Watch on the Wall

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The face that Moscow turned to the world this week was, except for the missing mustache, disconcertingly the same--fat, inscrutable, steelyeyed. Georgy Maximilianovich Malenkov and his fellow heirs to the proletarian kingdom of Joseph Stalin had stepped into power with every outward sign of unity.

On the big Red Square tomb, where on state occasions Russian bigwigs customarily line up in careful order like squat tenpins, state sculptors chiseled the name CTARNH (Stalin) just below Lenin's. Presses began to grind out millions of copies of the three funeral orations by Malenkov, Beria and Molotov, and in many a dingy meeting hall from Thuringia to Tibet, dutiful comrades set to study them. It was important to get things straight, for this was the new catechism of Communism, to be echoed in a thousand Communist speeches and editorials. Thus Stalin got his reserved seat in the hierarchy of Red saints ("beside the greatest men in the history of mankind--Marx, Engels and Lenin"), and was singled out, in inflexible Red nomenclature, as the "inspired continuer of Lenin's will."

More modestly the buildup began for the new Premier, the Cossack with the shady past and forbidding presence who stepped from Stalin's shadow into the role of No. 1. Nobody cried: "Stalin is dead, long live Malenkov!" Molotov, in his funeral oration, did not even mention Malenkov's name. Beria, in his single reference to Malenkov, identified him as "the talented pupil of Lenin and the faithful comrade-in-arms of Stalin."

For the present, this was enough--and even this tribute involved some stretching of the facts. Far from having been a pupil of Lenin's, 51-year-old Georgy Malenkov took no part in Lenin's 1917 Revolution or the bloody civil war that followed. According to the official Soviet account, Georgy Malenkov joined the party at 18, which sounds young enough. The fact is, he had sat prudently on the sidelines for two years (1918-20), though the Red army occupied his Ural home town of Orenburg; he enlisted under Lenin's banner only after the outcome of the civil war seemed clear.

The New York Daily Worker, also prudent, ran the same editorial tribute to Stalin two days in a row because it was not sure what else to say; finally it got the word and began to speak of "the Malenkov government." In the fashion set by Stalin, Pravda set to work with retouching brushes and scissors to glorify Georgy Malenkov. It ran a photograph showing him with Stalin and China's Mao Tse-tung--just the three of them. This proved to be a mutilation of a picture taken three years ago at the signing of the Sino-Soviet treaty; some 15 other Soviet big shots, including No. 2 Man Lavrenty Beria and No. 3 Man Molotov, were excised from the picture, and Malenkov was moved closer to Mao.

Signs of Nervousness. This week inside the Kremlin, in the palatial chamber of the Supreme Soviet, more than 1,200 voiceless legislators of the U.S.S.R. gave the fac,ade of legality to the succession of Malenkov, Beria, Molotov & Co., formally "approved" unanimously the new government and the abolition of more than half the cabinet jobs that existed under Stalin. Some of the deputies had traveled for days from the Asiatic reaches of the U.S.S.R. to reach Moscow. They were ready to head for home after a "legislature" session of 67 minutes.

Encased in a tightly buttoned greenish khaki tunic, Malenkov used the Soviet meeting for a replay of the old Stalin record of peaceful intentions toward the West. "At present," said he, "and in the future, there is no . . . question which cannot be solved by peaceful means. This refers to relations with all states, including . . . the U.S. . . ." The delegates broke into a roar of applause, and the more starry-eyed Western diplomats, on hand for the rigged meeting, began to hear the beat of the wings of Russia's mechanized dove of peace; some of them interpreted Malenkov's generalized remarks as an invitation for the U.S. to come to the peace table.

Well rehearsed, the show was meant to be further proof of the "monolithic solidarity" Malenkov boasted of. The Communist empire had survived the first convulsions of death and succession. But there were signs of nervousness and uncertainty:

> The mourning for Stalin ended abruptly four days after his death, only seven minutes after the tomb doors closed on his remains. The people were told to look not back but ahead.

>Red air waves chattered with admonitions to "keep calm" and assurances that there would be no "disarray or panic." Pravda and its lesser imitators were black with warnings against "enemies within and enemies without." Freshly made posters saying "Vigilance--Our Weapon--" were plastered on billboards all over Moscow and, presumably, in other Soviet cities.

> Malenkov talked of "the possibility of the prolonged co-existence and peaceful competition of two different systems, capitalist and socialist" (in hopes of winning time to consolidate), while Red MIGs over Germany shot down a British and a U.S. plane (to show how alert Soviet strength is, even during a transition).

It was too much to expect that the nervousness and uncertainty would be allowed to get out of hand. Georgy Malenkov & Co. are postgraduates in the school of power, who may scoff at the Bible but recognize the force of a Biblical maxim: "If the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?"

Stresses & Strains. The new rulers in the Kremlin inherited with Stalin's empire all the strains and stresses which assail its granite exterior; they did not inherit the cement of Stalin's myth and mystique. Now, on both sides of the great Red wall, the deadly, cold-eyed watch has begun--the Communists alert to prevent any fissures in their monolith; the West alert to find even hairline cracks through which to enter wedges.

To a diligent and patient West, the watch may well prove rewarding. There are weak points in the empire Stalin built, especially around the edges.

From behind the Iron Curtain last week came fragmentary but reliable news of how the subject peoples of Eastern Europe reacted to Stalin's death. In the big cities of Rumania, Hungary and Poland, many celebrated the event by covertly hoisting a few drinks. In Budapest the Reds herded some 500,000 into newly renamed Stalin Square on Dozsa Gyoergy Ut for a mass demonstration of grief; but the crowd responded only with passive sullenness. In Bucharest there was thinly concealed satisfaction on the faces of Rumanians in the street, and a flurry of minor panic among Communist officials. Cars came & went in a steady stream at the home of Rumanian Commissar Gheor-ghiu-Dej, and police guards were expanded at Red Ministers' homes. In some Rumanian villages, small-fry Communist's carried clubs or staves for protection, because they were not sure how people would react. Plain people around Prague were reported guardedly joyful. Red officials were so uncertain of their control that in many of the satellite areas they withheld the news of Stalin's death an extra 24 hours.

From Red Albania, geographically isolated by Tito's defection from the Communist empire, came disconnected and vague reports of rebellion against the government. Czechoslovak Red leaders talked out loud about "reactionary hyenas . . . prowling among us." Radio' Sofia, official mouthpiece of Red Bulgaria, spoke of "traitorous elements" fighting the regime.

Beyond the control or direct threat of the Red army, Communism is facing even sharper difficulties. Malenkov, in his funeral oration, extended Moscow's official sympathy to the Communists fighting in Korea and Indo-China, but significantly he said not one word about Malaya--a tacit admission of defeat there.

In Western Europe, the really important news, so often obscured in the day-to-day haggling, is that the Reds have lost the postwar political battle. They can still make mischief, set off strikes, create sabotage, exploit popular grievances and nullify foreign policy. But in any election where they have sailed under their true Red colors, they have been beaten. They are still big in Italy, and to a lesser degree in France, but in West Germany their numbers have dropped from 300,000 to 100,000; last month in Austria's elections they got but four out of 165 seats. In 1946 there were 16 Communists among the cabinet ministers of Western Europe; now there are none. Their party membership rolls shrink, their newspapers lose readers by the hundreds, in some cases have already folded.

Sunk in Gloom. The French party, once the most threatening in the West, has become disorganized during the long absence of Maurice Thorez (who was so ill in Moscow last week that he could not appear for Stalin's funeral), and divided over the recent purges of two of its stalwarts, Andre Marty and Charles Tillon. In Paris, Acting Boss Jacques Duclos put on a black hat and black overcoat when he got the word of Stalin's death, and led France's straggly delegation to Moscow for the funeral. Somehow, as he climbed into a chartered Polish airplane at Le Bourget, he seemed the symbol of what his French party had become--soft and flabby, and sunk in gloom. To the south, Italy's Palmiro Togliatti hastily scraped together a delegation, stuffed long woolen underwear and his Russian fur cap into a suitcase of a type the Italians call Americana, and hurried off to Moscow.

From burrows outside the Iron Curtain and baronies inside, Red plenipotentiaries rushed to the Kremlin by plane and train for the emergency ingathering of the clan. From East Berlin, his neatly barbered, Lenin-type goatee nuzzling a huge brown overcoat collar, flew Walter Ulbricht, who likes to be called "the little Lenin," wears the title of Deputy Premier, but is the real boss of Communist East Germany. From Budapest came the Jew-purging Jew, Matyas Rakosi, who used Stalin's purge-trial technique to install himself in control of postwar Hungary. From Bucharest came Premier Gheorghiu-Dej, the icy-eyed nemesis of Ana Pauker. From Sofia came Premier Vulko Chervenkov, so unimaginatively obedient that even the suspicious men of the Kremlin are said to have no worries about his loyalty. From Prague came President Klement Gottwald, who neatly disposed of Moscow-groomed Rudolf Slansky before Slansky could dispose of him. From Warsaw came Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky, the Russian whom all Reds hold out to be a Pole to excuse his running the Polish Defense Ministry and, through that, Poland itself; also from Warsaw came President Boleslaw Bierut, who served as a Red quisling during the Communist-Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939. From Albania came a mere vice minister--apparently Dictator Enver Hoxha is so plagued by local resistance and an interior minister with excessive ambitions that he dared not leave Tirana.

Looking for a Tito. Inside the Kremlin, walled off from the biting Moscow winter, they held council of cold war with their superiors. They came not as sovereign heads of state, but as servants, and they returned to their countries to rule in the name of Malenkov as they had previously ruled in the name of Stalin.

They were a physically unimpressive lot. One trait they shared with their new masters, Malenkov, Beria and Molotov: their small height. The ranks of the chief mourners, following the tall, uniformed pallbearers (see NEWS IN PICTURES), are a dumpy group, who could be posed alongside Stalin without dwarfing him.

This need to cut everyone down to size (leveling is its economic equivalent) made the satellite leaders an unlikely source of revolt. Seemingly, there is not a potential Tito in the lot. The man who pulled Yugoslavia out of the Moscow solar system was a Yugoslav hero in his own right; he fought his own battles, liberated his country and built his reputation without need of the bayonets of the Red army. Unlike Tito, the East European satellites have no orbits of their own; they are just the men in Moscow's moons--without popular following in their countries, their power dependent on slavish obedience to the Kremlin.

Of all who sat in Malenkov's cold-war council, only one--Czechoslovakia's Klement Gottwald--had ever been tinged with even a hint of Tito-like, nationalist aspirations, and that was long ago. The issue of his loyalty quickly became irrelevant: he took cold at the funeral, went home and died.

Among the satellite nations, Poland and then Bulgaria are considered the most discontented--but neither has a border on the West. Then come the Czechs and the Albanians. Restless as they are, they are under control of the army and the police, and the army and the police are under control of men who are unlikely Titos.

"Comrade Stalin's Behest." Facing East, Georgy Malenkov could not be so sure of his biggest and most important ally--Mao Tse-tung, conqueror of China.

The only man since Stalin himself to achieve a great revolution, Mao now ranks ideologically as the world's No. 1 Red--and is probably quite conscious of it. Even to Stalin, he was more the strong-minded disciple than the servant. To Malenkov, the hothouse-bred, second-generation Soviet man, he owes no personal allegiance, no ideological debt. As if to underline his sense of independence, Mao did not go to Moscow for Joe Stalin's funeral, instead sent a delegation under his Premier and Foreign Minister Chou Enlai. At the first news of Stalin's death, Mao cabled President Shvernik, and Chou En-lai cabled Vishinsky; their condolence messages must have reached Shvernik and Vishinsky just as they were being fired, suggesting that Peking had no advance word of Malenkov's shake-up plans.

Mao's newspapers and radio orators bathed the country in praise of Stalin and his works, but the Chinese Reds handled Malenkov's succession with almost cold reserve, were slow to slip into anything resembling a real buildup of the new Kremlin boss. In a long panegyric to the late Stalin, Mao's only reference to Stalin's successor was: "We fully believe the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Soviet government, headed by Comrade Malenkov, will definitely be able to follow Comrade Stalin's behest to drive forward . . ." First the party, then the government, then Malenkov. One possible explanation: Mao recognizes that any struggle for power in Russia would inevitably spill over into China; alone of all subordinates, he dared pursue a course of semi-neutrality until certain who is in the saddle in Moscow.

The new Kremlin rulers took extraordinary pains to please Mao Tse-tung. His funeral delegation got places of honor. In the orations and proclamations, the other "People's Republics" were lumped together, but Mao's was always singled out first for praise. Malenkov assigned a key man as new ambassador to Peking--Vasily Kuznetsov, newly named a deputy foreign minister, and member of last fall's shortlived, 36-man Soviet Presidium. A bright star of Malenkov's generation (52) who headed the Soviet trade-union movement until recently, Kuznetsov once punched a time clock at Ford's River Rouge plant (for a brief period in 1932), got an engineering degree at Carnegie Tech, returned to the U.S. in 1945 at the head of a factory-touring delegation of Russian union bigwigs. He was once said to be "pro-American," but many silly things were said in those days.

No Will or Way. Moscow's pampering of Mao, and Peking's prudence, set commentators to talking again along their favorite line--Titoism. But in China too, the facts are against such a development. Items:

P: Even without a war to fight, Mao is utterly dependent on Soviet Russia for industrial products to run his country--for the materials, tools and technical skills to begin developing the industrial potential he needs to complete his revolution.

P: With the Korean war to fight, he is completely dependent on the Russians for guns, tanks, MIGs, equipment and ammunition for his army.

P: Ideologically, Peking and Moscow are blood brothers. Of all the Kremlin's allies, Mao, to judge by his own behavior, should be the last to flinch at cruelties, big lies or broken promises.

P: The Sino-Soviet border stretches for some 5,000 miles along the northern and western edges of China. In partnership, it needs no policing. If he tried to break with Russia, fight in Korea, hold on to Manchuria, and hold off a revived Nationalist China, Mao would in effect be turning his borders with Russia into a suicidal second front.

Sources of friction undoubtedly exist between Malenkov and Mao. Does Malenkov dare let Mao develop industrial independence? How hard is Moscow squeezing Peking economically to pay for its military help? Who keeps Manchuria? These sources of friction now engage the attention of Washington's psychological warriors. They also engage the minds of many who think that Mao will become a Tito if only the West is gentle with him. "Imagine," editorialized London's New Statesman and Nation last week, "that the Chinese Communists were given their rightful seat on the Security Council . . . Then the cement that holds the Stalinite empire so rigidly together might begin to flake away." The New Statesman inhabits a pink cloud all its own, but on this particular issue there were some surprising echoes to the left & right in Britain.

Beyond Gravity. Yet Westerners who talk glibly of "making more Titos" forget that the West had little to do with making the original Tito. The marshal clapped on his space helmet and plunged on his own into the unexplored outer realms of Communist heresy. It was not until he passed beyond the pull of Kremlin gravity that the West gave a helping hand.

If Mao finds it difficult to get along with Malenkov & Co., then perhaps the course for the West is to make his life with Malenkov not easier, but even more difficult. This was the kind of debate stirring in Washington, London and elsewhere last week. The throes of change from Stalin to pudgy Premier Malenkov would open fresh opportunities, exploitable fissures for the West. Where they would come, what they would be, how they could be breached--these were questions that would beguile, harass and test both worlds, the captive and the free, for a long time to come.

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