The Crisis of Communism

Those who wait for Communism to change, Russia's Nikita Khrushchev crowed not long ago with a bravado that impressed much of the world, "might better wait until a shrimp learns to whistle." The eerie sound that penetrated the Kremlin last week from out of satellite-land was suspiciously like just such a whistle. Communism's leaders watched their authority flouted, their names assailed, their puppets overthrown, their flags torn down, their soldiers shooting down workers. In a few short days, these unpleasant truths were thrust upon the Soviet high command:

P: Russia can no longer trust its satellite armies. In fact, it must in future be on guard against hostile acts by the 1,500,000-satellite troops who have been equipped with Soviet arms as the Communist answer to NATO. This discovery comes on top of Russia's widely advertised reduction of its own army by 1,200,000 men. (The Budapest fighting also showed that the Kremlin cannot count on the loyalty of all Russian soldiers.)

P: Eleven years of relentless Communist-indoctrination of the satellites' youth, in schools, workshops, clubrooms, gymnasiums, in cafes and across kitchen tables, has failed to capture their imagination or loyalty. The demonstrators in Poland, the fighters in Hungary were largely people who have come of age under Communism.

P: The international thaw, which began with the death of Stalin and continued at the Big Four campfire at Geneva, may have diminished the momentum of NATO, but it hurt the Communists worse.

P:The belief in Soviet good intentions (especially among Asians) has been grievously shaken. The uncommitted countries, still fighting the shadows of Western colonialism and inclined to discount the actuality of Soviet imperialism, could see a spectacle of foreign domination at its brutal worst. In Indonesia an official spoke of "Soviet colonialism," strange words on a Djakarta tongue.

P: The brooding appearance of monolithic Communist strength (effective especially in Western Europe), the vision that sent stout old Konrad Adenauer home from Moscow last year with a we-must-do-business-with-them resignation, was more illusory than anyone had guessed.

The Warnings. The Soviet leaders had known for months that they were in trouble in the satellites. Stalin's ruthless economic exploitation strained the satellite regimes beyond endurance, and generated layers of explosive discontent beneath the placid surfaces, particularly in Poland and Hungary. The strain could not be kept up, either in Russia or the satellites. Out of that realization came Russia's new course, which began with Malenkov, and then (after a retreat) was continued by Khrushchev. Hoping to win popular allegiance, Khrushchev, as the head of a gang that rose to authority under Stalin, delivered his famous weeping recital of Stalinist terror. But the discussion of Communist evil was not so easily confined to Stalin alone, for how different was the new crowd? In the satellites, the first timid flutterings of public criticism were masked as indictments of Stalin. But in Poland, in particular, the criticism took on a decided anti-Russian tone--it was, after all, Soviet insistence on farm collectivization, on heavy industry, on unfavorable trade terms, on oppression of religion, that caused Poland's basic discontent.

The evidence now indicates that the Kremlin leaders decided to give way before the criticism in the hope of channeling it. If a certain amount of nationalism had to be allowed, let it be granted in measured amounts, so long as Moscow kept fundamental control with its Red army. In this game Yugoslavia's Marshal Tito would be useful. He had made himself something of a hero by breaking loose from Moscow, had even won large-scale aid from the West, but he was still a Communist, and his Yugoslavia was still as monolithically Communist as any Marxist-Leninist could ask. He was the man to consult. He could give prestige to "nationalizing" the satellites, and provide a semblance of genuineness. He could help spot the right kind of leaders for the operation. If all went well, letting off a little anti-Russian steam might even encourage the satellite peoples to accept with cheers a Communism recostumed in nationalistic garb.

In the opinion of, among others, the French Foreign Office, this is the meaning of Khrushchev's sudden pilgrimage to Belgrade in September and Tito's journey to Yalta a few days later. It is now known that at Yalta Tito and the Russians discussed at length the "rehabilitation" of satellite leaders persecuted by Stalin for Titoism. In Poland there was Gomulka, not long out of a jail term for putting his country before his Communism, but courageous, tough and dedicated. In Hungary, the hangman had long since disposed of Rajk, but there was Erno Gero, who might bring off the act. If the crowds got too insistent, they could always bring back tractable Imre Nagy as front man, and for the tougher business of running the party, Janes Kadar (see box).

The Risk. These were the prepared positions to which the Kremlin could move if and when necessary. Events in Hungary had suggested a slight retreat; out went Stalinist Rakosi and in came Gero, also a Stalinist but less notoriously so. In Poland, the Poznan defense lawyers were allowed unheard-of freedom. Khrushchev boasted recently in Moscow (to Italy's junketing No. 2 Red, Luigi Longo) that his rein-loosening program was popularizing and perpetuating Soviet Communism in the satellites. In theory, it may have been a sound risk.

Things went askew in Poland first. Gomulka came to power, and though insistently a Communist, played so skillfully on the Polish national unrest that he was able to outwit and to outface Khrushchev himself (see below). Gomulka's success was just the spark the Hungarians needed.

Scurrying to the new "prepared positions," the Communists sacked Party Leader Gero and brought in Nagy as Premier, but not in time.

The explosion in Hungary, and the mass hatred it exposed, were enough to scare Communists everywhere: not only the Muscovites but Poland's Gomulka, and Tito, whose nation borders on Hungary and has a minority of half a million Hungarians. Tito's distaste for the revolution in Hungary surprised those who fail to recognize that the disagreement among Communists is over which "road to socialism" to take, not whether to travel there. The Titos and the Gomulkas believe, in fact, that their Communism is purer and surer than the Kremlin's. To them Khrushchev & Co. are crude bunglers. But open rebellion is something to link them all in mutual alarm.

The score of men who rule Russia, and their outriders and satraps, now had a perilous decision to make. Should they continue to appease the satellites, move cautiously ahead with more concessions and hope to achieve the "national Communism" they were prepared to accept? Or should they renounce the liberalization policy (and throw out its discredited advocate, Khrushchev), return to the iron ways of Stalin, crush opposition ruthlessly, and wait for a new generation to grow?

The harsh course has superficial plausibility but grave disadvantages. It not only invites a blood bath in Eastern Europe but requires a return to one-man dictatorship in Russia, for it takes a Stalin to impose Stalinism. To go forward with liberalization risks the gradual dismemberment of the satellite empire. But in the end, the sins, fallacies and weaknesses of Soviet Communism may compel the Russians to take that risk, in order to save what they can.

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