Is Khrushchev Slipping?

...It should be noted that in 1957–58, when a sharp conflict arose in Kazakhstan between local Party organizations and the directors of the state farms about the harvest, Belyaev sided with the latter...

...This combination of conflicting policies accounts for the peculiarities of Khrushchev's behavior...

...While still in the Presidium of the Central Committee, Malenkov's status remained that of a "disenfranchised" member...

...It would indeed be a miracle if such a clique could get along without perpetual internal strife, but there are no miracles on Khrushchev's Olympus: His power has been built by intra-Party struggle...

...In 1958–60 the foreign policy of the Soviet dictatorship, as framed by decisions of the Presidium, was directed by this "triumvirate...

...interpretation and, in fact, are in direct contradiction to it...

...The significant point about this change is not merely that Mikoyan's place has been taken by Suslov...

...After the December plenum an investigation of both men had been ordered, which brought to light some political errors in their activities...

...Both steps had caused bitter controversy in the Party from the outside...

...ABSOLUTE POWER was not concentrated in Khrushchev's hands until March 1958, when he took the office of Premier in addition to retaining his post as First Secretary of the Party...

...1958] was dragged into the open again in 1959–60...

...Terror, as history showed, could drive this struggle underground, but could not stamp it out...

...At that time Stalin, in The Economic Problems of Socialism, pointed to collective ownership in rural economy as the chief obstacle on the road to Communism, arguing that, from the Socialist point of view, such ownership patterns were inferior to those adopted in industry...

...Thus, of the two central issues in Khrushchev's early 1958 program, one—the collective farm policy—was taken out of his hands at the December 1959 plenum...

...This was a return to the times of Stalin—in defiance of the Communist party's Central Committee decision in March 1953 to outlaw the simultaneous holding of the highest Party and Government posts, in order to prevent repetition of Stalin's one-man rule...

...The Party was not a monolith in Lenin's time, despite his enormous prestige, nor Stalin's, in spite of his ruthlessness in wiping out all opposition...

...There were now more reasons for discord, since the interests of vast population groups had to be reckoned with under the new set-up...

...Mikoyan is said to be largely responsible for Khrushchev's foreign policy having been oriented toward "peaceful coexistence...

...Reduced to the level of a second-string politician entirely dependent on Khrushchev's support, Mikoyan now takes no part in shaping Soviet foreign policy in its larger aspects...

...There is little doubt that Khrushchev's foreign policy was severely criticized at this plenum, with the brunt of attack borne by Mikoyan...

...We know far less about the relationship of forces in this area than in collective farm policy...

...The significance of such deviations from the rule was made clear even then by an article published in Kommunist (No...

...After becoming Premier, Khrushchev introduced an essential modification of this arrangement, by appointing Frol Kozlov and Anastas Mikoyan as his only First Deputies...

...In the post-Stalin period the situation became somewhat more complicated, inasmuch as the membership of the Presidium of the Central Committee now included some ordinary, as well as First, Deputies...

...As I have repeatedly stressed, Soviet foreign policy secrets are more closely guarded than any others...

...In terms of a struggle to win a majority in the UN, Khrushchev's discomfiture was clear even before his arrival in New York because the new African states showed themselves to be nearly unanimous in supporting Dag Hammarskjold's actions in the Congo...

...At least for the time being, the reaction will not strike at Khrushchev himself, but will concentrate its fire on his close aides...

...In the post-Stalin period the principal decision-making body for major foreign policy issues was the Presidium of the CC...

...In such a country, with its complex administrative processes and its extremely unstable social relations, it is inevitable that serious differences of opinion should arise as to the best policy lines to be followed...

...There were ample indications, however, that an intense struggle was going on behind the scenes, led by Mikhail Suslov, principal opponent of Khrushchev's approach...

...The plenum ended in a nominal victory by Khrushchev and the control of the apparatus remained in his hands, but there were now significant rifts developing within that apparatus...

...For the sake of brevity, I am offering here a simplified version of the controversy, which I have discussed elsewhere in greater detail...

...The "neutralists...

...The Malenkov episode merely confirms the general importance associated with the office of First Deputy...

...The iron hand, which had kept things under control by threatening cruel reprisals, was no longer there, but the men at the top were the same as before: Stalin's fledglings—utterly ruthless, aggressive, vindictive, raised in a "dog-eat-dog" environment—had been chosen by a leader who knew how to pick men of his own ilk...

...Khrushchev stayed on longer than the others, his public utterances growing hotter by the minute, but finally he too left, after a 25-day sojourn...

...in actual practice, however, the Presidium, or Politburo, was often left in ignorance of what was going on...

...So long as there seemed to be a chance for the meeting, Khrushchev was all for it and set no conditions whatever...

...men like Marshal Tito and Jawaharlal Nehru, persistently wooed by Khrushchev, attempted for the first time at this session to act collectively as "honest brokers," trying to arrange a meeting between Eisenhower and Khrushchev, but were the first to admit the hopelessness of their endeavors...

...Khrushchev's objective in assuming both powers was to carry out a major policy providing for two basic aims: a summit conference in international politics: and a radical reconstruction of relations in rural economy to give peasants material incentives...

...There are a few peep-holes, however, which allow an occasional glimpse of these secrets, if one is adept...

...The present struggle has undoubtedly taken on new forms, essentially different from those under Stalin and during the first years of the post-Stalin period, since these forms inevitably change with changes in overall conditions...

...The situation grew even more perplexing as it became clear that Mikoyan's position had markedly deteriorated...

...designed to change the social structure of this country and explode the UN by waging relentless war against the United States...

...Even from the purely theoretical standpoint, the thesis of a monolith seems totally indefensible...

...Yet careful scrutiny of the records discloses certain elements in his actions which do not fit this BORIS I. NICOLAEVSKY, a close student of Soviet affairs, is co-author of Karl Marx: Man and Fighter and Forced Labor in the Soviet Union...

...Khrushchev's novel ideas were never overtly criticized by Suslov...

...From the Communist standpoint, it is argued, this was a "revisionist," "quitter's" policy leading to the defeat of Communism...

...To protect them against attempts made by Party agencies to remove them from their posts, he pushed through a ruling whereby the directors of Kazakhstan's state farms were reclassified and placed under the authority of the Central Committee, which made them no longer accountable to the local organizations...

...The picture emerging from these reports is so typical that it leaves no doubt as to its meaning...

...Nominally this was also true under Stalin...

...This is the nub of the entire matter: Is there an internal power struggle inside leading Soviet Party circles or is the Party a monolith...

...Attempts to assess the facts are now being made in all quarters and everyone is stumped by the same baffling questions: What was the real reason behind Khrushchev's massive raid on the UN...

...Under Stalin each Presidium member who was at the same time a member of the Council of Ministers automatically became a First Deputy Chairman...

...Such, for instance, was Georgi Malenkov's status when he resigned from the post of Chairman of Council of Ministers...

...For dissension, unavoidable in such a huge machine, inevitably leads to some form of struggle among the dissenters...

...Khrushchev's promises of credits to to India for road construction in areas bordering on China must be regarded as indirect confirmation of the facts related by Nehru: Besides supporting the "neutralists" on his meeting with Eisenhower, Khrushchev was willing to repay this support with loans...

...Hence, any steps directed against Kirichenko and Belyaev also meant an attack on Khrushchev, even though his name was never mentioned in the press...

...First Deputies are members of the board authorized to make decisions on matters of foreign policy, while ordinary Deputies are restricted to membership in the broader bureau, whose competence is limited to matters of domestic policy...

...On the face of it Khrushchev's large-scale operation suggested a campaign to conquer or explode the UN...

...the other was a new move to intensify the struggle against American and world "colonialism...

...The question arises, then, all the more urgently: Who is directing foreign policy...

...Carrying out Presidium decisions, i.e., the actual task of guiding foreign policy, was left to the "Little Bureau" (or Presidium) of the Council of Ministers, made up of its chairman and his First Deputies...

...Their removal had been personally directed by Averki Aristov, who came to Rostov for the purpose, and by Leonid N. Efremov, head of the Department of Party Organs of the Central Committee, who made a special trip to Stavropol...

...The first rumors of his decline were received with natural skepticism...

...Fitting together scraps of evidence to analyze their true significance would require careful scrutiny and a good deal of space...

...The best I can do, therefore, is to state my conclusions, without citing the material on which they are based...

...This conjecture is borne out by the following facts: Immediately after the plenum Aleksei Kirichenko and Nikolai Belyaev, both members of the Presidium of the CC, the closest supporters of Khrushchev's collective farm policy, were removed from their posts and sent away— Kirichenko to Rostov, Belyaev to Stavropol—as Secretaries of Regional Committees...

...The enormously important implications of these transfers are gradually becoming clear...

...The gist, so far as the collective farms were concerned, could be traced back to the theoretical debates of Stalin's era, before the 19th Party Congress...

...The first reshuffling of officeholders within the apparatus affected the membership of the Little Bureau of the Council of Ministers...

...The focal point of serious contention was the proposed Eisenhower-Khrushchev meeting sponsored by the "neutralists...

...Mikoyan is a hard-bitten, veteran schemer who has managed to come out of the direst predicaments unscathed...

...The Soviet Union is an immense country ruled dictatorially by a single political party which now has eight million members...

...Political and Party leaders of such rank as Kirich-enko or Belyaev are demoted only for grave political errors...

...The fact that he had been appointed First Deputy seemed puzzling from the outset...

...What the actual charges against these men were is not yet known, but there is no doubt that they involved major problems of Party policy concerning the collective and state farms, on which no decisions could be made without Khrushchev...

...To save his position, Khrushchev was forced to accede to some changes stressing further the dominant role of the Party, especially the Party apparatus, in the overall control of the dictatorial machine...

...Had this been a matter of poor management, of mere blunders, there could have been no question of their removal from the Presidium...

...One of the oldest members of the Presidium in the Central Committee since 1939, and in the Politburo since 1948, Kosygin rose to prominence as a competent industrialist and economic executive who had little to do with major political issues or, for that matter, with foreign policy, except in the area of economics...

...Turning over the machine tractor stations (MTS) to the collective farms was the first step in achieving the second aim, and the next step was organizing collective farm associations...

...In practical terms this means that the group in control, which previously consisted of Khrushchev, Mikoyan and Kozlov, has now been replaced by a group made up of Khrushchev, Suslov, Kozlov, Otto Kuusinen and Nuritdin Mukhitdinov...

...It can hardly be doubted, nevertheless, that the present opposition to Khrushchev's collective farm policy is led by Suslov...

...The history of this struggle cannot be told here in full, but its major stages must be outlined, since they relate directly to the "crisis of the leadership" now developing in Moscow...

...A noted Soviet historian contends that the Soviet Premier has suffered defeats in both agricultural and foreign policy and that new policies are now being shaped, largely under the influence of Mikhail Suslov By Boris I. Nicolaevsky THE CURRENT session of the United Nations has not yet adjourned, but Nikita Khrushchev's broad political campaign in it is over...

...The fact that Stalin's position was openly criticized and corrected by Khrushchev precluded the possibility of any direct attack upon Khrushchev...

...This arrangement goes back to the time of Stalin, who orginated the First Deputies in March 1946, after the Council of People's Commissars had been reorganized as the Council of Ministers...

...The only possible conclusion, in light of recent developments, is that since May the board of First Deputies no longer plays the part assigned to it by Stalin...

...But this was true only with respect to the broad issues determining the basic policy...

...Not only was this proposal supported by Khrushchev — working behind the scenes, to be sure—but in some respects it had been inspired by him...

...While no direct information is available to provide the right answer, there are some relevant data...

...It was this new team that laid down the policy line Khrushchev followed at the UN in New York...

...What specific goals did Khrushchev set himself...

...IN FOREIGN POLICY, the offensive launched by the reactionaries of the Party apparatus has been led in the same direction, though at a different pace, and the same methods have been used...

...In the entire central apparatus of the dictatorship the Secretariat alone has sufficient authority for carrying on this function...

...There was never a time in the history of the Communist party when such dissent did not exist...

...Since the U-2 incident Mikoyan's position has been, and still is, in my opinion, similar to Kirichenko's and Belyaev's eight or nine months ago...

...His program was rejected and his closest associates, who had prepared and promoted his program, were not merely removed from their posts but relegated to the lower Party ranks...

...The conflicting elements in Khrushchev's actions reflect the contrast between the old policy, for which Mikoyan is now held responsible, and the new policy being shaped today, with Suslov pointing the way...

...Khrushchev remains the official mouthpiece on all matters of foreign policy, but foreign policy is now shaped by a new team of leaders whose orientation is quite different from that of the previous group...

...In 1952, Suslov had been Stalin's chief assistant in writing The Economic Problems of Socialism and had also directed the ideological purge of scientific workers in Moscow, started in December...

...The strained relations with a group of Army men, of which Marshal Ivan Konev is a representative figure, was bound to create a tense atmosphere at the plenum, though Konev had earlier been removed from his post...

...save for a single discreet remark, made in passing, in which Suslov expressed a hope that reorganization of the MTS would result in increased productivity of collective farm labor...

...In terms of "social content," this was a reactionary opposition, directed by the Party apparatus, against an attempt to steer Party policy toward minor concessions to the collective farmer...

...Recently, theories denying the existence of an internal power struggle among the top echelons of the Soviet dictatorship have been gaining ground...

...Khrushchev himself so far has not come under attack, save for incidental slurs, but he realizes nevertheless that Mikoyan's fall would mean his own fall, and hence his energetic attempts to protect Mikoyan...

...That is why he is never seen in Moscow when Khrushchev happens to be on one of his famous trips abroad...

...The unprecedented gathering of the heads of state engineered by Soviet diplomacy broke up as the dictators went back home...

...One was Khrushchev's desire for rapprochement with the U.S., given its existing social structure and the present Administration...

...4, 1955) which accused Malenkov of not being able to direct foreign policy...

...But because the struggle has assumed new forms is no indication that it no longer exists...

...Khrushchev's professed disapproval came at a later date when it was clear that Eisenhower had no intention of meeting with him...

...The Little Bureau of the Council of Ministers was actually a group comprising all the Presidium members, entrusted with the functions of state administration...

...This major theoretical issue, no doubt, had some bearing on the controversy over collective farm associations which took place at the 1959 plenum of the Central Committee (CC) My analysis of the factual material on this controversy which was available at the time of the plenum was confirmed by subsequent data, which also indicate that the policy line followed by the Secretariat of the CC in this matter had been investigated and pronounced politically erroneous...

...It is no less important that Suslov is stepping in at a time when loyal "Khrushchevists" show signs of inner confusion...

...It represented the worst of current Soviet reactions: a reaction inspired by the Party apparatus...

...The problems involved in running the dictatorial machine had, under the new conditions, become more complicated— and more trying...

...Khrushchev is allowed to say as a convenient "front" but the policy he is now forced to pursue is not what he had in mind...

...What organ of Soviet administration is entrusted with this function...

...Most likely, the old conflict [see Kazakhstan Pravda, January 12...

...Khrushchev's First Deputies in the Council of Ministers are left with the minor functions of diplomatic representation, while all major decisions are made by the CC Secretariat...

...The very foundations of his collective farm policy had obviously been dealt a severe blow, and the issue of collective farm associations had completely disappeared from the press...

...Such was the situation on May 1 when the U-2 incident precipitated a major general "crisis of leadership...

...The true reasons for his attendance at the UN can be properly understood only by first gaining some insight into the relationship between these two foreign policy orientations now existing at the top level of the Kremlin dictatorship...

...It seems virtually certain, in particular, that the Party, through the recently reorganized Secretariat of the Central Committee, has taken over the full task of directing Soviet foreign policy...

...During the worst years of Stalin's terror dissenters formed conflicting groups inside the Party leadership...

...The true significance of the May plenum can now be gauged with a fair measure of accuracy if we consider the changes since effected in the practical functioning of the dictatorship...

...Khrushchev openly opposed Stalin, declaring that under existing conditions collective ownership should be regarded as equivalent to Socialist ownership...

...It is a matter of record that the more responsible "neutralists," including Nehru, justified their initiative in this proposal by the necessity of making it easier for Khrushchev, who allegedly was exposed to the strongest pressures against such a meeting in both China and Russia...

...CONSIDERING THE current status of Kosygin and Mikoyan, it hardly seems possible that the present contingent of Khrushchev's First Deputies in the Council of Ministers could direct Soviet foreign policy...

...Once clearly established, this fact becomes highly significant, for it indicates that Khrushchev's game was far more complicated than it appeared to be, its pattern combining the elements of two basically incompatible policies...

...In the official reports on the decisions adopted by the plenum on May 3 and 4 we find no other reference to the Little Bureau than a short notice stating that one of its members, Kozlov, was shifted to the Secretariat of the Central Committee, and Aleksei Kosygin appointed the new First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers...

...In May, following the May plenum, both men were removed from their new posts, as well as from the Presidium of the CC (according to some reports, from the CC itself), which in terms of their Party standing meant that they had been reduced to obscurity...

...Yet the symptoms multiplied and today it can no longer be doubted that we are witnessing Mikoyan's eclipse...

...With Stalin's death the Communists, especially those in the top echelons, won back the right to hold and voice opinions openly...