KHRUSHLCHEV'S KIND WORDS
Asawrtey go to press the Congress of the Soviet Communist Party is not yet over. When the names of the new Central Committee and Party Praesidium are available its significance will be clearer. For interpretations of Soviet Party events which base themselves mainly on the development of the internecine struggle for pbwer and survival within the leader- ship have always been more fruitful, and of more predictive value, than those taking policy statements at their face value. 9u the policy side, indeed, there is not much to say : Stalinist Industrialisation measures will continue and the more flexible foreign policy tack will, not for the first time since the war, be carried on for the present, until it is plain that no more suckers are forthcoming. Khrushchev was, indeed, careful to point out that all his kind words still only meant that the fate he planned for the rest of us was world Communism. On the power side, interest centres on the attacks on leadership by an individual, and on Stalin personally. These were made mainly by those least committed to Khrushchev—Suslov, Malenkov and Mikoyan. It seems reasonable to suppose that they were directed against Khrushchev, the main immediate contender for individual leadership and at the same time the most loyal and orthodox Stalinist. Mikoyan rubbed this in by naming two Men wrongly purged by Stalin, Ukrainian leaders for whose r.einoval Khrushchev was responsible. The Praesidium seems Present to be rather like the French Assembly—no com- Pletely reliable groupings but ad hoc majorities forming from time to time. All speakers were careful to safeguard their
positions more or less enthusiastic stealing of each other's
thunder: Malenkov putting in his word for heavy industry. and Khrushchev paying lip service to 'collective leadership.' This confuses the issues a little more, but Byzantine court intrigue is never likely to be simple, especially during an inter- regnum. The great thing is not to mistake it for any more modern process of government,
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