SOVIET RESHUFFLE
By RICHARD CHANCELLOR
AT this season one cannot help comparing the latest reshuffle of the Soviet leadership with the permutations of an over- trained rugby side when approaching the last match of the year. It should now be clear to all that the captain of the Russian fifteen, the leader of the scrum and centre of the front row, is so far past his prime as to have relegated himself to the touch-line, en- couraged, perhaps, to take this course of action by the other members of the team. Molotov has moved up from the second rank into Stalin's place, but it cannot be pretended that the strength of the pack has been increased thereby, and the cohesion of the front row is inevitably weaker. Mikoyan, the steady centre man of the back row, has moved up into position on the right in Molotov's support. At the base of the scrum, Malenkov, amazingly quick in spite of his bulk, remains the pivot of the team, ever watchful of the tactical situation and ready to send his Party "outsides" away on the
attack, or to keep the ball at the feet of the Soviet forwards, as cir- cumstances dictate. On the left wing, the disastrous accident to that brilliant individualist and former international, Zhdanov, has given the newcomer, Mikhail Suslov, his chance to race for the red corner flag of World Communism. Down the field, by himself and watching the game, stands Beria, the most experienced full-back and the safest pair of hands in Russia.
The parallel is a suggestive one, if not pursued too far, and may
help in providing a homely illustration of the redeployment of Soviet power which is now taking place. But the events of the last few days, if they are to be properly appreciated, must be set against a wider background and linked up with other recent events which, taken as a whole, give a fair indication of an impending demonstration of Soviet power, and of a new and major development in Soviet internal politics. In the Constituent Republics of the Soviet Union, in the satellites and among the Communist Parties west of the Iron Curtain, local party congresses have now been completed, new central committees have been elected and new Politburos chosen from among their number. In fact, the stage is set for the long overdue 19th All-Union Congress, dreamed of by Andrei Zhdanov before he fell—the Congress which will include representation from States outside the U.S.S.R. and whose new Central Committee may well be elected on an international and no longer simply on an all- Russian basis. It can, moreover, be expected to endorse, with all the authority of a new Eastern Union, the recent statements of foreign Communist leaders that members of the Party should be prepared to welcome Soviet invasion of their soil. In the background stands Marshal Vasilievsky, for several months past freed of his duties as Chief of the Soviet General Staff, and ready to step forward in due time as the Russian counterpart of Lord Montgomery in the organisation of the armies of a great East European Soviet Socialist Confederacy.
The 19th Congress may well have another matter of some urgency on its agenda. At a time which is increasingly reminiscent of the political turmoil of 1923, the first traces of a Russian political Opposition are beginning to appear within the present Central Com- mittee and within the Politburo itself, the first since the 17th Party Congress, the "Congress of Victors " of 1934. There is a section of the Soviet leaders whose close connection with the material problems of the Russian and satellite economies has caused them to move inevitably away from the doctrinaire wing of the Party, and the strength of this element can be measured by the success with which that brave man—Professor Varga—has been able to stick to his unpalatable opinions in face of the bitterest opposition from the Communist Party periodicals. It is almost as if Izvestia had printed an attack on Pravda and got away with it without the wholesale removal of its editorial staff.
In 1923, as Lenin's strength ebbed, his authority passed to three men, nominated by himself and by the Central Committee of the day as the best representatives of the varying currents of political opinion within the Bolshevik Party. As all the world knows, this triumvirate consisted of Zinoviev, Kamenev and Stalin, and it took ten years for Stalin to eliminate his rivals politically by a process
of treachery and intrigue which has few parallels since the days of Ivan the Terrible. Physical liquidation followed almost incidentally, as a simple matter of expediency. That is history. Now, twenty-six years later, the situation is similar in two important respects. Firstly, the personal authority of another great Russian leader is waning; and, secondly, an impending All-Union Party Congress, which means the election of a new Central Committee, presents a unique oppor- tunity for the Soviet leaders to tell a speculative world how they intend to govern Russia after the death of Stalin. There is little doubt that the changes just announced have a bearing on this all- important question, and no Soviet answer to Western Union and the Atlantic Pact will be complete without some declaration on the vexed question of the succession, which has aroused the curiosity of nations. For Molotov to be freed of departmental duties at this critical time is logical, and fully consistent with the view that he will succeed Stalin as Prime Minister of the Soviet Union. It will be remembered that Malenkov, the Personal Secretary of the Party, although a Deputy Prime Minister, is also free of Governmental duties, and it seems inevitable that he will inherit the General Secretaryship of the Party. Beria, controller of the greatest vested interest in Soviet Russia—the Secret Police—is a third Deputy Prime Minister without official ministerial ties, and to these three is now added Mikoyan, the hard-headed Armenian with the weight of Soviet industry on his shoulders, who may well have supplied much of the political support so significantly available to Varga.
It is now fairly certain that the Gleichschaltung of the Soviet and satellite Communist Parties has been successful enough to ensure the re-election by the 19th Congress of a new Central Committee on the lines desired by the old. It would be fully consistent with
• the tradition of Marxist-Leninist-Stalinism for this Central Com- mittee to nominate a triumvirate on the lines of 1923, which might well consist of Beria, Malenkov and Mikoyan, as the best repre- sentatives of the interests, already conflicting, within the present leadership. For Stalin to succeed the colourless Shvernik, for the remainder of his days, as titular head of the Soviet State would be a logical corollary of such a move, as would the simultaneous announcement of Molotov to succeed Stalin as Prime Minister of the U.S.S.R. If the existing system is to survive, the Soviet leaders must, somehow, be able to reconcile the monarchical and imperialist tendencies of the Stalinist era with all that is left of pure Marxism, in a manner which will satisfy the millions of people under their control and round off the structure of Soviet power in face of the rapidly reacting West. To increase the authority of the head of the State, in the person of Stalin, and later of .Molotov, may be the solution of their immediate problem, combined with some dele- gation of the executive authority to a triumvirate on the lines of 1923.
" And what," the world is asking, " is going to be the precise effect of these cumbrous manoeuvres on the countries outside the orbit of the Soviet Union ? " My answer would be a comparatively simple one—some would say over-simple. The Western reaction to the steady encroachments of world Communism directed from Moscow is taking shape in the well-defined forms of Marshall Aid, Western Union an the Atlantic Pact. The Soviet leaders interpret this reaction, in Russian fashion, as a fresh challenge to their long- term dream of world-domination, and this they are preparing to meet by a formal re-grouping of the States under their control and by an organisation, on the grand scale, of the armed forces of those States under Russian leadership, together with an extensive "Partisan" organisation of Communist fifth columns within the frontiers of their enemies. The Soviet strategy is unchanged, but tactics are flexible and must be modified to conform with the external threat from the West and with the political evolution of the Soviet leader- ship within Russia herself. War is no nearer, and in my view improbable. It is only the possibility of an accident, which nobody wants, that has become slightly more likely as the ranks line up on each side of the Iron Curtain. But the Soviet team hardly inspires confidence. Gone is the spirit which performed such prodigies in earlier years, and the departure of a great captain will leave too much scope for the activities of that streak of selfish and irresponsible individualism which is inherent in the Russian nature.
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