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His Youth His Marriages
The Men Who Want His Head
-WHAT RUSSIA'S NEW RULER MEANS TO YOU
MIMENKOV
BUHR A
His Blood Purges
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268
M24
F85
A
LION
ORIGINAL
NOT A REPRINT
THE FIRST FULL-LENGTH LIFE STORY

A Publishing Landmark...
The publishers of Lion Books commissioned Robert
Frazier, writer, researcher, and authority on Soviet
affairs, to prepare a full-length story on Georgi Max-
imilianovich Malenkov as quickly as was humanly pos-
sible.
The publishers felt it was urgent to release the book
now so that every American man, woman, and child
could immediately know the truth about Russia's new
ruler.
Of equally great significance are the fact-steeped,
documented chapters which detail, in many instances
for the first time anywhere, the full story of the Russian
government, the makeup of Malenkov's Presidium,
the inner struggles for power, the rise of anti-Semi-
tism, the Soviet attitude on sex and the family, and
Malenkov's stand on war and peace.
The Lion edition of Malenkov is, we feel, the truly
important story of 1953.

Malenkov is a completely new book, prepared
exclusively for Lion Books, Inc. It has never
appeared before, in any form, at any price.
Robert Frazier


MALENKOV
LION BOOKS, INC.
270 Park Avenue
New York City
A LION ORIGINAL
-
by special arrangement with the author
DK
268
M24
F&S
Lion edition published
April, 1953
Copyright, 1953, by Robert Frazier
LION BOOKS, INC.
$
Manufactured in U.S.A.
!
.....
་་,

Politáci
waky
6.2.3.5=
83649
CONTENTS
Part I
II
I BIRTH OF A BUREAUCRAT: 1902-1917 9
THE EARLY PARTY YEARS: 1917-1921. 25
BEHIND EVERY MAN
III
THE
WOMAN: 1922-1925
• 29
IV ON STALIN'S KNEE: 1925-1933-
33
V THE BLOOD COUNT RISES: 1934-1939. 38
VI WAR YEARS: 1940-1946...
VII THE STRUGGLE FOR PÓWER: 1946-
42
1949
VIII END AND THE BEGINNING: 1950-1953
IX WHAT MAKES MALENKOV RUN:
A Psychological Profile.
Part III
XVII WHAT'S AHEAD NOW?……….
XVIII WAR OR PEACE?…….
•
Part II
X INSIDE MALENKOV'S RUSSIA...
XI MALENKOV AND ANTI-SEMITISM..
MALENKOV AND SEX..
XII
XIII RULER OF 1/6 THE EARTH
1/3 ITS PEOPLE.
97
XIV MALENKOV'S HATCHET MAN: BERIA 107
MALENKOV'S ELDER STATESMAN:
XV
MOLOTOV .
XVI MALENKOV'S GENERALS
doh
46
50
55
•
65
75
88
123
137
147
154
:
+
**
*
To
Mother and Dad
who have been my inspiration
}
and with thanks to
Fran
PART ONE
N.
KKM
CHAPTER I
Birth of a Bureaucrat: 1902-1917
WHAT KIND OF MAN is Georgi Maximilianovich Malen-
kov? How did he rise to his present position as the world's
most important figure? Will he bring war or peace?
He is, in actual fact, and without arousing the rancor
of the most patriotic of Americans (or Frenchmen or Eng-
lishmen), the most powerful man in the world. Not be-
cause he has inherited an empire far in excess of that of
the fierce Mongol, Genghis Khan, whose dream of con-
quering the world had almost succeeded. Not because he
rules more of the earth's surface than any man before
him except Stalin. Not because he can call upon great
military might and great partisan loyalties from fanatic
satellite nations.
Not because of any of these is Malenkov more powerful
than Eisenhower, more to be watched than Churchill or
Chiang or Mao or Nehru.
Malenkov's power lies in his fingertips, not in the
sprawling thousands of square miles and millions of peo-
ple under him. He can, with a flick of his finger, call off
a war in Korea, promote a revolution in French Indo-
China, make peaceful overtures to the United States, in-
stigate strikes in Hamburg and Paris, change govern-
ments overnight in Czechoslovakia. Any of these he can
do. All of them he may do.
That is his power.
But it is also our enigma.

Ruler of one-sixth of the earth's surface; one-third of
the world's population; commander-in-chief of an army
of 11,000,000 men; keeper of ten to fifteen million slave
laborers; custodian of an A-bomb and perhaps an H-
bomb stockpile; chairman of the Council of Ministers of
9
10
MALENKOV
the U.S.S.R.; First Chairman of the Soviet Communist
Party; inheritor of an empire which has engulfed nearly
600 million humans in China, East Germany, Poland,
Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania,
North Korea; a land of 14,242,000 squares mile; ideo-
logical string-puller for thousands of political adherents
all over the world; successor of Josef Vissarionovich Sta-
lin-this is Malenkov, cunning, calculating tyrant who
maintains power over an estimated 800,000,000 people.
Great human question mark, Georgi Maximilanovich
Malenkov, upon whom may rest the doom or survival of
civilization.
Who is he? Where did he come from?
Indications are that his physical repugnance is more a
reflection of what appears to be a malevolent character
than actual defects of feature. Squat, round-faced and
pudgy, with an enormous head topping 250 pounds of
pastry-fed fat poured into a five-foot-seven-inch frame,
his heavy jowls crease around a tense mouth to a set of
double chins. Small Slavic features which ordinarily make
for sensitivity serve instead to give him a grim, unyield-
ing, deadpan expression. His narrow, sharply upturned
nose, jet black hair, black eyebrows, cold steel-blue eyes
and thin compressed lips are concentrated toward the
center of his face, leaving wide, featureless areas to stare
at. His eyebrows curve up at the ends as if made up for
the role of Mephistopheles, traditional evil figure of the
devil. Prototype of the cartoon capitalist, which the Com-
munists are so fond of portraying in dark, well-cut busi-
ness suit, with starched cuffs over pudgy hands and a
diamond ring or stickpin, he deviates from this carica-
ture only in that he wears the uniform of a plain soldier
in the Soviet Army, in imitation of the late Stalin. A spare
military tunic, buttoned up to the neck, and a shapeless,
grey, visored cap give him the appearance of a plump
rich boy who has just joined a gang of dead end kids to
prove he isn't a sissy. He looks like the fascist, Farouk,
except not quite as ugly. Iron-fisted and scowling, he
MALENKOV
11
1
tends to go into maniacal rages when crossed. He is an un-
attractive figure assuredly. Yet, this is the titular head
of a vast empire, a man now able to commandeer stagger-
ing resources.
Of Malenkov's personal life little is known. He was
married twice. In 1940, he divorced his first wife, Valeria
(Lera) Galoubtsova, one of Molotov's secretaries, a
plump, attractive blonde (on whose shoulders he ob-
tained his first boost to party eminence), to marry the
attractive actress, Elena Khrushchev. Elena quit the stage
and was said to have taken an administrative job in the
Moscow University. She is also described as wearing ex-
pensive clothes, mannishly tailored and riding about in
a long black Zis limousine, the equivalent of a Packard.
The Malenkovs have a teen-aged son and daughter who
live with them in their Kremlin apartment and their
country retreat outside of Moscow. No lion socially,
Malenkov smokes expensive (Northern Palmyras) cigar-
ettes, has a dacha (summer home) like all Kremlin bu-
reaucrats outside of Moscow to which he commutes by
bulletproof limousine. His only sport is duck-hunting.
He is said to be a tireless worker who can work for
days with only occasional naps. The present Mrs. Malen-
kov, seemingly bored by her husband's late hours, has
sought relief by becoming an actress again. She obtained
a job at a Moscow little theater group by giving a false
name. Her co-workers wondered about her fine clothes
and the fact that a car and chauffeur often picked her up
after the performance. But she chose to remain anony-
mous until the day one of her colleagues got into trouble
with the MVD over some ideological impurity in a pam-
phlet he had written. The obliging Mrs. Malenkov told
them who she was and arranged for the man to go to see
her husband. The actor found Malenkov in a box in
Moscow's Bolshoi Theater drinking tea and eating French
pastry. The actor reported, "He didn't offer me any pas-
try, but he said: 'My wife has told me everything; it is
all pure nonsense. Come to see me tomorrow at the Cen-
tral Committee.'
"""
12
MALENKOV
Occasionally, Mrs. Malenkov's colleagues got an inti-
mate view of her home life. “One morning," recalls one
of the cast, "Mrs. Malenkov came in and told me she
hadn't slept a wink all night because her husband had a
toothache and the dentist came in with all his machines
to fix his teeth."
An observation of him made by one diplomatic visitor
at a Moscow dinner at a time when Americans were be-
ginning to recognize his pudgy, petulant face in official
Soviet photographs, next to Stalin's relatively benign,
leonine mask, indicated that Malenkov was apparently
oblivious to what was going on around him at the table.
"When toasts were made, he would lift his glass auto-
matically, then relapse into sneering silence." Said an-
other, "I would hate to be at the mercy of that man."
No American has ever had more than a word or two
with him. His only trips out of Russia were to attend
Cominform meetings in Poland and Romania and to
represent the Russian Party at a Czechoslovak Party Con-
gress in Prague. These excursions into Eastern Europe
were designed to keep the satellites in line-in particular
to press the extirpation of the Titoist heresy. This was
part of the general policy of consolidation. Malenkov,
since the death of his rival, A. A. Zhdanov, had been the
chief scourge of Titoism.
As a Marxist theoretician, Malenkov does not rate
high, but he is a prodigious orator and can out-talk prac-
tically any of his colleagues. At the Communist Congress
last October he spoke for five hours and ten minutes.
What Malenkov lacks to be a Kremlin leader is a
glamorous personality, which the Soviet press may sup-
ply in time.
Six specialists of internal medicine from Nashville,
Tennessee, agree that Premier Georgi Malenkov would
be a poor insurance risk even outside the purge-haunted
Kremlin. He may be suffering from a heart or glandular
ailment, which, incidentally, seems to be a rather com-
mon type of ailment among Soviet higher officials. Stalin
MALENKOV
13
is reported to have had a heart ailment since early youth
and his survival to the age of 73 is testament to the ex-
cellent medical care he received. Various Russian dele-
gates of the U.N. have remarked at one time or another
that their hearts were bad. Probably the rich foods con-
taining a high degree of animal fats which they can af
ford to indulge in are responsible for much of the hard-
ening of Soviet arteries. Malenkov has a passion for
French pastry, cream puffs especially, and he has been
warned about his arterial setup.
Dr. William Scott is of the following opinion: "He
doesn't look unlike people with Cushing's disease. It is
a disease of the adrenal glands and results in high blood
pressure and obesity. He is liable to blow a fuse under
pressure."
Dr. Amos Christie said, "I thought he might have a
glandular disturbance. Things flash through your mind
like that when you see a picture." While Dr. J. Harvill
Hite states, "Life insurance statistics indicate men with
too much weight do not have as great a life expectancy
as men with average weight. He may be a cardiac."
Actually, the symptom of overweight has many inter-
pretations. Some psychiatrists believe that it signifies a
desire for protection, the bulk serving as a sort of forti-
fication against the dangers of the outside world. As a
matter of fact, pictures which were taken in 1937, shows
him to be much slimmer, weighing perhaps 180 to 190
pounds. Presumably, he was even thinner years earlier to
have attracted his talented first wife, and even to have
served with Red Army units. His weight seems to have ag-
gregated with his aggregation of power. There are other
psychiatric definitions of the syndrome of obesity. Of
particular significance is the fact that some obese people
deliberately take on weight in hopes of rendering them-
selves unattractive. Apparently, as in all his other ambi-
tions, Malenkov has been successful in achieving this.
The popular concept of fat men is that they are jovial
and expansive, but Malenkov's reputation with the dip-
14
!
MALENKOV
lomatic corps is to the contrary. Envoys described him as
stiff and forbidding, one who has rarely been seen to smile.
Of the anecdotes and descriptions of Georgi Malenkov,
few, if any, throw a kindly or humane light on his char-
acter. He is described as a man without pity or remorse,
able to sleep better at night if during the day he has re-
moved an enemy from his path. Wily, competent, ruth-
less and humorless, Malenkov, with his deadpan face, his
ability to dog the heels of Stalin and survive a succession
of bloody purges, has forced the Western world to regard
him as a Stalinoid Neanderthal machine man that Koest-
ler dramatized in his novel, Darkness At Noon.
A western diplomat said recently: "If I knew I had to
be tortured, and if I were picking people from the Polit-
buro to do the torturing, the last one I would pick would
be Malenkov."
Most political analysts consider him the epitome of the
successful man in modern bureaucratic totalitarianism-
an individual who has no qualm at betraying today his
benefactor of yesterday and who can produce results at
all costs.
The consensus is that before long the Russian people
will yearn for the good old days of Stalin, "the benign."
He is reported to have a machine mentality and a ma-
chine tirelessness powered by an inordinate appetite. By
building methodically and ruthlessly the best political
machine of all his colleagues in the Politburo, he alone
was in a position to slip into Stalin's role.
Actually, an attempt to characterize him as an autom-
aton may not be completely accurate. Very little atten-
tion was paid to him by foreign visitors except for the
occasional observer who glimpsed with a shudder the
dangerous closeness of this implacable hulk to the om-
nipotent Stalin.
Foreign visitors who saw him at Soviet State dinners,
long before there was any but a glimmering possibility
that he might succeed Stalin as ruler of the vast real
estate project that is Russia and her satellite states, refer
MALENKOV
15
I
1
.
to him as "sinister," "not a man anyone would choose to
sit next to at dinner," "grim," "dull," "humorless," "in-
scrutable," "cruel," "implacable."
A report from Time, on October 6, 1952, describes,
"His cheeks as flabby, his chin as double, his eyes as hard
as carborundum. His stiff black hair looks as if it
has been pasted on. He does not attempt to make himself
agreeable. Georgi Maximilianovich Malenkov is not
what anyone could describe as a cuddly personality.'
A prominent diplomatic visitor who once met him at
a Moscow dinner says:
"My most vivid memory is the sight of Malenkov. It
was the most sinister thing in the Soviet Union. I was
struck by his repulsive appearance, bulbous, flabby and
sallow."
W. Averell Harriman, who visited Russia in September,
1941, when the first of his special missions began, and
thereafter was ambassador to the Kremlin until January,
1942, says of Malenkov whom he met a number of times
at Kremlin banquets and other official functions, “He
usually arrived and sat with Beria, with whom he ap-
peared to be on friendly terms. He seemed to take very
little interest in the foreign officials who were present and
was generally uncommunicative. . . . He impressed me
as a man of rather narrow outlook, lacking the person-
ality of a great leader.”
Actually Malenkov was said to incorporate and aug-
ment the worst features of Stalin just as Stalin augmented
the worst features of Lenin. Stalin became adept at ma-
chine politics first as a consequence of conviction and
by the desire to propagate his own ideals. Later he be-
came a skillful manipulator of the purge in order to stay
in power.
Malenkov became a machine politician because it
was the only way to progress as a second generation
Bolshevik, and a skillful manipulator of the purge in
order to serve his master well. Now, like a snarling wolf
who has fanged his way to the top of his pack, Malenkov
!
{
16
MALENKOV
must defend his flanks. His elevation to the Prime Min-
istership is only the beginning. He must first consolidate
his power-inside Russia and throughout the Red realm.
Actually he is the first ruler of any country in any time
who was a professional informer and spy throughout his
career. However, after having correlated all the informa-
tion and facts on his life, it is apparent that the hasty
opinions drawn about the man merely skim the surface
and tend, perhaps, to distort a bit some of the salient
features of his personality.
It is well to establish certain basic facts now known
about Malenkov before the Soviet propaganda machine
gets to work in the creation of a Malenkov myth, in the
same manner, perhaps, as it created a legend and myth,
utterly fantastic, about the figure of Stalin. Malenkov
is a man who wasted little time on making impressions
where none was needed, where, indeed, favorable ones
might be dangerous. He was content to operate in the
shadows of filing cabinets-knowing full well that endear-
ing qualities had little to do with the attainment of
power and safety in the USSR. For success, the younger
Soviet bureaucrat had to cultivate useful traits, useful
friends, and useful files.
It was only the loyal and innocuous cronies of his revo-
lutionary days that Stalin kept in service, despite inepti-
tude, inefficiency and bungling-a Molotov whose doglike
loyalty and affection has enabled him to live to the ripe
old age of 62, surviving the leader himself. Voroshilov,
described as the "worst general in the Soviet Union," was
Stalin's drinking companion. But while these stayed in
the protective orbit of Stalin by ties of nostalgia, younger
men without the personal associations of the older bu
reaucrats had to plan, make themselves useful, work cease-
lessly, build machines, and battle it out to the death with
one another for succession and safety. Only the ablest,
most ruthless, most tireless, most shrewd, stayed afloat in
the sea of intrigue that swirled about the Kremlin bu-
reaucracy since Stalin's ascension in 1927.
MALENKOV
17
1
}
¦
For Malenkov, there was little enough time and pur-
pose to become a social charmer. He was not going to
compete in areas he had no need to. His was the stripped-
down utilitarian personality.
Actually, because Malenkov worked behind the scenes,
his personality has not been properly or adequately ap-
praised, nor have his abilities. Malenkov has played a
greater and more crucial role in recent Russian history
than is generally known. He has exerted more of an in-
fluence on Soviet external and internal policies since
World War II than any other single man in Russia ex-
cept the late Josef Stalin. The very possession of so dis-
agreeable a personality as he is purported to have is a
luxury only the strong can afford. Georgi may have occu-
pied a position of relative power for a long time, and
although not widely-traveled, may not be the provincial
tyro his surly, anti-social manner would indicate.
Why was this dehumanized personality chosen to suc-
ceed Stalin?
Georgi Maximilianovich Malenkov was born on Jan.
5, 1902, in the one time frontier town of Orenburg sit-
uated in the Eastern foothills of the central Urals where
Europe ends and Asia begins. His father, Captain Maxi-
milian Malenkov, was a Czarist Cossack officer known as
the Butcher of Orenburg because of the sadistic enthusi-
asm with which he persecuted and slaughtered Jews.
Orenburg, now called Chkalov, is a fast-growing in-
dustrial village of 75,000 located on the banks of the
Ural River which flows down from the mountains south
to the Caspian Sea, a key location in a picturesque,
rugged part of a vast country. To the west, the nearby
Samara River flows across the broad steppes to the Volga.
It must have been thrilling for young Malenkov to hike
in the Urals, which was his habit, and from this majestic
chain he may have been inspired to his first sense of
power and thirst for achievement. The Urals is a moun-
tain system, forming the traditional boundary between
Europe and Asia. This rugged system extends 1300 miles
18
MALENKOV
north and south from the Arctic Ocean to the westward
bend of the Ural River a stretch so long, it is commonly
divided into North Urals, Central Urals, and South Urals.
The northern section, a rocky, treeless chain, rising from
the tundra, has the highest peaks of the entire system. If
one draws inspiration from one's environment, then it is
little wonder that Georgi, at an early age, evidenced
such titanic ambitions. His lonely wanderings in the
bleak and strong mountains, the same which today shield
most of Soviet vital industry, provided the basic back-
ground for his personality-serious, dour, inscrutable
with a profound nationalistic sense of boundary and the
need to be shielded from the outside world. To the east
the great Ural mountain range meant to Russia what the
Alleghenies meant to colonial America. In the same way
that American pioneers crossed the Alleghenies, Russian
explorers, trappers, farmers, and soldiers crossed the
Urals-bound across the snow-packed tundras of Siberia
for the golden Pacific.
The town of Orenburg, while not the gateway to
Siberia, had been for most of the eighteenth and nine-
teenth centuries the chief Russian outpost for the con-
quest of the southern Khanates of Turkestan. Beyond
its streets and settlements were wild, unlettered tribes-
Uzbeks, Khirgizes, Turkomans-slowly retreating year
after year before the steady advance of the Russian
frontiersmen, the Cossacks.
Maximilian Malenkov, Gorgi's father, was one of those
Cossacks. Although the Cossack had come to represent a
brutal, repressive Czarist emissary to the Russian peasants.
and workers in later revolt, it did not mean that a Cos-
sack actually belonged to a social class; rather it was a
way of life built up over many generations. It had its
roots in the very earliest sproutings of Russian history,
when the Tartar hold over Russia was broken some two
centuries before Columbus discovered America. It was
then the Russian Grand Dukes were determined to push
the Mongol horde back to the deepest recesses of Asia,
!
:
MALENKOV
19
1.
from whence they originally swarmed. This was not only
a military operation, but required colonists to settle the
newly-won land-people who were ready and able to de-
fend the soil on which they had settled. The Grand Dukes,
who later became Czars, were also faced with the problem
of what to do with thousands of landless peasants and
former anti-Tartar soldiers. As a solution to both prob-
lems they offered arms and land to the peasants and
soldiers to go and settle the Tartar lands-as far as they
could reach. The settlers traveled in tightly-knit groups
--for protection-and worked their settlements as part
farms, part military-outposts. Land was shared and the
pioneers rotated agricultural chores with military duties,
somewhat like our original colonists. These Russian "In-
dian-fighters" became known as Cossacks; they slowly
spread from the Volga River in the heart of European
Russia proper, through to Astrakhan and Bokhara in
Central Asia, and reached the banks of the Black and
Caspian Seas. Shortly before our own war of Independ-
ence, Cossacks also settled at the Crimean shores near
Yalta and, at about that time also, a bold Cossack named
Yermak led a group of men across the Ural Mountains
into Siberia.
Because the Czars had given them land and horses, the
Cossacks were loyal supporters of the government
throughout most of their existence. Only once-during
the reign of Catherine the Great-had they turned against
Moscow. It was a period of widespread famine. A Cos-
sack named Pugachev started a revolution that swept like
wildfire across half of Russia. His marching bands of
Cossacks, bolstered along the route by landless, starving
peasants, were met in force by the Empress's favorite
General, Potemkin, and defeated. Pugachev himself was
captured, led through Moscow in a cage, and cruelly put
to death.
Since the defeat of Pugachev, the Cossacks stayed faith-
ful to the Czars and after the wars of Napoleon when
Russia began to modernize her armed forces, the Cossack
20
MALENKOV
cavalrymen became the backbone of the armies. They
were not only used in wars against other nations, but
within Russia itself served as a sort of militia, suppressing
local revolts and keeping order throughout the land.
Cossacks in traditional garb, dashing from place to place
on galloping horses, singing martial songs, became fa-
miliar sights in every city and town. The symbol of Cos-
sack became one with tyranny and repression where
people rose up against the government because of hunger
and famine. Their merriment and song were baleful
preludes to hostile and oppressed peasants-from whom
periodically the mutterings of revolt were heard. They
were the roving policemen of the Czar with a long record
of cruelty, often wanton, with the status of an inde
pendent, privileged oppressing class.
From such a lineage stems Malenkov, a background
which in Soviet circles was not considered advantageous.
Even when Orenburg became industrialized in the early
19th century, Maximilian Malenkov was a Cossack, and
apparently one with a rare reputation for nastiness. It is
interesting to note that both Stalin and Malenkov had
cruel fathers, a fact which might well have determined
their future lives and shaped the course of history. Stalin's
father beat him mercilessly. The grim patriarchal middle
class existence may have conditioned Malenkov to accept
an authoritarian mode of existence. Only fifteen years of
age at the time of the 1917 Revolution in Russia, he
became perfect material for the désensitized type that
flourished about Stalin in the later years.
1
Lazar Pistrak is one of many trained observers who
have noted that almost half of the people in Orenburg,
Malenkov's home town, were petty bourgeois at the turn
of the century, and an additional 30 per cent were mili-
tary. "Malenkov's father's name, Maximilian, is quite
literary; the common Russian name is Maxim. So is his
own name, Georgi; the more common form is Yuri.
Malenkov himself has made several public speeches de-
crying ‘investigations into genealogy' and the bothering
MALENKOV
21
of the faithful party worker with 'searches of who was
his grandfather and grandmother.'" He was blistering
about people who justified their incompetence by prov-
ing that they were of true proletarian origin for three
or four generations.
Malenkov's Cossack parentage may also explain his
ruthlessness, his willingness to serve the government as
an informer and policeman, his cruelty, nationalism,
toughness. Certainly the example of his father's harsh
behavior could not have served to shape the present
premier of Russia along gentle molds. Whether he ac-
cepted his father as an authority or rejected him—the end
result of character would be the same.
By the time the nineteenth century drew to a close,
Orenburg had become principally a community of small
tradesmen, with about a third of its population Cossacks.
The town's strategic position on the Ural River made it
inevitable that it become a trading center. Most of the
peasant-soldiers abandoned their military activities to
take advantage of trading opportunities. The frontier
had since moved far east into Siberia, and south into
Turkestan, and the development of frontiers followed a
pattern similar to that of the early U.S. colonists, except
that the original American settlers were not soldiers pri-
marily, took up arms only in self-defense and abandoned
military duties when the need was over.
Russian literature long reflects the conflict between
eastern mysticism and western rationalism and the spir-
itual and physical fear of the Russian people of contact
with the West. While Malenkov reflects the deeply in-
grained prejudices against Western civilization, he has
also shown a healthy respect, healthier probably than
anyone else in the Politburo, as will be demonstrated, for
technology and technological advances, stressing the need
for industrial efficiency and progress perhaps even more
than Stalin did himself.
This, too, had its roots in Georgi's early environment,
for long before his birth, back to the time when his father
Maximilian was growing up, Russian engineers were al-
22
MALENKOV
}
ready working on their greatest achievement, the Trans-
Siberian railroad, and an almost equally important spur,
the Orenburg-Tashkent line into Turkestan.
The decades before Georgi Malenkov was born were
full of still other important changes-throughout Russia
the early strivings for democratic government started to
manifest themselves. It began in 1825 with a plot by Army
officers to create a constitutional government and grew to
a revolutionary movement of vast proportions. In 1881,
a group of idealistic revolutionaries who had thrice de-
manded that Czar Alexander II grant the people a consti-
tution, assassinated him. His successor, Alexander III,
sentenced the chief conspirators to death and most of the
others to Siberia. But despite the other repressive meas-
ures taken by the Czar, the battle against absolute mon-
archy continued. Local peasant organizations developed
to provide peasants with education and medical care,
humane labor laws came into being, trial by jury was
universal. Although there were a handful of illegal revo-
tionists who threatened assassination (many of these were
sent to Siberia), they were not the real threats to the old
order.
It was the young men of aristocratic origins who dedi-
cated themselves to the spread of literacy and enlighten-
ment among the peasants; business men and landowners
who as a result of increasingly greater contact with West-
ern Europe had begun pressing, through the legal press.
Perhaps the best example of the contrast between the
old medieval Russia that was dying away and the new
spirit that was being born was the Bejlis Trial, which
took place when Georgi Malenkov was still a tot. A Jew
in the city of Kiev was accused of killing a Christian boy,
so the charge went, in order to obtain his blood for a re-
ligious service. In any other country, at that time, such a
charge would be unthinkable. But some of the Czar's ad-
visors felt they could get the minds of the people off their
problems by stirring up hatred against the Jews, which
occurred periodically in the well known "pogroms.
Nevertheless, the defendant was entitled to a trial by
"?
MALENKOV
23
jury and got one. The jury was composed entirely of Rus-
sian and Ukrainian peasants, most of them illiterate, few
of whom had ever known anything about the Jewish re-
ligion. The enlightened leaders of Russian opinion sprang
to the defense of Bejlis, however, and despite all efforts
of the Czar's advisors, Bejlis was unanimously acquitted
by the jury. All over Russia, the verdict was hailed as a
triumph of progress over the forces of darkness.
Georgi Malenkov was three when Russia's first big
revolution broke out in the twin capitals of Petrograd
and Moscow. His father, as a Cossack subaltern, would
probably have supported the Czar if a test had come, but
this 1905 revolution was settled in the big cities and when
it was over, the Czar had granted a limited constitution.
He reneged on many parts of his manifesto later, but for
the first time Russia had a nationally elected Parliament,
called the Duma, which, throughout its existence from
1906 to 1917, continually pressed for reforms. Three times
the Czar dissolved the Duma, or arrested its deputies, or
changed the election laws, and even though he managed
to reduce the number of open anti-Czarists, he could not
curb the rising demand for reform.
By the time young Georgi was attending grade school,
the countryside around Orenburg and other Russian
towns was witnessing a vast change-a change instigated
by one of Nicholas's most reactionary but far-sighted
advisers, Peter Stolypin. Communities which owned land
in common-like the Cossack community where Maxi-
milian Malenkov lived with his wife and son, Georgi-
were encouraged to break up their land into individual
farms. If there was not enough to go around, Stolypin
promised government aid in resettling the farmers on
land of their own in Siberia and Central Asia; dams and
reclamation projects were begun in dry areas to make
new land for peasants who wanted plots of their own.
For the most part, things were gradually improving for
Maximilian Malenkov-and other Russians-when World
War I broke out. But even though the fighting was a
thousand miles away, Orenburg soon began to feel its ef-
24
MALENKOV
fects. First men, then boys, were called off to war, first
with weapons, then without. As the Germans moved into
Western Russia, food shortages became more and more
acute. With the able-bodied farmers all in the army, the
crop declined under the unexperienced hands of women,
boys and old men. The big city population-only meagerly
supplied and hearing rumor after rumor (many of them
true) about pro-German sentiment in the Czar's court-
chafed bitterly. The war had begun when Georgi Malen-
kov was twelve. By the time he was fifteen, it must have
been clear to him-as to almost everyone else in that vast
land-that Russia was ripe for revolution.

:
:
CHAPTER II
The Early Party Years: 1917-1921
THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION of March, 1917, was one of
the fastest, least violent revolutions in human history. It
started with bread riots by housewives in the streets of
Petrograd, followed in a few days with riots by workers,
soldiers, and leaders of the Duma. The Czar, seeing the
bloody handwriting on the wall of history, abdicated.
The Duma and the hastily formed council of workers
and soldiers deputies formed a new government which
consisted of the leaders of all of Russia's anti-Czar parties.
One week after the housewives' bread riot, Czarism,
which had inspired dread in Russia and throughout the
world for three centuries was dead. As one of the new
Russian democratic leaders put it, the revolution took
place in a moment-the moment when the soldiers who
were sent to break up the women's and workers' demon-
strations decided to join them instead. Such a demon-
stration in Malenkov's Russia today would be virtually
impossible because of the awesome efficiency of the Rus-
sian Secret Police, which has paralyzed the independent
thinking processes of 200 million people. But, through-
out the entire nineteenth century, and during the period
of the Russian revolution, the average Russian appeared
to be a fairly independent, rebellious individual.
Had the German army not occupied half of Europe
and threatened the other half at the same time, Russia's
democracy might still be alive. But the Kaiser's generals
stood only a few hours from Petrograd and within artil-
lery range of Paris at the very moment that President
Wilson was joyfully recognizing Russia's new democratic
government. Lenin, the German generals knew, was op-
posed to both sides in the battle and thought the first
!
25
26
MALENKOV
thing Russia should do was stop the war-by surrender,
if necessary.
When the Kaiser's army smashed the Russian offen-
sive, in the summer of 1917, the discontent carefully nur-
tured by Lenin's Bolsheviks began to spread. Army offi-
cers felt that the government had been pressured by
Lenin into only half-heartedly supporting the offensive.
The army commander-in-chief, General Kornilov, de-
cided to take things into his own hands. He declared
that he would march on the Capital, hang all the Bol-
sheviks, disperse the present government, and mobilize
Russia for a new all-out offensive against the Germans.
This was Lenin's big chance and he seized it. He
played the role now not only of the defender of his
small group of followers against a militarist plot, but of
all of Russian democracy. Timid liberals, frightened by
Kornilov, aligned themselves with Lenin. The Kornilov
putsch failed and the Bolsheviks emerged with new lus-
tre. The Bolsheviks decided that the time had come for
an all out bid for power, and the upshot was that Petro-
grad fell to Trotsky's squads with little firing. Before
nightfall on November 7, 1917, Lenin had proclaimed
himself head of the government and called for imme-
diate peace with the Kaiser. The following weeks saw
the establishment of the conditioned reflex of violence,
the institution of the technique of the purge which was
later made a chief weapon by Stalin and by his young
lieutenant, Georgi Malenkov.
By the spring of 1918, Russia was in turmoil, but
Lenin had succeeded in achieving peace with Germany,
thus leaving him free to fight his enemy at home. There
followed a bloody three-year civil war.
It was three months after the final battle that Georgi
Malenkov, at the age of seventeen, joined the conquer-
ing Red Army.
A year later he joined the Communist Party. The vic-
tory of the Bolsheviks was already highly probable and
he was merely one of many who jumped on the Com-
MALENKOV
27
1
munist bandwagon. He was assigned to work as a politi-
cal and propaganda officer, and within three years moved
up to the job of political commissar of a cavalry regiment
on the Turkestan front. He was promoted to political
commissar of a brigade and soon after to all the troops
on the whole Eastern and Turkestan fronts.
In this position, Malenkov was responsible for the
forced expropriation of farmers, an activity which soon
grew to include the liquidation of those connected with
the anti-Bolshevik movement in Central Asia. Most of
those concerned were simply common peasants, farmers,
tradesmen and other workers who had been jolted into
the opposition by the cruelty of the Bolshevik forces.
The fight against these people lasted almost two years,
during which time a large political corps was built up
within the Red cavalry. Malenkov was part of this polit-
ical corps, and so established, between his eighteenth
and twentieth years, the foundations for his later power.
The situation in Turkestan during the years that Mal-
enkov was a terrorist and spy there was similar to that
in many parts of Russia. In February of 1921, large-scale
peasant revolts had broken out in Tambov in Čentral
Russia, and a month later, the sailors of the naval bas-
tion of Kronstadt, just outside Petrograd, revolted against
Lenin. Both these rebellions-carried out by men who
had originally supported Lenin in the belief he was
bringing a "higher" type of democracy-were brutally
suppressed. But Lenin was wise enough to see the hand-
writing on the wall and proclaimed a new policy de-
signed to end grain-requisitioning and promote free
trade.
But the most educated and the best-trained specialists
of pre-war Russia did not remain in the country. Hun-
dreds of thousands left after the democratic government
was overthrown, never to return. To administer one-
sixth of the earth, Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin had to cre-
ate a new ruling class of civil servants, administrators,
party and army functionaries, and cultural leaders. As
soon as the fighting died down, they summoned to the
į
1
28
MALENKOV
1
new schools being set up in Moscow all the able young
Russians they had discovered in the course of the civil
war, as well as able young Communists from around the
world. They would train these young men as propa-
gandists, agitators, administrators; they would instruct
them in the strategy and tactics of world revolution;
they would teach them languages and physics and all the
studies essential to the leaders of the international civil
war the Bolsheviks were planning. From all parts of
Russia, as from China, Ecuador, Syria and other coun-
tries, able young men swarmed into Moscow. One of the
first to arrive, after Turkestan had been pacified, was 22-
year-old Georgi Malenkov.
A methodical, humorless youth, already trained in ter-
ror and ruthlessness on the Turkestan front, and well
trained in "personnel work"-checking on the loyalty of
soldiers and screening candidates for coveted party mem-
bership, he saw from the first that the political field was
the main highway to power, and rose through the ranks
of political commissars who provided the ideological
stiffening for the Red Army. Malenkov was called to the
capital in 1921 to complete his education as a ward of
the State, and remained there close to the Kremlin walls
for the next 30 years.
CHAPTER III
Behind Every Man . . . the Woman: 1922-1925
IN MOSCOW, in 1922, Georgi Malenkov studied at the
Moscow Higher Technical School for engineers and ad-
ministrators, from which he was graduated in 1924 or
1925. For four years he was indoctrinated with Com-
munism, learned also a little bookkeeping and stenog.
raphy.
He heard lectures by many Bolshevik leaders, and
kept his eyes open, watching the others choose sides in
the struggle for power. For, Lenin-whose brain had cre-
ated Soviet Communism and whose iron will had led it
to victory-was an invalid. Between his first stroke 20
months before and his death in January, 1924, the Soviet
dictator participated only occasionally in affairs of state,
and a ruthless struggle for power had been raging in the
Politburo. The men about him, who had always sub-
mitted to his statements as the last word on any sub-
ject, were thinking of the future. Many of the Commu-
nist leaders hoped that there would be no quarrels
among them, but each nonetheless began building up
his own machine, both in the party and in Soviet society
at large.
Leon Trotsky, still War Commissar, knew he had the
support of the Red Army, but hesitated to assume per-
sonial leadership, hoping for some sort of government
by Committee. Since Trotsky was almost as renowned as
Lenin himself, and since the Communist intellectuals
hated the army, most of the other men around Lenin
allied themselves against him. Gregory Zinoviev, the
head of the Communist International, built a personal
machine in Moscow as did Leo Kamenev in Petrograd.
Nicholas Bukharin, the editor of Pravda, Michael Tom-
29
30
MALENKOV
sky, who headed the Soviet trade unions, and Alexis
Rykov, a moderate who had opposed the dissolution of
the Constituent Assembly, desired committee rule, hoping
that the economic liberalism of the New Economic Policy
would be projected to the political field and that some
civil freedoms would be restored. They, also, feared
Trotsky and the Red Army and so they were led-despite
their political differences with the radicals Zinoviev and
Kamenev-into the anti-Trotsky alliance.
The real organizing brain of the anti-Trotsky coali-
tion, however, was the now General Secretary of the
Communist Party, Josef Stalin. In his capacity as super-
visor of all the party organizations throughout the coun-
try, he began weeding out Trotsky supporters and re-
placing them with men loyal to himself. Since the official
press was also under his control, Stalin was able to pro-
duce subtle propaganda which continually told the Trot-
skyites that their cause was hopeless.
Men who were in the Pravda office at the time have
told how its editors, at Stalin's orders, falsified Commu-
nist primary election figures from the provinces. Where
the Trotskyites had won, the figures were reversed to
show they had lost; where Stalin's men scored bare vic-
tories, the figures were deliberately exaggerated. Although
the local unit knew that Pravda was lying, the rest of
Russia could only believe that Trotsky's cause was hope-
less. With Trotsky himself either unwilling or unable to
make an all-out bid for power, Stalin between 1922 and
1925 acquired complete control of the party organiza-
tion, even while foreign Communists and Western dip-
lomats were regarding Trotsky as the man of decision
in Russia.
The struggle extended to almost every area of Com-
munist life, and was especially intense among the stu-
dents, and Communist schools were as much devoted to
political intrigue as to their studies. This was especially
true at the Moscow Higher Technical School, one of the
most important in Russia, where Malenkov had assumed
MALENKOV
31
the post of Secretary of the school's Communist Party
cell. In this position, political activity was the main ele-
ment of his life, as it was to many at the time.
But Malenkov, unlike the rising bureaucrats of the
Stalin machine-Vyacheslav Molotov, Lazar Kaganovitch,
Anastas Mikoyan, Andrey Andreyev and Sergei Kirov-
was at first slow to desert Trotsky, still the head of the
Red Army, in favor of Stalin.
At the time, most Moscow students still clung to Trot-
sky, but the Stalin machine was growing steadily, and in
January, 1924, the machine gave the student rebels a new
chance to switch their allegiance, and circulated a long
letter in which Trotsky was more sharply criticized than
ever and in which students were urged to abandon Trot-
skyism. The letter, which continued to be circulated until
two days before Lenin's death, drew hundreds of assenting
signatures from students, but the signature of Malenkov
was not among them.
Whether Malenkov was still openly pro-Trotsky during
the months following Lenin's death is uncertain, but he
did distinguish himself in combating non-Communists
among the students and faculty. In May, 1924, the Party
decided to purge the schools of non-political scholars, of
students and teachers with aristocratic or business back-
grounds, of men and women whose personal or family
loyalties had been in question. This was the first of nu-
merous such Communist drives aimed at making all of
Russian culture a weapon of the police regime.
Malenkov, who had finally begun to weaken in his affec-
tions for Trotskyism, participated in the spy work with
great energy, and he managed to switch to Stalinism early
enough so that Lenin's death and Stalin's ascendancy to
power did not jeopardize his position.
That position was strengthened a short while later
when Malenkov met a buxom, attractive blonde named
Valerie Galoubtsova, whose last name, in Russia, means
"little pigeon." Malenkov, at 22, was slim and attractive,
but he was at heart a country boy still worrying about his
near-fatal mistake of backing Trotsky so persistently.
1
132.
MALENKOV
With his superiors, he was shy and clearly a little fright-
ened. Valerie, on the other hand, had been on the right
side early. She was in a key post in Stalin's "Orgburo,"
the Organizational Bureau of the Party Central Commit-
tee. This was Stalin's instrument for staffing local party
organizations with his own men and weeding out all local
party leaders not personally loyal to his apparatus. In this
Orgburo, Valerie's job was to collect and summarize the
reports from the provinces-pointing out the trouble
spots, noting the names and records of oppositionists,
recording the day-by-day growth of Stalinist control from
Archangel to Tiflis, from Smolensk to Vladivostok.
In the course of her work at the Orgburo, the "little
pigeon" came into contact with Stalin himself occasion-
ally, though more often with his adjutants-Kirov, Molo-
tov, Andreyev, Mikoyan, and Kaganovitch.
Valerie was ambitious, bold and bright, and was quickly
attracted by the young student from Orenburg, by his
amazing memory, by his easy ability to master compli-
cated facts in unfamiliar fields, by his cold pragmatic ap-
proach to the affairs of the day. Valerie knew she could
make Georgi a big man, and toward the end of 1924, as
Moscow drowsily settled back for the stormy winter
ahead, Georgi moved into Valerie's one-room flat.
As were most Communist marriages until the late
thirties, Malenkov's marriage was common-law. He sim-
ply moved in and stayed for sixteen years.
CHAPTER IV
On Stalin's Knee: 1925-1933
IT WAS NOT LONG before Valerie's contacts helped remove
Georgi Malenkov from the shadow of suspicion and
placed him high in the Stalin machine-in Stalin's own
study, in fact.
In February, 1925, Georgi attended a conference of
representatives of Party cells from Moscow, Leningrad
and the provinces. Only the most important schools in
the country were represented, fifty delegates in all, and
the conference was led by the secretaries of the Central
Committee itself, Molotov and Andreyev. Both men were
key allies of Stalin in the new struggle he was promoting
against Zinoviev and Kamenev. Valerie knew both men
well through her work in the Orgburo.
Valerie also introduced Georgi to Boris Bazhanov, who
was helping turn the personal secretariat of the Party
General Secretary, in this case Stalin, into a key weapon
in the intra-party struggle.
Malenkov attended the school throughout that spring,
and Valerie continued to introduce him to important
people in the Stalin machine. Through her influence,
Malenkov was given a small job on the Central Com-
mittee, and while in that position, he met Lazar Kagano-
vich, Stalin's old friend and future brother-in-law.
Malenkov saw his opportunity and ingratiated himself
with the powerful man, and Kaganovich, in turn, took
Malenkov under his wing and became his mentor.
From 1925 to 1930, Malenkov was detailed as a re-
sponsible worker with the apparatus of the Central Com-
mittee of the All-Union Communist Party, a group which
literally had life and death control of all Russia.
Kaganovich put Malenkov in the Orgburo. It was
33
34
·|
MALENKOV
there that Stalin discovered him. In 1927, Boris Bajanov
abandoned his job as Stalin's personal secretary and Mal-
enkov took his place as Stalin's personal assistant on the
Secretariat of the Central Committee, doing so well that
he won the full confidence of the dictator. This was a
strategic spot for a young man who had already demon-
strated a prodigious capacity for work and a card-index
memory. It was an ideal position for a smart, inquisitive
and ambitious young Communist. The party's files and
secrets were open to him. He burrowed deep, learned
much, and said little.
Then, having performed well under the surveillance
of Kaganovich, Molotov, Andreyev, and other Stalin
aides, he was moved directly into Stalin's personal secre-
tariat. He was to work at Stalin's right hand for five years,
the five years in which Stalin was to succeed in liquidat-
ing the power of all his Communist rivals and in launch-
ing Russia on the Five-Year Plans.
This was the turning point in his career. The relation-
ship then established with Stalin made Malenkov, before
he had reached the age of 30, the most important single
individual in the Soviet generation that reached man-
hood immediately after the Bolshevik Revolution.
Stalin's secretariat was the motor-center of the vast
machine which was transforming the Russian Communist
party. Trotsky had been deposed as War Commissar in
January, 1925, only a year after Lenin's death, and been
succeeded by Malenkov's old commander in Turkestan,
Michael Frunze. But Stalin had broken Trotsky's power
with the aid not only of Zinoviev and Kamenev, but of
the moderates, Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky. In beating
back the Trotsky supporters and weeding them out of
party posts, Stalin had relied on such party organs as
Orgburo and the Central Control Commission. In critical
cases however, he had to rely on men who were much
more anti-Trotsky than they were pro-Stalin. The Com-
munist Party Congresses-still officially the supreme
power-had named to the Orgburo and Control Com-
MALENKOV
35
mission supporters of Zinoviev, Bukharin and other lead-
ers. From the timid and inconsistent behavior of his
Politburo colleagues, Stalin saw that he could-with suf-
ficient persistence and hard work-remake the party com-
pletely in his own image.
But since he was still playing the role of "moderate,”
"conciliator," promoter of "party unity," he could not
effect such a change openly, through the usual party or-
gans. And so, as Secretary of the Party, he built up
enormous files of documents, a network of trusted in-
formers and a compact staff of talented young men who
were to become his eyes and ears for all of Russia. This
was Stalin's personal secretariat, and in it Georgi Malen-
kov-alert, suspicious, retentive, thorough-soon became
the leading figure.
Malenkov's memory alone was a major asset in the
Stalin machine. Industriously, he would study and re-
study the files, devise new ways of obtaining information,
keep up contacts with the men in the GPU who were
loyal to Stalin and had their own sources of knowledge.
Malenkov's diligence was applied not only to screen-
ing and eliminating the party's older members, but as
well to the admission of new members. Under the direc-
tion of the Secretariat, local Stalinists began enlarging
their party cells to include new elements, often of the
pure gangster variety. The civil war and the famine of
1921 had left thousands of homeless youths, called the
Bezprizorni. With the NEP's free trade swelling the
pockets of many a trader, robbery and racketeering be-
came profitable ventures again, and the Bezprizorni, as
they ripened into adolescence and manhood, were natu-
rally drawn to this "new industry." Stalin was never the
man to turn down allies, and in the coming struggles, he
needed all the allies he could get.
In the five years Georgi Malenkov worked in the Sec-
retariat, party units all over Russia began admitting
criminal elements: former Bezprizorni, demobilized sol-
diers, former GPU men who had no work, and convicts
whom the Stalin machine with its GPU connections suc-

36
MALENKOV
ceeded in releasing from jail. These men were quietly
fed by the Secretariat to trouble-spots where the Buk-
harin-Rykov forces might prove potent.
At the same time, representatives of the Central Con-
trol Commission, who were working under the Secre-
tariat, began removing party members of "bourgeois” or
"White" background whom Malenkov's office considered
anti-Stalin. It was no coincidence that Party members
with similar "dubious" backgrounds but who were firmly
on Stalin's side retained their membership. It was no co-
incidence because Georgi Malenkov and his unsentimen-
tal colleagues in the Secretariat knew precisely who was
who.
Once the stage had been rigged by the network op
erated from Georgi Malenkov's secretariat, Stalin secured
the adoption of his First Five Year Plan and applied
sheer power throughout the party to push out the "Right
Opposition." In 1929, as Moscow banners streamed with
the legend, "Stalin is Lenin today," the collectivization
of agriculture got under way. All farmers who had man-
aged to acquire even moderate holdings during the NEP
were labeled "kulaks," and Communist agitators went up
and down the countryside calling for "the liquidation of
the kulaks as a class." Where the agitators weren't
enough, first GPU squads, then Red Army regiments,
sometimes armed with tanks, went into the villages. First
thousands, then millions, of resisting peasants were
herded into long gray freight-trains and packed off to the
huge slave-labor camps that were being quickly built in
Siberia and the Arctic regions.
By 1930, Malenkov was a divisional chief of the central
committee and a delegate to the Sixteenth Party Con-
gress. He then was promoted to chief of the organizing
department of the Moscow party.
From this vantage point, Malenkov rose rapidly from
one key job to another. From 1930 to 1934, he was the
secretary and head of the Organization Department of
the Moscow Province Communist Party, working under
Kaganovich. His progress up the Moscow section of the
MALENKOV
37
party was rapid. With Kaganovich, he helped remove
Nicholai Bukharin's right-wing adherents from the Mos-
cow party.
In Moscow, the party secretary, Uglanov, was quickly
removed and replaced by Lazar Kaganovich. As his right-
hand man, Stalin now sent Georgi Malenkov to work
for the first time on his own. His task: a full-scale purge
of the Moscow party organization. Malenkov's experi
ence in the Secretariat, plus his early baptism of terror,
made him an ideal man for the job. The purge was quick
and ruthless, and the result that Moscow from 1931-1933
was almost completely ignorant of the vast new drama
unfolding in the hinterlands.
With thousands of peasants shipped off to slave labor,
with the new collective farms ruled by GPU machine-
gunners, famine struck in the winter of 1932, and it
broadened and continued and reached its height the next
winter.
In 1934-just before the great purges-Malenkov came
back to the staff of the Central Committee, as Chief of
the Department of Leading Party Organizations, a stra-
tegic personnel post of the Central Committee. His mind
filled with intimate information of all party members,
he began the slow, vital work of building his own per-
sonal machine throughout the length and breadth of the
Soviet Bureaucracy as the party's personnel chief. He
became an intimate collaborator of Nikolai Yezhov, head
of the NKVD and organizer of the great purges of
1936-1938.
CHAPTER V
The Blood Count Rises: 1934-1939
IN THE GREAT PURGE conducted by Yezhov, Malenkov and
Vishinsky, and highlighted by the outlandish "confes-
sions" of those who were Lenin's closest comrades at the
Moscow Trials, untold hundreds of thousands died with
GPU bullets in their brains and hundreds of thousands
more perished in the Arctic slave labor camps. It was a
fearsome time of intrusions in the night, quick rides to
police headquarters, gruesome grilling and stealthy
execution.
The opening signal for this gigantic massacre was the
assassination of Sergei Kirov, Stalin's closest friend and
protege, who was shot to death in his Leningrad office
in the winter of 1934.
Malenkov's job during this period is said to have been
to prepare the dossiers of the guilty men for use by Yez-
hov and Vishinsky, and to find replacements for the men
who vanished.
Vishinsky's role was most dramatic; before the aston-
ished eyes of the world, he acted as prosecutor at the pub-
lic trials of Lenin's old comrades-Zinoviev, Kamenev,
Piatakov, Serebriakov, Radek, Bukharin, Rykov, Krestin-
sky and Yagoda. He elicited and commented on the fab-
ulous "confessions" of these men, previously elicited by
GPU strongarm squads, in which they said they had plot-
ted with foreign intelligence services to overthrow Stalin
and to kill such people as Maxim Gorky, Sergei Kirov,
Sergo Ordzshonikidze and other Soviet leaders. At the
last of these trials, Vishinsky summed up by shouting: “I
demand that dogs gone mad be shot-every one of them."
But these public trials, and the lesser ones in which
Vishinsky acted as prosecutor, represented only the bare
1
38
MALENKOV
39
crust of the universe of death Stalin was creating in Rus-
sia. The private slaughter went into the hundreds of
thousands, and Vishinsky's oratory was quite superfluous
in most cases. The essential elements of the purge were
an army of gunmen, and a mechanized spy network.
These were the responsibilities of Yezhov and Malenkov.
The association between these two men began in 1934,
when the Seventeenth Communist Party Congress created
the new super-spy outfit, "ORPO." Yezhov was named as
its chief, with Malenkov as his deputy; when Yezhov suc-
ceeded secret police chief Yagoda a year later, Malenkov
assumed command of the ORPO, and the purge began.
The ORPO provided the names and the NKVD killed
them.
The ORPO was an improvement on previous Soviet
spy engines in the sense that it was mechanized. Yezhov
and Malenkov had both campaigned within the party
hierarchy for a broader use of statistical machines and
computers for police work, and this campaign bore fruit
in the ORPO. Machines were used in the ORPO to single
out all people ever accused or suspected of any of a
myriad of political crimes or "deviations," and then to
assign these people's fate to different squads of the NKVD.
In addition to such machines, the ORPO was equipped
with a staff of statisticians, research analysts, contact men
and intelligence experts, as well as a network of its own
informers and liaison through Malenkov with Stalin's
secretariat.
Malenkov directed this entire enterprise-machines and
men-and made the final decisions on all doubtful cases
before submitting them to Yezhov. Where immediate
death was not indicated, but questioning was preferred,
Malenkov's office supplied NKVD interrogators and tor-
turers with all the supposed charges against the prisoners.
When new names were implicated-and a prime object
of the purges was to get each suspect to name as "accom-
plices" other men whom the party didn't suspect-the
NKVD immediately fed the names back for incorpora-
tion into the ORPÓ files. Malenkov, after preparing the
40
MALENKOV
huge ORPO apparatus for action during most of 1934
and 1935, worked day and night during the years 1936-38
earmarking thousands upon thousands for Yezhov's
slaughter.
The next attack was on the army leaders. Among the
leaders of the Red Army involved in the plan were Mar-
shal Tukachevsky, the commander-in-chief and the hero
of the Polish War of 1920; Marshal Bluecher, commander-
in-chief of the Far Eastern Army; General Gamarnik,
chief of the Red Army Political Department; Marshal
Yegorov, chief of staff, and six other high-ranking officers.
On May 31, 1937, it was announced that Gamarnik had
committed suicide, and two weeks later, it was announced
that the other nine had been tried, condemned and shot.
Soon afterward, Yezhov and Malenkov moved in on
the army. Within a few months, nearly all the generals
who had signed the death warrant for Tukachevsky and
the others were themselves liquidated and, before long,
almost all the 80 members of the Soviet War Council of
1934 were dead. The purge moved into the Navy and Air
Force and some 30,000 officers were liquidated in all;
others were sent to Siberia, including Konstantin Rokos-
sovsky, whose skills were later commandeered by Stalin
in a moment of crisis and who became one of the authen-
tic heroes of World War II.
The most interesting thing about the Army purges is
that none of the high-ranking officers confessed, nor did
Stalin dare stage a public trial of these men. Their effect
was to weaken severely the Red Army at a time when
Hitler was on the loose. The subsequent easy German.
march across 1000 miles of Russian territory was in no
small part due to the Stalin-Yezhov-Malenkov slaughter
of Russia's best soldiers.
By the beginning of 1939, almost five million Russians
were dead and ten million were in slave labor camps.
The rest of the country-almost each Russian had a friend
or relation involved-was in a state of severe shock. Stalin
decided the purge had gone far enough. Yezhov, who by
this time had become a hysterical maniac, disappeared,
MALENKOV
41
and was replaced by Stalin's Georgian comrade, the for-
mer GPU chief in the Caucasus, Lavrenti Beria. It has
been reported that Yezhov was first taken to a madhouse,
then shot. But Vishinsky was promoted and Malenkov
was named a secretary of the Party Central Committee
and a member of the Orgburo. He was retained as the
head of the ORPO, but its name was changed to the Ad-
ministration of Cadres and its duties expanded to include
various forms of patronage. When Adolf Hitler's emis-
saries came to conclude their pact of friendship with
Stalin in August 1939, Malenkov was a big man.
1
CHAPTER VI
The War Years: 1940-1946
IN FEBRUARY 1941, after the Nazi invasion, Stalin further
indicated his favorable disposition towards Malenkov by
selecting him to deliver a party oration. It created a sen-
sation. He denounced bureaucrats and time servers in a
Soviet state, flailed “ignoramuses" who deprecated tech-
nological advancements, scored those who looked at a
man's genealogy rather than ability as a prerequisite for
promotion.
At this time Malenkov was unknown to the Western
world, and foreign observers in Moscow were startled
when, in February 1941, at a nationwide conference of
the Communist Party, he was called upon to make a key
speech on problems of industry and transport, which had
prime importance in view of the imminence of war.
Malenkov lashed into his assembled comrades and pro-
duced, the record says modestly, "movements of anima-
tion" in the hall. He began by attacking the Council of
People's Commissars: "Some of them like to sit in swivel
chairs and run things by correspondence." Then he went
after the high executives who "study genealogy to pick
subordinates by their proletarian ancestry rather than by
capacity," and jolted his hearers by saying that among
non-Party people there were many sincere and capable
men who had no Communist standing but who worked
better and more conscientiously than many a Communist
of long standing! Next Malenkov let fly against "wind-
bags who arm themselves with catchwords like 'We're
getting things organized, but there's a little jam,' or
"There's a trifling delay, but we're getting rid of the
snags,' when they're asked why production is lagging be
low quota." He cited specific cases and came close enough
42
MALENKOV
43
to naming names to rouse further "animation" in the
audience. Then he said: "There's another type of busi-
ness leader, the ignoramus, the type who knows nothing
and doesn't want to know anything. But he is as con-
ceited as they make them and is convinced that there is
nothing he does not know and nothing he needs to know.
You may talk to him about new methods and tell him
his technological process needs improving, or that clean-
liness and tidiness are essential in a factory, but he sits
there, confirmed in his ignorance and refuses to listen to
reason or advice." Again, the audience was "animated."
As a result of this speech, Molotov's wife, Zhemchu-
zhina, "retired to private life" and a number of other
Commissars were demoted, including Mikhail Kagano-
vich, the older brother of the Politburo member, Lazar.
Another result was that the very next day Malenkov
was appointed a candidate member of the Politburo.
Malenkov's impressive organizational talents were put
to use during the war. When the Nazis invaded Russia,
he became a member of the five-man state defense com-
mittee, worked tirelessly in stepping up military produc-
tion. All the while Malenkov was building up the Krem-
lin's foreign spy organization.
He was rewarded with a position as head of the aircraft
and tank production programs and his record in increas-
ing output was so gratifying that honors were his for the
asking. He was a Hero of Socialist Labor and in 1943
received the Order of Lenin.
In 1943 he was charged with the task of economic re-
habilitation of the de astated areas. As a reward for his
prodigious activities he was made a full member of the
Politburo.
In the summer of 1943, the Red Army won the decisive
victory of the Kursk salient. At this moment, Malenkov
was appointed High Commissioner for the reconstruction
of all liberated Soviet territory, from the Caucasus to the
Baltic Sea, which had had a population of 88 million
people.
Everywhere the Germans had wantonly destroyed his-
44
MALENKOV
torical monuments, churches, and museums, as well as
40,000 hospitals, 84,000 schools, and 43,000 libraries. It
was a kingdom of chaos that Malenkov was called upon
to rule.
is
In a speech at the beginning of 1946, he said: "Who-
ever wants to work and can work will find full use of his
energies in this vast job of construction. All that is needed
is to put our shoulders to the wheel and not be afraid of
difficulties, but anyone who thinks he can live by his past
services and rest on the laurels of accomplishment
gravely mistaken. The war is over, and now we must roll
up our sleeves and set about healing the wounds which
the war inflicted. Those who are complaining about the
war to justify their own shortcomings must be told: 'Stop
whining, get down to work, and before you know it you
won't need to complain. Avoid getting into a rut, and
stop living by old formulas.''
Malenkov is one of the first high officials in Russia to
have placed tremendous emphasis on the need for tech-
nological advancement. In fact, those who are acquainted
with the industrial picture in Russia before the end of
World War II cannot help but be astounded at the enor-
mous progress made in the past six years-a situation al-
most totally due to Malenkov's efforts.
But his efforts went down strange channels. Right after
the last war, Malenkov directed the kidnaping of German
scientists from right under the noses of Allied troops,
almost risking war with England, the United States, and
France. He was held back only by the more conservative
members of the Politburo who knew that in her weak-
ened condition, Russia was in no position to defend her-
self. But even at that, Malenkov knew that the risk was
a small one. Public opinion was largely still favorably
inclined towards the Soviet Union as a result of her re-
sistance to the Nazis.
But the kidnaping still is being felt. Having had some
technological training and certainly a good deal of ex-
perience as a production efficiency expert, Malenkov
knew that the theory of jet propulsion and the theoretical
MALENKOV
45
:
4
formulations for atomic energy were known to the entire
world. Russia lacked the technologists to build the pre-
cise and intricate equipment needed to make production
models of jet planes and atom bombs. It was largely
through the efforts of these kidnaped German scientists
that Russia has made such excellent military advances.
CHAPTER VII
The Struggle for Power: 1946-1949
MALENKOV'S RISE TO POWER during the war initiated a
great struggle which was to last a decade. The struggle
was between the two ablest younger lieutenants of Stalin,
Malenkov and Andrei Zhdanov, and during its course
Stalin three times changed his own mind. Zhdanov, the
brilliant leader of Leningrad, was close to disgrace in
1945, seemingly triumphant in 1947, disgraced and dead
of "paralysis of the heart" in 1948; Malenkov, sidetracked
during the years 1946-48 despite his wartime exploits,
emerged from virtual oblivion to become Stalin's heir
presumptive and to outlive both Zhdanov and Stalin and
become Premier of the Soviet Union.
The great struggle between Malenkov and Zhdanov
was so complex, so vast in its ramifications, it can be fol-
lowed only through the eyes of an expert who has scanned
all the available material in Russian and other languages
and who has spoken to many of the men close to both
camps. Such a person is Boris I. Nicolaevsky, the Russian
Social Democratic leader now in New York, who in 1949
first reported the vast significance of the Malenkov tri-
umph. Shortly after Stalin's death, Dr. Nicolaevsky pub-
lished in the journal, The New Leader, an analysis of the
struggle and how it determined the succession to Stalin.
Here, slightly abridged, is this expert's account:
Malenkov became prominent in 1939; the 18th Party
Congress had elected him to the Central Committee and
that Committee in turn had made him its Secretary. His
stature rose during the war, when he was a member of
the State Defense Committee, along with Molotov, Beria
and Voroshilov. Since the Politburo had ceased to func-
tion regularly during this period, Malenkov, backed by
:
46
MALENKOV
47
་
.
T
Stalin, became the virtual boss of the entire party ma-
chine and acquired enormous influence over the state
apparatus as well.
He used his position to remove from power some influ-
ential "older" Politburo members-including Zhdanov.
Zhdanov, at the time, was in Leningrad, leading the city's
defense. Malenkov and Beria prevented Zhdanov from
leaving Leningrad, thus removing his influence from the
central party apparatus in Moscow.
Malenkov's offensive against Zhdanov reached its peak
in the winter of 1944-45. Zhdanov was kept in Finland,
in a position of honorary exile, and barred from the cere-
monies of January, 1945, commemorating Leningrad's
heroism displayed during the siege. No mention was
made of him in any of the newspaper accounts.
Zhdanov knew Malenkov was responsible for this in-
sult, and the open struggle had begun. Zhdanov's revenge
came soon after Yalta. Returning to Moscow, he waged
a campaign to combat deviations from traditional Stalin-
ism and to return to pure prewar Stalinism. A recognized
party ideologist, Zhdanov concentrated on questions of
culture and ideology, but also helped mobilize anti-Mal-
enkov elements in other fields.
Most painful of all for Malenkov was Zhdanov's battle
against him on questions of party structure. Zhdanov ob-
tained restoration of the Politburo's old role as supreme
power, standing above the government. Maintenance of
this body's personnel was, for Zhdanov, a guarantee of
the "ideological consistency" of party policy.
Zhdanov's campaign enjoyed initial success, especially
among the members of the old Central Committee and
Politburo. Of course, to restore completely the absolute
prewar dominance of the Politburo over the government
was impossible, because Stalin had since assumed the
Premiership. But a way out was found by creating a
presidium of the Council of Ministers, composed almost
exclusively of Politburo members. To this presidium
were referred all questions of government policy, except
for the most basic questions of principle.
48
1
MALENKOV
For Malenkov, this plenum was a severe defeat. He had,
it is true, been named a full member of the Politburo in
1946 at the age of 45 and re-elected to the Secretariat,
where his name was listed immediately after Stalin's and
ahead of Zhdanov's-this made him First Secretary of the
Communist Party. But that was just coating for a bitter
pill. Organizationally and politically, Malenkov had been
set back.
On the eve of the plenum, Malenkov had urged the
party to look forward, not backward-he had appealed
to the plenum not to "become intoxicated with the rec-
ollection of past services," but to "study everyday expe-
rience" for "creative guidance of the building of a new
life"; and he had criticized "pedants who have quota-
tions from Marx and Engels ready on every occasion."
This, a direct thrust at Zhdanov, failed to bring the
desired results; the "pedants" triumphed. An anti-Mal-
enkov bloc emerged in the Politburo. Zhdanov's pro-
posal for a purge on the cultural front was approved, as
were Andreyev's strictures on wartime collective-farm
policy. Revamping of local party groups got under way,
clearly directed against Malenkov. Within 6 months,
Malenkov himself was deposed as Secretary of the Cen-
tral Committee. (This took place in July or August
1946; the exact date is unknown because the decision
was never made public.)
Precisely at this time, Marshal Zhukov was removed
as Stalin's deputy in the Defense Ministry. Zhukov, too,
was a victim of Zhdanov, who had extended his cam-
paign against "deviations" to the Army. Zhukov, great-
est of the Red Army's World War II heroes, was ban-
ished from Moscow and spent more than six years as a
troop commander in remote outposts. (Malenkov has
now returned Zhukov to the very post he held in 1946,
and since he is not given to handsome gestures, one can
assume that he hopes this former ally against Zhdanov
can help him in the future.)
The months following Malenkov's removal as Secretary
of the Central Committee were bitter. He was humil-
MALENKOV
49
}
iated by assignment to the Agriculture Ministry, where
he was ordered to revamp "incorrect" policies, which
were formally blamed on him. But he was excluded from
the new Council on Collective Farm Affairs, which was
headed by an avowed enemy, Andreyev, and charged
simply with carrying out the orders of the men whom
he had loftily patronized just months before. Malenkov
submitted outwardly. Promptly he began planning re-
venge.
Malenkov began organizing the counterattack on
Zhdanov in the field of foreign policy. The latter's policy
for the Cominform which he created was one of militancy.
Malenkov was for transforming the foreign Communist
Partics into "respectable" agencies which could better
push Moscow's interests abroad. When Tito revolted,
Zhdanov's star fell; soon after this historic break Malen-
kov stepped into his shoes.
On July 20 Malenkov again appeared as a party secre-
tary.
:
CHAPTER VIII
The End and the Beginning: 1950-1953
MALENKOV, WHOSE ONLY knowledge of the world has
been filtered through the distorting lenses of Marxism
and its distorted practitioners, holds for the moment the
sceptre of "Communist Czar." He will probably retain
that "Adler Elevator" reviewing balcony in Red Square
constructed for Stalin, who stood only five feet two. The
flooring which Joe used when marching on and off the
reviewing stand, and while actually reviewing parades,
was raised nearly a foot higher than the rest of the floor.
Everybody else in Stalin's party would walk or stand in
trenches on either side of Stalin's dike.
·
But is Malenkov really stepping into Stalin's shoes? Is
he the real ruler of Russia and its empire in the same
sense that Stalin was? Over twenty-five years of propa-
ganda had given the late dictator the stature of demi-god.
His death leaves both an emotional and ideological
vacuum.
While Lenin, Stalin's predecessor, picked a successor,
some ex-Soviet officials believe that Stalin never did, that
he fully expected to survive all of his lieutenants whom
he kept playing off against one another. His lieutenants
did not have the faith in his longevity that the dictator
had, however, and Stalin well knew that the younger
Politburo men were hovering about with an eye "on the
carcass." Thus, "as sops to Cerebus," first Zhdanov, then
Molotov, then Malenkov, alternatingly were permitted
next to Stalin on the reviewing stands and in photo-
graphs, and on Stalin's 70th birthday, it was Malenkov's
article of praise that was printed first, ahead of all others,
in the Soviet press. For just as Stalin derived power as
Lenin's so-called successor and pupil, so the younger
+
50
MALENKOV
51
A
men in the Politburo wanted a sign of the “master's"
favor in event of a battle for power after his death.
Malenkov went further than the rest to become identified
with the dictator. He virtually shaped his life in Stalin's
image; dressed as Stalin dressed, his few public utterances
supplemented and paraphrased Stalin's statements.
But insufficient time had passed for the identification
to seep into the public mind, despite the many evidences
of Stalin's favor, for more and more as Stalin grew older
and increasingly careful about his health, he left the
running of the machinery of government in the hands of
the Malenkov-Beria-Molotov combination, particularly
Malenkov who was a brilliant organizer, a man infinitely
knowing in party ways, an efficiency expert who boosted
Soviet production figures by tremendous percentages, and
who served Stalin unquestionably in every small and
useful way.
The most conspicuous sign of Stalin's favoritism for
any one person came when Malenkov was selected to de-
liver the report of the Central Committee of the Com-
munist Party to the Congress which met in October of
1952. For more than two decades previously, Stalin had
delivered that report-a lengthy Soviet equivalent of the
President of the United States' State of the Union Mes-
sage. However, the importance of Malenkov's report was
substantially reduced when, on the eve of the Congress,
the Soviet press released Stalin's 25,000 word document
on the "Economic Problems of Socialism" which set down
the Premier's ideas on the main lines to be followed in
Soviet foreign policy and also in the country's future
development toward the purported goal of full commu-
nism. Nevertheless, since last October, the Soviet press
has frequently quoted from Malenkov's report, making
it plain that he was laying down party doctrine in areas
not covered by Stalin. But Malenkov, although an effec-
tive, stolid, well-grooved Communist tactician, has never,
as far as is known, contributed anything new or original
to Communist theory.
When Stalin died, the initial transfer of power, on the
52
MALENKOV
surface at least, was made smoothly and swiftly. Georgi
Malenkov took over Stalin's title of Premier. But has he
taken over Stalin's power? Is power of Stalin's nature
inheritable?
German diplomats believe that Georgi Malenkov, de-
spite his new title of Premier, is not Stalin's successor and
may never be, that in the dictatorship ruling Russia now
and probably for many months to come, Molotov holds
the balance of power between the rivals, Malenkov and
Beria. They hold the further view that Stalin planned it
thusly in anticipation that one ruthless rival kill off the
other or both be destroyed and a dark horse nose in. It is
further pointed out that titles are meaningless in the
Kremlin where power must be won as in a dead-end gang
by the craftiest, cruelest and strongest bullies personally
eliminating the rival-a process made harder by the new
setup.
Malenkov, by virtue of his file-index functions as a
cadre and party-machine man seems to be in a position
to wield most of the power in the Presidium. Outside of
Beria, there seems no one powerful or ambitious enough
to oppose Prime Minister Georgi M. Malenkov, a man
who fits the pattern for Russian dictators, regarding
humans as so many robots in service of the state, a man
born into authoritarianism, raised in the desensitizing
era of bloody revolution, and trained in the suppressing,
informing, party cadre, machine politics aspects of Soviet
life.
Under the omnipotence of Stalin, he could carry out
his personal struggles for power. Without him, it must
be consolidated from time to time but the use of the
instrument of the purge might prove too sharp a weapon
for him right now. Yet he must act, vigorously and dra-
matically to whip rivals and captive peoples into line.
What Malenkov's attitude toward the West is, we can
only glean from earlier political speeches, and we only
have his word for it. In a speech made in September,
1947, at a foundation meeting of the Cominform, near
Warsaw, he stated: "We proceed from the fact that the
MALENKOV
53
;
co-existence of two systems-Capitalism and Socialism-is
inevitable for a long period of time and if we follow the
line of maintaining loyal, good neighborly relations
with all states manifesting a desire for friendly coopera-
tion on condition that the principle of reciprocity is ob-
served and that obligations undertaken are fulfilled . . .
But at the same time we are prepared to repel any policy
hostile to the Soviet Union no matter from what quarter
it comes."
Malenkov talks out of both sides of his mouth, a trick
apparently passed along from one Stalinist to the next.
Though he at one time preaches the peaceable living
side-by-side of Capitalism and Communism, later he
rants: "What does history teach us? . . . The first World
War... brought about the victory of the great October
socialist revolution... The Second World War brought
Popular Democratic regimes in central and southeastern
Europe... Can there by any doubt that the third World
War will become the grave for world capitalism?” This,
in 1949, while Russian "peace" doves were filling the
skies.
And even while this hypocrisy is studied and passed
over, the more frightening and brutal inconsistency of
1953 stares at the peace-desiring multitudes. On his
ascendancy to the premiership, Malenkov shot out the
usual olive branch straight at President Eisenhower.
The world stirred. Here was an opportunity for honest
peace negotiations. Two new administrations were in
power. A fresh start, the people whispered, a fresh start.
And then with the callous indifference that smacks only
of the Soviet ruling class, two jet planes in two days were
shot down in flagrant violations of long-standing borders.
In each instance, it was a Red MIG that did the shoot-
ing down. Malenkov had been called a liar by the chatter-
ing language of his own guns.
That is the beginning of the Malenkov regime. It is
only a part of the beginning, however. Even with the
dead flyers still more than a fresh memory, Malenkov
was back at the old hackstand, passing out the peace lie
•
54
MALENKOV
in an open invitation for talks with the Western world.
That the man is a careful manipulating liar is proved
by a recent picture in Pravda. Only in amusement park
side-shows where mirrors are distorted and in Pravda do
pictures lie. During the signing of the Chinese-Soviet
pact back in February 14, 1950, Malenkov was a minor
figure, standing off to the side while Vishinsky penned
the agreement and Stalin, Molotov, and Mao Tse-tung
stood next to each other. To reveal Malenkov's new im-
portance, Pravda has just edited the picture, moving
Malenkov so that he stands next to Mao and Stalin.
Molotov is missing from the photo entirely. So is
Vishinsky.
Georgi Malenkov is Russia's new ruler. And the drum-
beating Kremlin propaganda corps is working overtime
to create his legend. All it has proved thus far is that
Malenkov is a hypocrite and liar.
I
CHAPTER IX
What Makes Malenkov Run?
A Psychological Profile
THERE IS A TERRIBLE NEED to understand the psychology
of Soviet leadership. Tomes have been written on this
person's background and that one's by critics to the
right and to the left of Soviet politics. But all is mean-
ingless unless the individual is seen in relation to his
origins, his environment, the age in which he grew, the
system of which he is a part, and most important of all,
in terms of himself, because the stamp of individuality
can never be removed-regardless of how repressive an
organization is.
Georgi Malenkov, Stalinoid man that he is, is still dif-
ferent from the other men in the Kremlin.
The Stalinoid personality permits a man to become
a Stalinoid man, just as a creative personality enables a
man to become an artist. First we have the material,
then we create the sculpture. We cannot make statues
out of pebbles.
There have been and still are liberals and rebels in
all parts of the world. Wherein does the Communist of
today differ from radicals and liberals? The Stalinoid
outside of the U.S.S.R. is a neurotically dependent indi-
vidual who seeks a strong father image. He is manipu-
lated by the Stalinoids inside Russia who are similar,
yet of another variety. These are Stalinists without con-
viction, created out of the political and personal needs.
of Stalin and shaped by the bureaucracy. Malenkov
seems to have been totally unmotivated by conviction.
Unlike Lenin, and even Stalin, he became a Communist
because that was the winning side to be on. He was a
55
56
MALENKOV
boy when the revolution occurred and little more than
an adolescent throughout the years of revolutionary con-
flict. This was apparently the future state and he had to
take part in it or perish. In the subsequent bureaucracy
that arose after the inter-party struggle for power and
in the period during which Stalin consolidated his power,
only the Stalinoid men survived the succession of bloody
purges that marked that period. For of the old Bolshe
viks, only a few were permitted to live-Molotov, Vo-
roshilov, the weakest and most submissive, adapting to
what they knew was tyranny to save their skins while
rationalizing about the eventual "withering away of the
state" as industrial capacity increased. Stalin gradually
eliminated all men of conviction, because these were defi-
nite threats to his life and safety. A man will risk death
because of his beliefs but an opportunist who becomes
one in the first place, for reasons of success and safety,
does not have beliefs.
The rest of the members of the Politburo consisted of
young men like Malenkov-too young to have been Bol-
sheviks, but old enough to have participated in some
way during the entire revolutionary period.
It's safe to say that the entire group of younger Polit-
buro members are Communists by expediency and were
supporters of Stalin by the pressing emotional need not
to die. They learned early that the only allegiances, prin-
ciples, ideals or loyalties one could afford were to them-
selves and their loved ones. They saw how even the
mothers of deposed political big-shots were punished
along with their sons; how wives were sent to slave labor
camps when husbands were accused of political treason
-how the children of the accused suffered. Able, intelli-
gent men knew that the only way to live in any kind of
comfort and security was to get to the top. When they
got to the top they found that it required constant in-
trigue, vigilance, planning, scheming, submissiveness,
subordination of all feeling, morals and values to stay
there. It was a bloody recapitulation of the history of
the old Kings of England made more terrible by the
MALENKOV
57
:
introduction of modern, machine-age efficiency methods.
Everything had to be planned, approved, signaled-one
wrong word, one inadvertent mistake might be fatal.
Insecurity and anxiety is the keynote to their exist-
ence. Unlike politicians in capitalist countries, the only
way they can leave a job is through demotion or feet
first. Many ex-presidents of the U.S. have gone back to
their little hamlets and taken up life again with the
neighbors, but in the Soviet Union a political function-
ary leaves only when he signs up with death, or condi-
tions leading to it.
Lazar M. Pistrak, one of the leading authorities on
Soviet affairs, has made a close study of the career of the
new Soviet Premier. In an article in The New Leader,
Pistrak provides a summary of Malenkov's career.
"Malenkov is neither a military hero, an industrial
engineer, a theoretician nor a diplomat," he states; "like
Stalin, too, Malenkov works hard, works nights, speaks
in a low monotone, smokes and affects a drab military
tunic. Unlike Stalin, however, in the years of his rise to
power Malenkov has made little pretense at either hu-
mility or moderation. In contrast to such older Soviet
leaders as Andreyev, Mikoyan and Kaganovich, Malen-
kov and his young cohort Nikita Khrushchev are con-
sidered the hard, cold-blooded mechanics of the Bolshe-
vik organization."
Edmund Stevens, former Moscow correspondent of
the Christian Science Monitor, described Malenkov as
"the typical product of the party apparatus in which he
has spent his entire adult life. Lacking mass appeal, he
dislikes the limelight and prefers to pull the wires be-
hind the scenes. Cautious plodding Malenkov
has a brain closely akin to the vast party card-index
which he keeps as chief of the party organization."
Unlike the old Bolsheviks who were motivated by
rebelliousness and a certain passion against poverty,
injustice, suffering, and idealism, Malenkov, as with
the other young men now in control of the Pre-
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58
MALENKÓ V
sidium, joined the revolutionary army first and was in-
structed in Communism later. His was no passion for
justice, but one for survival and power in an environ-
ment violent with war, bloodshed, economic and physi-
cal insecurity and change. Not much more than a child.
when the October Revolution broke out, he had plenty
of time to witness the effects of starvation, political
chaos, and violent death. But Malenkov was prepared
by his background to cope with it better than others of
his generation. His father, an officer, must have early
acquainted him with the "kill or be killed" principle
of existence. Having learned the basic law of survival
from his father and having been reared by a strong
patriarchal militaristic figure, Malenkov learned early to
repress his own feelings, rebelliousness being one, and to
accept the principle of survival of the fittest as a natural
law. Whatever one had to do to secure one's existence
was right. Apparently, anything that one did to further
one's ambition was right also, especially in an environ-
ment where both became synonymous.
Can the principles of psychology as conceived and
practiced in western nations during periods of relative
freedom be applied to those reared in the patriarchal,
authoritarian police state, which for many years had
more people than it could comfortably supply with ma-
terial goods, where death, dislocation, civil insecurity,
repression of all liberties, mistrust on all levels of exist-
ence, and persecution of the innocent was a rule-where
freedom of movement is an unheard of thing and living
conditions so utterly at variance with that of the West-
ern World as to stagger the imagination? A man is a
paranoiac only if his feelings of persecution are based
on a delusion, but where they are founded in fact, he is a
realist and entitled to become suspicious, morose, anti-
social, withdrawn and secretive.
In this country, a man who tries to commit suicide is
charged first with manslaughter if he fails, and then com-
mitted to an insane asylum. In Russia, it is tantamount
to suicide not to exercise foresight in estimating all dan-
MALENKOV
59
gers and protecting oneself against them. Malenkov, by
Russian standards, has apparently proven himself fittest
to survive. By attaining Stalin's position, he is in a better
position to survive and protect himself than he was be-
fore, except that he has not yet had the opportunity to
liquidate such resourceful and dangerous men as Beria
and others.
Under cover of Stalin, he could have attempted
this task, but were his cohorts to be liquidated now
or die of "a paralyzed heart" like his chief rival for
the seat of power, Zhdanov, he would risk revolt and dis-
sension with the vast heterogeneous mass, for he neither
has Stalin's deified reputation built up over a period of
25 years nor his personal patriarchal appeal. His appear-
ance is against him-a fat woman may be a mother sym-
bol, but the fat man is not a father symbol. On the con-
trary-there is a feminine implication in obesity. He is
also too young-looking a man, and his features lack the
kind of ruggedness that would command the filial wor-
shipful devotion of a people that moved without too
much difficulty from reverence for the Czar, the Little
Father, to Stalin, Father of all Russia. What is more,
very little is known in Russia about Malenkov. His back-
ground, being bourgeois, was not much publicized, and
he has only come into public recognition since 1941 and
after the brief, meteoric flash of his speech, not until
1949 when he was given Stalin's benign nod as spokesman
on the eve of the anniversary of the Russian revolution.
It was Zhdanov who appeared consistently with Stalin
in later years, apparently being primed as the heir for
Stalin's throne, not Malenkov. Malenkov was shadow-
like, a rather large shadow, but silent, subservient, quiet,
diligent, a behind-the-scenes plotter and intriguer. Se-
rious, dour, diligent, not charm, nor personal magnetism,
not even an appearance of strength of character seems
indicated except to those who come into contact with
him personally. He is described as tough, humorless and
dull.
But he must have had some attractive qualities to
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60
MALENKOV
have endeared him to men like Kaganovich and Stalin;
or was he just a most useful tool-a Štalinoid man—loyal,
non-controversial, carrying out all orders well, without
qualms, passions, ideals, without conscience or pity to
hamper his efficiency or impair his duties-a truly merci-
less machine man?
In our society, the ability to kill dispassionately is the
sign of the psychopathic personality type-the detached,
practical criminal. A man who commits a crime of pas-
sion in Western society is more likely to be judged insane
than the cold-blooded, premeditated murderer. But in
Russian society would these classifications hold true? The
civilized soldier kills in cold blood an enemy he has no
personal animosity towards, and this is considered normal
on a kill-or-be-killed basis. In Russian political society,
this is apparently the case also.
Perhaps, Malenkov in the fastness of his home is a lov-
ing husband and kind father. Perhaps he gently jokes
with and patiently instructs his teen-age son and daugh-
ter. Perhaps, he caresses them, loves them, plays with
them-perhaps they are the only people in Russia he can
trust. Very few people are fat through any genetic gland,
ular mishap. As Malenkov would be the first to agree,
having supported the theories of Lysenko, the environ-
ment contributes much toward producing obesity. What
overweight means in psychological terms is not too clear.
Some psychiatrists have found that people eat too much
when they feel anxious, insecure, frustrated. Sweets gen-
erally indicate a need for affection, perhaps not forth-
coming from his wife, who is described as being given to
dashing about in a large limousine and addicted to wear-
ing sleek, man-tailored suits.
Sometimes, overweight is an indication of a desire for
power or security-the fat person feeling generally better
protected and insulated from danger than the thin per-
son. Whatever it means, fatness is the prime human qual-
ity Malenkov seems to have. Fat people are generally as-
sociated with geniality, sociability, but that is only a
myth, probably disseminated by fat people. Some are;
MALENKOV
61
some aren't. Some are sensitive and artistic, some are
cruel. Some are insecure and some merely have a tremen-
dous drive towards power and use their fat as a battering
ram. Several psychiatrists seem to think that fat people
eat too much because they feel the world isn't treating
them well and thus are determined to treat themselves
well.
Malenkov may have had a strong filial attachment to
Stalin, having had a militaristic, stern father himself. But
Malenkov is the product of this old militaristic Russia.
His mistrust of the West is a cultural one. He is in many
ways provincial, never having been outside the country
except Sovietized Poland and Czechoslovakia, adjacent
states. He is not "cosmopolitan," a word which he at-
tacks. He speaks only Russian.
But this is Malenkov, still under Stalin's wing. Now
the wing has been torn away. The fat man must fly by
himself, or fall. The repressive, feared father (and pro-
tecting mother?) must no longer be catered to. Malen-
kov's personality may really come to the fore-either a
deep yearning for peace may come from him, an end to
intrigue, a desire for true security-or the emergence of
rage which many submissive people hide behind their
facade of submissiveness.
Malenkov is a man who may go either of two ways-
the world may be forced to follow. If it is as a peaceful
man that Malenkov moves, even this must be viewed
askance. He is a Stalinoid still, and therefore an oppor-
tunist. Peace today may be what the Russians need, but
not peace tomorrow.
But if it is as the raging fat man that Malenkov
emerges, as a man who must liquidate further to consoli-
date, who must trigger explosions to remind his subjects
of his own importance, then the world will go to war-
and with it, the last of the Stalinoid men will be de-
stroyed.
1
PART TWO
CHAPTER X
Inside Malenkov's Russia
IT IS DIFFICULT to understand and outguess a man like
Malenkov, for the rules by which he lives-his concep-
tion of words like war, friendship, and honesty-differ so
greatly from those we know. In examining the world that
shaped his mind, the answers to three important ques-
tions can be seen:
(1) What is the biggest mistake that Americans make
in trying to understand Malenkov?
(2) What is the big difference between Malenkov and
Stalin?
(3) How did Malenkov win the Number One position
against his competitors?
As one learns more about Malenkov, a paradox pre-
sents itself. Here is a man who joined the armed forces
as a youth and quickly became a political commissar in
it. He rose up the political ladder, perfoming Party tasks.
He became Stalin's right-hand man in the Kremlin, far
above-and far away from-the day-to-day work of the
country. At no time had he worked for a living in in-
dustry. He had no contact with the life of a factory plant
or the job of operating an industry. He had no connec-
tion with the economic side of affairs in general.
Yet, during World War II, while Stalin ran Russia's
war, he was suddenly assigned to take over a vital section
of war industry, aircraft and tank production, and re-
organize it as the top industrial manager. He did such
a good job that he won special commendation from his
boss, and was further rewarded with the task of recon-
struction. Malenkov got results. In 1946, he stood second
only to Stalin at the May Day parade. How was it that
Malenkov could become a competent and skilled “indus-
trialist" with no previous experience?
▸
4
7
·
.
I
65
66
MALENKOV
The average American might assume that he is a man
of such rare and versatile talent as to make this feat pos-
sible in a field of life strange to him. No Russian would
be puzzled; he knows how the system works because he
feels it on his own back. That way one gets an education
more quickly than he would by reading books.
But what was Malenkov's real job at this time? At
the summit of each industrial setup, in the Russian sys-
tem, is a job that has no American counterpart at all.
It does not require "know-how" specific to the given field.
It is the same job that is the peculiar province of the
top leadership in every field, industrial or not. That is
why men like Malenkov-or Kaganovich, or Khrushchev,
and many others-could be shifted around almost at will,
as emergency trouble-shooters.
Malenkov's real responsibility was not that of organiz
ing, reorganizing or streamlining an industry. It was that
of organizing men, the men who did have the know-how,
the industrial managers.
The biggest Soviet myth is that of the famous Planned
Economy. It is only in the last few years that this has
begun to be realized by experts in the West. (One of the
first effective exposés on this point was by Kravchenko in
his book I Chose Freedom. Kravchenko has been a Soviet
factory manager himself. The latest competent analysis
of the Soviet "planned chaos" appeared in the February
1953 issue of Fortune.)
It is true that there is a plan, the current five-year plan.
How it actually works is hinted by a favorite Russian
joke: A factory manager wants to hire a chief book-
keeper. Each applicant is asked how much is two plus
two. The first says four; he is waved away. The second,
not to be trapped, says five; he is denounced as an idiot
who ought to go back to school. The third applicant
tries three, with the same result. Finally one gives the
right answer: "What do you want it to be?" He gets
the job.
The plan is specific enough; it details everything from
working capital and expenditures to prices, labor force,
MALENKOV
67
time deadlines and, of course, output per month. The
only trouble with it is that it is devised at the top and
imposed from the top down, with all its astronomically
complex array of interlocking data.
Theoretically, it is checked and revised by suggestions
from below. In practice, what this means is either that
the subordinates are supposed to show their eagnerness
by increasing their quotas and proposing even crueler
speedups, or else that they engage in a regular haggling
session to "bargain" their quotas down, whether they can
actually fulfill them or not. The manager knows that
every quota he fills means that the next will probably be
even higher, and so it is well to start as low as possible.
The Soviet factory manager in this system is constantly
aware that if he fails to meet the output quota, no matter
what the reason, his neck is at stake. If he's lucky or has
good political connections, it may only mean demotion.
At any time, however, a failure can mean that he is ac-
cused of "sabotage"-and the consequences of that for
himself and his family are incurable and final.
Every manager must make decisions as a matter of
course; he must also sometimes take guesses. A mistaken
decision or a bad guess can mean a bullet through the
base of the brain. If the manager wants to survive, he
will want to take responsibility for as few decisions as
possible; he will spend hours documenting the fact, in
advance, that a particular decision was the work of some-
one else. For the same reason, it may take the manager
days to get some superior official to make a decision,
which he needs immediately, because the superior is faced
with the same dilemma.
If he has an unusually good month, he may hide part
of his output from the factory inspectors in order to hold
it over to make up the quota for the next month. It will
not matter to him if, at the same time, the next plant
which depends on the product is shut down for lack of
parts. Inexcusable bottlenecks result, continuing the
vicious circle.
So one of the most amazing parts of the system comes
68
MALENKOV
in. It is called blat by the Russians, and everybody knows
everybody else does it.
The manager goes about getting what he needs by
"illegal" means-through personal deals, in violation of
the plan, with this or that other agency. He wheedles
additional workers into getting released from their jobs
by various stratagems so they can work for him. He em-
ploys a "pusher" to scour around for his needs. He in-
vites the local Party chief to a blowout in order to beg
special help from outside "channels."
Or else he produces anyway, even if the product is
sure to be defective. That is likely to be true for a dozen
other reasons. The manager is transmitting the ruthless
pressure from above. To meet the quota, the worker has
to produce 50 parts a day; he knows he has to do it. It
will be less important to him that the parts won't fit, if
he can get away with it.
All of these operations won't show on the books. There
are two sets of figures-one for the official inspectors, who
regularly paw over the accounts, and one in the man-
ager's head.
Each worker, and all of the higher-ups, are in constant
danger of being found out. Each man is in a position to
sell out someone, or be sold out himself. It is the shared
guilt and shared fear of the consequences, rather than
loyalty or friendship, which keeps everyone from putting
someone else's head in a noose.
The men at the top around Malenkov know that this
goes on all the time, but nobody minds too much so long
as it doesn't get in anyone's way. Part of it they even en-
courage, particularly the dagger-point relations among
the managerial personnel. For the main thing they are
afraid of is that the factory staff will all gang up to cover
up each other's delinquencies and slow down their pace.
On the Malenkov level, the objective is to play every man
against the other. For this reason, rarely is a factory man-
ager, however successful, permitted to head the same
plant for as much as two years. A plant may even have a
half dozen managers in the course of a year.This means
MALENKOV
69
:
a fantastic loss in experience, know-how and efficiency,
but the manager cannot be allowed to build roots and
friendships and "cliques" around him in his own baili-
wick.
Besides all this, the Plan itself is subject to constant
change. Major objectives may be switched in the middle
if the Kremlin decides, for example, that new emphasis
must be given to tank production. Or perhaps a kingsize
bottleneck has piled up in one sector of industry. Scores
of managers and commissars are liquidated, but the bot-
tleneck remains. Suddenly the top bosses may decide to
concentrate other resources on breaking the jam, and
new figures are issued right and left. New bottlenecks will
form because the new figures do not mesh with what went
before.
Emergencies become the normal thing. To check on
the mountains of bureaucratic red tape, more bureau-
cratic controls are introduced. Who will control the con-
trollers?
This is where the Malenkovs come in.
For this system actually "works" in its own way, unbe-
lievable as that may seem to one who has been brought
up in a different world.
It staggers through, producing immense quantities of
goods, too, but only through one vital cementing ingredi-
ent-a dynamo of ruthless pressure-a Malenkov.
Malenkov-under-Stalin was at the head of the pyramid
of dynamo-whips of cruel unrelenting pressure which
keeps the totalitarian jungle going. The Soviet system
operates, above all, through men driven with the lash of
fear, hunger, death, slavery and exploitation. That isn't
indignant language. It is a statement of cold scientific
analysis.
Its bones and sinews are the organs of the state through
which men are controlled and driven. This is "personnel
work!"
i
But this still does not describe exactly the post which
Malenkov held under Stalin. One reads that he was head
70
MALENKOV
of the "Party" organization, or, more officially, in charge
of the "Party Secretariat."
The organization called the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union is not only unlike the major parties of our
country; it is unlike any Western socialist party; and it is
even fundamentally different from any of the Western
Communist Parties, which are merely its puppets.
It is an entirely different type of organization, to be
found only in countries where the Stalinist system is in
power. (The other Communist Parties are transformed
into this type of organization when they, too, come to
power, as they did in the East European satellites of
Moscow. This is one of the reasons why their Parties, once
installed on the throne, have to go through a series of
racking purges in order to change over to the new role.)
In power, as in Russia itself, the "Party" is the organ-
ization through which the Malenkovs perform the job
we have described of cementing the whole system to-
gether. It is not a "political party" concerned with elec-
tions, even fake elections. That is meaningless detail. The
power that holds the reins of the Party organization is
the same as the power which has to transmit the totali-
tarian drive through every layer of the system.
This was Malenkov-under-Stalin.
Now to answer the three questions raised:
(1) What is the biggest mistake that Americans make
in trying to understand Russian events, like the replace-
ment of Stalin by Malenkov?
It is: thinking in American and Western terms.
Example: Malenkov was the head of the political ma-
chine, and political bosses are powerful men, but in the
Russian system, where there is no nook and cranny of life
which is not controlled by the "Party," the boss of the
political machine is the Lord of Life and Death, above
him only the All-Highest himself, Stalin. He is the Dyna-
mo of the whole system. Don't underestimate Malenkov!
Malenkov is cruel, but he is not the dull-witted storm-
trooper type who gets a physical satisfaction out of maim-
MALENKOV
71
ing, clubbing and eye-gouging. In Russia, that type fits
in perfectly, but only as a guard on a slave-labor camp or
an NKVD executioner and gunman. Hitler had the same
types for the same purposes.
See it through the mind of Malenkov. This is how he
thinks: Human beings are things. They are things to be
driven like machines and cattle, except in different ways.
What is important is the State, which stands above men.
The surgeon who cuts into living flesh is not a brute. He
is sacrificing a part for the sake of the whole. Most people
would flinch from the job, and get sick to the stomach.
The surgeon is to be honored for not being subject to
such human weakness. We must all sacrifice. I, Malenkov,
sacrifice, too, for no one else is driven as hard as I drive
myself. For everything I do, and all the crimes against
humanity that I commit, are necessary for the preserva-
tion of our society, our world.
And he is right. They are necessary for the preserva-
tion of his system and his world, the world created by
Stalin, which is the only world that Malenkov has known
in his years as a thinking man, which is the world in
which he was brought up.
In every society, some men have the qualities that the
system needs and some don't. Malenkov has the qualities
for survival and mastery in his world. Because of the
kind of system that it is, Malenkov is the kind of man
that he is, in the only kind of world he knows.
That leads to Question No. 2:
(2) What is the big difference between Malenkov and
Stalin?
Stalin was the creator of this system, but he was not its
product; he was not himself shaped by it into what he
was. Malenkov is the homegrown child of the system he
now heads. He comes into this position with no links with
the past, no hangovers from a different culture, no in-
herited points of contact with the world outside. Keep
this in mind while watching Malenkov.
The men who founded the American colonies were
72
MALENKOV
Englishmen, transplanted. Their children were no longer
Englishmen.
The colorful figures who founded the great fortunes of
the wealthy American families came up from humble be-
ginnings. Whether you consider the qualities they needed
to be those of Robber Barons or of Captains of Industry,
this is certain: their children were brought up in a dif-
ferent social world. They thought as rich men's sons from
the cradle up.
This is what is burned into Malenkov's mind: the rules
by which he made his way. And every man tends to think
that what has brought him up to a height of power is also
the way to win more power.
But the rules which brought him to top-dog position
in the Russian world are not necessarily those that he
can use in facing the Western world in his new job as
Number One, without Stalin.

(3) Why was it Malenkov who won the Number One
spot against his competitors?
Speculation about Stalin's successor has been going on
for years. Dozens of "experts" and "authorities" on Russia
have tried their hand at it. Yet how many are now coming
forward to remind their faithful public that they pointed
the finger to Georgi M. Malenkov?
Certainly, in the last couple of years especially, he was
often mentioned as also-a-possibility. But main attention
was usually concentrated on Molotov or Beria or even
one of the more popular generals like Marshal Zhukov.
Zhdanov was "it," according to many forecasters, until he
died-defeated by Malenkov, it is now clear.
There was apparently good reason for that. Malenkov
had no roots in the "heroic" period of Stalin's coming to
power, like Molotov and Voroshilov, old sidekicks of the
Boss. Beria had control of the secret police; Malenkov
merely seemed a glorified errand boy for Stalin. Zhdanov
had his own base in Leningrad and the further prestige
of being credited with the defense and salvation of the
city during the war; Malenkov had no public glamor.
Moreover, Malenkov was one of the youngest of the top
MALENKOV
73
gang; he had not even made the Politburo before 1946.
He had one thing in his favor, and that was enough to
outweigh the claims of all the others. The strings of the
Party machine were in his hands, placed there by Stalin
himself. The Party machine is the fundamental power
in the Soviet setup. No one will oust Malenkov unless
and until he can take it away from Malenkov.
Scores of dictators throughout history have hoped to
push their power beyond death by trying to decree their
succession; most have failed. Did Stalin turn the trick
before death took him?
Stalin himself had to establish his rule during years of
bloody struggle and in a sense, the struggle never ended;
the latest major Soviet purge took place only a few
months before he died. Masters who rule a people by
fear are doomed to fear themselves.
To all appearances, Malenkov took power as smoothly
as a new U. S. corporation president moving into the Old
Man's office. Less than 24 hours after the announcement
of Stalin's death came word of Malenkov's take-over-
including a complex plan for revamping the top govern-
ment and Party machine. But there was an unmistakable
note of urgency and apprehension in the air. "In this
difficult time for our party and country," said Radio
Moscow, "the most important task of the party and the
government (is) to ensure the uninterrupted and correct
leadership of the whole life of the country . . . and the
prevention of any kind of disarray and panic.”
The thoroughness with which "disarray and panic"
were guarded against showed preparation. There seemed
little doubt that: (1) Stalin himself had picked Malen-
kov; (2) the general plan, if not the details, of succession
had been worked out long ago, with Stalin's approval.
No other Western statesman saw Stalin so frequently
under intimate circumstances as did W. Averell Harri-
man. His talks and conferences with the late Soviet Pre-
mier began in September, 1941, with the first of his spe-
cial missions to Moscow, and extended through his years
74
MALENKOV
as Ambassador to the Soviet Union, ending in January,
1946.
Observes Harriman: "During the wartime years, I saw
Stalin and Molotov together on some fifty-odd occasions
and I formed the opinion that Stalin did not want Molo-
tov to succeed him. Stalin depended upon Molotov as an
effective and ruthless hatchet man who could faithfully
carry out his instructions. But I saw, on several occasions,
that Stalin had no great confidence in Molotov's judg-
ment.
"During my first meeting with Stalin in Moscow in
September, 1941, to discuss the Soviet supply and military
situation, the Nazis were on the outskirts of the capital.
It appeared to me at the time that Molotov, who was then
foreign minister but who recently had been replaced as
Premier by Stalin himself, was under a cloud. I felt that
Stalin blamed Molotov for engineering the Molotov-
Ribbentrop pact which had given Stalin a false sense of
security against German aggression. After the Red Army
organized its first counter-offensive Molotov appeared to
regain lost favor. But on several occasions, in my presence,
Stalin rudely brushed aside positions taken by Molotov."
But if it is true that, even before Stalin's death, the
main lever of power has been in Malenkov's hands for
some years in the post-war period, what evidence has
there been of new developments in the course of the
regime since that time, coincident with Malenkov's as-
cendancy?
The first development, the rise of Soviet anti-Semitism,
is now a well-known and world-wide scandal, but Malen-
kov's connection with it is far from being fully realized
in the West. The second, the beginning of an "anti-sex"
drive, is a development which has been slowly poking its
nose up
above the surface of Soviet life, but it has not yet
hit the consciousness of Western observers, even though
the scattered indications are all there.
1
CHAPTER XI
Malenkov and Anti-Semitism
THE RUSSIAN WORD for purge is "chistka"-literally,
"cleansing"-and originally Lenin employed the purge to
cleanse the Communist Party of his opponents. But in
Stalin's hands the purge has become a weapon to create
terror, to kill off enemies or potential rivals, to provide
whipping boys for the regime's mistakes.
•
Before the war the purge was employed to consolidate
Stalin's hold over Russia itself. Since the war it has been
used mainly to consolidate Russia's hold over the satel-
lites. No one in the West knows how many victims the
purge has taken. But it is obvious that all Communists—
no matter how high up in the hierarchy-are vulnerable.
For example, of Lenin's twenty-one "Old Bolsheviks"-
the men who led and won the 1917 Revolution-Molotov
survives. Others were executed, liquidated or driven to
take their own lives. As for the "New Bolsheviks"-those
who led the revolutions in the "Peoples' Democracies"-
Hungary's Rajk, Bulgaria's Kostov, Czechoslovakia's
Slansky and Clementis, Poland's Gomulka and Ruma-
nia's Pauker are among those who already have fallen.
Thoroughly alarmed by the flood of Jewish enthusiasm
for Israel which sprang up in the Soviet Union in the
winter of 1948-49, the Kremlin reacted sharply. Almost
overnight the Israeli Legation was effectively isolated
from further contact with the Jewish population. The
MVD proceeded to the swift liquidation of Jewish social
and cultural organizations.
Even more drastic was the systematic campaign to elim-
inate Jews from posts of responsibility and especially
from positions involving contact with the outside world.
In a matter of weeks all Jews serving with the Soviet oc-
1
(
!
+
75
76
MALENKOV
cupation administrations in Germany and Austria were
recalled. Jews were no longer included on foreign mis-
sions and delegations. Today Jews are not even admitted
to the special school that trains personnel for the Soviet
foreign service. The same restrictions apply to the Min-
istry of Foreign Trade.
Elsewhere in the government and party apparatus a
similar process of elimination has occurred. The one Jew
on the Politburo is Lazar Kaganovich, a long-standing
member with strong personal connections.
The campaign against the Jews entered its most blatant
phase in January, 1949, with the onslaught against the
so-called "homeless or mongrel cosmopolites." Never were
the "homeless cosmopolites" openly identified as Jews,
but cartoonists depicted them with Fagin-like profiles
and the public got the point.
The only important Jewish writers to survive the lit
erary purge were Ilya Ehrenberg and proverbial hatchet-
man, David Zaslavsky. But even they went into tempo-
rary eclipse at the height of the campaign.
It began again in 1953 with the Malenkov-directed ar-
rests of nine important Soviet doctors (six of them Jew-
ish) on charges that they had planned to kill Communist
leaders by harmful treatment and bad diagnosis. Moscow
said the doctors confessed they had killed Andrei A.
Zhdanov, one of the top members of the Politburo and
Malenkov's arch rival, who died in 1948 after allegedly
suffering from a heart attack.
Moscow charged that the plot was organized by Jews.
It called the accused men "terrorist Jewish doctors” and
said they were "connected with the international Jewish
bourgeois-nationalist organization 'Joint' set up by the
American Intelligence service."
Throughout the week there were charges of "fifth col-
umn" activity in the Soviet Union. The Moscow radio
said there would be more arrests.
Lavrentia Beria, Chief of the security police organiza-
tion, was attacked for not displaying "vigilance" in guard-
MALENKOV
77
ing against the plotters. Thus, Malenkov drove another
spike into a Party rival.
Why has the Kremlin started the purge and what does
Moscow hope to gain by it? Where does the pattern of
anti-Semitism fit in?
In the West, the whys and wherefores of Russian purges
look mysterious and fantastic-until enough information
is gathered to put two and two together. Then things
begin to make sense, in terms of the Stalinist mind.
The following happened in 1943 and no one paid any
attention to it then.
In that year a certain Russian novelist was acting as
field correspondent for the army newspaper Red Star.
His name was Vassily Semenovich Grossman. The Rus-
sian armies had just liberated the Ukraine from the Ger-
mans. Grossman toured the newly reclaimed land. Deso-
lation met his eyes. The Nazis had burned, killed, and
destroyed. The Russians, too, following their "scorched
earth" policy, had burned, killed, and destroyed. The
countryside lay ravaged.
The job of a Soviet newspaperman was to write glow-
ing articles for his paper on the heroic struggles of the
people against the Hitlerite invader and how Stalin in-
spired them through it all. His job was to tell how the
people were already reconstructing the land in the name
of Stalin, whether or not they were.
Vassily Semenovich Grossman dutifully went back and
started a series of articles on what had struck him most.
Two such articles were printed, on November 25 and De-
cember 2, 1943, and then the series abruptly stopped.
Today, ten years later, this same Grossman has been
singled out for vicious attacks by Pravda as the author
of ideological crimes against the state. Why? Here are
four facts:
(1) First of all, V. S. Grossman is a Jew.
(2) The articles he published in 1943 were on the sub-
ject "The Ukraine Without Jews."
(3) His own newspaper, Red Star, was not the one
that started to print this series. They appeared in the
J
78
MALENKOV
official Yiddish-language organ of the regime, Einigkeit,
which since then has been liquidated along with all
other Jewish organs and institutions in Russia.
(4) In his articles, Grossman had written the follow-
ing:
"I covered this country (the Ukraine) on foot and by
car from the Northern Donets to the Dnieper, from
Voroshlovgrad in the Donets Basin to Chernigov on the
Desna River. I went down to the Dnieper and looked
from afar at Kiev-and I met but one Jew in all that
time. He was Lieutenant Kapershtein, who had been
caught in an enemy encirclement in the Yagotin District
in September 1941.'
""
What "crime" does this add up to?
Instead of plugging the happy, devoted work of the
Soviet Ukrainians, Grossman was exposing a propaganda
myth of the Soviet bosses in the Ukraine-the myth that
the Kremlin had "saved the Jews from Hitler." Actually,
something quite different had happened in the Ukraine.
Grossman was too much concerned with the fate of the
Ukrainian Jews. He was therefore a "Jewish bourgeois
nationalist." And this last year "Jewish bourgeois nation-
alism" has become the Number One crime in Stalinland,
as Stalin himself was living through his last months.
The new drives against "Zionists," "bourgeois nation-
alist" and "cosmopolitan" Jews-the fate of the Ukrainian
Jews-these point to Maleňkov even more than to Stalin
himself.
Again, back in 1907, Stalin-then called "Koba"-was
making a report before his Bolshevik group in Baku, in
the Georgia where he was born. In this report, as if for
a jest, he slyly remarked that the Mensheviks, who were
the Bolsheviks' right-wing rivals in the Socialist move-
ment, were to a large extent composed of Jews. And he
added that "the Mensheviks are a Jewish group, the Bol-
sheviks a true Russian group, and it may not be a bad
idea to make a pogrom inside the Party.'
""
Baku was off the beaten path in the provinces, but
much later when the Bolshevik leaders heard about it
MALENKOV
79
their hair stood on end. Only Stalin could have jested in
such a grim way in pogrom-ridden Russia. It was as if an
American liberal were to make a speech here treating the
lynching of Negroes as a matter for merriment.
This ingrained anti-Semitism popped out of Stalin at
other crucial moments. In the 1920's he was working
tooth and nail to consolidate his new hold over the Bol-
shevik party and to crucify his leading opponent, Leon
Trotsky. Backing up Leon Trotsky were also top leaders
Zinoviev and Kamenev. These three "Left Opposition-
ists" happened to be of Jewish birth, as were also some
other important supporters of their group. Slyly, the
Stalin clique kept reminding the country that the oppo-
sition was "full of Jews," underhandedly appealing to re-
maining anti-Semitic prejudices. If he had dared then, he
would have more boldly carried out his 1907 prescription
of "making a pogrom inside the Party," but his rule was
still too shaky and the traditions of the revolution were
still too strong.

In 1939 Stalin sought to save his regime by making his
notorious war pact with the anti-Semitic regime of Hitler.
After the signing of the Hitler-Stalin pact, a shocked
world heard Stalin's foreign minister Molotov declare
that, after all, "Fascism is a matter of taste."
When Hitler and Stalin divided up conquered Poland,
thousands of Polish Jews tried to flee the Nazi-occupied
section in order to take their chances with the Russian
partner. Other masses of Jews were even pushed across
the border to the Russians, by the Nazis themselves. It is
an established fact that the Soviet authorities refused to
accept them in sanctuary and insisted on returning them
to their Nazi captors!
Among the documents captured in the German archives
after the fall of Berlin is this private report to his supe-
riors by Nazi Colonel General Keitel, complaining about
the Russians:
"The expulsion of Jews into Russian territory, in par-
ticular, did not proceed as smoothly as had apparently
been expected. In practice, the procedure was, for exam-
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MALENKOV
ple, that at a quiet place in the woods, a thousand Jews
were expelled across the Russian border; fifteen kilome-
ters away, they came back, with the Russian commander
trying to force the German one to re-admit the group.'
(From Nazi-Soviet Relations, 1939-1941, the collection of
secret German government reports, published by the U. S.
government in 1948.)
It is now known that anti-Semitic feelings were wide-
spread in the Russian army. Soldiers and officers of Jew-
ish origin, who have since fled to the West, have given
abundant accounts of this. Many Jewish ex-officers have
reported that they changed their names during the war
not because they feared capture by the Nazis but because
of the hostility to Jews inside the Russian army. (Rachel
Erlich's Summary Report on 18 Intensive Interviews with
Jewish DPs from Poland and the Soviet Union, October
1948.)
Open shows of Soviet anti-Semitism flared up first in
the military circles, significant in the light of the new
influx of generals and military men into the top ruling
committee under Malenkov on the day after Stalin's
death.
Next it is important to see that the post-war increase
in anti-Semitism was biggest in-the Ukraine.
Immediately after the liberation, Jews returning to
their homes in the Ukraine were greeted with hostility
in many sections. Many who tried to regain their homes
and possessions were subjected to physical attack. Others
never got back more than a small part of their property.
In Kharkov Jews did not dare venture out into the
streets at night. In Kiev a pogrom took place in which
sixteen Jews were killed. When the Jewish community
complained, the officials replied that the population had
been "infected" by the Germans and that only gradual
steps could be taken to change the situation. The fact
is that no campaign against anti-Semitism of any sort
-gradual or otherwise-was ever undertaken by the
Ukrainian Soviet bosses.
A Ukrainian Jew who left the region in 1944 made
:
MALENKOV
81
the following deposition to the Rescue Committee of the
Jewish Agency for Palestine:
"The Ukrainian authorities are greatly anti-Semitic.
When the Commercial Academy moved from Khar-
kov to Kiev, several Jewish professors applied for per-
mission to go there; but their applications were rejected.
They addressed themselves to the chairman of the
Ukrainian Soviet but received no response."
One-but only one-of the reasons why the Ukrain-
ian authorities had no intention of vigorously moving
against anti-Semitism was a special one. During the Nazi
occupation of the region, anti-Moscow armed bands of
Ukrainian nationalists had sprung up. Some of these
bands collaborated with the invading Germans, being re-
actionary and anti-Semitic in their own character. They
too had taken part in the extermination of Jews-the
Ukrainian Jews whom Vassily Semenovich Grossman
later failed to find. After the expulsion of the Germans,
some of these bands still maintained existence, even as
late as the end of 1947.
One would think that the Soviet regime would have
regarded these elements as worse than war criminals.
But the fact is that the authorities planned to make a
deal with them. In a speech before the Ukrainian Su-
preme Soviet, Politburo member Khrushchev discussed
the question of an amnesty for these anti-Semitic ele-
ments. As long as they stopped fighting the regime, their
anti-Semitic record and activities need not count against
them.

•
Last year, just a short time after the end of the fa-
mous trial of Slansky in Prague, in which leading Jewish
Communist leaders were condemned and shot, an ex-
traordinary event took place in the Ukraine. Three Jew-
ish officials were arrested and dragged before a special
military tribunal and after a brief trial they were put to
death. The timing of such a trial, in this area which was
already a tinder-box of anti-Semitism, meant that the
basest passions of the Ukrainian people were being
aroused.
?
}
:
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MALENKOV
Following the denunciation of the Kremlin physicians,
the Ukrainian Pravda denounced twenty Jewish doctors
in the cities of Kiev and Nikolaev on trumped-up accusa-
tions of deception, fraud, embezzlement and disloyalty
to the government. In Kiev, two Jewish doctors, Patzuk
and Magaziner, were denounced as "quacks" who had
only passed themselves off as doctors. In Nikolaev, five
Jewish doctors were charged with having defrauded the
state of more than 600,000 rubles; their names are (or
were) Drs. Heller, Wasserman, Makarovsky, Ravich and
Litzman.
For every Jewish doctor or professional worker who is
publicly denounced and driven into the pillory, there
are scores of others who suffer the same fate without
publicity.
The name to associate with this Ukrainian develop-
ment is—Khrushchev. It was Khrushchev who was the
party boss of the Ukraine all during the war and until
1945. With the re-establishment of peace, the evidence
goes to show that at first Stalin sought to moderate the
flames of anti-Semitism there, not for love of the Jews
but because he feared it might also become a danger to
his own regime. In 1945 or 1946, a new party boss was
appointed for the region from Moscow-and it turned
out to be the only Jewish member of the Politburo,
Kaganovich! Nothing much changed, as we have seen,
and the flames smoldered, but remained dampened.
Then in 1948 Kaganovich was jerked out of the post
and the man who took over was—again Khrushchev. There
can be no doubt that the reassignment of Khrushchev
to the Ukraine was the work of the man who, by 1948,
had grown powerful enough to swing such “personnel”
matters: Georgi M. Malenkov.
For Khrushchev is a “Malenkov man.” With the death
of Stalin and the reorganization of the government un-
der Malenkov, the same Khrushchev has risen to take
the very job under Malenkov which Malenkov held
under Stalin-direct charge of the whole Party machinery,
boss of the Party Secretariat.”
MALENKOV
83
******
Khrushchev remained in the Ukraine only until 1950.
In that year he became head of the Moscow Party organ-
ization. This promotion could be possible only for one
who was completely the creature of the man who held
all the Party reins.
When Khrushchev left the Ukraine, his place was
taken by a bureaucrat who is even more obviously a
puppet of Malenkov's. His name is Melnikov. He is a
new man," selected by Malenkov from the same Mos-
cow Party organization; that is, he is an aspiring career-
man who has been mounting the ladder under Malen-
kov's wing.
With Stalin, anti-Semitism was kept in the back-
ground. What accounts basically for the developments
of the last couple of years is the push of the "new men"
around Stalin, their growing power in anticipation of
his death, the influence of the new-type Soviet bureau-
crats who have no link with the hangovers of the past
and through whom all the darkest forces of Soviet bar-
barism are unleashed.
Malenkov stands at the head of this clique.
With Stalin's death, the representatives of the two
focal points of growing Soviet anti-Semitism come out
into the open as members of this Malenkov clique. The
generals come into his new entourage in force never be-
fore seen in Stalin's own cabinet, and Khrushchev is re-
vealed as Malenkov's right hand.
The extreme anti-Semitic wing of Stalin's bureaucracy
are now the men in power.
While Stalin was alive they had pushed forward slowly
and cautiously over a period of years. The big outburst
came only shortly before Stalin's end, when they must
have known he was failing and when many of his day-to-
day functions must surely have already been taken over
by Malenkov. And now
we know what to expect.
A question still remains.
Granted that Malenkov heads a wing of the bureauc-
racy that is personally anti-Semitic, and granted that this
84
MALENKOV
is in line with what we can expect from men who have
arisen from the dark abyss of the Soviet jungle, where
the basest passions get free rein, what has Malenkov to
gain by flaunting this Soviet "Hitlerism" in the face of
the world? Why does his clique adopt anti-Semitism as
a weapon, and against whom is it a weapon? Does he
really think that the Jews are such a danger as he makes
out?
The answer to this question, it happens, will also add
to the evidence that the new outburst of Soviet anti-
Semitism is to be traced to Malenkov's hand.
It was no accident that the first anti-Semitic show-trial
took place not in Russia itself but in one of the satellite
countries-the aforementioned trial of Rudolf Slansky in
Prague, Czechoslovakia. For there is a whole part of the
story of Malenkov's fight for the post of No. 1 which has
not yet been mentioned in this book-or anywhere else.
Yet, anyone acquainted with the real workings of the
Soviet system knows that it must have been there.
The men of the Kremlin who struggled against each
other to be Stalin's heir had two jobs to do before their
hopes could be realized completely. The first and funda-
mental one we have explained: to seize control of the
Party machinery. What exactly does this mean in prac-
tical terms? It means that the winner is the man who
gets his own men, obligated to him, into the key organs
of the Party everywhere. But all of this, so far, has re-
ferred to the machinery of the Russian Party.
But this Russian power now has an empire to hold, a
whole series of other countries which it controls through
puppet Communist Parties in those countries. Just as
the aspiring Russian dictator has to have his own crea-
tures in every branch of the Russian Party, so he has to
have his own creatures in control of the satellite Com-
munist Parties. This was the next stage that Malenkov
had to go through after consolidating his inside track in
Russia.
And in all the countries of Eastern Europe, the local
MALENKOV
85
sub-fuehrers were not his men-yet. They had been hand-
picked and installed, as a matter of fact, by the man
who had been his most dangerous rival, Andrei Zhda-
nov. This had taken place at the close of the war when,
riding on the gun carriages of the Russian army as it
took over the satellites, the Russian masters put their
own creatures at the head of the new governments of
Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary,
Yugoslavia and Albania.
But not all were of this stripe. In a few cases, individ-
ual Communist leaders had stayed in their own coun-
tries during the war and made big reputations for them-
selves as nationalist leaders against the Nazi armies. The
most prominent examples were Tito of Yugoslavia and
Wladislaw Gomulka of Poland. It was no accident that
one after the other, beginning with Tito, these types
were later accused by Moscow of being "anti-Soviet na-
tionalists," that is, they wouldn't take orders like beaten
dogs. Only Tito actually got away with it, but only at
the cost of a complete break with Russia. This was fol-
lowed by the famous series of purges of "Titoists" all
over Eastern Europe.
The rest were Andrei Zhdanov's trained monkeys, who
remained loyal to him. They were safe-as long as Zhda-
nov was in the saddle in Moscow. But when the internal
struggle between Zhdanov and Malenkov was decided-
and sealed in the only way an inner-Kremlin struggle
can be sealed, with Zhdanov's sudden death in a sub-
urban Moscow hospital especially built for this purpose
by Beria with Malenkov's aid-another purge became
due.
This was the purge of the Zhdanov men in the satel
lites in favor of the Malenkov men. This is what has
been behind the last wave of purges in East Europe.
Malenkov had to find a way to make a clean sweep there.
This is why anti-Semitism was introduced as a weapon
for this purpose. The key fact is this: among the satellite
sub-fuehrers who had been put in power by Zhdanov
*
i
86
MALENKOV
and who were still in power, an extraordinarily large
number were Jews.
It was not any immediate danger from the Jewish
population of Russia which was the direct warrant for
the latest outburst; the only sector of Stalinland where
Jews played a big role was in the Eastern European
Communist Party leaderships.
The leadership of the Hungarian regime is largely
Jewish, headed up by Matyas Rakosi, who spent fifteen
years in prison before being released to the Kremlin in
exchange for Hungarian war prisoners.
The number of Jews at the top of the Polish branch-
office of Moscow is considerable, led by veteran Com-
munist President Boleslaw Bierut and Minc. In Czech-
oslovakia we all saw the number of Jewish Stalinist
leaders who figured, from Rudolf Slansky on down. In
Romania there is (or was) Ana Pauker and her clique.
Only in Bulgaria and Albania is there an absence of
Jews in the top echelons.
The large number of Stalinist henchmen of Jewish
origin who were installed by Zhdanov was not due to
Zhdanov's own inclinations. The fact is that Zhdanov
had his own personal reputation for anti-Semitism. But
first, he had few alternatives in 1945: he wanted men
who would not be subject to "nationalism" and there
were not many to choose from. Secondly, it was widely
suspected even at the time, by informed observers, that he
was not at all loath to pick Jews to do a job which was
sure to get them hated by their own country's people, for
later they could be discarded and the population's re-
sentments sidetracked. Later, Georgi Malenkov was able
to use this device to advantage.
By using the weapon of anti-Semitism, Malenkov turns
the sharp edge of this weapon against the Zhdanov men,
who will be cleaned out one and all. Slansky was the
warning. Ana Pauker is in growing disfavor. Lajos
Stoeckler, president of the Hungarian Jewish community
has been arrested. Rakosi will be next. Not even Malen-
MALENKOV
87
kov knows where it will stop, because once race prejudice
is given impetus, there is no telling how it will end.
Whatever else results from the purge, the 3,000,000 Jews
living in Russia and the satellites are in grave danger.
CHAPTER XII
Malenkov and Sex
"MALENKOV LOOKS LIKE A EUNUCH," a Western diplomat
who met him told a colleague. He did not mean it liter-
ally, of course, and yet he said more than he knew.
This chapter is the first attempt made anywhere to put
together part of an unknown picture. As the new men
of power come up from the steaming Soviet bureaucratic
jungle, what part does sex play in their lives? What are
their attitudes on women and love?
The question must be asked. Of all the dark aspects
about the men who rule a sixth of the planet, this is the
darkest.
Don't expect to read about secret orgies in the Kremlin.
The truth is far more amazing.
There has been a new trend in Stalinland in the last
few years. Where it has been noticed at all, it has been
treated only as a curiosity-one of the strange things the
Stalinists do and say that sane men can only shrug off.
It is a new line on sex. It does not stem from Stalin.
There was absolutely nothing whatsoever in Stalin's per-
sonal history, habits, life, turn of mind or sentiments or
ideas which ties in with it; on the contrary! And by now
a great deal is known about the personality of Stalin.
Besides, this trend has become visible to the naked eye
only in the last few years. Like the new Soviet anti-
Semitism, it must be tied up with the victory of the new
type of Soviet bureaucrat who has developed on the home
soil of the Russian system, the type of Malenkov.
Whatever is believed, here are facts. First, start a little
distance back.
The Soviet leaders have gone through three stages in
their attitude toward promiscuous sexual conduct.
88
MALENKOV
89
In the period directly after the Russian Revolution of
1917, the idea arose in some sections of the Communist
Party that all of the oldfashioned bourgeois moral atti-
tudes on the behavior of the sexes were now as outmoded
as the capitalist system. The real Communist must know
no taboos. Sexual intercourse was a natural function like
any other and there must be no mumbo-jumbo about it.
It was just like drinking a glass of water. You are thirsty
and you drink. You feel desire and you satisfy it.
This came to be discussed under the name of the "glass
of water theory." One of its main proponents was the
active Bolshevik woman leader, Alexandra Kollontai. But
Lenin set his face and authority sternly and vigorously
against it, and it never made any headway as a tolerated
point of view.
Arguing from his Marxist point of view, he sought to
explain to those who would go wild with new elabora-
tions on the emancipation of women, that socialism
sought the development of the highest aspects of the hu-
man personality, and that close tender relationships be-
tween man and woman was one of these. Had not the
great teacher of the movement, Frederick Engels, written
a book in which he had argued that the institution of
monogamous marriage, while it had arisen with class so-
cieties, would find its very highest honor under socialism?
But things changed when Stalin consolidated his own
dictatorship, built a new bureaucratic machine around
him, and liquidated virtually every one of the Old Bol-
sheviks in framed-up trials and secret assassinations. With
the new despots came a new mode of living for the privi-
leged few on top. They began to fall into the pattern of
every set of uncontrolled tyrants. Stories began to circu-
late of riotous parties and practices. It was well known
that scores of the most powerful masters, on every step of
the ladder from Moscow down to the provincial leader-
ships, kept mistresses. Others discarded their wives to
marry glamorous actresses and ballet dancers. These were
among the age-old rewards of power-why not take ad-
vantage of them?
:
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1
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1
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MALENKOV
And then, in the last decade, there has been an unex-
pected change. Instead of sinking deeper and deeper into
the habits of profligates and rakes, there was an about-
face. But only in part. The result is a curious combina-
tion of both of the preceding periods.
Lower bureaucrats still notoriously keep mistresses, for
example, and attractive young women who have cases to
plead or favors to ask can expect the time-honored rou-
tine. The same goes for the military bureaucracy. The
same for the artistic intelligentsia. The same for digni-
taries ranging from concentration-camp commandants to
party secretaries.
But not the top men of the regime! For years now, it
has come to be understood that if you want to get near
the summits, you must not be the type that "gets en-
tangled with women." And finally: "Malenkov looks like
a eunuch."
The model for the top leadership has been set at almost
a Puritan standard. Mistresses are out. Even wives who
are too glamorous are frowned on. A steady and stable
home life is the goal.
This has nothing to do with moral scruples or ideals.
The reason is purely practical. In the first place, "en-
tanglements" with women are dangerous. Who knows.
this better than these same bureaucrats who systemati-
cally use women to entrap and spy on enemies and
foreigners?
Furthermore, susceptibility to women-"overemphasis
on sex”—is a sign of weakness. It can lead to divided loy-
alties. This regime wants no personal loyalties to exist
between man and man, man and woman, parent and
child, which are stronger than the individual's loyalty
to the state.
In America, too, we speak of men who are “married
to their job." Here it is regarded as a personal character-
istic. The Russian bureaucracy has raised this to the level
of a principle for the leadership of the state. Take a busy
American executive who is "married to his job" and
MALENKOV
91
multiply the characteristic by a hundred, add a new di-
mension, pour steel-reinforced concrete into the mold,
and you will get an idea of the model New Soviet
Bureaucrat.
This is an extension of something we are familiar with.
It predates the rise of Premier Georgi Malenkov. It is in
this atmosphere that Malenkov learned the rules for
making his way.
The new trend of the last few years has given all this
a further logical twist and put it before the mass of
people as an image of the New Soviet Man.
Every man and woman must be married to the State.
The new line is that romantic love is a "bourgeois
deviation."
A Soviet textbook for school children is entitled I
Want To Be Like Stalin. The new party line on love
demands that all good Communists must Want To Be
Like the Masters. The aim is to produce a race of eunuchs
of a type that the world has never seen.
Hard to believe? No one but a first-rate satirist could
have invented the folowing proofs if the Communists had
not actually written them themselves in dead-sober
seriousness.
} ปี
You are listening to Radio Moscow, last December, to
be specific. It is broadcasting the Soviet equivalent of a
soap opera in which boy meets girl. She is a young girl
tractor driver; he is a worker on a collective farm. The
scene is a field, on a night of the full moon. What are
they doing? Why, working, like good enthusiastic Com-
munists who know that the eight-hour day is a capital-
istic invention. But soon the girl stops the motor:
SHE: "How wonderful it is to work on such a night,
and to do everything to economize on gasoline."
HE: "This night has given me the idea of working
harder and harder to surpass the Plan."
With some more of such tender interchange, they fall
into each other's arms. He murmurs caressingly:
"From the very first moment I saw you, I was enrap-
"
;
92
MALENKOV
tured by your capacity for work." (Reported in the
Berne, Switzerland, Freies Volk, a liberal periodical, on
December 19, 1952.)
There is no evidence that Soviet housewives drop their
dishes to listen to this drivel. But they don't have much
choice, and it doesn't matter to the Masters. They are
setting out their model on how to make love on the five-
year plan. An American soap opera might use the old
one in which the boy pretends that the auto has run
out of gas. This is bourgeois decadence, implying waste-
fulness. When a good Soviet girl invites opportunity, it is
in terms of fulfilling the Plan by saving gas. Love at first
sight is also still here, but . . . the female flesh is to be
valued in terms of labor power.
The satellites play the game of follow-the-leader. On
the Budapest radio a commentator announces the evils
of "capitalistic love," which he calls "romance on the
conveyor belt." He goes on to describe love in Soviet
society as "sincere, beautiful and pure." By "pure" he
apparently means dehydrated. For he, too, presents a
model to his listeners, a chapter from a Soviet novel by
Maltsov, With One's Heart.
"This," he preaches, "describes the skiing visit of a
young man and a young girl to a collective farm. En-
thralled by the examination of agricultural machinery,
they forget the time, and in the dark they miss the way
and wind up on a fox-breeding farm, among the sheds.
"But beyond trying to warm her frozen hands, breath-
ing hotly down her neck and trying to kiss her, at which
she bursts into tears, the hero makes no further ad-
vances. To ensure further meetings, however, he lends
the girl his gloves, and they part filled with glowing
happiness." (The magazine East Europe for April 1951.)
Soviet re-educators are not going back to the 18th cen-
tury; nor are they becoming Puritanical.
Here is a contemporary Communist exposition of the
New Soviet Love, heavy with fake theory:
*
"Love has passed through three historical stages. In
feudalism the relation between the sexes is the master-
MALENKOV
93
slave relation, with the woman always listening to the
man and sticking to him like a piece of property. In
capitalist love, affection is bought and sold. The woman
sells her beauty, youth and flesh for luxury and comfort
offered by the man. Finally comes the new Democratic
Love. Man and woman have no mercenary relations, and
therefore, the highest form of love is reached. . .
"This love is sombre, intellectual and definitely revo-
lutionary. . . Under the trees on moonlit nights, small
groups of schoolmates argue serious problems. You will
never see a boy and a girl pair off to look at the moon or
whisper to each other in typical bourgeois manner. If
enemy agents try to engage us in amatory affairs, they are
quickly rebuffed. . . When we look up at the sky, we
can only think how happy the moon must be to shine on
Stalin..." (Ceylon Daily News, May 7, 1951.)
The last two sentences, with the reference to "enemy
agents," is an attempt to redirect the sex impulse into
love for the state.
One of the few Western observers who has noticed this
trend at all writes as follows: The Stalinists' literary
bloodhounds "blame their own writers' romantic ap-
proach to the love question on Western influence. A Bud-
apest Red organ declares the love question must hereafter
be treated in a sober and super-revolutionary way.
In fact, romantic tendencies smell of bourgeois idealism
and must be scotched. The publication of pocket-sized
love stories is prohibited by the Prague regime. Rude
Pravo, the top Communist Party organ in Czechoslovakia,
urges as substitute reading such romance-whetting vol-
umes as How to Fight a Kulak, The Lot of U. S. Negroes,
The Coal Brigades and The Fraud of Catholic Miracles."
(Leland Stowe, Conquest by Terror.)
The Soviet regimes carefully pick their candidates for
popular heroes in order to educate the people on How to
Be Like the Masters. Another Czech organ, Pravo Lidu,
in 1952 reported that Vera Hamoelkova, a 21-year-old
student at a mining college, "spent her wedding night in
true People's Democracy fashion." Don't jump to con-
2
•
MANA
\
94
MALENKOV
clusions. The girl, says the paper, "took her bridegroom
down into the Stalin Mine, where the couple put in a
voluntary night shift to increase coal production."
What is behind this systematic attempt to teach a
strange combination of prudery and sexlessness, under
the guise of fighting "bourgeois romantic love"? It is true
that the Soviet doctrine refuses to recognize modern psy-
choanalysis, but the shade of Freud can afford to look
down on the Kremlin and chuckle.
The New Soviet Bureaucrats are projecting their own
psychology onto the masses.
The strange thing about this trend is that it was pre-
dicted in fictional form by a writer who is still being
criticized in some literary circles for letting his "imagina-
tion" go wild on this point. The book is the famous
novel 1984 by the late George Orwell.
But Orwell was not letting his imagination go wild.
He understood the Soviet system. He asked himself what
it would look like when all of its characteristics were de-
veloped to the limit, and wrote a fantasy tale embodying
his vision of a "Stalinism-plus," set decades ahead in the
future. To many critics who praised his political insight,
his picture of the anti-sex campaign in 1984's Soviet sys-
tem appeared overdrawn. Yet when the novel was pub-
lished in 1949, the symptoms were already starting to
appear behind the Iron Curtain. Orwell explained it in
advance.
He depicted the Model Totalitarian Woman who has
absorbed the Party's teachings, carried to the limit. The
hero Winston recalled his relations with his wife, Kath-
arine, and compared embracing her to grabbing a jointed
wooden image. She did not resist, nor did she cooperate;
she submitted. And Winston, like a normal male (but
apparently not like a Soviet male) found the situation
extremely embarrassing and, finally, horrible.
But Orwell carries his lance further. Hero Winston,
indoctrinated as he was, could have stood this nonsense
had his wife not decided to have babies. Their love-mak-
ing became a once-a-week drudgery, for two purposes:
H
MALENKOV
95
I
1. To make a baby, and, 2. To do their duty to the
Party.
Naturally enough (or, unnaturally, if sitting in Malen-
kov's corner), Winston grew to dread that one day each
week.
Though in exaggerated form, Orwell has explained
the direction of the Soviet bureaucratic mind in the realm
of love and sex.
He explains that the aim of the Party in this is, among
other things, to keep men and women form forming loy-
alties which the Party might not be able to control. He
has put his finger on the main point.
But not all of Orwell's women were as narrowly di-
rected as Katharine. 1984's hero eventually meets Julia,
the girl in the Anti-Sex League, and she, of course, turns
out to be quite Pro-Sex.
Julia had grasped the Party's meaning of sexual puri-
tanism. She knew it not as merely a sex instinct in its own
little world, but as a means to creating emotional hysteria,
desirable because it could then be transformed into war
fever and leader idolatry.
But how about the family? Malenkov knows today that
the family, as such, cannot be abolished. So, instead,
children are set against parents, as spies, ready to report
to the Party authorities the tiniest defection from the
Line. In this way, the family is preserved-a small howl-
ing group of frightened people surrounding each other
as informers in their desperate attempt to do good by
the State.
And this is not prediction or fiction. It is straight politi-
cal reporting of reality, well known to Malenkov and to
all students of the Soviet. The Kremlin despots systemati-
cally use children to inform on their parents. One of the
boy heroes of the Soviet Union, whose picture hangs in
school rooms all over the country, was a little monster
who (according to the official story) denounced his own
father to the secret police. He is a "martyr" because, when
he proceeded to widen his stoolpigeon activities to the
rest of his village, he was killed by his own grandfather.
96
MALENKOV
It is not only "romantic love" that the Soviets wish to
totalitarianize. It is every aspect of personal life.
In Romania, a young worker named Modi Sandalovici
is compelled to beat his breast in public confession in the
columns of the Young Communist organ (Scanteia Ti-
nerelului for March 27, 1952). He recognizes his "errors"
and "grave sins." Among these are "spending too much
time running after the girls in the shop" and "doing his
work poorly." And among them also he admits: "I began
to like the waltz, that decadent dance, to lace my shoes
like the young bourgeois, and to wear a hunting cap."
In Hungary, the official organ of the Budapest Com-
munist Party had to warn its readers, on the contrary,
that simply wearing a necktie was not "bourgeois." There
seemed to have been some doubts about that among the
zealous.
The state arranges for vacations, how to spend leisure
time, how to get married in short order in a factory cere-
mony so as to lose the least amount of time from work,
what kind of music to like, and what clothes are "counter-
revolutionary."
A good installment of 1984 is here, today, under Pre-
mier Georgi Maximilianovich Malenkov.
CHAPTER XIII
Ruler of 1% the Earth... 1/ Its People
WE HAVE SEEN WHAT KIND OF MAN Malenkov is. We
have examined his personal qualities and the capacities
which he brings to his new assignment in the Prime Min-
ister's post of Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the
Soviet Union of Socialist Republics as well as the Chair-
man of the Presidium of the Soviet Communist Party.
These were among the top posts held by Stalin.
The sixty-four dollar question is, can Malenkov meas-
ure up to the demands of leadership in the most power-
ful state in world history? The manner in which he ma-
nipulates the reins of power that are now his, and the
goals he pursues with that power, affect the destiny of
every human being on this planet.
Unlike great conquerors who had preceded him, Mal-
enkov's own predecessor, Stalin, did not rely only upon
the military and political power of the state he ruled.
Through the international Communist movement, he
commanded powerful or significant fifth columns in
every major country of the world, using them to stir dis-
sension, foment civil wars, and gather espionage data as
the needs of the Soviet Union dictated. Thus even in
times of peace, Stalin could and did wage political-or
sometimes even military-warfare against other sovereign
nations.
Such is Malenkov's inheritance.
į The Stalin era transformed Russia from a backward
agrarian country into the world's second most powerful
industrial state. The following table shows the phenome-
nal growth of Soviet strength in five key sinews of indus-
trial might, and compares the Russian output with that
of the U. S. (Figures are in millions of metric tons and
97
98
MALENKOV
billions of kilowatt hours; totals for 1952 and 1955 are
calculated from percentage increases in goals of the Five
Year Plans.)
Pig Iron.
Steel
Oil
Coal
U.S. S. R.
1927-28 1952
3.3
4.3
11.5
35.5
5.0
25
25
47
300
117
1955
(Goal)
34.3
44.7
69.4
377.5
162.5
U.S.
1951
64.0
95.5
307.5
523.0
482.3
Electricity
The industrial potential of the Soviet Union, even
when added to that of its satellites, is far less than that of
the U. S. and its Western European allies. But the com-
bined strength of the Communist world in actual mili-
tary force in being at the present time exceeds that of the
U. S. and its allies. The Communist forces have 9,000,000
to 11,000,000 men under arms, the West 8,000,000 to
9,300,000.
And behind the Communist armed strength there is
the relentless pressure of its ideological appeal.
The Golden Horde was aptly named. The fierce Mon-
gols, peerless warriors, cared only for the plunder their
conquests brought them. They had no genius for organ-
izing the conquered lands and winning the allegiance of
their peoples. Their empire reached its greatest extent-
from China and Siberia to Poland-under Kublai Khan,
who ruled from 1259 to 1294. But hardly had he died
when it began to fall apart.
On the rubble of the Mongol kingdoms rose the Rus-
sian Empire. In the last days of the khanate the Dukes
of Moscow founded a Russian state. Ivan the Terrible
proclaimed himself the first Czar "of all the Russias" in
the sixteenth century. Fur traders and Cossack freebooters
fought their way into Siberia; in less than 100 years
"Great Russia" stretched to the Pacific Ocean.
ส
The Czars took the Ukraine, the Caucasus, and Moslem
Central Asia by force. They added the Baltic countries
MALENKOV
99
""
and much of Poland. Many of these lands regained their
freedom in the chaotic days of the revolution-only, in
large part, to be recaptured by the new Soviet Union. In
little more than 30 years since, under Josef Stalin, the
conquest of the satellite system has still further swollen
the Russian "Empire."
Can Malenkov hold these conquests where the Mon-
gols failed?
The very name the Russian Empire now bears-namely,
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics-is a lie; for the U. S.
S. R. is not a union of republics as it is proclaimed to be;
instead it is the compulsory serfdom of nearly 200 subju-
gated nationalities, speaking different languages and
stemming from different cultures, each held in leash by
terror.
Only half of Malenkov's 215,000,000 subjects inside the
U. S. S. R. are Great Russians. The 50,000,000 Ukrainians
and White Russians in the south and west, the smaller
numbers of Baltic peoples in the northwest, the Turks
and Mongols in the east-all have cultures of their own
and ancient traditions of freedom. They chafe under the
ever-broadening Russification program of the regime.
Uncounted millions more, prisoners in Siberian slave-
labor camps, are potential recruits for rebellion.
In the satellites Moscow has exploited rather than de-
veloped. Trade is manipulated in Russia's favor, leaving
subject peoples no margin for better living. Resentment
of this "one-way street" can only deepen the bitterness of
the captive Poles, with their centuries-old hatred of the
Russians; the Czechs, with their memories of hard-won
independence; and the Balkan peoples, traditionally
jealous of their national freedom.
The Russian grip is weakest in China. The 450,000,000
Chinese want no more foreign domination. Historically,
the Russians have victimized them-notably in Mongolia
and in Manchuria. And the Chinese did not long endure
a similar fate at the hands of the Mongols.
Ninety-seven percent of the 215 million inhabitants
}
100
MALENKOV
of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics are Malenkov's
State serfs. The remaining six million are members and
candidates of the Russian Communist Party-a high priv
ileged group of state bureaucrats. These are the men and
women with the heaviest stake in Russia. They are the
plant managers, technologists, government office holders,
intelligentsia, collective-farm managers.
Greatest rewards of Soviet life, including the best liv
ing quarters, motor cars, food, higher pay and social po-
sition go to them.
What is the internal mechanism for the operation and
interrelations of this new ruling class of Russia, the to-
talitarian bureaucracy? The real power resides at the
apex of the bureaucratic structure with no control over it
from the ranks below. The convocation of the Congress
does not provide an opportunity for the ranks to assess
policies but to rally the apparatus, to confirm the adher-
ence of the party machinery.
The Communist Party congress is meaningless and func
tionless as an institution of control over the bureaucracy.
Its remaining role-and one that accounts for the de-
creasing frequency that role has had to be played since
there was an interval of 13 years between Congresses-is
something else.
For a monolithic state also has its group and clique
struggles.
These take place not in the party as a whole-that is a
capital offense-and still less in the society as a whole, but
are confined to and centered in the top circles. The tug-
of-war of the bureaucratic groups and cliques has its own
forms, its own weapons, but it is there.
How does this class as such limit and condition the
will of the top dictators?
The bureaucracy wields its political power through
the fusion of the Communist Party with every organ, or-
ganization, nook, cranny and thread of the State and all
State institutions.
The executive committee of the ruling bureaucratic
class is the Party. The central lever of power is not in the
MALENKOV
101
army, not in the MVD, not in the managerial staffs of the
industries. It lies at the apex of the Party apparatus.
It is this lever that Malenkov possessed as a general
secretary and Orgburo head, for several years under
Stalin.
At the summit of Soviet life is the Presidium. Until
recently, unlike the American and British Cabinets, its
personnel had been virtually unchanged in a decade.
The Presidium was formed in October, 1952, by abol-
ishing the Politburo and merging the Political Bureau
and Organization Bureau. These two bureaus had been
the subcommittees of the central committee. They were
the day-to-day centers of real power.
The job of the Central Committee (which is now re-
quired to meet only every six months) is to check on the
very top leadership (now combined in the Presidium).
As the new Premier, Malenkov will boss the Council
of Ministers, which rules Government agencies; the
Presidium of the Supreme Soviet which hands down de-
crees binding all citizens of the U.S.S.R., and the Su-
preme Soviet, which ratifies decisions of the Presidium.
Is Malenkov really stepping into Stalin's shoes? Is he
the real ruler of Russia and its empire in the same sense
that Stalin was? The answer: Not quite. All the indica-
tions of the present situation with regard to Malenkov's
power is that he is the Number One man in a directory.
The directory is more or less the ten men who constitute
the new Presidium and there is no reason to believe right
now that Malenkov has inherited Stalin's complete power
over all of his co-workers. He still has to get to that
position. His word alone is not absolute. Many of the
decisions that the world is wondering about are going
to be heavily influenced by this directory of ten. There-
fore, to know what Russia is going to do now, it is neces-
sary to look not only at Malenkov, but also at the men
who are at the top who will be participating in making
the decisions in the near future.
Ten men, headed by Malenkov control the whole, vast
102
MALENKOV
..1
machine of the Soviet and direct the activities of world
communism.
They are for practical, immediate purposes, the U.S.
S.R., and it is with them that others must deal. If there
is to be hope for peace, these men must be understood as
individuals whose lives, personalities, thoughts, and ac-
tions have become vital to others' existence.
These ten men-collectively-will rule Soviet Russia:
Georgi M. Malenkov, 51, Chairman of the Council of
Ministers, who became Stalin's successor as Premier.
Lavrenti P. Beria, 54, Deputy Premier and Minister of
Internal Affairs, a post combining the Ministry of In-
ternal Affairs and Ministry of State Security (secret
police). Beria has long had charge of state security. He
is head of the Russian Secret Police and the Atomic
Energy project.
Vyacheslav M. Molotov, 62, Deputy Premier and For-
eign Minister, a post he held from 1939 to 1949. He
displaces Andrei Y. Vishinsky who becomes permanent
Soviet representative to the U. N.
Marshal Nikolai Bulganin, 57, Deputy Premier and
War Minister.
Lazar M. Kaganovich, 59, Deputy Premier. Kaganovich
is an old friend of Stalin and was at one time mentor to
Malenkov. He is the only Jew still holding a high posi-
tion in the Soviet Union.
Marshal Klementi Voroshilov, 72, Chairman of the
Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (Parliament), an empty
honorarium making him titular President of the Soviet
Union.
Anastas I. Mikoyan, 58, Minister of Foreign and In-
ternal Trade, two ministries which have been combined.
Maxim Z. Saburov, Minister of Machine Building.
Mikhail G. Pervukhin, Minister of Electric Power
Stations and Electrical Industry.
Nikita S. Khrushchev, 58, head of the Secretariat of
the Central Committee of the Party, in which post he
replaces Malenkov as direct boss of party machinery. He
will act as Malenkov's deputy, as Malenkov was Stalin's.
MALENKOV
103
"
Malenkov and the four deputy premiers-Beria, Molo-
tov, Bulganin and Kaganovich-will be the Presidium, or
core, of the Council of Ministers, amounting to an inner
cabinet.
:
Power in the Soviet Union is exercised through two
parallel structures-the Communist Party and the Soviet
State. Although they are closely interlocked, the Party is
supreme.
The Communist Party in the U.S.S.R. is an elite of
about 6,300,000 members (3 per cent of the population).
It is tightly organized and disciplined from the top hier-
archy to the lowest cells. Nominally, the supreme author-
ity is the Party Congress consisting of delegates from all
› over the country. In intervals between Congresses-thir-
teen years elapsed between the Eighteenth in 1939 and
the Nineteenth last October-a 125-man Central Com-
mittee chosen by the Congress is supposed to govern.
Actually, the Central Committee meets rarely. The real
power is vested in two of its organs. One is the Presidium.
It was set up at the Congress last fall to combine the
functions of the old Politburo which dealt with policy
and the Orgburo which dealt with party organization.
The other organ is the Secretariat or chief party execu-
tive. It supervises the party apparatus, checking on sub-
ordinate officials and making sure that orders are obeyed.
Stalin was General Secretary of the Central Committee,
chairman of the Presidium and first member of the Sec-
retariat. His power was absolute.
The one post which Stalin held and which Malenkov
has not taken over is that of first secretary in the powerful
Secretariat of the Party, which supervises the Party ma-
chinery. This job has gone to Nikita Khrushchev. This is
one of the indications that the Directory of Ten has not
handed all personal power over to Malenkov. Within
this directory, the most powerful personalities are un-
doubtedly Beria, Molotov and Bulganin; possibly also
Khrushchev, but there is reason to believe that Molotov
is slipping.
Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist
*
104
MALENKOV
3
Party is the chief executive body of the Communist party
and is concerned with problems of party organization and
implementation of party policy decisions. The secretaries
in apparent order of rank: Malenkov, Khrushchev, Sus-
lov, Nicola A. Mikhailov, A. B. Aristov, S. D. Ignatiev,
Peter N. Pospelev, N. N. Shatalin.
Council of Ministers is the Soviet Cabinet and also the
chief executive organ of the Soviet Government empow-
ered to issue decrees that have the force of law. Presidium:
Chairman or Premier, Malenkov; First Deputy Chairman
or Deputy Premiers, Beria, Molotov, Bulganin, Kagano-
vich. Newly appointed key members: Minister of Internal
Affairs, Beria; Minister of Foreign Affairs, Molotov; Min-
ister of War, Bulganin; Minister of Internal and Foreign
Trade, Mikoyan; Minister of Machine Building, Sabu-
rov; Minister of Transport and Heavy Machine Building,
Vyacheslav A. Malyshev; Minister of Electric Power Sta-
tions and Electrical Industry, Pervukhin; Chairman of
the State Planning Committee, G. P. Kosyachenko; Chair-
man of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions,
Shvernik.
Supreme Soviet is the Soviet Legislature, and, under
the Constitution, nominally the highest authority in the
land; in practice it meets rarely and unanimously en-
dorses all proposals put before it by the Government.
During the fifty or fifty-one weeks of each year in which
it is not normally in session, its legislative and appointive
powers are exercised by the Presidium of the Supreme
Soviet. Chief Officers of the Supreme Soviet: Chairman,
Voroshilov; Secretary, Nikolai M. Pegov.
Reduction in the size of the Party's Presidium (former-
ly Politburo, which comprised 36 men) not only strips
that all-powerful organ down for action, but gives the
older members of the Presidium a tight hold over the
new leader.
Molotov, Beria, Bulganin and Kaganovich, veteran
members of the Politburo, though they have lost out in
the race for the main prize, are in a position to keep the
51-year-old Malenkov on a short leash.
MALENKOV
105
Lavrenti P. Beria in the reorganization becomes head
of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in which is combined
the former ministries of Internal Affairs and State Se-
curity.
Marshal Bulganin stays at his post as Minister of War,
but will have as his first deputies Marshal Alexander M.
Vasilevsky, who has been acting as War Minister, and
Marshal Georgi A. Zhukov, the famed Soviet commander,
who disappeared from public view after World War II.
Another old Politburo veteran who emerged with
strengthened power is Anastas Mikoyan, whose ministry
will now combine foreign and internal trade.
Let us now take a closer look at the top men who stand
at Malenkov's right hand.
"
1
!
CHAPTER XIV
Malenkov's Hatchet-Man: Beria
MURDER, INC., had nothing on Beria. Formed in Brook-
lyn, New York, in 1931 by Albert Anastasia and Abe
Reles, they were able to "bump off" only 63 men over
a period of nine years.
Bald, pince-nezed Beria and his butchers actually mur-
dered two million men and women, imprisoned at least
ten million more in Soviet slave labor camps. All this in
a period of only fifteen years . . fifteen long years since
his fellow Georgian, Stalin, had hustled him in 1938
from the mountains of Georgia to Moscow. His name
spells terror to countless millions. Withal, he has a
façade of tenderness.
The last chance to prevent a second world war faded
on August 23, 1939, för Ministers Molotov and Ribben-
trop had just finished signing the Nazi-Soviet pact. "Now
the western democracies cannot attempt to poison the
atmosphere and provoke a conflict between Germany
and Russia," Stalin exclaimed exultantly.
Then he proposed a toast. "I know how much the
German nation loves its Fuehrer: I should therefore like
to drink to his health. And now," Stalin said, turning
his head from Ribbentrop to Beria, "allow me to intro-
duce the head of my Gestapo."
Lavrenti Pavlovich Beria is now a member of the top-
ranking Presidium. He heads the vast secret police
(MVD), and the far-flung system of slave labor camps
in which between ten and fifteen million people grind
out their hopeless lives. In all official listings his name
follows directly after that of Malenkov, and he is first
among the "First Deputy Premiers," the group which
really rules Russia.
107
108
MALENKOV
Who is L. P. Beria, and how did he get where he is
today? What are the origins of this shortish, thick-necked
man, whose eyes stare balefully from behind his glinting
professorial pince-nez under the dome-like forehead?
Beria is alleged to have been born in 1899 near Suk-
hum on the Black Sea. Official Soviet records say that
he is the son of poor peasant parents. It is known, how-
ever, that he graduated from the Polytechnic High
School in Baku as an "Architectural and Construction
Technician" at the age of twenty. This would seem to
cast doubt on the poverty of his origins. It should be
borne in mind that the biographies of most Soviet lead-
ers are tailor-made after the fact, and in the case of men
whose role in the pre-Stalinist era was unknown outside
of Russia, they are likely to be more fancy than fact.
From the time of his youth, Beria was drawn to police
work. Although a native of the province of Georgia,
Beria later became one of the ruthless oppressers of the
Georgian people. In 1920 he was assigned to do "intelli-
gence" work for the Communist Party and the Red Army
which had captured Baku after a series of battles against
the White Guard troops who were at that time sup-
ported by British and French funds. (These countries
had heavy investments in the oil fields centered around
Baku.) Such assignments were common for party mem-
bers in those days. But the following year, Beria joined
the Cheka (Secret Police and Intelligence) as a perma-
nent job. During the next ten years he rose to be assist-
ant chief of the Azerbaijan (Baku) Cheka, then assistant
chief of the Georgian Cheka, chief of the Georgian GPU
(pronounced "Gaypayoo," the Stalinist successor of the
Cheka), and finally chief of the GPU for the whole
Caucasus area.
In 1924 there was a serious revolt in Georgia. The
nationalist sentiments of this country of peasants and
shopkeepers had remained strong throughout the regime
of the Czars, and the difficulties of life in the first years
of the Bolshevik regime added fuel to the local desire
for autonomy. Stalin, himself a Georgian, was at that
MALENKOV
109
3
time in charge of the bureau of nationalities of the
Soviet government, and Lenin and his colleagues tended
to accept the judgment of this "expert" on the national
question of how to handle the national minorities in
Russia.
But his methods, and those of the lieutenants whom
he placed in charge in the various countries, were so
harsh that they aroused the opposition not only of the
people, but of the local Bolsheviks themselves. The up-
rising of 1924 was put down in blood, and harshest
measures were taken even against Bolsheviks who op-
posed the brutality of the suppression. Lenin, who was
sick at the time, concluded that the truth about Georgia
was being kept from him by Stalin, and had a special
investigation made by his own secretaries. He was dumb-
founded and outraged by their findings. Just before he
died, he proposed to Trotsky that they form a bloc
against Stalin for the purpose of removing him from
the position of power which he had usurped behind the
back of the Party.

Lenin died, and the bloc died with him. Trotsky tried
to wage the fight against Stalin's brutality alone. But
throughout this period, L. P. Beria was directly in charge
of the suppression of the Georgian people and of the
Bolshevik opposition in his own country. His loyalty to
Stalin, and to Stalin's methods, never seems to have
wavered for a moment. They found that they were very
well suited to each other.
When the first Five-Year Plan was announced in 1927,
Beria was transferred to "Party work." This means that
he rose from a purely police job to the job of bossing
all aspects of government and economic work in the
Caucasian area. He held the post of Party Secretary for
seven years, from which he directed the industrialization
projects in the area, and kept a watchful eye on the
seething discontent of the peasants, workers and nation-
al minorities who were being pressed into the mold of
Stalinist society. These were the years during which all
traces of freedom and democracy were stamped out both
110
MALENKOV
inside the Party and the country. Beria was an able
agent of the policy. He received the highest civil deco-
rations the government could bestow, and in 1934 he
was elected a member of the Central Committee of the
Party.
Although Beria had been rising steadily in the new
Russian hierarchy, up to this point he had remained
merely a provincial figure. But he was preparing his road
to bigger things. While still a Party boss in the Caucasus,
he wrote a book entitled Bolshevik Organizations in the
Trans-Caucasus. A typical piece of Stalinist "history"
writing, this one was distinguished only by the brass
with which he re-fabricated the roles of all the men and
women who had participated in the events of the pre-
vious twenty years.
The main point, however, was that in this "history"
Stalin appeared as the chief organizer, the inspirer, the
shining light of the Bolshevik organization on Georgia
from its earliest days. Every success was due to Stalin,
and every setback to Stalin's enemies. Stalin's "genius"
was made to blossom forth on every page, and his deeds
to sparkle with superhuman brilliance from the days
when he was an infant.
Beria knew his boss well, and he played to his weak-
ness for praise. This book laid the groundwork for his
later rise. But it was not until the great purges which
started shortly before the first Moscow Trial of the old
Bolsheviks that he really came into his own.
These purges were one of the most amazing episodes
in Russian history, in fact, in the history of any tyranny.
They started with Stalin's decision to exterminate the
whole generation of Bolsheviks who had led the Russian
Revolution. They knew too much about Stalin's actual
role in that great event, and about the way in which he
had helped the bureaucracy to rise to the position of a
ruling class over the workers and peasants. Although
many of them had given up and become his supporters,
he knew that deep in their hearts they could never for-
get that the revolution had been made for freedom and
MALENKOV
111
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I
equality. He and his closest associates felt that until
they were removed from the scene there was always a
chance that the oppressed peoples would rally around
them to throw off the dictatorship.
The problem was not only to kill them off, but to dis-
credit them in the eyes of the people. Thus the great
trials were organized in which the old Bolsheviks, after
careful "psychological" preparation in the cellars of the
GPU, rose in court to "confess" to all kinds of crimes
against the leadership and the nation. Since that time
this kind of "trials" has become standard equipment of
Stalinist rule in all countries. They have been repeated
in Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia. But
at that time they were still a novelty, and millions of
people all over the world came to accept them as good
coin.
The problem which has bothered men of good-will in
the non-Stalinist world about these trials is: how can
people be made to confess crimes which they cannot pos-
sibly have committed? It is commonly known that third-
degree methods can compel victims to sign false confes-
sions while they are still in the hands of their tormen-
tors. But once they have been brought into court, what
is to prevent them from denying their guilt, and expos-
ing the torturers?
It was the job of Beria and the other chief GPU agents
to come up with the answers. One of the answers was
the "conveyor," a word which came to strike a chill into
the heart of every Soviet citizen.
"Conveyor" was the name given to one of the methods
of breaking down the resistance of prisoners and getting
them to "confess" to any crime desired. It was engineered
and perfected in the days when Henry Yagoda ruled the
GPU, and the GPU terrorized the country. It is a simple,
but clever device.
The victim is simply questioned by a relay of inquisi-
tors. Put that way, it does not sound like the average
person's idea of torture. But it must be added that the
process lasts not a few hours, but days, and in stubborn
112
MALENKOV
cases, for weeks. The victim is not permitted to sit down
for hours on end, and in the first few days he gets no
sleep at all. Once he has collapsed from fatigue, he is
permitted to lie down for a few hours, but no sooner
does he get back enough strength so that he can stand
up again, than he goes back on the "conveyor."
He is badgered by demands that he confess to all man-
ner of crimes, and told that his inquisitors have proof of
his criminal activities. While he is completely exhausted,
his inquisitors remain fresh and full of energy. Little by
little his inner resistance is drained out of him. He knews
that he will get rest only after he confesses. The craving
for rest, for quiet, grows in him like the thirst of a man
lost in the desert.
The "conveyor" is designed to break down the resist
ance of the strongest wills. Beatings and other forms of
physical torture can be borne by men of character and
convictions. They quickly reduce the vitality of the vic-
tim and bring unconsciousness or death. A strong man
can bear them, knowing that they cannot last forever.
But the "conveyor" goes on and on. As the victim is given
just enough food and rest to keep him from final collapse,
he knows that there is no end to it. Its very "mildness"
is its strength, and it succeeds except in rare cases where
the victim has almost superhuman qualities of resistance.
In those cases the bullet at the back of the neck is the
only "cure."
C
The "conveyor" was only one of the several methods
developed by the GPU in the course of trial-and-error
experiments with many victims. Solitary confinement,
threats against relatives and dear ones, all had their uses.
And then there have been rumors that the Russian doc-
tors have developed drugs which affect the vital brain-
centers in such a way that the "patient" becomes a pliant
tool in the hands of his "re-educators”
The first great Moscow show trail was organized by
Henry Yagoda, head of the GPU. While a handful of old
Bolsheviks and minor officials appeared in court, thou-
sands upon thousands of men and women from all walks
MALENKOV
113
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of life disappeared into the dungeons of the secret police,
never to be heard from again. Terror gripped the whole
country. Everyone who had a grudge against his boss or a
fellow-worker denounced him for "Trotskyism" or some
related "crime." Industrial managers, army officers, gov
ernment and party officials at all levels were dragged off
to be shot. The prison camps in Siberia were filled to the
bursting point, and new ones were organized by the doz-
ens. Denouncing people to the police became a frenzy,
and at times almost a grim sport. If a person denounced
no one, he might himself be suspected of "protecting ene-
mies of the state."
But Yagoda, who had been one of Stalin's accomplices
since before 1924, knew too much. He too disappeared
into the cellars of his own organization, and after under-
going the "processing" which he had developed, emerged
at the second Moscow trial to "confess" his own crimes.
Among other things, he "confessed" that he had ar-
ranged the untimely death of the great Russian writer,
Maxim Gorki. This had been done by getting Gorki's
doctors to prescribe the wrong medicines for him. Others
had been done away with by spreading mysterious poison-
ous "dusts" in their offices from which they contracted
strange maladies. This was the concocted story.
Henry Yagoda was succeeded by Nicholas Yezhov, at
the time described as "the shining sword of the republic."
(The GPU had been renamed in 1934 NKVD, People's
Commissariat of Internal Affairs, but its function re-
mained the same.) The purge continued with mounting
fury. In the cellars of the NKVD the "conveyors" worked
overtime. The whole of Soviet society was rocked from
top to bottom. Every possible supporter of every possible
opponent of Stalin was eliminated.
During the period between the first Moscow Trial in
August 1936, and the summer of 1938 the purge raged.
Of the 22 men who had formed Lenin's Central Com-
mittee when the Bolsheviks took power in 1917, sixteen
were executed then. In 1940, the seventeenth, Leon
Trotsky, was killed in Mexico in a plot reported to have
114
MALENKOV
been engineered by Beria. This eliminated one of the
men Stalin feared most-a rival ideological irritant about
whom opposition could cluster. The second generation
Stalinoid men were in governmental positions.
Five out of the seven chairmen of the Soviet executive
committee were killed, plus almost all the members and
candidates of the Soviet executive. The heads of practi-
cally every one of the "republics" of Stalin's empire were
purged: those of Ukraine, Georgia, White Russia, Uzbek-
istan, Transcaucasia, and most of the others. The major-
ity of the commission which wrote the Stalin Constitu-
tion (proclaimed as "the most democratic in the world")
were shot down like dogs. Two out of five marshals of
the Red Army; three army group commanders out of six;
ten army commanders out of fifteen; fifty-seven army
corps commanders out of eighty-five; 110 divisional com-
manders out of 193; 202 brigade commanders out of 400,
all were executed on charges of being agents of Japan, or
England or France, or Germany, and sometimes of several
of these countries combined.
The victims among the industrial managers and party
leaders were on the same scale. Of the nameless rank and
file, thousands upon tens of thousands were either “liqui-
dated" in the cellars of the NKVD, or were transported
in cattle-cars to the wastes of Siberia or to the Pechora
under the Arctic circle. The purge, which had started
with a limited goal of murdering the remnants of the old
Bolsheviks had got out of hand. The whole of Soviet
society was demoralized. Industrial managers looked at
the long list of the men who had sat behind their desks
before them, and refused to take any responsibility for
fear that an error would be called "sabotage." Party
leaders refused to defend even their most loyal and com-
petent assistants, lest they be accused of protecting "ene-
mies." The whole Soviet bureaucracy was falling apart
at the seams. Even Stalin realized that the thing had gone
too far.
Beria, Molotov and the other men who are now at the
top of the Russian pyramid rode out the storm. They
MALENKOV
115
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either stood by coldbloodedly while their associates were
going before the guns of the NKVD, or they helped them
on their way. In the summer of 1938 Stalin asked Beria
to prepare a report on the situation. It was submitted to
him in person at his vacation villa at Metsesta. Beria was
immediately appointed Vice-Commissar of the NKVD,
and although Yezhov remained the nominal chief till
December of that year, the reins were taken from his
hands. After that he, too, disappeared, never to be heard
from again.
Beria's first action on assuming actual control over the
NKVD was to organize a "purge of the purgers." Imme-
diately five important NKVD officials in the Ukraine were
tried and executed on charges of criminal abuse of their
powers. The purge was called to a swift halt. The country
sighed an almost audible sigh of relief. A wholesale re-
view of all cases of expulsion from the Party was under-
taken. According to official figures published for the
provinces of Moscow and Leningrad, more than 50 per
cent of persons expelled were reinstated on the ground
that the action against them had been unjustified, based
on slander or other false premises. Thousands of exiles
were brought back to their homes and former positions.
But the dead could not be brought back, and other thou-
sands remained in the living death of the slave camps.
It was typical of Stalin's methods, that when it was
decided that a policy had gone too far, he would take the
credit for reversing it. Thus, in the case of the great
purges, the legend could be maintained that he didn't
really know what was going on. The moment he found
out, the kindly old man called a halt and punished the
people who had been responsible for the massacre. The
official story put out by the Kremlin was that Yezhov had
turned out to be a madman. This story is repeated to this
day in almost every biographical sketch on Beria which
appears in this country. The government appoints a
homicidal maniac to run its political police, and only
discovers its "mistake" after he has exterminated the
cream of the army and of Soviet society in general!
116
MALENKOV
1
Beria was brought in to reverse the policy of the pùrge.
In March 1939 he made a speech at the Party Congress in
which he went so far as to attack the tendency of people
to blame failure in various branches of the government
and economy on "hostile and disruptive forces," instead
of on poor management and execution. Right after the
Congress, he was elected a candidate to the Politburo,
top Party governing body, though he did not receive full
membership till 1946.
But had Beria really resisted the "excesses" of the purge
all along? Far from it. Although it is in the nature of
such events, and of the secret police in all countries that
their actions, and those of their chief agents, remain
veiled in secrecy, something is known of Beria's own per-
sonal participation.
One of his last actions before coming to Moscow to
take over the secret police was to stage a big trial in
Transcaucasia. In secret proceedings, 30 persons, mostly
old Bolsheviks, some of them former personal friends of
Stalin, were judged and executed. Among the crimes of
which they were accused was "the preparation for com-
mitting a terroristic act against the Secretary of the Cen-
tral Committee of the Georgian Communist Party, L. P.
Beria." In this way Beria, the Party chief, got rid of the
last witnesses who could have refuted the falsifications
in the "history" of the Bolshevik Organizations in the
Trans-Caucasus written by Beria.
When Lavrenti Beria took ove the NKVD, it was like
no secret police which had ever existed in history before.
Even then, in addition to thousands of secret agents and
administrative clerks, it had armed and uniformed de-
tachments. It administered tens of prison camps in which
thousands of prisoners were kept to work in forests, mines
and on construction projects.
It is, of course, difficult to establish the exact number
of persons condemned to forced labor in Russia, or to
trace the development of forced labor in statistical terms
down through the years. It is estimated that in the period
1933-35 there were about five million men and women
MALENKOV
117
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r
1
{
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living in the NKVD's slave camps. For the period 1935-37
Nikonov-Smorodin, a Russian fugitive from a labor camp,
estimated the slave laborers at between five and six mil-
lion, and drew up a map which showed some 35 slave
sites. (It should be noted that these are not individual
camps, but whole regions which fall under a single ad-
ministration.) Postwar estimates place the total at over
ten million slaves.
By 1936, the NKVD's "economic projects" were a sig-
nificant part of the whole economy of the country. They
had a big share of the Russian budget. As the slaves were
poorly fed, clothed and housed, and as they were over-
worked, disease and death took an enormous toll among
them. The gaps had to be filled by new "enemies of the
people." Recruiting slaves became an economic necessity.
The regional directors of the NKVD were given quotas
to fill. Any man who failed to fill his quota could be con-
sidered too "soft" and a possible protector of "criminals."
Beria inherited this system. He built it up further.
After 1939 the public trials, publication of sentences and
other evidence of the terror ceased to appear in the Rus-
sian press. But individuals and whole groups continued
to disappear into the maw of the NKVD and to fill its
labor camps. The average bureaucrat and worker no
longer lay awake in bed, fearfully expecting the knock
on his door in the hours before dawn. But a chance
critical remark, a failure to show up on the job on time
if repeated too often, the failure of a factory to deliver
its quota-all these or any number of other "offenses"
could lead to the dreaded phone-call to "come over for
a conversation" from the NKVD.
Yet how can even such measures fill these camps with
their millions of victims? The mass scale on which de-
portations are carried out can perhaps be gathered from
one example.
In August, 1940, the Baltic States were officially incor-
porated into the Soviet Union. On November 28 of the
same year, the Lithuanian NKVD issued orders to its
local staffs to draw up lists of people to be deported. The
118
MALENKOV
orders included members of all political parties except
the Communists, from pro-Czarist to socialist and Trot-
skyite. All officers and émigrés from Russia are included,
as well as "shopkeepers, hotel and restaurant owners,'
who were apparently considered socially dangerous. Even
"persons maintaining correspondence abroad" were to be
included in the lists.
**
The whole operation proceeded in a well-planned and
organized fashion. The schedule called for reports from
the local agencies on the compilation of the lists by May
5, 1941. The whole job was to be finished by June 1.
From April 23 on, a constant stream of orders, instruc-
tions and revised orders issued from the office of Gladkov,
head of the NKVD in Kaunas. (Incidentally, Gladkov,
like most of his chief subordinates is a Russian.) It ap-
pears that the local offices were often dragging their feet,
as reprimands and threats against them from above flowed
thick and fast.
By the end of May, everything was ready for the "op-
eration." On May 31, 1941, the People's Commissariat of
the U.S.S.R. for State Security dispatched a brief com-
munication which reads as follows:
"The People's Commissar for State Security of the
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Comrade Mer-
kulov, has ordered: Persons of anti-Soviet leanings
engaged in active counter-revolutionary agitation are
to be prepared for deportation into remote areas of
the U.S.S.R.
Communicated for appropriate action.”
On the eve of the operation, June 5, the forces assigned
to carry it out assembled throughout the country. "One
operational official, one member of the NKVD, one sol-
dier of the armed forces of the NKVD, and one repre-
sentative of the local group of the Communist party"
were assigned to "carry out the operation of two fam-
ilies." Explicit instructions were handed to them on how
to do the job in such a way to create the least possible
disturbance in the community, which was known to be
"hostile to the Soviet power."
MALENKOV
119
"Care must be taken that the operations are carried
out. so as not to permit any demonstrations and
other trouble," read the official instructions.
66
Operations shall be begun at daybreak. Upon en-
tering the house of the person to be deported, the senior
member of the operative group shall assemble the entire
family in one room, taking all necessary precautionary
measures against any possible trouble.
"After completion of the search the deportees shall be
notified that by a government decision they will be de-
ported to other regions of the Union. The deportees
shall be permitted to take with them household necessi-
ties not exceeding 100 kilograms in weight (about 200
pounds). .
As the heads of families were separated from the rest,
care had to be taken to prevent the families from know-
ing that this would happen. The agents were instructed
not to separate the heads from the rest of the family till
they had all reached the assembly-point at the railroad,
so as to prevent scenes and resistance from developing.
"During the assembling of the family in the home of the
deportee, the head of the family shall be warned that
personal male effects must be packed in a separate suit-
case, as a sanitary inspection of the deported men will be
made separately from the women and children." (In the
Nazi extermination camps, the victims were told that
they were being taken to a bath, and were given a piece
of soap and a towel at the entrance to the gas chambers
to keep up the illusion.) Sanitation, it would seem, plays
a special role in the tyrants' dictionary.
On the morning of June 6, the operation was carried
out almost without a hitch. An operational report dated
June 19 states that there was hardly any shooting, and
only one man was wounded. It is estimated that a total
of 200,000 people were rounded up in the Baltic States,
of whom 50,000 to 60,000 went to the slave camps, while
the rest were resettled in exile.
This vast domain of slave labor, this world of trials and
shootings and deportations was presided over by Lavrenti
120
MALENKOV
Beria from 1939 to the present. Although the name of
the NKVD was changed to MVD, the institution re-
mained just as gigantic and just as ruthless as ever.
In 1941, when Germany attacked Russia, Beria became
a member of the State Defense Committee, the highest
body set up to conduct the war. He was made a full mem-
ber of the Politburo in 1946, as a reward for the loyal
services performed in wartime, and as an expression of
Stalin's personal confidence in him.
The war and the years which followed it gave Beria's
police plenty of work and plenty of victims. Not only did
the vast hordes of German prisoners of war captured after
Stalingrad fit right into the slave-labor system, whole So-
viet nationalities were deported to the slave camps and
the "remote regions" of the country.
The first national group to be picked up bodily at
Beria's orders and scattered over the face of the land
were the Volga-Germans. By a decree of August 28, 1941,
the Autonomous Volga-German Soviet Socialist Republic
was declared abolished, and its population was dispersed.
(The 1939 census had shown it to have a population of
605,000.) This whole national group was charged with
having shown sympathy for the enemy, or having winked
at the activities of those in its midst who showed such
sympathy. After the war additional nationalities were
rounded up by the NKVD, men, women and children
and scattered through the country, mostly to its "remote
regions."
In addition hundreds of thousands of Poles, Roman-
ians, German prisoners of war, Czechs, Bulgarians and
Hungarians were deported. Many Russians who had per-
mitted themselves to be captured by the Germans during
the war were given the same treatment. Slave labor, under
the direction of the MVD, was one of the chief groups in
the rebuilding of Russia after the war.
In addition, Beria was put in charge of "organizing"
the satellite "peoples' republics" after the war. His agents
were everywhere, watching and directing the Communist
Parties of the new territories. The moment any group
MALENKOV
121
or leader in one of these parties showed any signs of
independence, he was given the "treatment" developed
in the cells of the old GPU.
Laszlo Rajk was destroyed in Hungary, Traicho Kostov
in Bulgaria, Wladyslaw Gromulka in Poland, and Rudolf
Clementis in Czechoslovakia. Ana Pauker of Rumania,
who probably has more blood on her hands than any
other woman in history, has been expelled from the
Romanian Politburo, dismissed from her post as Foreign
Minister, and is probably awaiting her final fate, if it has
not already caught up with her. All this is the direct
handiwork of Beria, backed up, of course, by Malenkov,
Molotov and until recently, Stalin.
In Dedijer's book on Tito, the Yugoslavs quote an il-
luminating remark by Stalin about his police chief. Stalin
was drinking "bruderschafts" with various members of
the Tito party. He turned suddenly to Rankovic (head
of Yugoslav security), advising him to be careful of Beria,
and then to Beria, asking him, “And you two? Which of
you will trap the other?"
After the war, Beria was also made head of the Russian
atomic enerby project. The reason for this is not neces-
sarily that Stalin placed more trust in him than in some
other of his henchmen, but that the slave labor controlled
by the MVD was a "natural" for work in the uranium
mines and on the construction of the big atomic projects.
The life span of uranium miners is even shorter than
that of the slaves who work in the forests of the frozen
north or in the peat-bogs of Siberia. Their rations are
poor, and no pains are taken to protect them from ex-
posure to radiation. To Beria, as to his colleagues, human
Îife comes cheap.
When Stalin died there was wide-spread speculation
that Beria would succeed him. It was thought that his
control of the secret police, with their well armed, picked
contingents of troops would give him the inside track.
But it must be remembered that Beria has never been an
"MVD man" first, and a Stalinist second. His loyalty has
always been to the regime, to the new ruling class which
122
MALENKOV.
it has created, to the bloody clique which runs it. When-
ever it has become a matter of defending this clique, he
has been as ready to liquidate his buddies in the MVD
as anyone else.
Little is known about the personality, the character of
this cold man, with his mild, professorial manner. If he
is consumed by the ambition to be top dog, he may yet
liquidate Malenkov. But if he should attempt it, he would
not be acting as a representative of the interests and am-
bitions of the MVD, but as the leader of some special
clique in the Communist Party which controls all Ŝoviet
institutions.
In his oration at the bier of the man who had brought
him up to the heights, Beria made it quite clear whom
he serves: "Stalin, like Lenin," he said, "left to our party
and our country a great legacy, which must be treasured
as the pupil of one's eye, and constantly multiplied.
"Great Stalin trained and rallied around himself lead-
ers well tried in battles, who have mastered the Lenin-
Stalin ability of leadership and on whose shoulders has
fallen the historic responsibility to carry the great cause
begun by Lenin and successfully continued by Stalin to
a victorious end."
Lenin, of course, has been revolving these many years
in his grave over all the things that have been done in
his name. But Stalin can rest easy. Lavrenti Pavlovich
Beria will see to it that the work of oppression and
butchery which was begun by the master is carried for-
ward by his loyal and prized pupil.
This is Beria, the butcher. He is Malenkov's right fist.
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CHAPTER XV
Malenkov's Elder Statesman: Molotov
VIACHESLAV MIKHAILOVICH MOLOTOV was born in the
village of Kukarka, now known as Sovietsk, on March 9,
1890. One thing distinguishes him from all the others
who have achieved top positions since Stalin's death: he
is the only one who can really be called an "old Bolshe-
vik." He alone has a political history which precedes the
October '17 revolution which brought the Bolsheviks to
power, and played a prominent, though modest role in
the Party and the government from the beginning.
Now, at the age of 63, Molotov is Russia's Foreign Min-
ister, First Deputy Premier (although listed second be-
hind Beria among First Deputies), and member of the
Presidium of the Communist Party of Russia. But these
are no promotions for the old warhorse of Stalinism.
Thirteen years ago he was Chairman of the Council of
People's Commissars, a post which in other countries is
the equivalent of prime minister, and in any event was
second only to the position of Stalin. In fact, his present
position, high as it is, looks very much like a slight de-
motion.
The estimates of Molotov's ability have varied through
the years. Twenty-five years ago the story circulated in
Moscow that when Stalin had suggested to Lenin that
Molotov, an old and trusted member of the Party, one of
the original editors of Pravda, should be nominated to
the Party Central Committee. Lenin looked at him ques-
tioningly and said, "Why that one?" Stalin repeated Molo-
tov's merits, and Lenin replied: "Well, if you like. But
you know what I think of him; he's the best filing clerk
in Russia."
Trotsky's opinion of Molotov was not much higher. In
his book Stalin (which he was writing when one of
123
124
MALENKOV
"
Beria's agents sank a pickaxe into his brain in Mexico in
1941, he describes the bureau of the Party's Central Com-
mittee in Petrograd at the time of the February revolu-
tion of 1917:
two workingmen, Shlyapnikov and
Zalutsky, and one college boy, Molotov." Elsewhere Trot-
sky reports that Molotov's nickname among the top
leaders in the early years was "lead bottom."
These passing references do not give a true picture of
the man. But they do indicate the idea of his abilities
which was widespread among the old Bolshevik leaders.
It was not that Molotov was considered worthless or
stupid. It was simply that he was surrounded by so many
men of superior talents that he made little impression on
anyone. No one thought of him as a first-rank leader then.
But it turned out his particular qualities were superior
for the place and circumstances in which he lived, than
those of many a more brilliant man.
Molotov is a plodder, a man of slow thought and halt-
ing speech. He is square-faced, thick-set, stolid and color-
less. A thick drooping mustache hangs over a stubborn,
determined mouth. He wears out opponents by hammer-
ing away at a point in endless filibustering. He is con-
scientious and steadfast: the kind of a man who is not
easily moved from a course of action once he has set his
mind on it. But the qualities which took him through the
turbulent years of the underground movement against the
Czar, the revolution and civil war, the five year plans
and the great purges are of a different character. This
was an instinct for power, for the way things were going,
and utter ruthlessness in following that instinct to the
end.
Molotov was born Scriabin, the son of a shop assistant
and a close relative of the noted composer, Alexander
Nicholaevich Scriabin. He changed his name to Molotov
(the Hammer) while in prison and exile before the
revolution of 1917. Although the son of fairly prosper-
ous parents, he threw himself into the revolutionary
movement of 1905, after the Russo-Japanese War. He
joined the Bolshevik faction of the Social Democratic
MALENKOV
125
Blanket s
party while still in high school, and received a two-year
sentence of exile from the Czarist police in 1909. After
two months' imprisonment, he was exiled to Vologda
in northern European Russia, where he started organiz-
ing railroad workers. His youth was similar to that of
many young men of all the democratic and socialist
parties during their years of struggle against the Czarist
autocracy. He was arrested five times, and escaped. Much
of his time was spent in underground hiding from the
police. For a good deal of it he lived in the Viborg dis-
trict of St. Petersburg, a working-class quarter with
strong revolutionary traditions.
As was the case with most of the "professional revo-
lutionaries" who led the Bolshevik party in those days,
Molotov was closely involved in the constant discussions
and disagreements over strategy and tactics. Unlike the
Stalinist parties of the world today, that was an organi-
zation with a lively atmosphere of debate and disagree-
ment. Lenin was a recognized leader of great stature, but
he had to win his arguments; they were not enforced by
the machine from above.
The first time Molotov tangled with Lenin was when
the former was secretary of the editorial board of Pravda
in Petersburg in 1913. Lenin was in exile in Cracow.
The paper had adopted a "soft" or conciliatory line
toward the so-called "liquidators," the socialists who
thought that due to the Czarist terror and the general
atmosphere in the country it would be better not to try
to rebuild the party.
Lenin was for a complete break with these people,
whom he considered cowardly and a hindrance to the
development of labor struggles. But the editorial board
of Pravda edited his articles and struck out the attacks
on the "liquidators." Lenin was furious, but sitting in
exile in Cracow, he could do little.
To a friend in Petersburg, Lenin wrote that the whole
editorial board was "stupid." "They are not men, but
pitiful dishrags and they are ruining the cause," he
126
MALENKOV
wrote. "We must plant our own editorial staff on Pravda
and kick the present one out."
When the Czar was overthrown in February 1917,
Molotov happened to be one of the few Bolsheviks of
any standing in the capital. Lenin was in Switzerland,
and most of the other prominent leaders in exile either
inside or outside the country. Kamenev and Stalin were
the first members of the Central Committee to get into
Petersburg. As was often the case in those days, Stalin
tended to hew a neutral line between the factions and
policies of the socialist movement. Molotov was for a
firmer policy. At the March 1917 conference of the Bolshe-
vik party he vigorously opposed the idea of unification
with the Mensheviks, a notion favored by Stalin.
But as the real leaders of the party got back into ac-
tion, Molotov faded into the background. He was not
one of the leaders of the party, but one of its wheel-
horses. Although today it is difficult to distinguish fact
from fiction where the lives of the present leaders of the
Russian government are concerned, it appears that in
1918 he was put in charge of the nationalization pro-
gram in northwestern Russia, including Petrograd. In
1919, after the White commander Kolchak and his Czech
allies had been expelled from the Volga region, he was
sent in to take charge of the reconstruction. A year later
he had a more important job of the same kind in the
industrial Donets Basin in the Ukraine.
Although for a leader his assignments had been rou-
tine, his worth was recognized, and at the Ninth Party
Congress in 1920 he was elected an alternate to the Cen-
tral Committee. Next year, at the 10th Congress, he be-
came a full fledged member. During the same year he
was elected a candidate to the Politburo, and in 1922 he
was one of two assistants to the newly created post of
General Secretary, occupied by Stalin.
This was indeed a rapid rise for a slow-moving, cau-
tious man. He was now in the Secretariat, which behind
the back of the Party was rapidly becoming a real center
of power. It was supposed to be concerned with the as-
F
MALENKOV
127
signment of Party personnel to the many tasks needed by
the struggling young government. But actually Stalin
was using his post to build up his own machine inside the
Party. Molotov had been in close touch with the various
Bolshevik groups in western Russia during the previous
years, while up to 1917 most of the other leaders had
been abroad, or like Stalin, in distant exile. The job of
the Secretariat, as Stalin used it, was to see to it that men
loyal to him were placed in positions of power; preferably
men who owed their position to him, and not to their
own ability or popularity in the country or Party.
From that time till Stalin died, the thing which dis-
tinguished Molotov was his practically unswerving loy-
alty to the boss. He saw his star, and he hitched his wagon
to it. In the Secretariat he was in excellent position to
observe the real power which Stalin was gaining in the
Party organization, and the relative weakness of his
opponents.
Lenin fell gravely ill two months after Stalin became
General Secretary of the Party. Although he recovered
partially and was able to resume work in 1923, it was
evident that he would never be really well again. The
Secretariat stepped up its activity. With great care, so as
not to arouse the suspicions and hostility of Lenin and
the other leaders too much, the process of weeding out
independent revolutionists and replacing them with bu-
reaucrats beholden to Stalin went ahead.

Molotov stayed in the background, but he had made
his choice. It was not primarily a question of choosing
between Stalin the man, and Trotsky or some other Bol-
shevik leader. The real issue was much larger. The revo-
lutionary enthusiasm, the democratic aspirations of the
early days of workers' power in Russia had been dulled
and exhausted in the blood and starvation of the civil
war. Tens of thousands of the socialist idealists who had
been the sparkplugs of the revolution had fallen on the
far-flung battlefields of the civil war, or had been worn
down by moral and physical exhaustion. Their place had
been taken by a new type of man: more administrators
128
MALENKOV
than revolutionists, men more accustomed to wielding
power than to fighting tyranny, men who regarded the
new society as a chance to "make good" than as a step
forward in the progress of humanity.
Every leader and vast numbers of the rank and file
knew that sooner or later they would have to face the
question: with the stream or against it? Should they
adapt themselves to the slowly growing conservatism, and
take the easy way of ruling over the masses through the
organs of state power which had been developed during
the civil war, or should they combat the creeping bu-
reaucratism, and fight for an expansion of democracy in
the country?
The choice did not present itself sharply, in a clear-cut
manner which a man could face and decide in a day or
a week. The bureaucratization of Russia was a slow, la-
borious process. It consisted of granting the leaders a
small privilege here, and a little concession there. It
showed its face in the growing rudeness with which offi-
cials treated the common man, in the cropping up of
scandalous abuses of power by Party or State officers.
In the twenties when the chief battles in this silent war
were being fought, the economic privileges of the bu-
reaucracy were still very minor, even though they were
already significant. They did not ride around in shiny
limousines, and inhabit fancy villas outside town. They
did not work in plush offices, surrounded like our great
corporation executives, by a small army of vice-presidents
and lesser officials. But they had a little more to eat, and
were already housed a little better than the ordinary
workers.
Just how far the Party was from its present aristocratic
attitude and way of life (the workers in Russia now refer
to the high officials as "Bolshevik magnates," or "the
party bosses") is illustrated by an episode from Alexan-
der Barminc's One Who Survived. Barmine had been
expelled from the War College during a purge which
took place during the early twenties. He felt he had been
MALENKOV
129
treated unjustly, and decided to appeal to the Central
Committee of the Party. Here is what happened:
"Vyacheslav Molotov, then secretary of the Central
Committee, was available for interviews any day. I went
to a two-storied, yellow-painted house in Vosdvizhenka
Street, not far from the Kremlin. My Party card gave me
admittance. 'First room on the right,' I was told. The
room was huge, badly kept, and poorly furnished. There
was a table in the middle surrounded by chairs. Several
people were waiting, seated near the door. At the far
end, in front of the window, was a smaller table, cov-
ered with papers and with several telephones. Molotov
sat there talking with a workman. He had a very large
and placid face, the face of an ordinary, uninspired, but
rather soft and kindly bureaucrat, attentive and unas-
suming. He listened to me carefully, made one or two
notes, asked a few questions, and said, stuttering slightly:
‘All right. I'll do what I can for you.'
"Four days later my sentence of expulsion was reversed.
The authorities made a good many mistakes in those
days, but some of them were thus quickly repaired. The
deinocratic spirit of the Party then still revealed itself
in direct contact between members and officials, and also
in a simplicity of manners which at times came near
to crudeness.
The struggle between the new bureaucracy and the
representatives of the democratic traditions of the rev-
olution began before Lenin died. But with the removal
of his great personal prestige and authority from the
scene, it broke out in full fury in 1925. Molotov took his
stand squarely with the bureaucracy, that is, with Stalin.
In December, 1925 he was made a full member of the
Politburo, and was immediately sent to Leningrad with
Kirov and Voroshilov to handle the revolt of Zinoviev
and the Leningrad Party against Stalin. They took
prompt and severe measures in purging the Party of
Zinoviev's supporters. Although Zinoviev, who had been
one of Lenin's closest collaborators, had been undisputed
leader of the Party in Leningrad for years, he once more
130
MALENKOV
showed his fatal inclination to run away from a fight.
He weakened and capitulated. This was the first of a
series of capitulations which finally brought him to the
prisoners' dock in the Moscow trials, where he "con-
fessed" to having been a secret counter-revolutionary for
decades.
The struggle for the complete consolidation of the
bureaucracy as a new ruling class raged for a decade.
Desperation was on its side and it won. The poverty of
Russia recreated the struggle of man against man for a
bigger slice of the pie which was not large enough to
provide plenty for all. The rules for dividing the pie
were now different. A man did not get the lion's share
due to his ownership of property, but rather to his posi-
tion on the bureaucratic ladder. That depended on his
loyalty and unswerving devotion to the men who were
on the ladder above him, and particularly to the man
with the mustache at the very top.
Molotov stuck to Stalin like a leech as one group after
another of their former associates was hurled down into
the abyss. In 1927, Trotsky and his friends were expelled
from the Party.
Molotov was appointed to the key post of Moscow
Party Secretary in 1928.
By the end of 1930 every single leader of stature who
had been prominent in the early days of the revolution
had been kicked off the Politburo.
In December 1930, at the age of forty, Molotov took
Rykov's place as Premier (President of the Council of
Commissars) and as a member of the Council on Labor
and Defense, the only governmental body to which Stalin
belonged at that time.
In seven years from Lenin's death, Stalin had defeated
the most famous and popular leaders of the Bolshevik
revolution.
Trotsky, the organizer of the Red Army, was in exile;
Zinoviev, head of the Communist International; Ry-
kov, head of the government; Bukharin, party theo-
retician and long-time editor of Pravda; Kamenev, mem-
MALENKOV
131
ber of Lenin's first Politburo and Trotsky's brother-in-
law; Tomsky, head of the trade unions-all were gone.
During the days of the First Five-Year Plan Molotov
devoted himself to the problems of industrialization and
collectivization of agriculture. The misery imposed on
the peoples of Russia in these years was enormous. Dur-
ing the collectivization drive tens of thousands of peas-
ants were driven from their land and sent to the slave
camps, and the famine which resulted in the early 'gos
doomed millions to death from starvation. It took strong
nerves and utter ruthlessness for the men who directed
these operations. Molotov never wavered.
During this whole period there is only one bit of evi-
dence of friction between Molotov and Stalin. Although
the relations of the men in the Kremlin have been
shrouded in thick clouds of mystery, this evidence is un-
mistakable.
At the first Moscow trial in August, 1936, the defend-
ants were accused of a plot against the lives of the gov
ernment leaders. The plot, it was charged, had been or-
ganized directly by Zinoviev, Kamenev, and I. N. Smir-
nov. They were acting under orders from Trotsky who,
in turn, had made a deal with the Nazi high command.
Other defendants in the trial, minor figures of no previ-
ous standing, confessed that they had tried to carry out
the assassinations under the orders of their alleged
leaders.
The whole trial was a frame-up, as was demonstrated
two years later by the famous Commission of Inquiry
Into the Charges Made Against Leon Trotsky in the
Moscow Trials, headed by the eminent American philos-
opher, John Dewey. But the point is this: The defend-
ants "confessed" to having tried to kill Stalin, Voroshilov,
Kaganovich, Ordjonikidze, Zhdanov. They claimed the
credit for the actual assassination of Kirov (who had
been shot by a desperate member of the Young Commu-
nist League in 1934). But the name of Molotov is not
mentioned once as a proposed victim.
Yet at that time, Molotov was Chairman of Council
•
132
MALENKOV
of Peoples' Commissars, second man to Stalin in Russia.
The omission is striking, to say the least. The whole pur-
pose of the trial was to paint the "oppositionists" as mad-
dog assassins, agents of Hitler, and to demonstrate to
the hard pressed Russian people that their top leaders
were risking their lives in the all-out struggle against
enemies of the nation, both foreign and domestic. Why
should Molotov not be included in the list of figures
whom the Nazis want destroyed?
Further evidence of the fact that Molotov was in dis-
favor in 1936 is the absence of any prominent mention
of him in the press during the early part of the year. The
usual prominent display of his speeches are lacking, there
are no eulogies of the accomplishments of "the Hammer."
He is simply ignored.
It is impossible to say, at the moment, exactly what
had gone wrong in the relations between the boss and
his chief lieutenant. Is it possible that this man of strong
nerves and ruthless drive for power was still taken aback
at the prospect of dragging the whole revolutionary lead-
ership in the mud before the eyes of the masses? Can it
be that he could not generate the desired enthusiasm for
the spectacle of the trials, in which his old comrades-in-
arms were to "confess" that they had been the agents of
foreign powers all through the decisive years?
There is little in Molotov's history, either before that
time or since which would lead to such conclusions. Of
all the men around Stalin he has been one of the most
brazen in making speeches which were in open contra-
diction to the known facts. Perhaps there was some other
source of friction. In any event, by the time of the last
Moscow trial in March, 1938 (in which the chief defend-
ants were Bukharin, Rykov and Krestinsky), Molotov
appears prominently on the list of men they had "sought"
to kill.
The first indication we have that Molotov was being
groomed for a post in the foreign-policy department was
a speech he delivered to the All-Union Soviet Congress
in January, 1935, in which he explained Russia's entry
:
MALENKOV
133
into the League of Nations. It is characteristic that Mol-
otov explained and justified this act in terms of uniting
the "democratic" powers against the Nazis. Yet he was
the man who less than five years later was to sign the
Nazi-Soviet Pact which started World War II, and to
whom is attributed the famous remark "Fascism is a mat-
ter of taste."
Between 1935 and 1939, although his pronouncements
on foreign policy became more frequent, no one thought
of him as a major figure in international affairs. In 1936
his wife visited the United States and lunched with Mrs.
Eleanor Roosevelt. She was supposed to be inspecting
the American cosmetics industry, as the new standard of
living of the bureaucracy had naturally led their wives
to giving more thought to a personal appearance which
befitted their new location in society. Actually, however,
she was trying also to get American agreement to build
a battleship for Russia, a deal which fell through.
By 1939 the Kremlin was coming to the conclusion that
it had more to gain by a deal with Hitler than by con-
tinuing its alliance with France and Britain. For four
years the whole Communist International had been mo-
bilized to urge "collective security" of the "democracies”
(including Russia) against Hitler Germany. But Britain
and France looked feeble compared to the might of the
"New Order" in Germany. After Czechoslovakia was sold
down the river at Munich, Stalin made up his mind that
most was to be gained by coming to terms with the "Hit-
lerite beasts."
Litvinov had been Commissar of Foreign Affairs, and
his name was most prominently linked with the "collec-
tive security" policy. On May 3, 1939, he was called to a
conference by Stalin. When he arrived, he found Molotov
in the room with the boss. After he sat down at the table,
Molotov opened up by informing him that the govern-
ment had decided to improve its relations with Hitler,
and to sign a pact with the Nazis if possible. As a Jew,
and a famous enemy of such a policy, Litvinov stood in
the way.
184
MALENKOV
The Commissar of Foreign Affairs argued against the
new policy. He got angry, pounded the table, marshaled
all the arguments against it. Stalin sat with a bored look
on his face, and sucked his pipe.
After listening for over an hour without saying a word,
he suddenly put down his pipe and said: "Enough." He
shoved a paper across the table to Litvinov and said,
"Sign here." It was Litvinov's letter of resignation. He
signed. Molotov was the Commissar of Foreign Affairs.
On August 23, 1939, the Stalin-Hitler Pact was signed
in Moscow. Nine days later Hitler invaded Poland from
the West, and Stalin followed with his invasion from the
East. World War II had started. During the following
year Russia occupied the Baltic States, tore Bessarabia
from Romania, and fought her abortive war with Fin-
land. The Nazi-Soviet pact seemed to be paying off. But
on June 22, 1941, Hitler launched his invasion of Russia
by way of the countries recently occupied by Stalin, and
within a few weeks they had again been lost by the
Kremlin.
Molotov was the front man for the Stalin-Hitler Pact.
He was given the job of explaining and justifying it to
the world, and the stunned peoples of Russia. He deliv-
ered the speech on the pact to the Supreme Soviet which
dutifully ratified it on August 29. He attacked the British
and French for not being sincere in their negotiations
with Russia, and the Poles for refusing to accept "mili-
tary assistance from the Soviet Union." (The type of
"assistance" they could expect was demonstrated in the
Russian invasion a few days later, and in the mutilation
of their country which followed World War II.) "We
could not but explore," he went on, "other possibilities
of insuring peace and eliminating the danger of war be-
tween Germany and the USSR.'
This is one of the reasons why Molotov has such a
reputation for toughness. He simply has no principles,
or rather, he has only one principle: do what the boss
says, and do it well.
After Russia had been forced into the war, Molotov
MALENKOV
135
continued to play a prominent diplomatic role. He ac-
companied Stalin to Yalta, Teheran and Potsdam, where
he found it just as easy to get along with the Western
representatives as he had with the Nazis when policy
required it. At Yalta in February 1945 Stalin pulled one
of his typical stunts the purpose of which is to humiliate
his subordinates. The Nazi-Soviet pact was somehow
mentioned, and Churchill said that he had always con-
demned it. Stalin beckoned to Molotov. "Come here," he
said, maliciously, “and explain your pact with Hitler."
On May 6, 1941, a little more than a month before
Hitler struck, Stalin took over the chairmanship of the
Council of Peoples Commissars. This was not really a
demotion for Molotov. Everyone recognized that Stalin
had always been the boss, and that his decision to take
over the formal leadership of the government must be
based on some crisis which was approaching. Molotov
continued to have as much prestige as ever. He repre-
sented Russia in the chief wartime and post-war con-
ferences. When people think of the cold war, they are as
likely as not to think of Molotov insisting on the veto at
the San Francisco conference; Molotov "conferring" for
weeks with the other foreign ministers, but not even
agreeing on an agenda, etc.
None of these actions necessarily reflects his own per-
sonality. They are the decisions of the Russian govern-
ment, which up till recently meant the decisions of
Stalin. But there can be no question that in carrying
them out, specially in the period of the cold war, Molo-
tov has shown a certain flair of his own. No one can be
as stony-faced as he. No one can look his colleagues from
the other governments right in the eye and tell them
that black is white one day, green the next and purple
on the third as well as he.
In his book, War or Peace, Secretary of State John
Foster Dulles has a remarkable section on Molotov's
diplomatic skill as observed at the first meeting of the
Council of Foreign Ministers in London in 1945. Dulles
was much impressed with the clever way in which Molo-
136
MALENKOV
tov played on the personalities and national weaknesses
of the men he was dealing with. He treated each one
differently, and the difference was directly related to the
power of the country which each represented. Although
his behavior was often extremely rude, it was very effec-
tive.
"Mr. Molotov put on a remarkable performance,"
Dulles writes. "His techniques, different in each case,
were carried out with extraordinary skill. I have seen in
action all the great international statesmen of this cen-
tury, beginning with those who met at the Hague Peace
Conference of 1907. I have never seen personal diplo-
matic skill at so high a degree of perfection as Mr. Molo-
tov's at that session."
In 1949, just ten years after he had become foreign
minister of Russia, Molotov was succeeded by Vishinsky
in that post. At the time there was speculation that "the
Hammer" was finally on the skids. But he retained his
post as vice premier and on the Politburo of the Com-
munist Party. Reports have it that in recent years he has
been paying more attention to affairs in the Far East,
and that he has been in personal charge of the war in
Korea. Be that as it may, when Stalin died he once more
became Foreign Minister and is second in the list of
First Deputy Premiers.
Yet Viacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov is not where he
may have expected to be. For years, outsiders have
thought that Stalin's succession would fall either to Beria
or to him. And "the Hammer" may well wonder whether
even his present high estate will remain with him for
long.
E
CHAPTER XVI
Malenkov's Generals
OF THE THREE MEN who form the top of the military
side of Malenkov's pyramid, only one is a professional
soldier, a military commander: Marshal Georgi Zhukov.
Significantly, he is not at the top. After Stalin's death he
was recalled from obscurity to become Deputy War
Minister, behind Bulganin who is his chief.
Nikolai Alexandrovich Bulganin, Marshal of the Soviet
Union, Minister of War, First Deputy Premier, member
of the Central Committee and Presidium of the Com-
munist Party, is a true product of the Stalinist bureau-
cracy. He has a thatch of gray hair topping a high fore-
head, gray mustache and goatee, fairly pleasant expres-
sion and good looks. During the major part of his politi-
cal career he has held one government or Party post
after the other. He does not, and never has represented
"the army," that is the officer section of the Russian rul-
ing class. He has always represented the Party leader-
ship, and his military assignments were Party assign-
ments to military work.
Bulganin was born in 1895, the son of a white-collar
employee. Little is known of his early life, as even Stalin-
ist "history" writing finds it difficult to create a political
past out of absolutely nothing. It is said that he joined
the Bolshevik Party in 1917, and took part in the civil
war against the Czech and White Russian forces in Si-
beria. In the early years of the revolution he was active
in the Cheka (secret police) at Nizhnii Novgorod, in
Moscow and in Central Asia. In 1922 he was assigned to
the construction department of Elektrozavod, the largest
electrical-equipment plant in Russia, and later became
187
138
MALENKOV
its manager. He received the Order of Lenin for distin-
guished work in the field.
Bulganin was one of "Stalin's men," one of those
whom the General Secretary of the Party, via his local
henchmen was picking and choosing for advancement in
the Party. In 1931 Kaganovich, then the boss of the Mos-
cow organization, elevated Bulganin to Chairman of the
City Soviet. From 1933 to 1937 he was in direct charge
of constructing the famous Moscow subway, first under
Kaganovich and later under Khrushchev.
In 1938 he was suddenly switched to the chairmanship
of the State Bank of the USSR, and with it achieved the
rank of Commissar, a position in the Cabinet, and vice-
premiership of the Union. It should be noted that sud-
den promotions and switches in that year were likely to
be connected with the disappearance of predecessors into
the NKVD cellars.
This was an extremely important post in the over-all
direction of the Five-Year Plans. The State Bank per-
formed a function which combines that of our own
Treasury, Federal Reserve Board, Reconstruction Finance
Corporation, and the major investment banks of the
country combined, if we can imagine all these institutions
pulling together in the development of a planned and
centralized economy.
In 1939 Bulganin was elected to the Central Commit-
tee of the Communist Party, and also was a delegate to
the Council of Nationalities. His first connection with
the army came two years later, as the Germans approached
Moscow. He was appointed Political Commissar of the
armies fighting on that front under the military com-
mand of Marshals Zhukov and Timoshenko.
After the successful campaign before Moscow, he was
given the military rank of Lieutenant-General, and in
November 1944 was promoted to a full General of the
Army. He took Voroshilov's place in the "inner war cabi-
net" during the same year, when the latter went out to
Siberia to organize the armies which were to enter the
war against Japan. Bulganin became a candidate mem-
MALENKOV
139
ber of the Politburo in 1946, and succeeded Stalin as
Minister of War, when the Generalissimo gave up that
post two years after the war was over. It was at that time
that Bulganin was made a Marshal.
Although Bulganin will be 58 years old next June, he
is one of the real "self made" men of the Party. Actually,
of course, this should read "made by Stalin." As a com-
petent and ruthless Party stalwart from beginning to
end, there is no question of his "representing the army"
in any possible struggle for power. He represents the
domination of the Party over the army. But for that very
reason none of the real prestige which the army won dur-
ing the war attaches to him. To add some of that pres-
tige to the government after Stalin died another, different
type of man was needed. That man is Georgi Zhukov.
Zhukov with his irregular, coarse, worried looking
countenance, is and has always been an army man, a pro-
fessional soldier. He was a junior commander of the Red
Army during the civil war, and his whole career has been
a military one since then, with no Party connections of
consequence. (All top military men in Russia are mem-
bers of the Party, as a matter of form.) He was one of
those who survived the purge which literally decimated
the officer corps during the 30's. As the most brilliant
military men of the country, headed by Tukhachevsky,
were executed in 1937 the Russian Army found itself
decapitated when the Germans struck in '41. Stalin's mili-
tary pets, Voroshilov and Budenny proved utter failures,
the first in the North, the second in the South. They were
both removed from active command of troops in the
field. The new officer corps had to be forged in the cru-
cible of war, at the expense of disastrous defeats, lives of
millions of soldiers, and the occupation and devastation
of some of the most developed parts of their country. But
eventually, through the most brutal process of selection
which can be imagined, a new group of competent leaders
came to the top. One of them was Marshal Zhukov. He
had been appointed Chief of Staff just before Hitler
struck. He led the defense of Moscow, which was the first
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MALENKOV
and really mortal blow suffered by the Nazi armies. He
played a major role at Stalingrad and in raising the siege
of Leningrad. He took Warsaw, and commanded the
armies which captured Berlin.
Together with Eisenhower and Montgomery, Zhukov
sat on the Allied Control Council in Berlin during the
first "honeymoon" period of the postwar era. He was a
military hero of the Russian people, and the whole world
had the name of Marshal Zhukov on its lips. He received
invitations from America to take part in ticker-tape vic-
tory parades in our cities. He was not permitted to do so.
Stalin had won the war, and he did not want anyone to
get a different idea.
Shortly after the fall of Berlin, General Dwight D.
Eisenhower honored Marshal Zhukov at a banquet in
Frankfort. He later reported the following conversation
with him:
Zhukov: "We've got some of those German synthetic
oil plants that we captured over in our territory. We have
repaired them but we haven't been able to get them run-
ning yet. I understand you've got some running on your
side. Could some of my experts come over and see how
you got yours working?"
Eisenhower: "Sure, send 'em over. We'll show 'em how
to do it."
Zhukov (in a surprised tone): "You mean you don't
have to ask your government?”
Eisenhower: "Of course not. Send 'em on over.”
This is a good example of the degree of "independ-
ence" permitted even the outstanding leaders by the tight
little clique in the Kremlin.
Instead of returning to greater honors in his own
country, Georgi Zhukov was assigned to a minor military
post as commander of the Odessa Military District in the
South of Russia.
There he had a lot of time in which to let his head
shrink back to normal size. Vasilevsky (now also Deputy
Minister of War) was made Chief of Staff.
Zhukov had become too popular, and hence Stalin cut
MALENKOV
141
him down. But now Malenkov's government can stand a
bit of popularity. The problem is to give the generals
and others high in the officer caste the feeling that their
position is secure and will be honored by the new regime,
without giving them too much power at the same time.
They know that Bulganin is not their man, but the man
who has been set to watch over and control them. With
Zhukov up there, they may feel more at ease. And his
figure is supposed to be popular among the people. But
on the other hand, Malenkov and his associates have read
history, and they know the role which the military forces
can easily play in a dictatorship. The problem is to
achieve a proper balance.
Klimenti ("Klim") Voroshilov is included in a list of
generals more out of long tradition than for any other
reason. The position assigned to him after Stalin's death
is the most decorative, and the most powerless of all jobs
in the top hierarchy.
He has replaced Nikolai Shvernik as Chairman of the
Presidium of the Supreme Council. Thus he becomes the
ceremonial head of the country, a job which has always
been held by harmless nobodies.
Except for Molotov, Voroshilov is the only genuine old
Bolshevik at the top. But unlike "the Hammer," he was
a complete unknown before the revolution, a provincial
stalwart of the Party. Born in 1881 in the Ukraine, he
went to work in a mine at the age of seven. The Party
historians say that he joined the Bolshevik wing of the
Social Democrats in 1903, and became the chairman of
the Soviet of Workers' Deputies in Lugansk during the
revolution of 1905.
Like other socialist militants of all factions, he was
arrested and deported several times by the Czarist police.
Although he is said to have attended a couple of socialist
conferences abroad before the revolution, there is noth-
ing to indicate that Lenin or other leaders of the Party
were aware of his existence until the days of the civil war.
Early in 1918 Voroshilov was sent to his home town of
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MALENKOV.
Lugansk by the Party. In order to get there he had to pass
through territory occupied by the German army after the
treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Once on home ground, he organ-
ized a force of partisans who fought from armored trains.
With characteristic bravado, he sent a telegram to the
Central Committee: "With a force of 600 men, consisting
mainly of local workers, we have set out from Lugansk
to meet the German invaders. . . . We are proceeding via
Rodakovo and Kharkov to Konotop. We shall give the
executioners of the proletarian revolution blow for blow."
Characteristically also, he got no farther than Roda-
kovo, his first objective.
Voroshilov next turns up at Tsaritsyn, and it was there
that he formed his unshakable alliance with Stalin, who
had been sent to Tsaritsyn to organize the delivery of
supplies for the cities.
Although from the point of view of the military picture
as a whole Tsaritsyn was relatively unimportant, Stalin
and Voroshilov decided to make a stand there against the
converging White armies. They pointedly ignored orders
from Trotsky, the Commander in Chief. Thus began the
famous feud over "the military question." The real issue
was whether the Red Army should be organized as a
disciplined force under a unified command, or whether
it should consist of partisan forces, more or less autono-
mous in character, who would decide on their own objec-
tives and ways of carrying them out. Another element in
the disagreement was over the use of officers of the Czarist
army as "military technicians" in the Red Army, in view
of the lack of men with experience in commanding large
bodies of troops. Neither Stalin nor Voroshilov could
ever forget the sharp attacks launched against them by
Trotsky.
Voroshilov had a number of commands in the Civil
War. He proved himself a competent divisional com-
mander-most of the "armies" fighting in those days bore
little semblance to modern large-scale operations. But
until Lenin's death and the outbreak of the fight between
the representatives of the bureaucracy and those of the
MALENKOV
143
revolutionary tradition he did not rise very high. He was
made commander of the Moscow Military District in
1924. During the following year Trotsky was replaced as
War Commissar by Mikhail Frunze, an old revolutionist
who had spent many years at hard labor in Siberia. Only
seven months later Frunze died under somewhat suspi-
cious circumstances. He was ordered to undergo a surgical
operation by a special committee of doctors selected by
the Secretariat of the Party to handle his case. His own
doctors had advised him that his weak heart could not
"stand anasthesia.
He was succeded by Voroshilov as Commissar of War,
and at the same time "Klim" was made a full member
of the Politburo without a preliminary stage as candidate.
Voroshilov was Stalin's man, and everyone knew it. He
helped Molotov to crush the Zinoviev opposition in Len-
ingrad, and was an active Stalin partisan throughout. He
stood by while the flower of his army command was
mowed down before his eyes in 1937. As Commissar of
War he was Stalin's direct representative in the highest
military echelons.
Apparently Stalin took his old friend seriously as a
military commander. He had done a good administrative
job in preparing and arming the Russian forces by 1941,
considering the backwardness of the economy of the coun-
try. Until the army was demoralized by the purge of 1937,
it had undoubtedly been built up into one of the most
formidable fighting forces in the world. Under Tukha-
chevsky's brilliant command it was the first to develop
large-scale paratroop formations, and in World War II
its "Katashka" rocket-launchers pioneered in the applica-
tion of these missiles in the military field.
1
But when the German Panzer divisions bore down on
the northern front where he was placed in over-all com-
mand he proved lacking. Other generals were demoted or
shot for similar failures. Stalin simply withdrew Voro-
shilov from command of troops, and put him to work
organizing in the rear where he had real administrative
and political value.
}
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MALENKOV
Klim Voroshilov had been replaced as Defense Com-
missar by Timoshenko in June, 1940, after the disasters
of the first phase of the war against Finland. Now, in the
new setup after his friend and protector Stalin has left
the world, he no longer is connected with military affairs
at all. The handsomest man among the leading group
with his entirely gray hair and mustache, broad Slavic
features, and straight thin line of mouth, he has been
kicked upstairs to decorate what is called in the West the
post of President of the Soviet Union. No one thinks of
Klim as a possible factor in any future struggle for power.
But his loyalty to the ruling group in Russia assures that
he will do his utmost to keep things quiet, to prevent any
such struggle from taking place.
PART THREE
{
CHAPTER XVII
What's Ahead Now?
WILL IT BE A CAT-AND-DOG FIGHT inside the Kremlin? Will
the serfs and slaves of the Soviets revolt? Does the rise of
Malenkov mean war or peace for the West?
All this is one question, not three.
The following has more to do with the answer than all
the guesses that are being made about Malenkov's own
intentions.
Tito is visiting Stalin in Moscow on the very last
friendly visit he paid to the Boss before the two broke.
Stalin urges the Yugoslav dictator to pull a maneuver to
get around the people's growing discontent: it is nothing
less than to restore ex-King Peter, whom the Communists
overthrew, to the throne-
"Just for a short time," advises Stalin. "When you have
used him, it is not difficult to stick a knife under his
shoulder blades."
M
Such are the rules of power among the Soviet bureau-
crats. These are the rules of power also inside the Krem-
lin.
If the new gang around Malenkov starts sticking knives
into each other, the West will have a breathing-space in
the cold war.
The rules of power among the Soviet masters do not
always call for sticking knives. They sometimes call for
"salami tactics."
Matthias Rakosi has explained what "salami tactics"
are. He is the Stalinist fuehrer in Hungary, and he knows
the rules as well as anyone. In one of the frankest articles
ever written by a top Stalinist leader, he explains how his
Hungarian Communist Party took power in the country
147
148
MALENKOV
with only a tiny minority of supporters, ousting the
majority Smallholders Party. Here's the heart of it:
"In March 1946 we formed the Leftist Bloc within the
independent front which included the Communists, So-
cial-Democrats, the Peasant Party and the Trade Union
Congress. We demanded the elimination of the reaction-
ary elements from the Smallholders Party, and to begin
with, 21 deputies were expelled.
"After this success we adopted 'salami tactics', i.e., we
kept on cutting down the power of the Smallholders
Party, slice by slice, so to speak, as you do the salami . . .
(Rakosi in the February-March 1952 issue of the Buda-
pest periodical Tarsadalmi Szenile.)
This is another rule of power inside the Kremlin too.
The successful knife-wielder does not always stick the
dagger-point under the shoulder blades. First he lops off
limb after limb of the other fellow's power, slice after
slice of his influence.
This takes time. While the salami slicer operates in
the Kremlin and down through the ranks of the bureauc-
racy, the West will have its breathing-spell.
The scared men of the Kremlin are now jittery over
two things. They are not only jittery about the danger
from the people under their boots; they are jittery about
each other. “Üneasy sits the crown . . ." Caesar is dead and
"a Caesar has no heirs." Stalin's word may be enough to
give Malenkov the inside track, but it is not enough to
keep the rivals from each other's throats. The underlings
who cringed at Stalin's nod are now on their own, playing
for their own stakes.
An optimistic picture can be built up of imminent
scrambles for power among the top Ten. It would be only
half true. The West cannot count on an immediate split
to disorganize the bureaucratic machine. That is for to-
morrow, not today, because Malenkov and his uneasy
colleagues understand all this a hundred times better
than we, and they know that their main danger to them-
selves comes from themselves.
That is why their every effort right now is bent to
MALENKOV
149
present a united front to the Soviet people and to the
world. Their eyes must be turned inward.
This is why their very bulletins on the illness and death
of Stalin were filled with warnings about "unity." Even
before the Boss's death, the medical bulletins themselves,
detailing Stalin's temperature and heartbeats, carried ap-
peals for unity and a solid front.
This is why Moscow's formal announcement of Stalin's
death had as much to say about "unity" as it had praise
for the dead leader:
"In these sorrowful days, all the peoples of our country
are rallying even closer
•
"The steel-like unity and monolithic unity of the ranks
of the party constitutes the main condition for its strength
and might. Our task is to guard like the pupil of our eye
the unity of the Party
Malenkov, Beria and Molotov were even forced to come
out with a damning confession: they decried "dissension
and panic" because of one man's death. Whose dissen-
sion, whose panic?
Another giveaway was the minute detail in which the
course of Stalin's medical care was given, and in which
the steps in his treatment are described. Why? Because it
is widely believed that the deaths of other Soviet leaders
-Zhdanov, Gorki, Ordjonikidze, Frunze and many others
-were in reality inner-Kremlin assassinations. The scared
men at Stalin's corpse were anxious to show that Stalin
was dying a natural death.
The Yugoslav Titoists have even told the world that
they-who know the rules of power in Moscow-are con-
vinced that Stalin's body was already cold when his "ill-
ness" was announced. This is frankly a stab in the dark,
not based on any direct evidence. But they may be right.
The scared men might have needed at least a few days to
prepare for the impact.
"We know those people," said one of Tito's righthand
men. "We know them all personally and we know just
what can be expected of them."
In a rigid totalitarian machine, the passing of Number
150
MALENKOV
One always means a power vacuum. Conflicting cliques
try to crowd into the vacuum. No one has to tell Malen-
kov or Beria that they can trample each other to death.
Stalin once observed that "the struggle between the
old and the new, between what is dying and being born,
is the basis of our development." It can also be the basis
of the new gang's downfall. An immediate open struggle
inside the family may release popular discontents which
can end by sweeping them all away.
The order of the day becomes "Tighten our ranks!”
As a result even one of Stalin's last decisions is ignored
in the interest of a tighter front. Only last year, at the
19th Party Congress of the ruling party, the Politburo
was abolished and party control put in the hands of a
“Presidium” of 25 members and 11 alternates. One of the
first acts of Malenkov was to cut this unwieldy number
down to 10 members and 4 alternates.
"Panic" and disorganization is the main enemy. It is
useless to go into scholarly comparisons with such events
as the breakup of Genghis Khan's empire on his death:
The fundamental institution of Stalinland, which ce-
ments it together under the whip, was never known to
Genghis Khan. That is the Party machine, and if the
Party machine remains united, Malenkov will weather
it through. After that the scores can be settled among the
top Ten, by the knife in the shoulder-blades or by the
salami slicer.
But meanwhile the West has a breathing-space, while
Malenkov repairs the fences at home and in his empire.
It is erroneous to expect Malenkov to resort to foreign
adventures and aggressive actions in order to consolidate
all opposition against the external foe.
There is not a single competent authority on the Rus-
sion world who believes this. The reason for this is the
second factor which will determine war-or-peace for
Malenkov.
In war the Soviet empire will undergo its greatest
strain. This was true even before Stalin's death.
MALENKOV
151
If the mere fact of Stalin's death raises the specter of
"dissension and panic" before the regime, involvement
in a war at this time would be fatal.
The Soviet empire is a newly won, ramshackle struc-
ture held together by terror through the use of vast re-
sources of organized controls from above. In wartime the
resources must be shifted over to a mighty effort against
the military enemy. The Irish revolutionists used to say,
"England's difficulty is Ireland's opportunity." For the
people of Russia, every difficulty of the Kremlin is a
chance for them to draw an easier breath.
Even within Soviet Russia, the majority of the people
are not Russians. Fifty-four per cent belong to other
nationalities, mainly living in the minority "republics"
which compose the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics.
Strictly speaking, as a matter of fact, the word "Russia"
denotes only one of these republics, the biggest and
dominant one among them, also known as "Great-
Russia."
But 12 out of the 14 republics of the Soviet consist
overwhelmingly of other peoples who traditionally hate
the Great-Russians. These include Ukrainians, Estoni-
ans, Lithuanians, Latvians, Georgians, Moldavians, Ka-
zakhs, etc. During the war whole republics were wiped
out by Stalin because their people were deemed "un-
reliable." Their populations were herded into dispersion
over the whole land, almost overnight. In the Ukraine
we now know that when the Nazis invaded during the
war, substantial sections of the population welcomed
them at first, with open arms. These people learned bet-
ter when the Hitlerites behaved like Hitlerites, but it
was only the true face of Nazi barbarism which threw
these Ukrainians back into the arms of Moscow, while
still hating the Muscovite rulers.
The Ukraine is among the largest of these non-Rus-
sian republics of "Russia," and it is also the scene of the
widest-scale opposition to the regime among the people.
It was only some of the reactionary Ukrainian national-
ists who were even willing to make common cause with
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MALENKOV
the Nazis. During the war the largest band of Ukraiman
fighters for freedom took arms in hand to war against
both Hitler and Stalin. This was the movement named
the UPA, which stands for Ukrainian People's Army.
After the end of the war the UPA rebels continued
their military action, as anti-Stalin guerrillas in the
Ukrainian marshes and forests. It was not a mass army,
under conditions of constant harassment by the troops
of Beria, but it enjoyed virtually complete sympathy
from the peasants of the countryside. In March 1950 its
commander-in-chief, General Taras Chuprinka, was
killed in a clash with Beria's troops.
The existence of this anti-Stalin underground resist-
ance has been acknowledged by the authorities, who
berate it as a league of "bandits." In a decree of Decem-
ber 30, 1949, the government called on them to quit
fighting, but incidentally it also admitted that only re-
cently "hundreds of youth" had gone underground to
join their ranks.
Since about 1950, these forces have been transformed
into more of a political underground than a military
resistance, waiting their chance.
Malenkov-and even more his man Khrushchev, who
was overlord in the Ukraine for years-knows what to
expect if Moscow is embroiled directly in war with the
West.
The Ukraine is not the only focus of discontent. Since
the beginning of the war, nine regions of the Soviet have
had to be totally liquidated by Stalin: These were:
(1) The Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Republic.
(2) The Crimean Autonomous Republic (Tatar popu-
lation only).
(3) The Kalmuck Autonomous Republic.
(4) The Volga-German Autonomous Republic.
(5) The Balkarian Autonomous Republic.
(6) The Karachayev Autonomous District.
(7) The Kyzlar National Region.
(8) The Adygey Autonomous District (in this case the
MALENKOV
153
district still exists, but the entire original population has
been removed and replaced by Russians).
(9) The national minorities of the Taman Region.
Here is one of the questions that stares Malenkov in
the face: if war breaks out, how many more republics and
regions will have to be wiped out?
Look to the west of the Ukraine: between the borders
of the USSR and Western Europe lie the new Russian
satellites from the Balkans up to Poland. Each one is a
tinder box.
During the year 1951 alone, seventy-one government
and Communist leaders were purged and liquidated in
these states. This "Malenkov purge" is still going on.
This turmoil is going on among the loyal-Communist
tops. But this Malenkov purge is only super-added to the
fundamental hatred of the people.
The Eastern European people have not been "Stalin-
ized," let alone "Malenkovized." Russian-style concen-
tration camps dot their countries, but they are not "in
hand."
Taking the year 1951 alone, here is the sort of resist
ance which bedevils the conquerors:
Romania: Two Soviet ammunition trains blown up
south of Jassy in early June . . . A Soviet military train
derailed near Feteshi in July .. Near Copsa Mica 18
Russians were killed when another Soviet ammunition
train was blown up .
.. Rebellious farmers killed a mili-
tia captain and two of his men in the village of Pis-
cul.
Poland: In May President Bierut told his Communist
Central Committee that "sabotage and wrecking are in-
creasing."... Twice during the year the Soviet express
from Moscow to Warsaw was wrecked.
Czechoslovakia: Twenty-five tons of grain destroyed at
Nove Zamky by saboteurs' fires . . . A resistance band
seizes 100 rifles and thousands of cartridges from an arms
depot near Brno.
•
CHAPTER XVIII
War or Peace?
MALENKOV THINKS of war or peace more in terms of
such rebellious ferment than in terms of the diplomatic
speeches at the United Nations.
War or peace? First things first, for Malenkov. Right
on the flanks of his nervous satellites is the dread ex-
ample of Tito of Yugoslavia.
But we cannot kid ourselves, here in the West, that
Moscow's captive empire is going to fall apart in a series
of Titoist rebellions by the satellite leaders. The defec-
tion of one Tito was a terrible lesson to the Kremlin.
But the push is still there behind all of the branch-office
sub-fuehrers, and Malenkov will have his hands full.
Above all, he has his hands full with Mao Tse-tung's
China. Is Mao an obedient puppet of the Kremlin, or is
he becoming another Tito? Ñeither.
Every evidence shows that Mao, self-made dictator of
Soviet China, is following a third course which is not
either one of the two which Americans discuss so darkly.
And this accounts for Mao's behavior on the death of
Stalin.
The Chinese dictator has given no indication that he
wants to break with Moscow. At the same time, he has
not behaved like the other satellite leaders. He did not
say "Excuse me" every time Stalin sneezed.
Mao is reaching for the status of an independent part-
ner with Moscow within the Soviet empire.
This is exactly what Tito himself was after up to 1948.
Stalin refused to concede. Yugoslavia must either bend to
him or break; it broke-but not in pieces, merely away
from Moscow. There is absolutely no doubt that if Stalin
had been willing to go along with a partnership arrange-
154
MALENKOV
155
ment, rather than a puppet setup, Yugoslavia would to-
day still be a loyal member of the Soviet empire.
Mao's aim is the same. In this sense he is already “an-
other Tito," but the Tito of pre-1948, not the Tito of
today. Mao has declared his independence within the
empire in numerous ways. Only the last was the fact that
he alone, among the heads of the Soviet countries outside
Russia, failed to come to Moscow on the death of Stalin
and sent instead Chou En-lai, his premier. In China
alone, and not in any of the Eastern European satellites,
is Mao's picture carried along in parades and displayed
in public places in positions as prominent as Stalin's por-
traits and in sizes as big as Stalin's. In China alone do the
newspapers couple the names of Mao and Stalin as equals,
coordinately.
Mao has already recognized Malenkov as the successor
of Stalin-in Russia. But only in Russia. The death of
Stalin will not be used by the Chinese to pull out of their
alliance with Moscow. It will be used only to increase the
independence of the Chinese partner of Moscow within
the firm.
It will take a long time before all the portraits of Stalin
in China are replaced by pictures of Malenkov!
And so Malenkov will have his hands full, but not ex-
actly for the reason that uninformed Westerners expect.
It is not a "Titoist" break by Mao that he has to fear-
unless he tries to push his luck, and his demands, too
hard. There will be a tug of war between Peiping and
Moscow within the family.
Outside of Russia, no national Soviet leader is as pow-
erful at home as Mao, but the same tug will be felt else-
where in the empire. The satellite dictators also Want to
Be Like Stalin-they want to be as powerful in their own
countries as Stalin was in his, or as Malenkov aims to be
now. They want to be dictators like Stalin in their own
right, not puppets of a foreign dictator. They want to be
"national-Stalinists."
So-does Malenkov want war or peace? There is one
thing Malenkov wants first. It is power to decide himself
}
MALENKOV
156
•
¦
¿
on such questions, with a docile Presidium behind him
and a docile empire at his side. And until he has solved
this his eyes will be turned inward on the empire itself.
At the bier of Stalin, Malenkov pledged himself to
peace: "The Soviet Union protects peace, is against war
and is for friendly relations with peoples. The peoples
want peace. We must avert bloodshed and secure peace.
We must avert war and live in peace with all countries.
We consider the policy of peace among all nations is cor-
rect and proper.'
The language sounds like that of a kindergarten les-
son, or like a man repeating a formula by heart. "The
pledge, as a pledge, is as good as any by Stalin: it will
be kept as long as the regime finds it in its interest to do
so. More important then cheap pledges is, perhaps, that
Malenkov did not use the occasion to rail against the
West in the usual Soviet fashion. Still more important
is that Malenkov has not got much choice about choosing
between foreign adventures or internal consolidation.
Even if Malenkov were such a benighted barbarian as
to think of plunging the world into war, it is doubtful
if he yet has enough prestige among his fellows to carry
them along. "Stalin could have decided on a war of ag-
gression against the West," declared Boris Bajanov, Josef
Stalin's private secretary at one time. "He would have
been followed unhesitatingly. On the other hand, the
Russians wouldn't follow Malenkov in spite of his new
powers. He would have to smash serious opposition be-
fore he could start an adventure of his own.'
**
And Malenkov has enough opposition to smash as it
is, right now, without a war.
Also before Malenkov is the same big fact that faced
Stalin: in today's wars, temporary military superiority in
men and arms is not as decisive as industrial strength.
The Soviet bloc, including Russia, China and East
Europe, probably has between nine and eleven million
men in uniform. They are organized, Western experts
believe, in about 400 to 600 divisions of different strength.
:
:
$
MALENKOV
157
Of this total Russia supplies about 4,100,000 men and
about 175 to 200 divisions.
The United States and its allies, including Yugoslavia,
according to military expert Hanson Baldwin, may have
between 8,000,000 and 9,300,000 men in uniform, or-
ganized in 170 to 200 divisions or their equivalent. But
there is a big difference in the way in which the West-
ern and Eastern armed forces are divided between land
forces, sea forces and air forces. The Communist advan-
tage in land power is partly offset by the Allied advan-
tage in sea power. The United States alone has in com-
mission and in reserve a fleet as big as the rest of the
world combined; and the world's second sea power is
Great Britain.
That leaves the air forces. And this has been Malen-
kov's personal special field of concentration for some
years.
Asher Lee, a British authority, wrote in The Soviet Air
Force that Malenkov was Stalin's "principal aide on air
matters in the Politburo." Fortune magazine (February
1953) credits him with being the "overlord of Soviet
aviation."
Stalin once described artillery as "the god of war,” and
in the Second World War, the Russian army was unusual
in its lavish use of massed artillery on every possible occa-
sion. But there is reason to believe that under Malen-
kov's direction the Soviet "god of war" has shifted-to
aviation.
Malenkov will want more time to continue the job he
started under Stalin. In looking ahead, whether toward
war or (for a while) peace, the West has to keep its
eye on what happens to the airplane in Soviet industry.
In quantity, but not necessarily in quality, the Soviet
air forces today represent the world's biggest single pool
of national air power. This is where its greatest effort
has lain since Malenkov took over the job. The MIG-15
was developed under Malenkov's direction. It went into
production only in 1948, and by 1950 its production was
158
MALENKOV
soaring. The current output of the MIG-15 is estimated
to be about 5000 a year.
It was Malenkov who was also responsible for building
up the Soviet long-range air-force arm, the Aviatsiya
Dalnevo Deystviya or ADD. Its buildup started under
Air Marshal A. E. Golovanov a decade ago, but Golo-
vanov's name has not been mentioned in the Soviet press
for years. ADD has now been built up to a strength of
about 1000 planes of the Tu-4 type.
If artillery was Stalin's favorite, aviation is Malenkov's
god. But above both idols is the power that stands behind
every arm of the military-the industry to produce the
weapons. Malenkov knows that the Russian bloc is far
behind the West in this respect. The paradox is: Few peo-
ple doubt that the Russians could begin by overwhelm-
ing Europe up to the Pyrenees. On the other hand,
probably few Russians doubt that in the long pull of a
hard exhausting war, the Soviet empire could not keep
industrial pace with the West.
This brings us back full-circle: the problem of war
and peace for Malenkov goes right back to the strengths
and weaknesses of his economic and social system, where
it is most vulnerable.
The Soviets lash their people: "Produce! Produce!
Catch up with and surpass the decadent democracies of
the West!" And the harder they lash, the more the hatred
of the people mounts under them.
This inactive but live volcano under the Kremlin is
the biggest force for peace in the world.
Multitudes filed past the bier of the departed dic-
tator, but anyone who ever witnessed a great parade
in Red Square knows how little such shows mean. They
are not spontaneous expressions but staged spectacles in
which the marchers are compelled to take part. Of course,
there were some tear-stained faces. But those who were
overjoyed by Stalin's death could scarcely show it in
public. President Eisenhower, almost alone among states-
men, used the occasion to address a message to the Rus-
sian people over the heads of their masters. It was a wise
?
:
MALENKOV
159
and understanding move. He made it clear that Ameri-
cans look to them, despite the Kremlin, to safeguard
"peace and comradeship" in the world. The internal
enemies of the regime who seem to alarm Malenkov and
his brethren are potentially our allies. If psychological
warfare means anything, it means that we must let the
Russian peoples know that our quarrel is not with them
but with their overlords. The end of Stalin has unques-
tionably created an emergency for his successors. The
awe he inspired, the prestige he commanded, were brakes
on internal opposition. Now those brakes have been re-
leased. The consequences of this fact, though not im-
mediately apparent, may prove far-reaching, especially if
we capitalize on it. Our opportunity is to exploit this
favorable interval to convince the intimidated Soviet
population that their Red regime is not invincible, that
its self-anointed demigods have feet of clay. We must
convey to the Soviet masses our friendship for them
as distinct from their tormentors. There can be no
effective resistance to tyranny without hope and a sense
of powerful allies. That tremendous forces of opposition
are at work in the satellite areas is clear enough from
the way Bulgaria and Albania rushed to take special
security measures as soon as Stalin died. Our job is to
foster and fortify those forces, from Titoist deviations to
all-out anti-communism.
Never since Moscow launched its cold war have we
had a more favorable climate for seizing the initiative.
i
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