No Right to Err

Can a Communist paper print an article entitled "Allow Us to Err"? A newspaper in the Ukraine, where the new Soviet purge is at its peak, dared to do so last week. "Absurd," thundered Pravda. "This theory of the right to err really means . . . the right to be free from criticism. . . . Workers' officials who are unable to review their work critically are unable to go forward and are cowards and provincials."

Meanwhile, self-criticism progressed in other fields. In Bolshevik a revealing article showed the statistical deceptions practiced by harassed managers to meet the stiff goals of the new Five-Year Plan. The Stalinogorsk Coal Trust had "never fulfilled its plan." But its figures for the last three days of July were inflated to make up the month's quota. A mine that never produced more than 150 tons of coal a day suddenly reported a 544-ton output.

Bolshevik explained how: "On Aug. 1 Botertzev, chief bookkeeper, and Kisko, chief of the planning department, called officials together, said 'Savchenko, the trust manager, has confirmed your July output,' and then shoved at them a paper to sign in which the actual output was greatly falsified. Afraid to disobey their chiefs, chief engineer Bulkanov and chief bookkeeper Sopelkin signed the paper."

Even fairy tales were under attack. Pravda blasted two children's magazines for printing "nonsensical fairy tales, which take the youthful reader out of the realm of reality or distort the truth about the Soviet Union." Instead, said Pravda sternly, they should acquaint "young readers with the problems of life and the struggle of our Socialist fatherland."

The purge had spread to the satellite countries. The Czech Communist Party was ousting some 200,000 of its million members. There were rumors that Marshal Tito had begun a housecleaning among his "Old Guard" Partisans. In Paris, Bulgarian Foreign Minister Georgi Kulishev admitted that Bulgaria was purging "enemies, opponents or disloyal collaborators with the present government."

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