Rudolf the Red-Haired Comrade

Rudolf Slansky, a tall, red-haired butcher's son from a village near Pilsen, was a devoted Communist. A member of the Czech party since he was 18, he made a fine hatchetman--unmoved by compassion, unhampered by principle, unburdened with personal loyalties. Unlike so many Czech politicos who fled to London in World War II, he went to Moscow. There he lived for six years in a special compound reserved for the elite among foreign Communists. He became a better Muscovite than a Czech, which made him a fine teammate for another graduate of the special compound, Klement Gottwald.

Gottwald was amiable, good at fooling nonCommunists, an effective front man. But he had to be watched. It was Gottwald who almost put Czechoslovakia into the Marshall Plan in 1947 and had to go to Moscow a few days later for a dressing down. Slansky was never popular in Czechoslovakia. He became the behind-the-scenes man, ran the party apparatus as its secretary general.

Slansky arranged the successful coup of 1948, supervised the purges that followed, used his power as secretary general to install his own people in vital jobs. He was also Moscow's watchdog, and even kept an eye on President Gottwald himself (who, when he has one drink too many, has a habit of talking sarcastically about Communist bigwigs). At Cominform meetings it was Slansky, not Gottwald, who represented Prague.

The Holy Truth. Czechoslovakia, with a higher standard of living than Russia's, is the Kremlin's prize capture. But even the Czech economy sagged under Moscow's insatiable demands for Czech machinery and industrial products. Looking around for higher & higher scapegoats, Slansky clapped into jail Gottwald's good friend, Foreign Minister Vladimir dementis and Slansky's own good friend Madame Marie Svermova, widow of a Czech Communist hero.

Still Czechoslovakia's performance displeased Moscow, and the people's discontent grew. At an emergency meeting of government officials and party leaders last September, President Gottwald complained that the blame was traceable to one man--Rudolf Slansky. "Comrade Gottwald speaks a holy truth," said Slansky dutifully, "when he says the blame is all with me." Slansky's job as secretary general was abolished, and the party was placed more firmly in Gottwald's control.

A History Unveiled. Then the script changed. Slansky did not disappear. He was "promoted" to Vice Premier and given control of all Czech economic affairs. He continued to get a big play in the Czech press. On his soth birthday last July 30, he got the Order of Socialism from Gottwald. Only last month the government unveiled with a flourish Slansky's two-volume history of Communism.

Then, one morning last week, the Prague radio announced that "hitherto unknown facts have come to light. They convict Slansky of activities against the state . . . He has been placed in custody."

It was the first time in all the bloody postwar history of satellite purges that a 100% Muscovite had been picked as the victim. On the surface it looked as if Gottwald had eliminated a dangerous competitor, and there were even people ready to believe that Gottwald was proving himself a potential Tito. More likely, the Kremlin had decided to jolt Czechoslovakia's rulers into meeting Soviet demands by striking down the man who had seemed safest of alL If the most loyal of them all could be convicted of disloyalty, so might men charged with even greater responsibility--President Gottwald, for example. It was entirely possible that before long, Rudolf and Klement would be teammates again--in disgrace.

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