ADDITION of Bulganin's 'name to the `Anti- Party Grotip' of
Malenkov, Kaganovich, Molotov and 'Shepilov,who-joined-them' is surely not just a caprice of Khrushchev's, as has been suggested. Bulganin was involved in the plot, and did not merely waverlike Voroshilov and others. The reason he did not fall at once, as Malenkov and the others did, is that he ratted on them. The anti-K hrushchev majority in the Praesi- dium was defied access to the newspapers and radio, and its members were threatened by Marshal Zhukov with armed intervention if they persisted. Even so, if the majority had remained solid it might have carried the Central Committee. But it cracked. with Bulganin leading a se:rive- r/tot-petit. Afterwards Khrushchev was able for the time being to keep on six of the eleven mem- bers of the old leadership, including Bulganin, as a sort of demonstration of his thesis that the opposition had been `rebuffed in the Praesidium.' Bulganin made a strong speech denouncing his former colleagues; but his appeasement has now shown what it is word-h.—nothing. As soon as Khrushchev felt like it he rid himself of the man to whose cowardice and treachery he owed his position, and now that it suits his purpose to brand him publicly, he does so.
Previous page
