THE
SOVIET UNION TODAY
series of six articles entitled "Interregnum in the USSR" ["L'U. Re 5.9. Entre Deux Ré nes], which appeared in Le Monde [February 14-85], are of unusual Interest. Written by Michel Tatu upon his return to France after seven years in Moscow as special correspondent of the Paris daily, they attempt to draw a balance sheet. of the Khrushchev period and thus cover a much broader range than he attempted in his daily dispatches. Tatu is not a disciple of Marxism as is clear from his terminology and his conclusions, but. he.is an extremely perspicacious observer, and his principal points are well worth ‘summarizing. we
‘To begin with, the author notes what has changed and what has remained the same during the years he lived in Moscow... Building construction is impressive as is the continued development of the.cities. Clothing is better, conversation freer, and so on. But along with ' this a heritage remains from the Stalinist past: border. controls between Poland and the USSR are: stricter than between capitalist states; there are innumerable difficulties in the distribution of goods; the official press is dull; the only foreign. papers on sale are those published by the Communist parties, etc.
After a rapid sketch of. such things, Tatu probes more ‘deeply, attempting to estimate where "de-Stalinization" stands today.
Khrushchevism, he notes, can. be divided "into. two. very unequal periods: the ascendant phase, in which the most audacious steps were taken, culminating in 1957 with the ouster of the tanti- | party' elements, the triumph of the first sputniks, Mao Tse-tung's trip to Moscow-and the rallying around Mr. Khrushchev of.an almost solid Communist movement. This lasted until the beginning of 1960 -. « « But with 1960 began the phase of decline. Abroad, .the stages of this phase were the violent outbreak of the Chinese-Soviet con-_ flict, the awakening of nationalist currents within the bloc, the setback of attempts at improving the status-quo in Berlin, the backing-down in.Cuba, and, in a more general way, falling behind the United States in the strategic superiority which Moscow believed it had won with the sputniks. At home this period coincided with the renewal of a decline in agriculture. . . with an unavoidable slowing down of investments in certain sectors and particularly a decline in returns. .« . A stagnation in the standard of living illustrated by the rise in the prices of food products in 1962. and the burial one by one of the fairest promises. . "
. The limits of the changes brought about by "de-Stalinization" are shown through many examples. .
- In the economy, Tatu cites the oscillations between concentration and deconcentration, the gumming up of the works in economic developments, the fraud and falsification practiced by the bureau-
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crats, especially those in the party, etc... Tatu thus confirms with many details the reports that have been appearing regularly in the press about this.
on the role of the authorities, Le Monde's correspondent has some telling things to say. There are no more arrests without cause; the terror has passed. Considerable progress has been registered "in the role of the police and decline of arbitrariness in Soviet life." But "in the eyes of the public, things appear in a different light." The heads of the KGB [secret police], "consider it to be a sign of a return to 'Leninist norms,' for example, that people whose conduct appears suspect are called in for tinterviews! -- a widespread practice -- for preventive rather than punitive reasons, It is not difficult to imagine what these ‘interviews! are like. . . if you know that a mere telephone call from the 'spetsotdiel! (special service) “to any enterprise or administration is sufficient for anyone to lose his Job. ee
"Another factor must be taken into consideration: the return to 'Leninist norms' in police questions does not at all mean liberalization (the word is always rejected with horror by the authori-~ . ties), but only -- and this is all -- the reversion of this field of activity to the party leadership. Since the party itself is nota. model of democracy in its internal life, and still less so in its attitude toward the rest of society, the risk is great of seeing one arbitrary authority substituted for another. in fact, cases are not lacking, where instead of the police, certain sectors of the party apparatus, or local political functionaries, take the initiative in persecutions, utilizing the judicial apparatus: as well as the police system for this." .
No public balance sheet has been drawn on the crimes of stalin.
It is known only that prisoners were freed by the 'tens of thousands! during the two big years of the thaw in 1956 and 1957, They received an individual certificate of rehabilitation, in return for which they made a written declaration to Keep silent about their adventure (later, however, this formality was given up). . . The chronicles on this chapter continue to remain very discreet;. any publication of lists of names or of statistics is prohibited. The biographies in the official texts of the most illustrious are limited to ending with the standard formula: 'Fell victim to the arbitrariness in the period of the cult of the personality. '" hy
"The role attributed to Stalin by Soviet historiography has
not yet been determined in a definitive way. . . It is not enough to say that the archives are still lacking that would permit the history of Stalinism to be written. . . it is the desire to open the files that is missing." oS
The author emphasizes that "if there is a field in which de- Stalinization has changed the state of things little, it is certainly that of ideology. .." If you go through Pravda at the end of 1952
and beginning of 1953, you will find articles hailing Stalin, the "encyclopedia of fundamental knowledge in the domain of Marxism- Leninism™ and denouncing the doctors who were accused in an infamous frame-up of plotting his death. The names of the authors of these typical Stalinist articles are the very ones familiar to the readers of 1965!
' Changes in the personnel of the ideological. apparatus are much fewer than among the regional secretaries and among. the technical and economic cadres. One of the reasons for this is simple: "The official doctrine has been changed on some very important points, the political line is no longer the same, but the nature of the propaganda work, the methods employed, the style, remain completely identical with those under Stalin, .-. One kind of conformity followed another, and it is scarcely surprising that: the high priests who introduced and spread the first should show themselves most qualified to instill the second. . . then the third. . . The best way to be a Khrushchevist was still the Stalinist way. This consisted of repeating literally, without any originality, © the slogans handed down."
Tatu provides material on what he calls "the new class, " meaning the dignitaries, the privileged layer, including “the elite" of the intellectuals, The standing of these people "derives less from their pay than from multiple advantages in kind which the regime grants these cadres (from an automobile to a dascha), and perhaps: still more of those subtle and infinite 'facilities' which, in this country where complications can occur at any moment, place, the, beneficiary above common mortals at the very outset. TO be relieved of waiting in line, standing at the windows, going through the formalities, not to have to confront the crowds in the stores and the bad quality of their articles. . . to receive on the contrary from the *special network,' without any trouble, an imported product ordinary people don't know about, to ride in a Chaika and to have tickets reserved for the most coveted spectacles; to be able in short to arrange by a discreet telephone call all the bothersome trivial things; to have alt this is to avoid three-fourths of the difficulties of Soviet life.
Tatu also indicates that posts are more easily available to the "children of the rich." "One is struck," he. writes, "upon looking up the biographies of today's high functionaries, to see how many of them, who were not even thirty in 1941, spent the entire war behind the front, in second-rank civilian duties."
He writes finally on this topic that "For many, authority has become an end in itself, what is still skepticism among the people having been transformed by the de-Stalinization shake-up into cynicism in this layer."
". . . Moral rigidness is no longer the first virtue among the present heirs of the Bolshevik commissars. ' The Chinese touched a raw nerve on this in their polemical articles last year. Their argu-
ments would have been more convincing if they themselves had not been caught up, in turn, by an analogous phenomenon. At least they talk about 'permanent revolution,!' they provide for draconian measures to periodically plunge the cadres 'into the mass of the people.' That's certainly the last. thing they would dream of in Moscow,"
Let us turn now to Tatu's conclusions. The broad masses, he says, are skeptical on the political level, feeling that they cannot in the least influence the decisions on top. .-.. It is already | ‘being political! in Moscow to read Pravda, to list the coups,..and to possibly ask deferential questions of. party representatives. during the 'explanation meetings.' Among the youth there is certainly:a |. small fringe of ‘oppositionist intellectuals! who limit themselves in actuality to reading foreign publications and to smuggling: out a few manuscripts. At the other extreme another fringe is to be found composed of Komsomol officials, a kind of Boy Scouts of the regime in whose zeal it is difficult to distinguish genuine faith.from political careerism.,. Between these two poles, the broad mass of the youth are looking in particular for a road into technology and industry, much surer fields from which one can gaze serenely at the rest of the world, "
But Tatu adds: "In the economic order likewise we have seen that the resumption of progress imperatively demands a radical recasting of methods; however any change in this field cannot but have repercussions sooner or. later on the political structures and customs. . . . One can envisage the conservatism: of the governing apparatus, which finds the maintenance of its 'new class' privileges a stimulus at least as powerful as ideological fanaticism once was, succeeding in upholding the status: quo for a very long time. But this would then mean letting the economic.development of the country gradually decline to that:.of a second-rate power, with technical progress itself threatened, and hence, in the. long range, the strategic potential on which foreign policy is based. We reach the point where the road of totalitarianism branches off and heads farther and farther away from the road of efficiency."
As for the future, he offers the hypothesis: "The period of "collective leadership' which now exists can end up again in the rule of one’ person. . . but it is not completely excluded either’ that it can lead to an extension of free debate, first within the | Central Committee of the party, then to broader layers of the apparatus of the party or state; finally, who knows? to public opinion itself.
He lists the various social groups capable of exerting pressure, but leaves out the working class.
He states that the gradual extension of what he calls "debate"; that is, Soviet democracy, is not occurring, although this. outcome appears to him to be the &only. desirable one" in the present international context. But "the present-uncertainty, the doctrinal tone -
of the press. . . brings out more strikingly than ever everything that is frozen and profoundly conservative in the structures of the regime. To resort to a popular formula, it is still very difficult to see the possibility of a ‘peaceful transition! from totalitarian ism to democracy."
Despite all his perspicacity, Tatu shows that he remains within the framework of bourgeois thought when he leaves out the capacity of the working class to bring about a transition from the bureaucratic regime to Soviet democracy through a political revolution.
STEFAN HEYM'S PLEA FOR