De-Stalinization-Two Articles:

...In Poland, Wladyslaw Gomulka has seized upon the revelations of de-Stalinization to win increased leeway for the development of his own economic policies...

...Christianity and Islam, it is worth recalling, continued to make considerable progress after important schisms early in their respective histories...

...This does not necessarily mean that Communism's appeal will diminish...

...Thereafter, when Molotov was persistently attacked as a dogmatist holding the most stubbornly Stalinist views on government and foreign policy, it was obvious that Molotov was but a stand-in for Chinese Party chief Mao Tse-tung and his policies...

...Finally, Stalin was removed from his showcase coffin alongside Lenin's and reburied in a Kremlin cemetery reserved for lesser heroes...

...Although Thorez has attacked Peking, he has very quickly passed over de-Stalinization...

...Stalin's reburial climaxed this struggle, too...

...He apparently feared that Stalin's former colleagues, thrown out of office in 1957, might somehow find a way either to remove him or to undermine his policies...

...For example, when a delegation headed by Luis Longo and Georgio Napolitano, a friend of Amendola, visited Moscow last December, the Italians were privately censured for what the Kremlin considered extremely dangerous ideas...

...Albania is now ostracized for refusing to accept Khrushchev's dicta...

...And some have raised the whole problem of the guilt of the present world Communist leadership—both individual and collective—which rose to power in the Stalin era...

...But in practice "collective leadership" has looked like little more than a euphemism for the cult of Khrushchev's personality...

...In Bulgaria, the ailing Vulko Chervenko has been expelled from the Party's Politburo...

...Khrushchev's famous Secret Speech of 1956 did much to put Stalin's moral and intellectual legacy to the Party in proper perspective and to condemn the worship of Stalin as a Communist saint...

...Today, it is doubtful that the term "Communist bloc" retains any meaning...

...In the future, there will probably be fresh attempts to restore the "unity of the camp...

...And when the Italian President of the Communist-controlled World Federation of Trade Unions recently asked for greater freedom of political maneuverability and closer collaboration with non-Communist unions, the salient points of his speech were simply not reported in the Soviet press...

...In Europe, the main issue of the Congress was de-Stalinization, not the exacerbation of the Sino-Soviet conflict...

...But while Khrushchev may resent the memory of "the boss" and want to be "bigger than Stalin ever was," it is a mistake to assume that he would put Party and State in jeopardy for the sake of personal revenge...

...Polish intellectuals are producing a veritable wave of writings on freedom of discussion as an indispensable perquisite of Socialism...

...In a recently published manifesto, the Belgian party implicitly criticized Thorez and his supporters while at the same time expressing friendly feelings toward Tito...

...And in five or 10 years the West may have to reconsider whether the political views of some branches of the polycentric system can still be defined as Communist in the traditional sense...

...He widened the charges against Stalin and Stalinists —the Anti-Party Group...

...Arthur E. Adams is now a Soviet affairs expert for Radio Free Europe...

...Nor has there been a mass exodus of Italian intellectuals...

...Giorgio Amendola, a veteran of many years standing and one of the leaders of anti-Fascist struggle inside Italy during the 1930s, asserted that every party member ought to have the right of free expression, "even if that caused the emergence of fractions within the party...

...De-Stalinization at the 22nd Congress was Khrushchev's further effort to shake the Party and nation free from the past...

...The Italian radicals know their differences with their own party are small compared to the ideological gulf dividing them from other Communist parties...

...The French party is still dominated by Stalinists who have thrown in their lot with Khrushchev, its structure and discipline are rigid, and major political issues have not been formally debated for decades...

...Place names have been changed without violence...

...A Togliatti speech, for instance, may be ignored altogether in Peking and Tirana, reproduced only in part and without comment in Moscow, and printed in toto in Warsaw and Belgrade...

...Doubts about de-Stalinization were voiced most openly by the Italian Communist party, whose Central Committee convened in Rome shortly after the 22nd Congress ended...

...This is hardly surprising: Once the principle of una sancta (the infallible church) has been abandoned, there is no limit, in theory at any rate, to the number of possible autocephalous churches (although in practice, for obvious reasons, the number will be limited...

...On several recent occasions, they have been even more outspoken in condemning Chinese aggression than the Government in New Delhi...

...The Party press and propaganda machinery has gone into high gear to provide evidence and arguments for Party workers...

...If the Russians preferred to give their Italian comrades a dressing down in private, the French Communists volunteered—or were called upon—to engage in a public attack...

...He dubbed these men "dogmatists," "sectarians," "Stalinists" and (through Anastas Mikoyan, Leonid Ilychev, Aleksandr Shelepin, et al...

...They have surely failed to do so among party members outside...

...The Italians, in contrast, have managed to maintain a considerable degree of unity over the years...

...But Communist parties in Asia and Africa have been affected by "polycentric trends...

...According to their logic, the decisive criterion for judging a particular society is the ownership of the means of production...

...At any rate, from now on the world—including Russia and China —will have to live with a divided Communist "system...

...Thus he crippled whatever latent or organized opposition may have existed by drenching it with Stalin's bloodguilt...

...In addition—and this process was well along even before Stalin's death in 1953—continuing economic, technical and scientific growth has created tremendous pressures for the rationalization of organizational structures and managerial techniques...

...Stalin's regime has cowed it by oppressive administrative procedures and destroyed rank-and-file initiative with an almost surgical finality...

...Or was it merely a harmless growth that can be easily and painlessly removed...

...Despite the emphasis upon "Socialist legality," both Party and State have continued to be run from the top in true totalitarian fashion, with the State remaining the Party's docile tool...

...So far as is known, there have been no cases of overt hostility to Stalin's disgrace...

...The Congress' effect on SinoSoviet relations and its repercussions throughout the Communist bloc are discussed on the preceding pages...

...But the very French Communists who joined the party via the resistance now oppose oldtime Stalinists like Thorez, and this has helped determine the Belgian position...

...It is questionable whether such ideological explanations have eliminated doubts within the Communist bloc...

...The new Party Program and Statutes were praised and approved unanimously...

...New "liberalized" Statutes for the Party were also prepared...

...Perhaps the law can now also be applied to Communist regimes and parties...

...Khrushchev's difficulties with foreign Communist parties also directly influenced the course of the new de-Stalinization...

...He came to the Congress determined to administer a stern rebuke to the wayward Albanian Communist chief, Enver Hoxa, who (egged on by China) has openly defied the Soviet Party...

...There was unanimous agreement at the convention that the party would have to become far more democratic...

...Outside Europe, de-Stalinization is not a central issue...

...No matter how great were Stalin's crimes, he did not restore the means of production to private possession...

...In Asia, Africa and Latin America, where national Communism is obviously more suitable to local conditions, its attractiveness may even be enhanced...

...In Africa, still another Communist center is emerging...

...Walter Z. Laqueur, editor of Survey, frequently writes here on developments in the Communist world...

...its roots go back farther than the Yugoslav defection in 1948...

...Interestingly, one member of the French Central Committee, Arthur Giovoni recently chose to identify himself with Mao Tse-tung rather than Khrushchev...

...Many party bigwigs, from André Marty and Auguste Lecoeur to Laurent Casanova, were victims...

...Of course, the Sino-Soviet conflict is overshadowing all other divisions and rivalries within what used to be the monolithic Soviet bloc...

...There are historical reasons for the widening gap between the two major West European parties...

...Many people in the USSR know from personal experience that Khrushchev and some of his colleagues are guilty of crimes similar to those attributed to Stalin and the Anti-Party Group...

...Moreover, the French were hardly in an ideal position to criticize others...

...These are aimed at freeing competent people from the fear of using their initiative in the industries, farms and academies of the nation...

...Indeed, some observers now even speak of a Rome-Belgrade-Warsaw axis...

...The Belgians have maintained close relations with the French since the days of the antiNazi resistance...

...From 1950-61, the French party leadership carried out an unending series of purges...

...It also launched a direct attack upon Stalin's techniques of ruling Party and Government...

...These lengthy documents, published at the end of July, were read and discussed across the nation, accompanied by a great deal of fanfare designed to inspire Party and non-Party people alike with a feeling that new roads were being opened to a glorious future...

...Moreover, the ghost of Stalin has never been completely exorcised...

...In Stalin's day, the daily perusal of Pravda, the Soviet party newspaper, sufficed to follow events in the Communist world...

...To date, the most impressive consequences of de-Stalinization have been manifested in the satellite nations...

...Even Palmiro Togliatti, party Chairman and for many years a faithful Khrushchev supporter, for once allowed himself to criticize his Soviet comrades...

...It demanded that Stalinism be treated as a political, not a historical issue, and declared that the existence of various "groups" within world Communism was an established fact...

...A Soviet commentator, writing in the monthly Asia and Africa Today, recently criticized the separatist tendencies of the Union Général des Travailleurs de l'Afrique Noire, the proCommunist federation of African trade unions...

...Internal discussions had clearly not weakened the appeal of the Italian party at the polls: In municipal elections which took place at the end of November, the party had slightly improved its standing...

...This organization was originally established, with Soviet help, as a counter-weight against the activities of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions...

...Nevertheless, Togliatti's position seems secure for the time being...

...Local agitators are now working down at the lowest levels...

...To a much greater degree than the French, the Italians are heirs to a radical democratic tradition...

...Its impact on the non-bloc —and particularly European—parties has also been considerable...

...How could anyone be sure the new system would last when Stalin was only "secretly" attacked in 1956, and when so many of his guilty colleagues continued to hold high office...

...These criticisms had little impact in Rome...

...Some Communists may even find a "historical law" to explain post factum the inevitability of the polycentric process...

...But only since last November has Communist division clearly emerged as a political fact of fundamental importance...

...Yet we are now witnessing the emergence of half a dozen or more Communist groups or factions...

...As to the domestic consequences of de-Stalinization (insofar as they are observable), there has been little of the "traumatic shock" and "trouble in Georgia" that many observers anticipated...

...In recent years Khrushchev has substituted "collective leadership" for the cult of personality...

...Though the more disturbing aspects of de-Stalinization appear to have gone down quietly, one cannot help but wonder what potential dangers threaten the Soviet Party leaders...

...Some rather basic questions are now being asked: Was Stalinism a cancer in the Soviet body politic which has left metastases in other areas...

...Under his leadership, also, the Italian party established close relations with Tito's Yugoslavia well before the 22nd Congress, and effected a rapprochaient with Poland's Wladyslaw Gomulka...

...When Chou-Enlai, after laying a wreath on Stalin's coffin in the Mausoleum, departed for Peking ostensibly to attend a Parliament that has yet to convene, the break was clear...

...their patron saint is Antonio Gramsci, a martyr of Fascist prisons who was one of the few independent thinkers in world Communism during the 1920s...

...He was able to brush aside the criticism of the younger elements as "infantile radicalism...

...The other European Communist parties have either taken their stand somewhere between these extremes or have not made their position known as yet...

...For many European party members, references to the "cult of personality" fail to explain Khrushchev's revelations about Stalin's crimes...

...Most French intellectuals have left the party, too...

...Apparently Khrushchev is confident he can control the demons he has loosed...

...Today, even research institutes find it difficult to keep track of major developments...

...According to L'Unità, Amendola's views were supported by many members of the Central Committee...

...The Premier's action must first be seen against the background of recent Party history...

...Tass has distributed a carefully prepared list of 64 lectures which are currently being delivered by Party speakers to millions of citizens...

...In an official communique, published in the party newspaper, L'Unità, the Central Committee argued that Stalinism could not be overcome merely by denouncing its shortcomings and mistakes and by attacking the AntiParty Group...

...Its leaders, meanwhile, have bitterly denounced the Premier's line and have questioned the Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy of his Party...

...The Party itself has also urgently needed far-reaching reforms...

...In Czechoslovakia, Antonin Novotny has de-Stalinized Klement Gottwald, and Czech writers are suddenly praising the great moral value of dedication to courage and justice...

...The British party, for example, which lost many of its young militants and most of its remaining intellectuals in 1956, leans toward Paris...

...Delegates to the Congress went home to meet with Party aktivs and to explain, sometimes with sensational details, why the Anti-Party Group had to be attacked and why Stalin had to be condemned onceand-for-all...

...Indeed, before long the West may be confronted by an entirely new situation which will require a re-examination of some of its basic tenets about the Communist world...

...Significantly, Gramsci's works were first published by the French Communists in 1960, after more than a decade of doubt and resistance...

...The Indian Communists now openly support Prime Minister Nehru's anti-Chinese policy...

...In recent weeks, Soviet spokesmen have argued that no lasting damage was done...

...The rebuke backfired when Chinese Premier Chou-En-lai reproved Khrushchev at the Congress and dared to imply that the Soviet Premier's tactic of open quarrel, rather than private consultation, was not in the MarxistLeninist tradition...

...Differences in press coverage generally reflect basic political divisions...

...After all, Lenin's "law of unequal development" claimed that conflict between imperialist powers was inevitable because they appeared at different times as pretenders to imperial rule...

...As a result, the Italian party is far more lively and aware than the French...

...As its protagonists predicted long ago, however, Communism has finally developed its own "world system"— though not, as was hoped, a unified one—and there is little likelihood of complete solidarity being restored...

...Those who dare to sympathize with a Lazar Kaganovich or a Vyacheslav Molotov, or even to express the ideas attributed to such men, are now vulnerable to attack as Stalinists...

...But the opinions of men like Amendola carry more weight, and there is widespread sympathy for them within the party...

...Further revelation of the facts, it was suggested, might lead to the impeachment of Khrushchev himself...

...The Emergence of Polycentrism By Walter Z. Laqueur The 22nd Congress of the Soviet Communist party accelerated what otherwise might have been a long drawn-out process: the division of a united camp into several independent and competing centers...

...Some have asked for a rehabilitation of Stalin's victims as far back as, and including, Trotsky...

...In December, the Peking press countered by icily suggesting that Ajoy Ghosh, the Indian Communist leader, had not troubled to acquaint himself with the essential facts of the situation...

...Despite Togliatti's "liberal" deviations, he did not escape harsh criticism—including a demand that he be removed as Chairman—from two factions within the party: a group of young militants centered around the weekly Nuova Generazione, and the radical wing led by Amendola and Gian Carlo Pajetta...

...The latter, trying to maintain its proletarian character, has in effect withdrawn into a workingclass ghetto and become immobile and fossilized...

...Only a few leading members have left the party, and some defectors have recently rejoined...

...One of the most important is the simple fact that Stalin's terror and personal tyranny are passé in the Soviet Union...

...How has this aspect of the November meeting affected the course of events in the USSR and the satellite countries...

...Trying to break away from the restraints of yesterday, to shake off the paralyzing dead hand of Stalin, Khrushchev ordered the preparation of a new Party Program (the last dates from 1919) to bring Party and Government aims and organization up to date...

...Some of the oldest and most respected Italian party leaders, Umberto Terracini and Petro Sechia among them, agreed that all the top Communists of the Stalin era shared responsibility for the crimes that had been committed...

...Stalin's criminal accomplices...

...According to them, Italian "fractionalism" is a betrayal of the Leninist principle of proletarian internationalism, and "polycentrism" is indefensible because it is bound to weaken not only proletarian solidarity but also the individual Communist parties...

...Whether he is right remains to be seen...

...There were other motivations for pursuing de-Stalinization at this time...

...Other speakers named the high criminals and specified their crimes, not the least of which was murder of fellow Party members...

...The Belgian party, on the other hand, has been critical of French attitudes...

...The broadside was fired by Maurice Thorez and Waldeck Rochet, the two major leaders of French Communism...

...Polycentric Communism has been forecast for many years...

...Many of them continue to hold leading positions in the party headquarters at Via Botteghe Oscure in Rome...