Prologue to Terror

Suddenly all the pieces--the denunciation in Sofia, the excommunication in Budapest, the snap of the neckbone in Prague--fell into pattern. Across the Communist Empire, a great purge was on.

It had come into the open first in the suburbs--Rumania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, East Germany. Now it reached to the center, the Kremlin itself. From Moscow came an accusation of the kind that heretofore has proved a prologue to mass murder and terror: the Kremlin had uncovered a "plot" which has already brought death to two members of the Politburo and threatened the lives of Russia's military leaders (see below). So far, only the hirelings had been unmasked; the higher-ups are still to be rooted out and exterminated, a process which may take as long as two years.

This time, something new has been borrowed. To suit their own purposes, Communism's purge-masters are making use of Naziism's scapegoats, the Jews.

The heavy accent on Jewry led some to speculate that the Russians are simply maneuvering to win Arab support in the volcanic Middle East. But those who took a closer look quickly decided that that is not the prime aim; the Russians are expending too much ammunition for such a target. So much attention in the Russian press and radio, such grave accusations seem to argue a meaning for the Russians themselves. It then becomes the duty of Russia's propagandists abroad, at a secondary level, to make appropriate use of the primary decisions taken at home: making propaganda hay with the Arabs is a calculated byproduct of the purges. But What are the primary reasons for the new purge? These are the likeliest theories:

P: A high-level conspiracy actually exists. As narrated by the Kremlin, and with all the gibberish, the inconsistencies and the elaborate linkings (Wall Street-Downing Street-Israel-Moscow), the "plot" seems incredible. But it is not unbelievable that the two Politburo members were in fact murdered, that some kind of plot did exist, and that those with guilty knowledge of their deaths must now be wiped out.

P: A need for scapegoats. In the satellite countries and Russia itself, there is not enough to eat, not enough housing, or consumer goods. Unable to relax its tyranny, Communism can drive its subjects to greater efforts (e.g., war preparations) only by providing mythical plotters from the outside (Western warmongers, "international Jews") and culprits at home on whom to blame the suffering.

P: An internal struggle for power. Joseph Stalin has always ruled by Machiavelli's maxim: "He who establishes a dictatorship and does not kill Brutus . . . will reign only a short time." Stalin is now 73. The cold, powerful men around him are themselves ruled by 1) fear of treachery within their own close circle; 2) the knowledge that Stalin likes to play one clique against another. In 14 recent years, relatively young (51) Georgy Malenkov has climbed to power over the corpses of men like Andrei Zhdanov and over the broken careers of others. On the way up, he had the support of Secret Police Boss Lavrenty Beria. Now there may be a falling out.

These theories are on the side of good news for the West to the extent that they argue the existence of unrest in Soviet Russia. But there is another possibility, and it is bolstered by the way the attacks on the Jews are linked with the inciting hatred for the U.S.:

P: Tightening for trouble. The Communists may be getting set for war against the West. Evidences of crises in morale and lapses in administration have been seeping out of Russia for months, and for even longer out of the satellite states. High Soviet officials have publicly admitted that corruption, thievery, black-marketeering and an upsurge of nationalism among minority groups have interfered with completion of the Five-Year Plans.

The great purges of the '30s had the effect of slimming down and tightening the Communist hierarchy, and produced a new surge of ruthless dedication which served Russia well in World War II. If the Politburo has decided on war, a similar "cleansing" would precede the more obvious signs of war preparations, such as troop movements in Europe. At least the purge, editorialized the London Times, does not "suggest that the Soviet leaders think the danger of war has receded."

Only a handful of men in the Kremlin know which explanation, or combination of explanations, is the correct one. It is possible that they themselves do not yet know where all of this will lead them. It is also possible that, once loosing so powerful and irrational a force as antiSemitism, they may not be able to control what they themselves have started.

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