'Khrushchevizing' the Party:

...It is not yet clear how the regular Party conferences will be organized and whether the oppositionist sentiment in the lower-level military Party organizations will be swallowed up by the prevailing mood of the great mass of rank-and-file Communists or will serve as a catalyst that encourages the growth of opposition in other Party groups...

...To begin with, the very date selected for the Congress is rather curious...

...Behind the bombastic phrases in the press, various signs can be detected of the processes that are under way within the Party and the entire apparatus of the regime— processes that were initiated in Stalin's time but whose pace has since accelerated...

...On the other hand, no such document was slated for adoption by the 20th Congress, but the period of preparation lasted seven months because that Congress had the task of electing a new Party Central Committee...

...It is obvious from the resolution adopted at the January plenum that there is a great deal of unrest in the military Party units...

...Throughout the Party's history, the length of the period of preparation has always been proportionate to the difficulties faced by the Party leaders in ensuring that the Congress was of the desired composition...

...A very curious paragraph in the January plenum resolution says: "Members of Party organizations in the Soviet Army, the Soviet Navy and [other military] units will elect delegates to the 22nd congress of the CPSU, together with other Party organizations, at regional and territorial Party conferences or at congresses of the Communist parties of the Union Republics...

...In the 1920s, when the individual peasant reigned supreme in the countryside, the Party could ignore the seasons and call its congresses in April, May and June, when planting was at its height...

...However, this particular Congress—the last of the Stalin era—was anything but typical...

...As part of his strategy, he has changed the representation "norm" for delegates to the Congress: Each delegate to the 21st Congress represented 6,000 Party members...

...The 22nd Congress, too, is to elect a new Central Committee, and it is the struggle to determine the composition of the Party's new supreme organ that calls for such a long period of preparation for the Congress...

...The Party was obliged to stop calling its congresses during the sowing season...

...However, he could not help being basically hostile to the views of Zhukov and his followers, since they were directed against the dictatorship which the Party apparatus wielded over the Party and the regime as a whole...

...October 5, the date on which the Congress was convened, was an extremely disadvantageous choice, for agricultural activities were still under way in many parts of the country...

...That movement was essentially a struggle on the part of the Army military command against the Army political apparatus...

...Seven months were set aside for the 20th, four-and-a-half for the 21st and now more than nine for the 22nd—more than was required even when Stalin's struggle with the Party oppositionists was at its height...

...Zhukov's influence on the higher military echelons had been so great that, in order to defeat him, Khrushchev had had to appeal to the lowest ranks of the military Party organizations and make numerous changes in military structure...

...In December 1955 and January 1956, at pre-Party Congress conferences of the military Party organizations, Marshall Georgi Zhukov worked to mobilize anti-Stalinist sentiment in the Party...

...it had to hold them in the winter months, after the previous year's cycle of agricultural activities had ended and before the work of the new year had begun...

...During the past three decades, i.e., since the time of the forced collectivization drive, Party congresses have generally been held in the first three months of the given year...

...At the same time, he has increasingly tended to identify the interests of the Party apparatus with the reinforcement of his personal position...

...Soon after he had defeated Malenkov and the "antiParty group," Khrushchev settled scores with the Zhukov faction in the Army...

...To be sure, the difference of 12 days is an extremely important one, for the period between October 5 and October 17 is often vital for harvesting activities in the very areas upon which Khrushchev's agricultural policy depends: the virgin-soil areas of Kazakhstan...

...and the image of Khrushchev speaking beneath Lenin's portrait will be stamped in the memory of millions of people as a symbol of "the basic characteristic of the present-day era": Khrushchev is taking over the work of Lenin and carrying it forward...

...the protagonist of the drama will be Khrushchev, who is to read the two main reports...

...The conclusion is inescapable that, as the Party Congress approaches, Khrushchev is conducting a systematic drive aimed at what can only be described as the total "Khrushchevization" of the apparatus...

...Nevertheless, there is no question that the regime is doing everything possible to see that the Congress proves a spectacular demonstration of Party unity and of the "creative will" of the Party leaders...

...The "rejuvenation" of the Party apparatus will, of course, have the effect of lowering the age level at the Congress, and Khrushchev is banking on this heavily...

...Thus far, the process is confined largely to the lower and middle levels of the Party apparatus...

...The frequency of these changes suggests that many of his seemingly most loyal supporters tend to suffer sudden falls from grace...

...Clearly, a major shake-up has occurred in the Uzbek Party organization...

...Lenin was not the author of the 1919 Party program...

...yet the preparations for the Congress lasted only four-and-a-half months...

...Another important aspect of the work of preparation for the Congress relates to the political apparatus in the Army...

...Khrushchev allowed its leaders considerable freedom because he was able to use them against the rival Malenkov faction of the Party...

...It has varied widely—from six weeks (for the 18th Congress in 1939 and the 19th in 1952) to seven or sevenand-a-half months (for the 15th Congress in 1927 and the 16th in 1930...

...This is confirmed by the extraordinary amount of time that has been allotted to preparations for the Congress...

...His basic objective in all this maneuvering has at all times remained that of strengthening the role of the Party in the regime as a whole and strengthening the role of the apparatus within the Party...

...It is not completely clear from this whether the separate conferences of Army and Navy Party organizations which have been held in the past are being abolished or whether they are to continue but will not hold separate elections of delegates to the Congress...

...The most recent issue of the magazine Party Life contains a report stating that the Party Central Committee in Uzbekistan had conducted a seminar for "newly elected secretaries of district and municipal Party committees and chairmen of the executive committees of district and municipal soviets...

...Pictures of the scene will, of course, be promptly flashed around the world...

...A foreign observer can follow only those changes which occur at the higher levels, involving the secretaries of regional and higher Party committees...

...Standing beneath a gigantic portrait of Lenin, Khrushchev will present to the delegates the new Party program which is to replace Lenin's...

...at the higher levels, shifts are carried out, for the most part, on the basis of individual personalities...

...The result of all this is that the higher-level Party workers are increasingly finding themselves caught between the hammer of Khrushchev's personal leadership and the anvil of the youthful personnel now gaining power at the lower levels...

...There have been important changes in these military Party units since Stalin's death...

...The regime is trying to eliminate discontent in the Army by forcing these Party units to elect their delegates to the Congress at the regular Party meetings and conferences instead of at special Army conferences...

...Yet, this "symbol" is based on a lie...

...In any event, Khrushchev's choice of this unusual date for the opening of the Congress indicates the existence of some sort of stress at the top levels of the regime...

...Khrushchevizing' the Party Preparations for October congress indicate Soviet Premier is waging campaign to rid Party apparatus of unsympathetic elements By Boris I. Nicolaevsky The 22nd Soviet Communist party Congress, which is due to convene in Moscow on October 17, seems likely to be a one-man show—with Premier Nikita Khrushchev in the starring role...

...These changes are very significant, but those at the lower levels of the Party apparatus are unquestionably much more so...

...Whatever the results, the "rejuvenation" of the Party apparatus is being carried forward systematically in preparation for the 22nd Congress, and the younger workers now being moved to the fore will owe personal allegiance to Khrushchev's leadership of the Party...

...After Stalin's death, the periods of preparation for Party congresses began to lengthen again...

...The plenum resolution was adopted on January 10, but the Congress is not to open until nine months later...

...The movement of the Army command directed against the political workers was crushed, but the basic course of development within the Army continued...

...It was clear from the outset that this strategy would inevitably give rise to new conflicts...

...At that time, the Party was torn by a bitter internal struggle which brought it to the verge of another mass purge like the Yezhovshchina of the 1930s...

...He has now returned to this theme even more emphatically, making references to it in speeches at Moscow, Tiflis, Kiev, Alma-Ata and elsewhere...

...However, the 21st Congress also had an extremely important document to deal with—Khrushchev's theses on the seven-year plan...

...Most of the harvest will be in by October 17, which represents approximately the earliest date on which Party workers can absent themselves from their posts without causing great damage...

...When the 22nd Party Congress opens on October 17 in Moscow's huge Bolshoi Theater, the entire Party Presidium and other prominent figures will sit on the stage looking out over the great multitude of delegates...

...Khrushchev's action in reducing the Army's strength, although dictated by financial considerations, only served to aggravate the existing situation...

...the original Party program of the first country to initiate the building of Communism was written by Lenin, and now the second program, on the basis of which the process of building Communism will be completed, has been written by Khrushchev...

...The Soviet leaders are well aware of this, of course...

...There is a significant difference to the present reshuffle in the Soviet Communist party: It is not directed solely at particular individuals...

...However, with the rise of the kolkhoz and the transformation of the Party into the principal "organizer of the production process" in rural areas, the absence of Party representatives could completely disorganize agricultural activity...

...It is interesting that the date now chosen by Khrushchev is very close to that chosen by Stalin...

...Such was the case with the 17th Congress in 1934, the 18th in 1939, the 20th in 1956 and the 21st in 1959...

...each one sent to the October Congress will represent only 2,000...

...Agricultural activity was in no way affected by whether responsible Party workers were at their posts during those months...

...Two years ago, at the 21st Congress, Khrushchev spoke of the need to move people in the 35-40 age bracket into responsible positions, and his remark was promptly treated as an official directive by the local Party organizations...

...That will automatically at least triple the number of delegates, who will probably total some 4,500 to 5,000 —a substantial majority of them young people newly elected to Party secretarial posts...

...During the Yezhovshchina period, Georgi Malenkov won his spurs by moving up the young Party engineers who helped to carry out the great purge...

...It was dictated by the insane policy pursued by Stalin in the last years of his life...

...The APPROACH Khrushchev has used in the Army is typical of his whole strategy in the intra-Party struggle, which consists of playing off various groups against each other without actually satisfying the aims and ambitions of any one of them...

...On the other hand, it will not yet be possible at that time to evaluate the results of the harvest, and it seems likely that Khrushchev made his choice of a date for that very reason: He is anxious to see the Congress convene at a time when the delegates will be unable to discuss the results of the 1961 harvest...

...This is the longest preparatory period ever allowed for a Soviet Party congress...

...in the preparations for the congress, this tendency in Khrushchev's policy is particularly striking...

...Boris I. Nicolaevsky, who has analyzed the Soviet scene for many years in The New Leader, is co-author of Forced Labor in the Soviet Union and a life of Karl Marx...

...Khrushchev, as First Secretary of the Party, has been busy shaking up the ranks of the local secretaries, dismissing those who were unreliable and promoting those on whom he could count...

...Under the circumstances, none of the antagonists was concerned about maintaining the normal course of the country's economic life...

...The rapporteur in both cases will be Khrushchev...

...The recent grandiloquent statements in the Soviet press predicting that the forthcoming Congress will decisively affect the future not only of the Soviet Union but of the entire world can, of course, be largely discounted...

...Khrushchev is not, of course, the first to play the "youth" card in the game of intra-Party politics...

...However, the basic point is unmistakable: The top leadership of the Party is disquieted at the thinking of members of the special Party organizations in the armed forces...

...There is no doubt that the present shake-up among local Party secretaries is aimed, among other things, at introducing more young men and women into the Communist apparatus...

...However, they will all be mere window-dressing...

...Khrushchev's current youth drive may also have its evil as well as its beneficent aspects...

...The two shortest periods of preparation came, of course, when Stalin's dictatorial control was at its most complete and there was no question of an intra-Party fight over the coming congress...

...Nevertheless, they are fully prepared to resort to outright fabrications if they can thereby further their chief aim of the present moment: the "Khrushchevization" of the Soviet Communist party...

...When, at its January plenum, the Party's Central Committee set the date for the Congress, it was decided that the main items on the agenda would be the Central Committee's report and the adoption of a new Party program to replace the existing one, adopted in 1919 and by now thoroughly outdated...

...One is tempted to attribute this record allotment of time to the need for thorough discussion of the projected new Party program...

...but the man who wrote it and who delivered the main report on it at the Eighth Party Congress was not Lenin but Nicolai Bukharin, whose name is not even mentioned in current discussions of the new program...

...He took an active part in drafting it, and he may even be said to have edited it...

...There has, it is true, been one exception to this rule: the 19th Congress, which was convened in mid-October 1952...