tober 1964. There was probably some dissatisfaction with the violence and personal quality of Khrushchev's "subjective" attacks on Stalin's rule, but no hint of this was reflected in the months that followed. By repeatedly praising the decisions of the 20th and 22nd Party Congresses, the new leaders have implicitly endorsed the campaign against the cult of personality.18 Yet they have avoided, and probably rejected, dramatic assaults on Stalin of the kind occasionally indulged in by Khrushchev, preferring to give a little more credit to Stalin for services rendered.

At the 23rd Party Congress in March-April 1966, Stalin was not mentioned at all. A few discreet references to the cult of personality (obviously Stalin's from the context) echoed only faintly the numerous and sharp attacks at the preceding congresses. The silence on Stalin sounded rather loud, especially since there were events in the pre-Congress skirmishing which suggested that the time might be ripe for another invocation of Stalin's name against dissident writers. For example, on January 30, 1966, Pravda published an article by three prominent historians urging abandonment of the "un-Marxist phrase, the period of the cult of personality," on the grounds that it exaggerated Stalin's role and minimized the positive achievements which occurred in Stalin's years. More important, the trial and conviction of Soviet writers Daniel and Siniavski in early February showed that the regime was prepared to use stern measures in disciplining dissident writers. In addition, at some of the preceding republican party congresses, party ideologists struck sharply at deviant intellectuals, and nowhere more strongly than in Georgia, where the tone was pro-Stalin and anti-Khrushchev.19

Despite these preliminaries, the CPSU Congress in Moscow skirted the Stalin issue and confined itself to relatively mild attacks on non-conformist intellectuals

and writers. Perhaps the consensus-minded national leadership drew back from even small gestures to Stalin because of the apprehensions expressed by the more liberal Soviet intellectuals over the trend of events.2 20

Public gestures recognizing Stalin's positive contributions a short time later were likewise characterized by caution. In a speech delivered in Moscow on May 8, 1965, celebrating the anniversary of the end of the war in Europe, First Secretary Brezhnev did refer to Stalin's role as Chairman of the State Defense Committee in World War II. However, it should be remembered that Stalin was listed precisely this way in the various party and Soviet history books published in the last years of Khrushchev's tenure.21 In still another speech in Georgia on November 1, 1966, Stalin was only casually mentioned among the various Georgian revolutionaries of the early years, surely a modest bow to that Georgian whose fate was so closely linked with the history of the Soviet Union.22 The fact that the mention of Stalin's name drew applause from Brezhnev's Moscow audience was obscured in the account published by Pravda. Reporting another speech by Moscow City Party Secretary N. G. Yegorychev in December 1966,23 the press also failed to mention the ovation that greeted Stalin's name. Such handling by editors suggests that the party authorities had not yet overcome their acute sensitivity over public reactions to Stalin's memory.

18 Partinaia zhizn (No. 2, 1965) explicitly said that the Central Committee plenum which ousted Khrushchev had not rejected in any way the campaign against the personality cult. 19 The Georgian Party Secretary for ideology, D. G. Sturua, complained of the "costs" of criticism of the personality cult, of too much attention to the "shady side" of life under Stalin, of portrayals showing Lenin as "tenderhearted and sentimental" rather than "pitiless" toward his "ideological enemies." Sturua claimed that students heard lectures praising collectivization of agriculture and then read in (unspecified) works written by "those from the ‘criticizing' and 'denying' camp that collectivization was a grandiose chain of mistakes, violations, crimes, etc.' I. A. Abashidze, the Georgian poet who heads the republic's Writers' Union, damned the whole decade of Khrushchev's ascendancy, when there was “a reappraisal of all values," during which "much was written off that we considered the very fundamentals of our work, which, in the course of decades, we had produced, guarded and defended with all our energy, talent and experience." Both speeches were reported in Zaria vostoka Tbilisi), March 10, 1966.

20 A group of some 25 Soviet scientists, writers and artists signed a statement to the authorities opposing moves to rehabilitate Stalin, claiming that such steps would be disapproved by the people and would lead to a new split in Communist ranks. The New York Times, March 21, 1966.

21 Istoriia SSSR, Epokha Sotsializma, Moscow, 1957, 1964; History of the CPSU, Moscow, 1960, 1962; Istoriia velikoi otechestvennoi voiny, 1941-1945 gg., Moscow, Vol. 2, 1961; and the one-volume Istoriia SSSR, Moscow, 1963.

22 Pravda, Nov. 2, 1966.

23 Pravda, Dec. 7, 1966; The New York Times, Dec. 7, 1966. As to Yegorychev's citation of Stalin concerning the battle for Moscow, Marshal G. K. Zhukov has just published an account, somewhat disparaging of Stalin, in a collection entitled Bitva za Moskvu, Moscow, 1966. He reported a telephone conservation with Stalin while the battle was raging in November 1941, in which Stalin said that he was "sick at heart" over the situation and had to be reassured by Zhukov that Moscow would be held. 24 Voprosy istorii, No. 6, 1965, pp. 140-151.

rather cloudy dispute over the reasons for the Stalinist cult of personality at an April 1965 conference of over 600 philosophers, Academician and party Central Committee member, P. N. Fedoseev, argued that the cult arose not only because of the "subjectivism" of the leaders, but also because of the spread of "subjectivist moods" to other circles.25 When a national conference of historians assembled a month later at Kiev, they agreed that treatment of the Stalin cult should be guided by the Central Committee decision of June 30, 1956, with its “balanced" portrayal of Stalin. At this same conference a Leningrad historian, N. P. Maslov, called for a more objective appraisal of the famous Short Course, implying that it had been damned too categorically in the recent past. 26 There are no other signs, however, suggesting that the Short Course will be restored to favor.

One of the unsettled issues about Stalin concerns his war record. Khrushchev's deprecatory portrayal of Stalin as an incompetent war leader (in the 1956 secret speech) never received much support in later writings, particularly his description of Stalin as stupefied by the German attack and crudely planning military operations with the use of a small globe. It is significant that the present Soviet leaders have singled out Stalin's war leadership as one of his few praiseworthy virtues.

A more sympathetic attitude toward Stalin characterized the Short History of the Great Patriotic War, 1941-1945, published in March 1965 as a one-volume condensation of the six-volume history which appeared under Khrushchev. Military historians met in late 1965 to discuss this volume. A principal issue involved the validity of the Short History's conclusion, favorable to Stalin, that the leader had been surprised by the German attack in 1941. The editor, Professor M. M. Minasian, agreed with his critics that Stalin had made crude political miscalculations regarding the threat of war, but he argued that the events of June 22, 1941, had burst upon Stalin, as upon the Army and the people, like "thunder out of a clear sky." 27

Memoirs of military leaders published since 1964 also tend to give a more balanced picture of Stalin as a military commander. This is notably true of General M. I. Kazakov's Over the Map of Past Battles, published in 1965. While ignoring neither the harmful effects of the purges on the military command nor some of Stalin's injustices during the war years, Kazakov portrayed Stalin as sometimes wiser in his military

judgment than the professional soldiers. A balanced treatment of Stalin also appeared in the memoirs of Admiral N. G. Kuznetsov, Marshal N. N. Voronov, General D. Leliushenko, Marshal Ivan Konev, and Marshal Bagramian, among others. Despite this clear trend, Pravda, on January 4, 1967, called for even more objectivity toward Stalin in military memoirs.

Searching for a Formula

The question is often raised now as to why the violations of legality and abuses of power were not disclosed and halted during Stalin's lifetime and whether this could have been done then. Our viewpoint on this question has been fully and quite clearly explained more than once in party documents. Unfortunately, there are still people, including some in the arts, who try to present events in a distorted light. Therefore today we must concern ourselves once again with the Stalin cult.

It is asked, Did the leading cadres of the Party know of, let us say, the arrests of people at the time? Yes, they knew. But did they know that people who were innocent of any wrongdoing were being arrested? No. This they did not know. They believed Stalin and did not admit the thought that repression could be applied against honest people devoted to our cause.

...

The Party has implacably condemned and condemns the gross violations of Leninist norms of party life, the arbitrariness and abuse of power, committed by Stalin. For all this, however, the party renders Stalin's services to the party and the Communist movement their due. We believe even today that Stalin was devoted to communism; he was a Marxist, and this cannot and must not be denied. His fault was that he committed gross mistakes of a theoretical and political nature, violated Leninist principles of state and party leadership, and abused the power entrusted to him by the party and the people.

At Stalin's funeral many people, myself among them, had tears in their eyes. They were sincere tears. Although we did know of some of Stalin's personal shortcomings, we still believed him.

-From N.S. Khrushchev's speech in Pravda, March 10, 1963.

25 Voprosy filosofii, No. 10, 1965, pp. 130-164. 26 Istoriia SSSR (journal), No. 6, 1965, pp. 210-214. 27 Voprosy istorii KPSS, No. 2, 1966, pp. 154-156.

No Rehabilitation

If Khrushchev's successors have treated Stalin somewhat more kindly, the shift has not gone very far. Criticisms of Stalin's cult of personality continue to appear, and for every positive reference there are ten negative ones. On the scholarly level, for example, the leading Soviet historical journal, Problems of History, celebrated its 40th anniversary with an article pointing to the great damage done to historical science by the Stalin cult, which produced "dogmatism, schematism, and departures from historical truth." 28 More recently the party's own historical journal, Problems of History of the CPSU, reported criticism from its readers for remaining silent about the "darker" events connected with the cult of personality.29

Stalin also continues to be given a good deal less credit than is due him for his major role in developments that remain above criticism. For example, a draft chapter on the 14th Party Congress in a new, multivolume party history cites Stalin only once, and rather inconspicuously. Yet Stalin played a key role at this 1925 Congress, and his position in the party struggles of the period has never been questioned. 30 Another article praising the 14th Congress, published by Kommunist in December 1965, managed to avoid any mention of Stalin.31 To take a very recent and much more significant example, the party guidelines for the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution do not even include a nod to Stalin. These directives, issued by the Central Committee on January 4, 1967, and published in Kommunist (No. 1, 1967) and in Pravda (January 8), carried not a single reference to him.

In sum, one can say that the regime in power since October 1964 has shifted only slightly on Stalin, erasing some of the black marks. In the main it has followed the basic line of destalinization worked out over the years since 1953, which treats Stalin as a figure of minor importance whose errors and faults outweigh his contributions and services. In keeping with its cautious tone, the new regime has avoided any attack on Stalin of the kind which proved so unsettling in the past, and it has resisted any efforts to restore him to glory.

The more moderate treatment of Stalin after 1964 can be partly explained by the need to focus criticism.

28 Voprosy istorii, No. 1, 1966, pp. 3-14.

29 Voprosy istorii KPSS, No. 12, 1966, p. 148.

30 The chapter is a draft for the fourth volume of the multivolume history, of which only the first two volumes have appeared. Voprosy istorii KPSS, No. 1, 1966, pp. 40-61. 31 Kommunist, No. 18, 1965, pp. 75-82.

on Khrushchev's faults. These were so pedestrian compared to the grandiose crimes of Stalin that criticism of the latter had to be toned down to highlight the errors of his successor. Contributing to this situation was the manner in which Khrushchev was relieved from office, ostensibly on grounds of age and health. This artificial handling forced his successors to criticize him in largely veiled terms, consequently obliging them also to mask their criticism of Stalin. Despite these changes, however, it is unthinkable that the present leadership will seek to restore Stalin to his pedestal.

Nor is objectivity likely to become the criterion for evaluating Stalin, any more than it was prior to 1964. To be sure, a certain measure of objectivity has now replaced the frequently excessive aspects of Khrushchev's destalinization drive, as well as of the irrational "cult" of the Stalin era. This has been achieved by presenting the early Stalin in a more modest light, and in adding somber tones to the depiction of his later activities. But the gain in objectivity is indeed small. All in all, Stalin's image today bears as much resemblance to the real man as did his image before 1953: an omnipotent and omniscient demi-god has now been supplanted by a rather obscure apparatchik who had very little to do with governing the Soviet Union from 1924 to 1953.

Was destalinization a success for the Soviet regime? In the form of vigorous attacks on Stalin it produced results which the present leaders appear to regret and to be unwilling to tolerate in the future. As a break with significant traditions of the past, both in the political and intellectual realms, its consequences have been far more beneficial to the regime. It has facilitated the abandonment of a mode of rule which proved costly and, in the last analysis, inefficient. The deflation of the "good Stalin" and the rejection of the "bad Stalin" brought an end to the deification of a living leader and stigmatized terror as an instrument of enforcing political and intellectual conformity. Destalinization has involved a break with one Soviet past, but it also has meant the restoration of links with a different past, one which Stalinist historiography had done its best to suppress. It has opened up the country to winds from the outside world and has rescued prominent individuals, as well as political ideas and cultural trends, from oblivion, thus wittingly or unwittingly encouraging the growth of skepticism and liberalism in Soviet society. Finally, destalinization made it more possible for subsequent regimes in the USSR to experiment with different approaches to domestic and external problems, and for the population at large, perhaps, to play a larger role in the shaping of its destiny.

fall of capitalism, the dictatorship of the proletariat as the only form of state during the transition to communism, the certainty of the development of civilization through socialism, and the abolition of classes as a prerequisite to the emancipation of mankind, his claim to being a Marxist should be regarded as secure.

It should be emphasized, however, that Maoism is a direct offshoot of Bolshevism, that Mao knew Marx only through Lenin. Without Lenin, Mao would probably never have become a Marxist. It was Lenin who

showed him how a revolution could be introduced into any society regardless of its stage of social development, how the Marxist "truth" is universally applicable, and why the pivotal point of world revolution lies in the synchronization of a centrally. directed program of industrialization at home and a campaign against imperialism abroad. It was also Lenin who showed him how the two distinctly separate revolutions conceived by Marx-the bourgeois-democratic and the proletarian-socialistwhich supposedly would require a significant interval of time, could be telescoped into one operation under the direction of the Communist party, without the necessary materialist

foundation.

When Mao became a Communist, Lenin had already done an efficient job of emasculating the determinism, spontaneity, rationality, and consequently the predictability of Marxism. He had converted Marxism into Bolshevism, a totalitarian and voluntarist creed for nations yet to reach industrial maturity. But it was precisely the Leninist idea of an allpowerful party overseeing the entire historical process of overthrowing the existing system, liquidating the old classes, converting the peasantry into proletariat, building the economic base for socialism, and reconstructing the whole of society from the top down, that appealed to Mao.

was the belief that a society can be

projected from backwardness to modernity within a relatively short time under the supervision of a revolutionary élite that made Mao a Marxist-Leninist. If here lies the origin of Mao's voluntarism, it can indeed be traced directly to Marx, who acknowledged the role of human will in real izing the determinist process of history. However, it was Lenin, rather than Marx, who heavily emphasized man's will and duty to give history a helping hand. Stalin enlarged Lenin ist voluntarism, and Mao has glorified it into an evangelical crusade and a melodramatic saga of the rebirth of

man.

T

here is no doubt that Chinese communism is going through a "nationalist phase." In all likelihood, it will remain in this phase as long as China's nationalist goals, such as control of Taiwan, equality with the great powers, and the consolidation of China's frontiers, are unfulfilled. It is in this particular context that Mao identifies the cause of the Chinese revolution with the nationalist aspirations of other less developed nations. However, it is dif ficult to state in categorical terms, as Mr. Schram does, that Mao always puts nationalism before communism. A strong case can be made to show that the opposite is true. For example, in 1949 the United States hinted at the possibility of extending aid to Peking if Mao would adopt an eclectic position. Thus, had the recovery of Chinese territories and a program of modernization and industrialization been all that Mao desired, China in 1949 had the best opportunity in a hundred years to rid herself of the last vestiges of colonial influence, to take the place of a great power in the family of nations, and to receive aid from both the Soviet Union and the United States. But Mao decided against a policy that would put China's national interests before the tasks of world communism. Insist

leaning to one

ing on "leaning to one side,” he arbitrarily severed China's relations with the United States.

Secondly, Mao's attack on Tito, which began in 1948 when Stalin forced a break between the Soviet and Yugoslav parties, cannot be properly explained without referring to the Chinese leader's ideological commitments. Tito has been castigated by Mao not because Yugoslav communism developed a syndicalist tendency displaying unique national characteristics, but because Tito has demonstrated that his loyalty to Yugoslavia takes precedence over his loyalty to international communism.

Thirdly, an essential part of the Sino-Soviet dispute centers around Mao's fear that Soviet communism has become conservative, national istic, and non-revolutionary. He be lieves that bitter inter-party strug gles are absolutely essential to bring about the restoration of a more positive leadership in the Soviet Union and to reactivate world communism as a dynamic and coherent movement. The worldwide division of Communists into pro-Soviet and pro-Chinese factions testifies to the profound dilemma facing all Communists in apportioning their loyalties between nationalism and communism. The pro-Soviet factions generally tend to give higher priority to national problems, while the pro-Chinese elements view their nations only as parts of a gigantic world movement.

Finally, in spite of its provincialism, the most significant feature of Maoism is the hypothesis that the building of a new social order in China must begin with a clear break with the past. Aside from the preservation of some relics of Chinese culture (archaeological finds, for instance), no part of the superstructure of the old society is to be saved. To construct a new one, the Chinese Communist Party has undertaken the task of harnessing new "productive forces" (factories, applied science, etc.) and creating new "productive