The Kremlin Dances

Surrounded by Defense Minister Rodion Malinovsky and other smiling brass, Nikita Khrushchev proposed a toast to the Red army as "the only army that voted for its own liquidation." Since it was such a jolly occasion, he obviously meant his own disarmament proposals, and was not calling up the evil days of 1937-38, when the officer corps was decimated by purges. In the chandeliered glitter of the Kremlin's St. George Hall, Toastmaster Khrushchev went on to offer five more toasts on the 42nd anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution, all of them in what Pravda called "the spirit of Camp David." Earlier, there had been the shortest (seven minutes) military parade through Red Square in all the 42 years, with nothing to show in new weapons, but including an unprecedented display of small sports cars. In the main speech of the day, Marshal Malinovsky saluted Khrushchev's call for disarmament, added that since it had not yet been accepted, the Soviet armed forces must "maintain a state of high preparedness."

Except for this affirmation that the Soviet Union would go on spending for arms (at least a quarter of its total income this year), the order of the day was peace and friendship. Giant, red corn stalks and eight-foot ears of corn festooned one square, and the moon was gaily displayed as the latest Soviet plaything. Holiday marketers crowded the shops. Restaurants were jammed. And at the Kremlin reception, there was dancing for the first Nov. 7 since Lenin and Trotsky took over the place in 1917. After leading the grand march into Vladimir Hall, Premier Khrushchev begged off, saying his sister had tried to teach him to dance long ago, but "my legs just wouldn't move properly." The music was rather slow and dignified, the polkas, waltzes and 19th century Russian ballroom dances that the Czar's court once favored. President Kliment Voroshilov forgot his 78 years to sail off across the floor with Ekaterina Furtseva, the only woman member of the ruling Presidium. Deputy Premier Anastas Mikoyan flashed gaily around with one commissar's wife after another. It was a long way from the barricades.

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