MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON in W had been settling down to Russia and beginning to take the variations for granted. In such a manner did the habitants of Southern England become adapted to the forays of the Picts and Scots, regarding them as an inevitable mis- fortune, disturbing but remote. Then suddenly something happens to set the cauldron boiling and bubbling all over again; suspicions and alarums whirl together in a steam of conjecture ; the leader writers and the diplomatic correspondents strain their ingenuity to breaking point in an endeavour to find (without committing themselves to any definite explanation) a formula to interpret the inexplicable. I am glad indeed that I am not obliged, at least upon this page, to suggest the true nature, course or purpose of Mr. Molotov's relinquishing the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs. It may be that both he and Mr. Mikoyan have been released from departmental duties in order to be able to devote the whole of their great talents to matters of high Soviet policy. It may be that the rivalry between the two within the conclaves of the Politburo has become so distracting and acute-that Mr. Stalin thought it wisest to remove them both. It may be that Mr. Molotov is being blamed for the failure of the Berlin blockade and for the fact that Norway refused, when sum- moned, to run away. It may be even that some new course is envisaged in foreign-policy and that Mr. Vyshinsky is regarded as a better pilot for this purpose, whether it be a voyage of good or ill. I have admired the skill with which the commentators have skated round such alternatives, being justifiably anxious not to commit themselves to any definite opinion which, within a few weeks' time, may prove fallacious. But while I can advance no theory at all to account for the fact that Mr. Molotov—that ideal Russian tchinovnik, with the impassive features and imperturbable eyes—should have ceded his place to Mr. Vyshinsky, with his faux bonhomme manner and his haunted look, I feel that I must draw attention to the extra- ordinary manner in which this sensational news was divulged.
* * * * In our own political life we are accustomed in. such matters to observe a more overt and less perplexing method of procedure.
Mr. Fordyce Cumbemere, the Secretary to the Department of Over- seas Trade, resigns from the Government since he is unable to reconcile the new Licensing Bill either with his own conscience or with the disappointment which he feels at being refused the Cabinet job which had been promised him during that agreeable week-end at Littlehampton. He, therefore, writes a letter to the Prime Minister regretting that after careful consideration he is unable to reconcile the new Licensing Bill with his principles or his duties to his con- stituents. The Prime Minister replies expressing deep regret at the loss of so loyal and efficient a colleague. Both letters are published, and the British public derive therefrom the comforting feeling that everyone has behaved with great nobility and that here once again is an instance of the decency of our political habits. The Russians, when they part with a Commissar, display none, of this solicitude. Consider the manner in which they announced the resignations of Mr. Molotov and Mr. Mikoyan. This sensational event was first mentioned as the last on a list of news items which are broadcast at dictation speed for the information of provincial Russian news- papers. Next morning it appeared in the Russian newspapers (and curiously enough in the Communist papers of Europe) as an incidental item of back-page faits divers. It is this which I-find so interesting and so unaccountable. ..
* * * * The Kremlin's Bureau of Information cannot for one moment have supposed that these two retirements would, in fact, be regarded, even by foreign opinion, as incidental. They must have known that both at home and abroad widespread bewilderment and much excited speculation would be aroused. Why, therefore, did they go through the comedy of instructing the editors of their own and satellite newspapers to avoid all headlines and to use small print ? I can quite believe that the Soviet authorities take a boyish delight in presenting the commentators of the world with little riddles which, at the moment, are incapable of solution. But I cannot understand why they should, apparently gratuitously, spread alarm and despond- ency among their own people and subjects. The Russians have always inculcated Marxism as a religion, and during the last thirty years they have evolved a regular hagiography of the subject. There are the holy founders, the blessed prophets and the apostles. The images and ikons of these apostles are displayed at every political meeting and hung upon the walls of government and municipal offices, police- and railway-stations and hospitals. I have been told by those who have lived some years in Russia that it is possible to gauge the relative prominence of individual heroes by the size and position of their portraits as displayed. That of Stalin, of course, is immense and predominates over all the rest ; those of other leaders or members of the Politburo vary in emphasis and priority ; but the display recently given to the portrait of Molotov, the actual size of his ikon, its position in relation to others of the hierarchy, seemed to render it obvious to all that Molotov, and no other, had been designated as the successor. To millions of Russians the name of Molotov must have echoed for years as the accepted heir-apparent. His resignation will thus come as a profound shock to Russian opinion and the mystery, the complete obscurantism, in which it has been shrouded, while it may seem very amusing to the Politburo, cannot but create internally a wide confusion of speculation.
* * * Mystifications such as this create despair in those of us who strive in all impartiality to understand the Russian point of view. It is not merely that they believe in economic and social doctrines which we ourselves regard as inapplicable and even dangerous ; it is that they possess fundamentally dissimilar minds. To our senses it seems inconceivable that any system should deliberately built up its own hierarchy and then sweep it away with a mere mumbled aside. If Mr. Molotov and Mr. Mikoyan are really to be reserved for higher things, then why on earth were the public not informed of the true reasons for their promotion ? The Russians, as all dogmatic people, attribute but slight importance to the intelligence, reason, or natural emotions of the ordinary human being. So convinced are they of the inevitability of their own formula, of the force of their dialectic, of the potency of their polemics, that they do not pause to consider the human reactions which they are likely to produce. Constructive propaganda should aim always at establishing confidence ; destructive propaganda, aiming as it does at arousing hatred, envy and distrust, is easier to manipulate but never pays in the end. There must come a moment in the career of every propagandist when he quite sin- cerely desires to be believed ; when such a moment comes he finds himself the victim of his own former fabrications ; his cheques are found to have become invalid. It may be that the citizens of the Soviet republics have.by now been so conditioned that they respond instinctively to the cries by which they are herded. But this cannot apply to occupied territories. The other day, for instance, I saw it reported that the Russians in their zones and sector of Germany had forbidden the teaching of the Greek and English languages on the ground that they were " decadent." Of the many qualities which the Germans possess, perhaps the most estimable is their passion for learning. To deny them learning, is to create resentment and frustration far deeper than any more material denials.
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I am left, therefore, with the unsolved problem of Russia's dis- regard for ordinary human reason. Gratuitously they spread bewilderment, create unnecessary offence, withdraw themselves from the understanding of others, and spread perplexity which cannot serve their purposes. Assuredly they live in a. world different from that which we have inherited ; a world in which events occur incon- sequehtly and with apparent impetuosity ; in a world which recalls the old mythologies, the old fairy stories or the fantasies of the Arabian Nights.
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