How Russians View Khrushchev
KARTASHEV, MICHAEL
A former Soviet officer explains HOW RUSSIANS VIEW KHRUSHCHEV By Michael Kartashev SINCE Stalin's death the Soviet regime has traveled a long distance. It is seldom realized in the West how great...
...In the fall, production reached normal volume, and a year later it was increased by the exploitation of new mines...
...in the enactment of a new law on pensions, and so forth...
...This is precisely what Khrushchev is providing...
...In the Donbas, the protest arose out of a new regulation concerning wage rates which reduced the pay of skilled workers and increased the wages of the lower-paid...
...They were not arrested, but they were expelled from the Komsomol for "anti-Soviet utterances" and, two weeks later, demobilized for "undisciplined behavior...
...Thus, one rumor had it that Beria had escaped and was organizing an uprising...
...Fantastic rumors spread in towns and villages...
...He spoke to workers at Stalino, Voroshilovgrad and other towns in the Donbas...
...A carelessly uttered word is immediately reported to the State Security Committee...
...A considerable number of members, in fact, are passive opponents of Communism...
...A mild spring day in 1956...
...Since 1956, basic food products, such as bread, sugar, sausages, have become available in most Soviet towns...
...His initiative' has been conspicuous in various respects: in the disbanding of a number of ministries and the eviction from Moscow of many top bureaucrats...
...Having recognized Khrushchev, some customers jump from their seats and offer him tables near the window...
...With no guards visible, Khrushchev, in a light spring suit with coat unbuttoned, walks with Tito, who wears a white gold-braided uniform...
...But the Army command deployed additional formations, and the fugitives were met with machine-gun fire...
...It is seldom realized in the West how great was the tension among the population when the hated dictator died...
...He readily speaks before any audience at any time, be it a collective-farm meeting or a session of the Supreme Soviet...
...Though there was little change in daily life and no real improvement in living standards, there was a vague feeling that the ice had been broken...
...In the average Soviet citizen Khrushchev arouses an interest which is sometimes mixed with irony or curiosity, but is mostly amicable...
...They take his lavish promises to solve the food and housing shortages in the near future with a 50 per cent discount, but they like them...
...Sick and tired of stereotyped speeches, written and "approved" in advance, Soviet citizens relish and read with interest the unsophisticated and improvised speeches by Khrushchev, who seldom knows in the beginning what he is going to say in the end...
...Thus, before the turbo-electric steamer Pobeda and later the Diesel-motored steamer Gruzia left for foreign ports, their crews were carefully checked and all "unreliables" were transferred to the reserve or to other steamers...
...Michael Kartashev is the pseudonym of a Russian refugee who served as a lieutenant in the Soviet Army and left the Soviet Union in 1957...
...Much-coveted wrist watches, radio sets, motorcycles and some other commodities can also be obtained, but queues forming in front of stores (especially food stores) remain a hallmark of Soviet trade...
...In the Baltic States, tanks were mounted at street intersections...
...Persons wishing to go abroad — tourists, diplomats, and members of all kinds of delegations — are subjected to strict clearance...
...Members of the management who were disliked by the workers were transferred to other mining regions, additional funds were appropriated for housing construction, and Khrushchev promised to review the miners' wage rates forthwith...
...People are favorably impressed by this unwonted behavior of a dictator...
...in the abolition of the enforced state loans which used to plague the population annually...
...But police terror has certainly been relaxed...
...People who well remember Stalin's armored car, which used to tear along the streets of Moscow at breakneck speed, enjoy such incidents as the following: Sunday in Leningrad...
...Very few people now join the Party for ideological reasons...
...As a result, part of the workers returned, and during the summer of 1956 a mobilization of Komsomol members replenished the miners' ranks...
...At present the regime seems stabilized...
...People are still careful about what they say, especially those in privileged positions...
...Effective measures were taken to placate the population by vastly increasing agricultural produce and by producing more consumer goods...
...People listened to domestic and foreign broadcasts more eagerly than ever before...
...The recently granted freedoms are tolerated by the regime only as long as they do not undermine the dictatorship...
...According to another rumor, the military had seized power in the Kremlin...
...Even housewives who never read newspapers want to see them when they carry a speech by Khrushchev...
...In an attempt to win the support of the Party rank-and-file, the Central Committee began issuing secret letters to the membership in 1953...
...It was symptomatic that police chief Lav-renti Beria's fall produced a real stir, while the liquidation of his two predecessors, Henry Yagoda and Nikolai Yezhov, had aroused only indifference or fear...
...waiters headed by the manager rush to meet the guests...
...Stories of such incidents promptly make the rounds, in the city and all over the country...
...He has the reputation of a man seeking new methods for the solution of difficult problems, a man who is really concerned about the people's welfare...
...Khrushchev flew to the Donbas with a group of aides in order to take urgent measures for the restoration of normal production...
...Comrade Tito and I will wait...
...To identify the Party with its ruling summit is to fall into the trap laid by the leadership, which tries to make millions of innocent Party members responsible for its acts...
...In the Abkhaz Republic, bordering on Turkey, considerable groups of Moslems, led by Party members, tried to cross the frontier on the assumption that the border guards had become less watchful...
...Coal production in the region decreased by one-half, which greatly affected industry in the Ukraine and the Caucasus and the Black Sea Fleet...
...many of them were arrested...
...The author of this article, which originally appeared in the Russian-language periodical, Svoboda, published in Western Europe, is at present making his home in West Germany...
...Though the wings of the secret police have been clipped somewhat, its presence is constantly felt...
...After many years of total disregard of their needs, many people tend to look favorably at some of his measures, without questioning his motives...
...The Government remained in the saddle, but its weakness at the time was obvious...
...Thus, two Army officers, talking with friends, expressed the opinion that what had happened in Hungary looked like a popular uprising rather than a counter-revolutionary riot...
...In the summer of 1953, the atmosphere was charged with tension...
...The relaxation led to some extraordinary events: for instance, workers' protests in the Donbas in 1956 and at the large Sharikopodshipnik ballbearing plant in Moscow...
...People dressed in rags have disappeared from the towns, though not from the villages...
...The unpretentious procession reaches the Aurora milk bar, filled with Sunday customers...
...He finally yields to insistent requests and sits down...
...This may partly explain his easy victories over political opponents who had compromised themselves by their leading roles in the Great Purges of the 1930s...
...in the cultivation of millions of acres of virgin land, which, at least temporarily, has helped solve the grain problem...
...People are also impressed by Khrushchev's simplicity and his "proximity to the masses...
...To achieve its long-range international objectives, a certain relaxation of the dictatorship and a measure of freedom proved necessary in the post-Stalin era...
...A big crowd is milling on the Nevsky Boulevard...
...They are followed by their wives, walking arm in arm...
...Khrushchev's own bloody rule as Stalin's viceroy left lasting scars on the Ukraine, but in his shrewd way he has tried to pass the buck to others and pose as a blind instrument of his late chief...
...These monthly letters contain all sorts of information about Party affairs...
...Many citizens disregard the fact that these crumbs are negligible parts of what the regime has squeezed out of the population, and welcome the recent improvements in their daily lives...
...It is diluted by various unstable elements seeking membership as a stepping-stone to job promotion...
...But Khrushchev waves his hand, asks them to stop this fuss, and says: "That's all right, comrades...
...Suddenly attention is attracted bv a small group of pedestrians elbowing their way through the crowd...
...The great majority of Donbas miners belonged to the first category...
...In both cases, the disorders were initiated by higher-paid categories of workers...
...Former all-powerful MVD officers now tried to efface themselves...
...They did not put forth far-reaching demands (as did workers at the Sharikopodshipnik plant a year later), but many of them left Donbas in search of jobs elsewhere...
...As to Party chief Khrushchev, he is neither feared nor hated, as were Stalin and his principal henchmen...
...The Party has never been as monolithic as the leaders try to present it—and it is not so today...
Vol. 41 • November 1958 • No. 42
