Khrushchev's Victory
NICOLAEVSKY, BORIS I.
New demands for economic development prove major factor in curtailing aggressive foreign policy group at 21st Communist party Congress in Moscow Khrushchev's Victory By Boris I....
...the 21st Congress was the first to have many delegates representing agriculture...
...Khrushchev's position has been acknowledged by Suslov...
...In his struggle for power, he has had to adopt policies which attempt to raise the peasants' living standards and maintain peace...
...Later, however, he was restored to a position of authority in ideological matters and, with Peter N. Pospelov, tried whenever possible to de-emphasize the critical re-evaluation of Stalin's "heritage...
...Even after Stalin's death, while he was climbing to the summit, Khrushchev worked with Suslov...
...this is the meaning of Suslov's speech at the Congress...
...This is not the Kremlin's doing, but rather the internal logic of the process...
...The advoeates of aggressiveness can only be found in the Party ranks...
...The struggle did not end with the ouster of the "anti-Party group" in June 1957...
...Khrushchev, of course, is not a pacifist, but his hand has been forced by events...
...They produced the slogan: "The Glorious Party of Marx, Gngels, Lenin and Stalin," which then adorned all the Party banners prior to Khrushchev's "secret" speech...
...Few countries have suffered from war as much as the USSR, where every family has lost a member either in or because of war...
...His proposals, which were unanimously adopted by the Congress, contain a clause which subordinates all the Central Committee's ideological activities to his political leadership: "All the Party's instruments of ideological work—propaganda, agitation, the press, the radio, science, literature, art—must be directed toward the attainment of our objectives in the building of Communism...
...Actually, however, it was not the focal point of the 21st Congress at all...
...And in the months that followed, the ideological agencies headed by Suslov began to influence the regime in this direction...
...even then, they are almost exclusively among the ideologists fed by Stalin's spiritual diet...
...This is the heart of the conflict between Khrushchev and Suslov, who was a top figure in the Soviet Communist party in 1958 and who played a tremendous part in the preparation of the Congress...
...Thus, the real question now is how will the Premier use his victory in the political struggle within the Party...
...Suslov had an important behind-the- scenes role in the great debate about the roads to Communism, which took place between 1950 and 1952 and which was ended by Stalin's well-known pamphlet, "The Economic Problems of Socialism...
...But the Kremlin's aggressive foreign policy is in direct conflict with the interests of the collective farmers...
...Suslov was then Stalin's close assistant, and Stalin entrusted him with the attack upon reluctant party theoreticians...
...This reached its peak at the November 1957 Moscow Conference of Communist Parties...
...Interestingly, Khrushchev was once Suslov's closest ally...
...Indeed, this struggle never ceases...
...It is known, for example, that the draft declaration which Khrushchev showed to Yugoslavia's Marshal Tito in 1957 was substantially different from the text adopted in November...
...These two initiated the attempt to play up Stalin's importance on the eve of the 20th Congress...
...Many Party members are against war and incendiary foreign policies...
...The declaration was a throwback to a purely Stalinist conception of world developments and international relations...
...The reorganization is in full swing, and a rejection of Khrushchev's plan now could have led to serious upheavals, All the local Party delegates, too, had firm instructions to support the Seven-Year Plan...
...So, since the approval of Khrushchev's proposals at the November plenary session of the Central Committee, it had bgen clear that nothing unexpected would occur at the 21st Congress...
...In 1950-52, when Suslov helped formulate Stalin's anti-peasant policy, Khrushchev was the main executor of that policy...
...This pamphlet is striking for its antipeasant overtones...
...The extent of Khrushchev's victory and ks practical results, however, cannot yet be determined...
...Suslov then was able to extend the fight against revisionism to the international arena...
...But the information already on hand points up some significant aspects of the recently concluded Moscow meeting...
...Center of the latest conflict is Mikhail Suslov...
...Officially, the Congress was only convened to discuss and adopt the new Seven-Year Plan (1959-65...
...The West does not realize how strongly the Russian people are opposed to an adventurous foreign policy...
...There exists, therefore, a tremendous desire for belter living standards which the Government is trying to channel into zealous efforts to develop the country's economy...
...In recent years, the general standard of living has improved appreciably, although it is still very poor beneath the top level of Soviet society...
...In this he has already achieved considerable success...
...At this Conference, too, Suslov formulated a policy for world Communism which, in effect, placed world revolution ahead of the welfare of the Soviet people...
...Khrushchev has won...
...this was the only item on the agenda...
...We can formulate this as a law: The more aggressive the foreign policy, the more pronounced the anti-peasant tendency in internal policy...
...it merely entered a new phase...
...Stalin insisted that the kolkhoz-cooperative approach in agriculture must be abolished before the type of state ownership that existed in industry could be extended to the countryside...
...But then they parted ways...
...During the struggle with the industrial managers who were Georgi Malenkov's main supporters, Khrushchev placed a big stake on agricultural development...
...The magazine had been publishing articles displaying revisionist tendencies...
...After Stalin's death, Suslov lost favor for some time...
...Economic development, however, is indissolubly linked with political in-fighting in the Soviet Union...
...New demands for economic development prove major factor in curtailing aggressive foreign policy group at 21st Communist party Congress in Moscow Khrushchev's Victory By Boris I. Nicolaevsky COMPLETE reports on the proceedings at the Extraordinary 21st Congress of the Communist party of the Soviet Union are not yet available here...
...He is typical of those party theoreticians who do not create new ideas themselves, but who synthesize the ideas of others and produce the "polished" formulas...
...They also initiated the March- April 1957 conferences which put an end to attempts to revise Stalin's "historical" past, and resulted in the replacement of the entire editorial board of the Voprosy Istorii (Problems of History...
...True, they do not always crystallize into tangible concepts and they are not always embraced by firmly delineated groups...
...He rarely speaks in public and hardly ever publishes articles under his signature...
...The magazines of these two sections were shut down and Suslov, in a caustic Pravda article, attacked A. M. Fedoseyev, an Academician who took a prominent part in the controversy...
...Almost without interruption since the fall of 1947, he has been a key ideologist in the Central Committee...
...These delegates, moreover, are becoming Khrushchev's most reliable supporters...
...of the majority of the Party, especially of those already engaged in his gigantic economic reorganization...
...The Conference ended in a joint declaration by 64 national parties that marked Communism's shift to the ideological offensive against the Western democracies, and declared all-out war against revisionist groups within the movement...
...Conversely, whenever efforts to improve the peasants' lot are undertaken, foreign policy becomes less aggressive...
...There is no doubt that far-reaching changes will take place...
...But it must be noted that Khrushchev has never been sincerely interested in the fate of the collective-farm peasantry, who form the lowest and the most exploited stratum of Soviet society...
...This guaranteed his winning the support BORIS I. NICOLAEVSKY is co-author of Karl Marx: Man and Fighter and Forced Labor in Soviet Russia and a close student of Soviet affairs...
...Repressive measures were rained upon the economics and philosophy sections of the Academy of Sciences, where these theoreticians were "dug in...
...The decisions facing the top leadership are too vast to exclude differences of opinion, and these differences are too vital for a struggle not to ensue...
...It also was the subject of all resolutions passed at the Party congresses of the individual Union republics, which selected the Moscow delegates...
...He carried out the collective-farm amalgamation that deepened the agricultural crisis which still plagues the USSR...
...There is also another factor which forces the hand of Soviet politicians: the insurmountable desire for peace not only among the broad masses, but also among the intelligentsia and even important groups in the Communist party...
...His concern was with economics: the need for radical measures to improve agricultural production, a prerequisite for the general development of the economy...
...From the very beginning, apparently, this policy did not fully satisfy Khrushchev...
...Above all, Khrushchev wanted to create a body of economic organizers in the countryside, which in the USSR amounts to setting up Party organizations...
...But the tendency toward the formation of such groups always exists and it is an important factor in Kremlin shifts...
...Of course, economic matters are of prime importance in the USSR...
...Premier Nikita Khrushchev was very shrewd to make the "steep rise" in the national economy appear as the major issue of the Congress...
Vol. 42 • February 1959 • No. 7
