and to proceed with mass production of new weapons...
...It is the slogan today...
...Basically," Malenkov is saying, "our political and economic system contains all the ingredients for tremendous progress and for a rapid and vast improvement in living standards...
...The most pressing reforms, therefore, should be undertaken in the fields of agricultural production, housing, "light industry," etc., rather than in the political and police fields...
...farmers with unsold produce will revolt...
...There have been ups and downs, happy and unhappy years, great promises and radiant prospects...
...Instead of new policies, Malenkov takes small steps and relies on bureaucratic efficiency...
...In the struggle between these two conceptions, Malenkov has won out...
...Any craving for liberty under Communist rule is considered only the product of empty stomachs and can be dealt with by purely economic measures...
...But Beria's role was even more important in 1953, when the "relaxation" formula was accepted and domestic problems moved into the limelight...
...We have mobilized ourselves.' "I: 'And then what?' "He: 'We have put the question point-blank.' "I: 'And after that?' "He: 'We are at the turning-point...
...Propaganda attacks on the United States continue, of course, but they are dull and unexciting, like memorized and oft-repeated sermons...
...From 1945 through 1952, the Soviets concentrated on the European satellites, on the struggle in China, on the Berlin Blockade and the Korean War, on the danger of an "imminent conflict...
...A war which broke out then could be won by the Soviet Union and its allies...
...economically, we have overtaken every other nation, except perhaps the United States...
...At first, they display tremendous boisterousness...
...An intelligent Western diplomat residing in Moscow told me: "In private circles, in conversations among friends, and, in general, insofar as a substitute for public opinion exists in Russia, the shift is noticeable from the foreign field to internal problems ??problems ranging from Beria's fate to the new GUM department store, from the building of canals to the meat shortage to the cases of typhus in a certain district of the city...
...How is this possible...
...And yet the people ??including great masses of our Soviet intelligentsia??live in great poverty, despite the economic improvements...
...Timidity of this nature has been the doom of many a government in history...
...Then, Communist forces will resume the offensive and the Soviet regime will again be bold, uncompromising, aggressive...
...We need not make basic changes in the collective-farm system, in our labor laws, in our industrial setup...
...But nobody could weep if a great people, tormented for four decades, bleeding from millions of wounds, exploited and shackled in the most cruel way, should now rise to a decent life and achieve a state of prosperous well-being...
...armies are being recreated and improved...
...To shift the focus from international developments, which are unlikely to be very favorable during this period, to the domestic affairs of each nation in the Soviet Empire...
...Will he succeed...
...Two different conceptions emerged, one political, one economic...
...two or three years"??is being repeated over and over, almost daily, in speeches, articles and on the radio...
...Malenkov's accent on economics was timely because a serious question was rising in the mind of every intelligent Communist in Russia: "Here is our Soviet Union, which has shaken off the chains of capitalism, has passed the first stages of socialism, and is now moving toward pure communism...
...Beneath a thin veneer of ostensible well-being there lives a people in wooden huts, bark shoes and sheepskin coats, with fires regularly destroying entire villages and epidemics regularly taking huge tolls...
...Feed and clothe the people better," Malenkov reasoned, "and they will cease to protest, to strike and to make uprisings...
...Nor does he permit the farmer to own a horse??for the same reason...
...Its production has passed prewar standards...
...Comrade Stalin: soon the turning-point will have come...
...At the Seventeenth Congress of the Russian Communist party, Stalin depicted thus the Soviet bureaucratic pattern: "Last year, I had a conversation with one comrade...
...We should never forget that Russia is still one of the poorest countries in the world...
...a few Moscow hotels...
...Malenkov, the Stalinist conservative, is afraid of any deviation from his teacher's master-plan...
...The war era has??temporarily??ended, Malenkov believes...
...But always it ends with the admission that the situation is grave...
...But there are many shades and hues in the vast spectrum from real liberty to totalitarian slavery...
...wages equal or surpass 1939 levels...
...These conceptions were embodied in the persons of the two post-Stalin leaders, Beria and Malenkov...
...Soon, prodded by Moscow, they will report successes, improvements, achievements and victories??until (as has happened so many times before) the head of the Soviet Government finds it necessary to announce the failure and condemn the scapegoats...
...Within a few years, millions of hungry workers will "come out on the streets" and threaten their governments...
...But, in his faintheartedness, he does not dare permit the farmer to keep more than one cow??the second cow might make a "kulak" out of him...
...We should not be misled by the splendor of new factories, subways, escalators and plumbing facilities in...
...This situation could be changed, but not without embarking on new policies at home and abroad...
...As a result, the most urgent action and reform was needed in the internal political field...
...Socially, we are the most advanced nation in the world...
...Malenkov must be considered a Communist conservative...
...He is interested in preserving the system, rather than in altering it...
...Nor can the economic situation essentially improve so long as Russia maintains a well-equipped standing army of 4 million men...
...But not Malenkov, the new primate of orthodoxy and eternal dogma...
...the 36-year history of Soviet Russia contains periods both of sanguinary madness and of relative relaxation, periods both of wholesale and of piecemeal terror...
...Just be patient, give us two or three years, and the Soviet land will become the happiest on earth...
Vol. 37 • January 1954 • No. 4
