INREVIEW Memoirs bureaucrat

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"Kruschev Remembers", translated by Strobe Talbot. Introduction, commentary and notes by Edward Crankshaw. Penguin Books, £2.25.

Kruschev held back mass movement after death of Stalin 1953.

Nikita Kruschev must have been one of the most rickening, grovelling bureaucrats ever educated in the school of Stalin.

That much is instantly clear from these memoirs which no doubt attempt to show him in the most favourable light.

Leading role

Kruschev did not just suddenly emerge with the death of Stalin in 1953. He had joined the Communist Party in 1918.

From the start he had supported Stalin in carrying through the purge of Trotsky and the Left Opposition.

Kruschey was playing a leading role in the Party by the time of the Moscow Trials and accepted every zig-zag of policy and counter-revolutionary manoeuvre carried out by Stalin.

Running through all of Kruschev's limited criticism of Stalin is a refusal to attack anything more fundamental than Stalin's attacks on democracy.

And even this criticism was withheld until after Stalin's death.

In the meantime Kruschev built up his personal position on the bones of people murdered by the Stalin machine, with_the obvious involvement of Kruschev himself.

The book is written to suggest that Kruschey only suspected that things were happening, while dazzled by Stalin's theoretical strength and distinguished record.

But of course this is a -unical deception. Stalin had no theoretical ability, and his пістогу was continuously enritter io keep pace with he himself joined the Red Army-then led by Trotskyin 1919, and remained on the scene while Trotsky was first slandered and then written out of all official history books on Stalin's instructions.

And Kruschev also must have known that virtually all his acquaintances of similar rank were being : executed.

On page after page Kruschev casually notes the shooting of this or that leading contemporary.

Stayed alive As he says of the 1930 period:

*During the years that followed I stayed alive while most of my contemporaries, my classmates at the academy, my triends with whom I had worked in the Party organisation, lost their heads as enemies of the people. I've often asked myself how was I spared?' The answer is that Kruschev was recognised by Stalin as a devoted, bootlicking lackey, and that he was able to avoid manoeuvres against him by potential rivals.

And even when being "spared' meant consciously leading : thousands of Red Army soldiers to their death during the war in line with Stalin's orders, Kruschev still did it unflinchingly.

Divorce

The book refers similar bureaucrat wh dinnena his In such an environment, Kruschev, the 'survivor reigned supreme.

His later criticism of Stalin's murders is based on the practical problem of consolidating a relatively stable bureaucracy independent of the whims of an individual, which could give its ful attention the long-term problem of holding down the Russian working class.

But, despite the appearthe Soviet Union is an impossibility, as Kruschev himself found wher he was stripped from all office in 1964 While Kruschev was grovelling to avoid the executioner's bullet he was also supporting every political position taken by Stalin.

Excessive

This included the Stalin Hitler Pact of 1939, which very nearly led to the defeat of the Soviet Union by the Nazi war machine in 1941.

Kruschev also entirely supports Stalin's attacks on Trotskyists. His criticism of the purges is restricted to the excessive purging of fellow "It was precisely during this period (1935-38) that the practice of mass repression through the government apparatus was born, first against the enemies Leninism-Trotskyites, Zinovievites, Bukharinites, long since politically defeated by the Party, and subsequently against many honest Communists, against those Party cadres who had borne the heavy load of the Civil War and the first and most diffi. cult years of industrialisation and collectivisation, who actively fought against the Trotskyites and the rightists for the Leninist Party Line' (From the Secret Speech at the 20th CPSU Congress: this vol. P.587)

Of course Kruschev nowhere attempts to explain Stalin. We hear only of the personal defect of his rudeness.

No connection is drawn between the exorbitant material privileges of Stalin's position and that of the bureaucracy as whole country houses, luxury holidays, etc-and the need to defend them by repression This is because Kruschev himralf amariad so tha ennThe book goes on to reveal that the sensational Secret Speech itself was a measure of self-preservation on the behalf of the Kremlin Head off Kruschev argued against opponents of the speech, pointing out that those wrongfully imprisoned under Stalin would soon be-returning to their families and would raise questions that would have to be answered.

Fearing the explosive forces this could unleash, Kruschev attempted to head them off.

But in doing so he was careful not to go too far.

The book casts interesting light on the relationship between the Kremlin and the leaders of the Communist Parties internationally;

... we decided not to say anything about the open trials in my speech to the Twentieth Party Congress. There was a certain ambiguity in our conduct here.

The reason for our decision was that there had been representatives of the fraternal Communist Parties present when Rykov, Bukharin and other leaders of the people were tried and contenced

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