Stirring the Surface
rr HE reorganisation of State and party in the 1 USSR is yet another of those shake-ups by which the leadership hopes, each time, to find the solution to glaring failures in Russia's economy. The decentralisation of 1957, the partial re- centralisation of 1960, and now the attempt to use the party as a direct economic administra- tion—the trouble with all these measures is that, with all their air of radical change, they merely stir the surface of the problem. Until something is done about collectivisation, the scandal and failure par excellence of the Communist eco- nomic system, and about the whole principle of bureaucratic management-from-a-distance, there is no prospect at all of the USSR reaching its stated aim of catching up with the US—or with Western Europe. Meanwhile, amid the usual sanguine cries of welcome for 'new men,' we may note that the only promotion to the Prxsidium is of a member of Stalin's super- purge Central Committee of 1952.
The other sensation is Khrushchev's secret re- port about the publication of the labour camp story, A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, which, he is said to have claimed, was opposed in high circles till he himself insisted on it. This further attack on the Stalin heritage is to be warmly welcomed. It has so far only pro- gressed to the extent that it serves Khrushchev's own particular interests; but this does not dero- gate froth its objective effects. All the same, we should wait for further action before becoming too enthusiastic. For instance, the release from Khrushchev's own labour camps of writers like Naritsa, Yessenin-Volpin and—above all—Olga Ivinskaya. And, as to freedom of publication, Dr. Zhivago's Moscow edition is long overdue.
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