Between March and June the talk was, characteristically, against operating the bogy of ‘alleged bourgeois nationalisms’ in the non-Russian provinces. In what seemed a long overdue act of historical justice the Russifiers were dismissed from office in Tiflis and Kiev.
It should perhaps be recalled that the Stalin era began precisely with a struggle against the ‘nationalist deviationists’ in Georgia and the Ukraine. It was on this subject that Lenin, mortally ill, wrote his last, great, angry, and stirring letter to the party. (The author has read the full text of this letter which has remained unpublished till this day.) In it Lenin expressed the sense of shame and even of personal guilt which Stalin's drive against the ‘nationalist deviationists’ had aroused in him. He warned the party against the Great Russian chauvinism of the Soviet bureaucracy and of Stalin in particular, against the barbarous violence of that ‘truly Russian Great Bully’, who, evoking the need for strict central government, would oppress, insult, and humiliate the non-Russian nationalities. Lenin passionately argued that it would be a thousand times better for the Soviet Republic even to forgo somead vantages of centralized government than ‘to deliver the smaller nationalities into the hands of the Great Russian Bully’.
There was therefore a curious historical symmetry in the circumstance that immediately after Stalin's death the Georgian and Ukrainian issues reappeared on the agenda and that this time an attempt was made to tarne the ‘truly Russian Great Bully’.
But the Great Bully seems to have come back to bait the ‘bourgeois nationalists’ of Georgia and the Ukraine; and his return is the surest sign of some reaction against the progressive reforms of preceding months.
Under the pretext of frustrating Beria's ambition to secure the predominance of the political police, an attempt seems in fact to be made to re-establish that predominance.
The struggle is still on, however, and its outcome has hardly been decided. The diehards of Stalinism have scored only half a victory.
In some respects the Beria affair is unique and cannot even be compared with any of Stalin's great purges.
None of Stalin's victims wielded, on the eve of a purge, power comparable to Beria's; and none had such a following within the bureaucracy. Stalin finally destroyed Bukharin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, and their like after having first patiently, slyly, and in the course of many years deprived them of the last shred of power, discredited them, and rendered them harmless. On the eve of his trial Tukhachevsky was powerful enough as a military personality; but he had no political standing. Yagoda was a mere executor of Stalin's will. In 1936-38 Stalin had already his hands firmly on all levers of power and nobody dared to challenge his autocratic position.
Not so Malenkov. He has apparently embarked upon the slippery road of purges even before he Stands on his own feet. His leadership is not yet acknowledged. His position of power is not yet consolidated. He must still speak and act as one of a team. The party is ‘rallying’ not behind ‘Comrade Malenkov’ but ‘around the Central Committee’. Malenkov's position today is not appreciably stronger than Beria's was yesterday.
If it was possible to overthrow Beria so easily, what guarantee is there that Malenkov cannot be disgraced with just as little effort? If party meetings could be so rapidly persuaded to acclaim the fall of one triumvir, may they not look upon the destruction of any other triumvir with equal indifference?
The fate of Stalin's successors may yet prove less similar to that of Stalin than to that of Danton, Desmoulins, and Robespierre, who sent each other to the guillotine, while none of them enjoyed exclusive authority, with the result that all were destroyed. It is, of course, also possible that after a series of purge trials Malenkov may finally emerge as the new autocrat; but this is by no means certain.
The divisions in the ruling group reflect in the last instance conflicting pressures exerted upon it by outside forces which in the long run work either towards a military dictatorship or towards democratic regeneration. The Beria affair represents therefore only one moment in the kaleidoscopic movement of contemporary Russian history.
The army chiefs no longer watch the scene in passivity and silence. Their influence was clearly discernible in the affair of the Kremlin doctors. It was even more distinct in the Beria affair. Without the army's assured support Malenkov would not have dared to strike at Beria, who nominally still had the whole body of the political police under his orders, and who at any rate could still rely on some section of the police to rally to his defence. It was no matter of chance that Moscow's Press and radio gave so much prominence to the speeches against Beria made by Marshals Zhukov, Vassilevsky, Sokolovsky, Govorov, and others. During the great Stalinist purges the leaders of the officers' corps did not appear so conspicuously on the political stage. Even so, Stalin felt his position to be threatened by Tukhachevsky. How much more may Malenkov's position be imperilled by his Marshals, whose military glory and popular appeal are far superior to Tukhachevsky's.
‘Malenkov's government has struck a blow at the political police! [It was pointed out in Chapter X]. If effective the blow must cause a shift in the whole structure of the regime. One of its two props has been weakened, perhaps shattered. On the face of it, this upsets the equilibrium of the regime and tends to increase the importance of the other prop — the army. If the party has deprived itself of the ability to oppose the political policy to the army, the army may become the decisive factor in domestic affairs.’
Paradoxically, the regime now seems to make an attempt to repair that shattered prop, the political police, with the army's help. But for some time to come, until the Beria faction is completely eliminated, the political police will remain in a state of disarray, robbed of its normal striking power; more than ever the government will have to rely for its internal security on the army. It must take some time before the structure of power characteristic of Stalinism is restored, if it can be restored at all. Until then a gap will yawn between the galvanized Stalinist method of government and the un-Stalinist mechanics of power. Across this gap a potential Bonaparte once again casts his shadow.
Nor have the forces vanished which drove the ruling group to decree the reforms of last spring, although at the moment, they may have suffered a severe setback. The reforms could not have sprung merely from Beria's, or from anybody else's, whim and ambition. They met a need felt deeply and widely by the nation. Malenkov and his associates still pay a tribute to the popular mood when they go on declaring that they intend to pursue the course initiated after Stalin's death. The popular mood compels them to tread a twisted path rather cautiously, and it may even compel them to keep part of their promise.
Moreover, the recent reforms corresponded to Russia's new social structure and outlook which, although formed during the Stalin era, have become incompatible with Stalinism.
No shift within the ruling group, no court intrigue, no coup or counter-coup, and not even bloody purges can obliterate these basic factors, which continue to operate against the inertia of Stalinism. If they are not destroyed by a new world war, and if they are not unduly cramped by fear of war, the popular mood and the urges of society will sooner or later force open the road of reform once again. And then they will keep it open more firmly than they did in the liberal spring of 1953.
15 July 1953