The New Look

The New Year message from Russia was that 1956 would see a full-scale resumption of the cold war.

The message was delivered at a carefully planned session of the Supreme Soviet in Moscow at which Premier Nikolai Bulganin and Party Secretary Nikita Khrushchev rejected the spirit of peaceful compromise so widely advertised at Geneva last July. Khrushchev's attack on the U.S. and President Eisenhower was stronger than anything heard in the U.S.S.R. since the days of Dictator Stalin. Both Bulganin's and Khrushchev's speeches had warlike overtones, Bulganin speaking of the recent development of "intercontinental" rockets and Khru shchev virtually threatening the West with the new Soviet H-bomb.

"Definite Shift." The revival of belligerency apparently sprang from the Soviet leaders' assessment of their strength in south Asia, from which they had just returned. They came home arrogant with success. Said Bulganin: "The peoples of Asia have begun waking up and straightening their shoulders. The factors which contributed to this great awakening have been the great October Revolution in this country and the weakening of the colonial powers as a result of the first, and particularly the second, World War . . . The time would come, Lenin used to say, when hundreds of millions of people in Asia would become an active factor in world history . . . This time has now come."

Then Bulganin stated the objects and achievements of the trip. Said he: "The peoples of the Asian countries cannot but feel alarmed over the establishment of such aggressive military alignments as SEATO and the recently designed Baghdad pact." These, said Bulganin, were simply "a manifestation of colonialism in another form." Any enemy of these pacts could count on Russia as its friend; in particular, the Communists support India's and Afghanistan's claims against Pakistan, and, boasted Bulganin, this tactic has paid off: "When we went to India, we knew we could expect a warm welcome. But what we have seen and heard exceeded all our expectations."

Said Bulganin, summing up: "The outgoing year will go down in history as one of a definite shift in the strained inter national situation . . . This shift is in a large measure due to the efforts of the Soviet Union." For the benefit of Asian listeners, Bulganin called anew for the outlawing of atomic weapons, "including rocket weapons which have been recently developed into weapons of intercontinental power."

But the keystone speech was that of Party Secretary Khrushchev. Said he: "Today some apologists of the colonial regime say: don't you see, we voluntarily granted freedom to India. [But] if they had tried to remain in India . . . they would have been swept out by the Indian people just as the Chinese people have expelled from China the colonialists of every shade and color, and together with them the reactionary Chiang Kai-shek clique." (The applause at this point was officially described as "stormy.")

Gangsters' Colony. After a few more digs at the British colonizers ("gangsters in the full sense of the word"), Khrushchev protested that of course Communists respect "the talented and industrious British people and want to be friends with them" (prolonged applause). Then he turned to the U.S.:

"How can India regard such a statement as was made by Mr. Dulles . . . concerning Goa? Just think what Dulles said: he ventured openly to declare that the Indian territory of Goa must belong to Portugal merely because the Portuguese invaders captured it 400 years ago. In connection with this the Indian press recalled quite justly that 250 years ago the present-day United States was a colony of Britain, and that if one follows his line of thought, then Dulles should consider himself to be a subject of Her Royal Majesty" (laughter, applause).

Khrushchev made clear what he meant by U.S. "colonialism." "The colonialists give a dollar as 'aid' in order to get sub sequently ten dollars in return by exploiting the peoples who accept such aid ... How is the 'magnanimity' of the U.S. explained when it gives arms free to European countries, including Western Germany which is a highly developed country itself? It is to rivet with a golden chain not only the undeveloped but also the highly developed countries . . .

"In fact, this is not aid but a handout of leftovers from the master's table made conditional upon fettering obligations . . . If there had been no Soviet Union, would the monopolist circles and the imperialist states render help to the underdeveloped countries? Of course not. This has never happened before" (animation in the hall, applause).

"We are not telling the Asian peoples: do not take the aid which American and British monopolists are offering you. But we honestly warn them that they have to be careful about such 'aid,' because the monopolists do not give anything for nothing."

"Crude Interference." The source of Khrushchev's anger at the U.S. shows how sensitive the Soviet Union is about its own rugged form of colonialism. President Eisenhower and Secretary of State Dulles had sent Christmas messages to European satellite countries, expressing U.S. faith in their eventual liberation. Huffed Khrushchev: "The American authors of these far from religious 'Christmas' messages [are] desirous of changing the order of things. This in no way accords with the spirit of Geneva and is crude interference in the internal affairs of free and sovereign states."

Mention of Geneva brought Khrushchev to Eisenhower's dramatic proposal for an exchange of military blueprints and unhindered aerial photography. Never was Russia's rejection made more emphatic. Said Khrushchev: "Flights over territories and aerial photography can only fan war passions and war psychosis . . . This actually is a means used for the purpose of finding out more about the forces of another country . . .

"We do not want to fight anybody and we do not brag of our military strength, but we must cool off the more rabid arms-race supporters and remind them of the results of the recent tests of the latest Soviet hydrogen bomb. The power of this weapon ... is equivalent to many millions of tons of conventional high explosives and can be considerably increased . . . Those who argue against the Soviet disarmament proposals should not overlook the results of these tests."*

Furthermore, said Khrushchev, "Certain people" misunderstand the Geneva spirit. "They ought to remember once and for all that we never denounced and we will never denounce our ideas, our struggle for the victory of Communism. There will never be such a thing as our ideological disarming."

The new truculence suggests that Khrushchev & Co.--though they have been brought to a halt in Western Europe--feel confident about their prospects in the Middle East and Asia. In this con fidence, more than in the truculence by which it is expressed, lies menace. For a Russian overconfidence could lead to a Russian misstep in 1956.

*"It is wrong." Bulganin told the American Telenews last week. "to assert that inasmuch as East and West possess hydrogen weapons, the possibility of a thermonuclear war is automatically excluded."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.