Tap Day at the Kremlin

Something important was going on in Russia. This was all that the world could be sure of. The news itself was in two deadpan paragraphs on the back page of the Soviet papers, under the heading "Chronicle." The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet had "released the Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the U.S.S.R., Comrade V.M. Molotov, from the duties of Minister of Foreign Affairs." It had appointed Andrei Vishinsky as Foreign Minister. Also, it had released the Deputy Chairman etc., A. I. Mikoyan, from the post of Minister of Foreign Trade and appointed in his stead M. A. Menshikov.

"Into the Pattern." For 48 hours the West weltered in the confusion of factlessness: the air waves and the news columns were splashed with words like "purge" and "shake-up." Molotov had been ousted. Vishinsky was Stalin's newest fair-haired boy. What it all meant was a tougher Soviet policy toward the West. On the other hand, what it really meant was a genuine peace move. The North Atlantic pact was a factor. The airlift was a factor. Even the Anna Louise Strong incident was cited as "fitting into the pattern." The Communist London Daily Worker didn't know any more than the infidel press, so it weaseled. It put its banner headline on a House of Commons debate about a bill to provide analgesia for childbirth: COMMONS BACKS PAIN RELIEF FOR MOTHERS. Then, into column 5, halfway down, it dropped a three-inch story with the noncommittal head: MOLOTOV REPLACED BY VISHINSKY.

In the midst of this, Andrei Gromyko, who cast 25 Soviet vetoes at the U.N. Security Council, was appointed First Deputy Foreign Minister, Vishinsky's old job. More entrails for the soothsayers.

Almost all the guesses could be true (even that Stalin had unobtrusively died), for anything is possible in Russia. What the West wanted were the hard probabilities, and some of these, at least, soon emerged.

A hard fact was that Molotov and Mikoyan, among the few surviving Old Bolsheviks, remained as members of the Politburo. The probability, as Correspondent Joseph Newman cabled the New York Herald Tribune through the Moscow censorship, was that they were in line for "more important work"--not demoted but promoted. Stalin is 69; he has said publicly that his health is not good. He must plan on some sort of succession.

A Matter of Views. As Churchill had seen him at close range, Vyacheslav Molotov was "a man of outstanding ability and cold-blooded ruthlessness . . . His cannonball head, black mustache and comprehending eyes, his slab face, his verbal adroitness and imperturbable demeanor, were appropriate manifestations of his qualities and skill. He was above all men fitted to be the agent and instrument of the policy of an incalculable machine."

Molotov was chosen as a Politburo "nominee" (alternate) in 1923. Then he was only 33. (This week he turned 59.) In 1930 he became Premier. Through the '20s and '30s, Molotov had a big hand in the forming of inner Soviet policy in all fields: foreign, domestic, Comintern. In May 1939, Molotov succeeded Maxim Litvinoff as Foreign Minister. Four months later he shocked the world with the Nazi-Soviet pact. Said Molotov: "One may accept or reject the ideology of Hitlerism . . . that is a matter of political views."

The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was, of course, the most spectacular calamity in Soviet diplomatic history. Since Molotov was not demoted for that it seemed scarcely believable that he would be held accountable for the recent failures of Soviet policy in Europe. It was more likely that the U.S.S.R. was merely reverting to its normal practice of having mouthpieces rather than policymakers handle Soviet dealings with the outside world. Litvinoff was a mouthpiece, and so was his predecessor Chicherin. Vishinsky, for all his forensic talents, belongs in that category too.

Discipline for the Dissidents. Not for the Vishinskys and the Gromykos but for the policymakers is the great problem that now faces the party: how to consolidate the Communist empire in the face of "Titoism." Perhaps Molotov and Mikoyan have been assigned to working out the political and economic arrangements under which the national Communist Parties can be made to work in harness. It was easy when only Russia had an army and a secret police; but now the party faces potential "Titoism" throughout eastern Europe and--especially--in China.

Whether Molotov and Mikoyan have been moved nearer the throne or down to the basement, world Communism's next big goal is to digest its enormous gains of the last four years. The "incalculable machine" cannot stop where it is. The gears are clanking for new operations.

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