What Next?

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. In this respect, Stalin's regime was never secure, nor can Malenkov's be.

Yet Malenkov has at his disposal an apparatus of tyranny beyond anything known in the past. Julius Caesar, who went to the Senate unarmed on the Ides of March, had to deal with--and to a degree respect--a tradition of freedom, almost absent in Russia. Napoleon I, who vainly tried to legitimize his rule with a papal anointing and a blue-blooded wife, suffered military disaster of a kind that has not yet befallen Soviet Russia. Russia's own Peter the Great, who sent his only son to death for disagreeing with his reforms and failed to pick another successor, bequeathed Russia a murderous struggle for power that lasted for a century; but he faced a nobility and a clergy that had never really submitted to the Czars. Malenkov has some assets in his inheritance which no other dictator had: P:A generation which never knew anything but Communist rule, and has been trained not to think but to obey.

P:The purging in nearly three decades of men with independent minds or excessive ambitions, including some personal enemies of Malenkov's.

P:The ideology of Communism which has inspired many men with intense loyalty and discipline--even distant Malayans in loincloths and atomic scientists in blue serge suits. This dogma, to most Western eyes, is a thick, grey, gummy paste, but it does cement. No secular government in history has allotted such importance to it as an ingredient of government.

Despite these assets, Malenkov faces great dangers. These are some of them:

Rivals. His four Deputy Premiers, and many other men in the party and the government, are older and more experienced than he; some still belong to the "first generation" of the revolution, which probably never quite got used to the young "Neanderthalers." Molotov and Kaganovich are perhaps neither able nor ambitious enough to set themselves up against Malenkov. Beria, who controls the police, has long been regarded as an ally of Malenkov's; furthermore, since alliances are of dubious value in Soviet Russia, Malenkov is said to have top men of his own in Beria's outfit. The army could conceivably seize power through some popular general like Zhukov--and must be watched--but it has shown very little political ambition in the past.

Russia's top leaders probably now have a feeling that they must hang together lest they hang separately. That feeling could last months or years. Yet Malenkov will have to purge, if only to show and prove his power. Malenkov may establish himself as Stalin II; it is also possible that a new Stalin may emerge from relative obscurity. If a struggle is inevitable, there are no signs of one yet.

The Satellites, which are being mercilessly exploited, and have least cause to feel loyalty or affection, are the points where trouble may occur most quickly.

China is Malenkov's major external problem. Mao Tse-tung, an active and devoted Communist before Malenkov was out of school, seems to have regarded Stalin with reverence; Chinese Communist propaganda billed Mao and Stalin as a kind of heroic brother act; Mao deferred only to Stalin as a superior warrior, a superior revolutionary and a superior theoretician. Diplomats (particularly Britain's and Tito's) are hopeful for an exploitable crack in the Moscow-Peking axis. So far, the common interests that tie Moscow and Peking seem stronger than the irritations that could divide them.

War might be the surest way for Malenkov to destroy himself and his regime. Does he realize it? Many Europeans fear that Malenkov, lacking Stalin's shrewd caution, may plunge the world into war, possibly as a way out of internal Russian troubles. These days that is an expensive way of quelling local disturbances. A Stalin, as "God," could simply twist, turn or retreat in the name of orthodoxy or of a new revelation. Malenkov, until he establishes himself in divinity, may feel compelled to act with such rigidity as to get himself into disastrous situations.

Malenkov. Probably Georgy Malenkov's greatest internal danger is Georgy Malenkov. Both in Russia and in the rest of the world, he is dwarfed by the tremendous shadow of Joseph Stalin. Millions of people revere Stalin as the man who beat Hitler. The Russian propaganda machine for years presented Stalin as a demigod and rewrote history to glorify him. Malenkov has many battles to win, many decisions to make, much history to rewrite, and many men to kill, before he can begin to touch Stalin's reputation. He has succeeded him, but he has not replaced him.

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