Purifying the Party
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union is soon to feel the edge of the pruning-knife. In his angry speech at the Congress of the All-Union Communist Par, Mr. Nikita Khrushchev made it clear that the time has come to deal with the many rotten branches ready for lopping. The picture that he drew is one of widespread corruption, and not only among the lower orders of the party. Everywhere there are leaders who in their laziness and duplicity interpret party discipline as a medicine for the rank-and-file, but not for themselves. They-are the men who " proclaim in words their agreement with party decisions but in fact pigeon-hole them or take an indifferent attitude, devoting -little care and energy to ensure their success "; who " postpone until tomorrow that which can be successfully done today, and drown in red tape any practical task." This is serious enough. but there are also " more than a few who endlessly reiterate their loyalty to the party while hushing-up criticism from below or preventing it altogether." Good workers who, have offered "correct" criticism (the distinction is important, for " incorrect " criticism is nothing less than treason) have been victimised. Mr. Khrushchev attacked also those leaders who manipulate statistics and give misleading accounts of the fulfil- ment of economic plans. " The party," he said, " must rid itself of such people and punish them severely." All this goes to show that the Russian Communist executive is not the thin- lipped, cold-eyed superman of propaganda but very much the fallible human, open to boredom and capable of slipping all too readily from the exalted austerity of puritanism. What a shock for the Western romantics to hear of " practical tasks " being " drowned in red tape " in Russia ! But Mr. Khrushchev's oration is also final confirmation of the many earlier indica- tions that the party is about to be purged of the impure elements which crept in during and after the war. The purge is not likely to be on anything like the scale of the great pre-war cleansings, but it will be thorough for all that.
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