The Meaning of Justice

A few weeks before the December 1953 execution of Lavrenty Beria, Stalin's fellow Georgian who became boss of the Soviet secret police. Foreign Minister Molotov gave a big party at the old Spiri-donovka Palace in Moscow. Except for Malenkov, Khrushchev and Voroshilov, all the Soviet leaders were there, rubbing shoulders with several hundred foreign diplomats and newsmen. In a corner of the ornate reception room, Politburocrats matched toasts with the ambassadors of Britain, France, Red China and the U.S., and for once vodka seemed to relax the occupationally tight-mouthed.

Lusty old Lazar M. Kaganovich, wartime commissar for transport, reputedly Stalin's brother-in-law, made toast after toast, in loud, rambling, unguarded speeches. Toasting "the great friendship of the Soviet peoples," he ran down the list of Soviet nationalities: "Tadzhiks, Uzbeks, Kazakhs--."

"What about the Georgians?" asked Trade Minister Anastas Mikoyan.

Dead silence, and then Kaganovich, looking dully at Mikoyan, said: "Yes, the Georgians, too."

When someone asked why the ambassador for Red China didn't think up a toast, Mikoyan snapped: "He doesn't think anything."

Refusing to be hushed by Molotov, Kaganovich went on roaring until Molotov brought over Marshal Zhukov. Looking grim, Zhukov recalled a toast to "Justice" made earlier by U.S. Ambassador Charles E. Bohlen. He said he wanted to support that toast.

Snapped Mikoyan: "What's the matter, Zhukov, can't you think up your own toast?"

"I repeat," said Marshal Zhukov, "I wish to support the toast to Justice."

Into the Darkness. "Justice," in its peculiar Soviet connotation, had a special meaning for Mikoyan that day. An Armenian who served Stalin in the transCaucasus area during Stalin's early struggle for power. Mikoyan was made commissar for trade in 1926, not only survived the purges, but is credited with having brought Lavrenty Beria to Stalin's attention.

The record now shows that at the time of the Spiridonovka party, another of his proteges, Armenian party Secretary Grigori A. Arutinov, political boss of Armenia since 1937, was being ousted. Some time later Mikoyan's trusted deputy in the Ministry of Foreign Trade, English-speaking Alexei D. Krutikov, was also expelled for "placing personal friendships above party and state interests," and the ministry was criticized for having covered up for Krutikov.

Mikoyan had more contacts with foreign civilians than any other Soviet leader (he visited the U.S. in 1936, returned with enthusiasm for frozen foods. Coca-Cola and Eskimo Pies), and was popular with British businessmen, who refer to him as "Mikky." He junketed with Khrushchev and Bulganin to Red China last September, but Aneurin Bevan, who met him in Moscow, noted that his influence seemed to be waning. His ministry was criticized for boosting the sales of vodka while the party was carrying on an anti-alcohol campaign. Recently his trade representative in Georgia was tried for "speculation and cheating the public."

There was sound reason for the attack on Mikoyan: his ministry had been obliged to carry the burden of Malenkov's promised "sharp upsurge" in consumer goods. With the recent hardening of Soviet foreign policy towards the West as a result of the approaching rearmament of Germany, the consumer-goods policy has fallen into disfavor.

"It would be difficult to imagine a more antiscientific and rotten 'theory' and one that would more disarm our people," said the editor of Pravda last week, in a long article calling for a return to the "Stalin economic theory" of full emphasis on heavy (i.e., war) industry. On the same day, the Moscow newspapers carried two sentences on their back pages announcing Mikoyan's resignation from the Ministry of Trade. Nothing was said about his giving up his place on the Party Presidium or his job as a Deputy Premier, but more may be heard of that at the meeting of the Supreme Soviet on Feb. 3.

Into the Spotlight. The eclipse of Mikoyan, even if temporary, throws into high relief a growing figure on the Soviet scene: stocky, jug-eared Nikita Khrushchev, general secretary of the Communist Party--a job held by Stalin to the end of his life. A dozen major speeches have put Khrushchev in the world spotlight during the past year. He has attended Communist Party congresses in Poland and Prague, led a Soviet delegation to

Red China, visited the outlying states of Siberia. He has taken the lead in the Soviet Union's two most pressing problems, housing and agriculture (TIME, Jan. 31). In his speeches during the present heavy stress on anonymous "collective leadership," he frequently uses the first person, unusual among party leaders. He has broken precedent by personally signing decrees of the Central Committee. He has allowed himself to be named as one of a previously unheard-of subcommittee (the others: Zhdanov and Shcherbakov, both deceased, and Bulganin) to direct military policy during World War II. On his 60th birthday (April 17, 1954) he graciously accepted the Order of Lenin (his fourth) and was made a Hero of Socialist Labor. At a Moscow reception he told a British newsman: "Churchill speaks for Britain, I speak for the Soviet Union."

More significant has been his adroit manipulation of party jobs. He has named new secretaries to the Communist Parties of Russia, the Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Moldavia, Georgia and Azerbaizhan. He appears in Leningrad and the next day the first and second secretaries of the local party organization are ousted. He criticizes cotton growing in Uzbekistan, and Uzbekistan Premier Usman Yusupov is fired. In Moscow he launches an "anti-bureaucracy" drive, ostensibly to divert thousands of Moscow functionaries (i.e., minor party members) into more "useful employment in production." but no doubt to make way for Khrushchev men.

For years Khrushchev was political boss of the Ukraine, and Muscovites are beginning to count the number of Ukrainians in top jobs, point to General Moskalenko, commander of the Moscow military district. Attorney General Roman A. Rudenko (who indicted Beria) and others, all said to be Khrushchev men. During World War II Khrushchev organized the pro-Soviet Ukrainian partisans and worked closely with Marshal Ivan S. Konev, who won the main victories on the Ukrainian front. Konev was recently made a member of the Presidium of the Ukrainian party. The man who replaced Mikoyan as Minister of Trade last week. D. V. Pavlov, was one of Konev's top men.

The Struggle on Top. If Khrushchev's shadow is falling large across the Soviet Union, what of Malenkov, his chief rival? Malenkov has made no important speech for nine months. He has appeared beside Khrushchev at a score of functions, always urbane, sometimes smiling, but has left Khrushchev to do the talking. His Jan. 8 birthday passed unnoticed. If Khrushchev is building his own apparatus as a step towards the restoration of "personal leadership," Georgy Malenkov, with a lifetime devoted to learning the mechanics of the power struggle, shows no particular alarm. One possibility is clear: just as Mikoyan has proved to be the scapegoat for the consumer policy, so Khrushchev could be discredited on the basis of his agricultural policy if, as famine reports indicate, the Soviet economy should hit a new low. In recent months nothing has happened to show that Malenkov is not still firmly in control of the secret police, final arbiters of Soviet "justice."

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