New Fight in the Kremlin
NICOLAEVSKY, BORIS I.
Khrushchev vs. the Ideologists NEW FIGHT in the KREMLIN By Boris I. Nicolaevsky Less than a year has passed since Nikita Khrushchev defeated his "anti-Party" enemies in the post-Stalin Presidium...
...A number of circumstances attending this speech suggested that this plan was encountering resistance, and Khrushchev himself openly mentioned such resistance to foreign newspapermen...
...Furthermore, during the first half of May, his name appeared in Pravda nearly every day, but it disappeared after May 17...
...At a little-publicized conference in Prague in March, held to discuss the formation of an information organ for international Communism, Suslov apparently attempted to set up the equivalent of an international "Suslovite" faction...
...Mitin declared that Khrushchev's theses represented "creative development of Marxist-Leninist theory," while Fedoseyev said that his plan was a concrete application of "the Marxist-Leninist doctrine of gradual transition from socialism to communism...
...And, when the Soviet press systematically suppressed any mention of Khrushchev's Minsk speech, it could only have been the work of the Central Committee's agit-prop section, which controls the press...
...Now, Khrushchev's chief apologists today, Ostrovityanov, Mitin and Fedoseyev, are men who hold responsible posts in academic science, whereas the leaders of official Party science have avoided such statements...
...In an election speech by Suslov (Pravda, March 12) there was a paragraph on the issue...
...At that time, Suslov, who held about the same position in the Party machine that he does today, inflicted a stunning defeat on Fedoseyev, then in a considerably lesser post in the Academy of Sciences...
...This interpretation is bolstered by the simultaneous dismissal of F. V. Konstantinov as chief of the Central Committee's agit-prop section...
...Suslov's plans were far-reaching, indeed...
...The bitter attack on Fedoseyev must be traced to his role in the discussion which preceded the appearance of Stalin's Economic Problems of Socialism...
...Though the information available to us at present is fragmentary and at times contradictory, there is no question about the existence of new groupings in opposition to Khrushchev's policies—and, perhaps, to Khrushchev in general...
...The Suslov faction has also been involved in major differences with Khrushchev on foreign policy, where the question of what attitude to take toward Tito is one of the main issues, but not the only one...
...Khrushchev's plan represented a direct departure from the Stalinist "heritage...
...Recently, Konstantinov had been playing a large part in tightening the reins on Soviet.,literature...
...It is now clear that the Soviet regime is a long way from stabilization...
...In his Economic Problems of Socialism, published in September 1952, Stalin had rejected the proposal to transfer the machine-tractor stations to the collective farms, terming it- a reactionary attempt to "reverse the wheel of history...
...There has always been a certain rivalry between these two groups, and the present dispute, moreover, is a direct continuation of disputes in the last months of Stalin's life...
...And now this same Fedoseyev (together with Mitin) is laying the theoretical foundation for Khrushchev's practical plans, citing their vast "programmatic significance...
...Konstantinov, a young professor known for his close relations with Suslov, had become head of the agit-prop section early in 1955 following the deposition of Malenkov as Premier...
...The only Communist parties which attended the conference were those which, by and large, take positions close to Suslov's: the Czech, East German, Bulgarian, Austrian, French and Italian parties...
...This check and Suslov's article were part of the preparations for the second Great Purge which Stalin launched publicly with the announcement of the "Jewish doctors' plot...
...When he was subsequently elected to the Premiership, thus concentrating the vast power of the Government as well as the Party in his bands, the process of stabilization in the Kremlin on the basis of Khrushchev's one-man rule seemed to have reached its culmination...
...Suslov was not present at one of them—even though he is the Central Committee Secretary charged with directing the work of all its ideological sections and especially of its foreign section (or sections...
...The composition of the conference—the absence of all those suspected of sympathy for any form of "revisionism"—demonstrates its character...
...The theoreticians who defended Khrushchev's plan were Konstantin Ostrovityanov, vice-president of the Academy of Sciences...
...but it mentioned only the practical benefits expected from Khrushchev's plan, saying nothing about the plan's theoretical significance...
...The key fact was the absence of Mikhail Suslov, Secretary of the Central Committee and member of its Presidium, from the Soviet delegation at the sessions of the Council for Mutual Economic Aid (May 20-22) and of the Political Advisory Committee of the Warsaw Pact states Boms I. Nicolaevsky is co-author oj Karl Marx: Man and Fighter and Forced Labor in Soviet Russia and a close student oj Soviet affairs...
...Much remains unclear in the information we now possess, but there is already no question that the new stage of the Kremlin struggle will have important consequences—not only in the Soviet Union but elsewhere in the world...
...Mark Mitin, chairman of the board of the Society for the Dissemination of Political and Scientific Knowledge...
...The only possible explanation is that Suslov differed with the Presidium's foreign policy and, as a result, has been removed—either permanently or temporarily—from this work...
...the Ideologists NEW FIGHT in the KREMLIN By Boris I. Nicolaevsky Less than a year has passed since Nikita Khrushchev defeated his "anti-Party" enemies in the post-Stalin Presidium of the Soviet Communist Party Central Committee— Georgi Malenkov, Vyacheslav Molo-tov et al.—and hand-picked a new Presidium of men who were dependent on him...
...Konstantinov's dismissal should be attributed largely to his attempts to take a secret anti-Khrushchev line in directing literature and the press— particularly his attempts to undermine the influence of October, which has gradually become Khrushchev's personal organ...
...It will be interesting to see what effect Konstantinov's dismissal has on the composition of the Literary Gazette's editorial staff...
...and P. N. Fedoseyev, director of the Institute of Philosophy of the Academy of Sciences...
...The discussion in the Soviet press, left no doubt that the resistance was coming from influential Party circles...
...And the representatives of the Soviet Party were Suslov, Pospelov and Konstantinov...
...For this reason, Khrushchev's plan now met opposition from the guardians of Stalinist orthodoxy in the Central Committee, and the Premier was forced to resort to a kind of plebiscite in the form of "nationwide discussion" of his plan...
...Suslov emerged at that time as the official guardian of orthodox Stalinism, attacking Fedoseyev for failure to confess past deviations from orthodoxy (Pravda, December 24, 1952...
...And Pravda could allow Dmiterko (a man close to Ukranian playwright Alexander Kor-neichuk, an old intimate of Khrushchev) to reply sharply to the Literary Gazette (and thus to Suslov) only if it had Khrushchev's backing...
...Upon his dismissal as agit-prop chief, Konstantinov was appointed editor-in-chief of the Party organ Kommunist (replacing Alexei Rumyantsev), which represents a substantial demotion in terms of the Party hierarchy...
...Khrushchev first broached this idea in a speech on January 22 in Minsk...
...Suslov has been seeking support outside the ranks of the Soviet Party...
...The Literary Gazette has long been one of the agit-prop section's organs for the surveillance of literature, while October and (more recently) Pravda have become defenders of Khrushchev's policy...
...The first hints appeared when Khrushchev came out for transferring the machine-tractor stations to the collective farms...
...and the Literary Gazette's systematic attacks on the magazine October...
...The Literary Gazette's Druzin could risk attacking Pravda only if he had been encouraged to do so by Konstantinov, with the approval of Suslov...
...Several minor episodes on the literary front also demonstrates the conflict: e.g., the attack on L. Dmiter-ko's articles in Pravda by Druzin, editor of the Literary Gazette...
...Suslov was obviously avoiding praise of Khrushchev as a theoretician...
...A directive must have been issued by the agitprop section, that is, by Konstantinov...
...There were no such statements by the top leaders of the Central Committee's ideological sections: Suslov, Peter N. Pospelov (Suslov's closest aide), or Konstantinov...
...Just what are the disagreements between Suslov and Khrushchev...
...The question is why...
...May 24...
...In addition to the two major conferences mentioned above, a number of separate meetings between leaders of East European Communist parties and representatives of the Soviet Party Presidium were held during this time...
...In the ensuing weeks all organs of academic science were checked to determine their orthodoxy...
...Suslov, who has long been involved in foreign-affairs work, had previously played a key role in these organizations, as he also had at the November conference of Communist parties in Moscow...
...It seemed to some observers last July that Khrushchev would enjoy a long period of stable rule...
Vol. 41 • June 1958 • No. 25
