34. Memorandum of Discussion at the 280th Meeting of the National Security Council, Washington, March 22, 19561
[Here follow a paragraph listing the participants at the meeting and item 1, “Report by the Secretary of State”.]
[Page 73]2. Significant World Developments Affecting U. S. Security
The Director of Central Intelligence explained that he would like first to discuss the dramatic news from Moscow. The plain attempt to blast STALIN to pieces had raised a number of interesting problems. Someone had suggested, indeed, that Joseph STALIN had now become “the Trojan corpse” which was to be introduced inside the defenses of the free world.
Mr. Dulles then went on to describe the alleged now famous final meeting at the Twentieth Congress of the Soviet Communist Party. Foreign Delegates had been excluded from this meeting at which Khrushchev so violently criticized STALIN. Mr. Dulles believed that Khrushchev’s purpose at this meeting was to provide guidance to the Soviet delegates present on how to deal henceforth with the STALIN myth or saga. No one knew precisely what had transpired at this meeting, but Mr. Dulles said that the following was his own guess. It seemed quite likely that as Khrushchev was proceeding to read the directives downgrading STALIN, questions were put to him from the floor which he had undertaken to answer extemporaneously. While this might account for some of the drama, it was also apparent that Khrushchev had deliberately undertaken in his speech to destroy STALIN, because he had cited chapter and verse on all of STALIN’s crimes. Mr. Dulles then proceeded to summarize the alleged contents of Khrushchev’s speech. Thereafter he noted that while nothing had yet appeared in the Soviet press with respect to this now famous occasion, a great many newspaper people in the Soviet Union had managed to pick up bits and pieces of what had happened. The fact that there had been no official denial of these newspaper stories, and the fact that the USSR was permitting these stories to get by the censors, would seem to indicate the basic truth of the allegation that the attack on STALIN had taken place.
As in the case of what had occurred at this meeting, so likewise with the repercussions in Georgia.2 It was hard to distinguish between fact and rumor. Mr. Dulles then gave a general account of the student riots in Tiflis. It seemed particularly significant to him that the uprising in Tiflis went so far that the Soviet Government [Page 74] had been obliged to relax some of its major anti-Stalinist measures in Georgia.
Mr. Dulles next directed attention to the question as to why the rulers of the Soviet Union had decided to attack STALIN’s reputation in this particular way and at this particular time. This was a puzzling problem. One explanation, of course, was the Communist penchant for self-criticism. Another explanation perhaps lay in the hope of the Soviet leaders to gain respectability aboard by virtue of a complete break with the past. Mr. Dulles expressed skepticism as to whether this latter objective would be attained, although he admitted that it might have some effect on the Socialist parties throughout the world. Another possibility was that the Soviet leaders had permitted themselves to be pushed further than they had initially intended to go, thanks to Khrushchev’s exuberant personality. There was always the possibility, of course, that Khrushchev had been drunk. Nevertheless, it was significant that there was as yet no visible tendency to reverse the trend in the direction of destroying STALIN’s influence.
Mr. Dulles then commented that these events afforded the United States a great opportunity, both covertly and overtly, to exploit the situation to its advantage. STALIN had been the chief theoretician of the Soviet Union. He had been its great war hero in addition to his more familiar role as Dictator of the Soviet Union for twenty-five years. What would the Soviets now do with all the vast accumulation of STALIN’s printed works? It would take years to rid libraries and individuals of these volumes. There was also the problem occasioned by the fact that STALIN’s detractors had all worked closely with him over a long period of years. It would obviously be very difficult to create a new tradition. There was the problem of STALIN’s policies which, if any of these, would now be repudiated. Finally, what would the leadership in the satellite states now do? These men were almost all the creatures of STALIN.
In conclusion, Mr. Dulles suggested that all of these problems had important policy implications for the United States. Accordingly, they should be most carefully considered. In Mr. Dulles’ opinion, Khrushchev and the other leaders had been guilty of a most serious mistake.
The President expressed agreement with Mr. Dulles’ judgment. He gave it as his personal belief that when the Soviet leaders decided to adopt the new tactics and approach with which we are now familiar, they had felt themselves obliged to repudiate STALIN. After all, said the President, the Soviets could not make people like Nehru believe, at one and the same time, in the sincerity of the new Soviet tactics and in the validity of the Stalinist line and tactics.
Secretary Dulles pointed out that Communism could not be held together without a doctrine. In this belief STALIN was correct. While [Page 75] the present Soviet leaders could rid themselves of STALIN’s books and STALIN’s doctrine, they would have to find a substitute. Both the President and Mr. Allen Dulles suggested that the substitute was already at hand in the writings of Lenin. Secretary Dulles agreed, but pointed out that there was no handbook of Leninism. Lenin’s writings encompassed ten large volumes. It was going to be very difficult to decide what to pick out of these volumes and summarize in a handbook.
Secretary Wilson said that he had one question to put. Was there any likelihood that what had happened in the Soviet Union would turn out favorably for the United States? The President and Secretary Dulles answered that they thought that these events would be definitely advantageous for the United States.
[Here follows the remainder of the memorandum.]
- Source: Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, NSC Records. Top Secret. Prepared by Gleason on March 23.↩
- The anniversary of STALIN’s death, March 5, passed unnoticed in the Soviet Union. On March 7, student demonstrations, whose purpose was unknown, took place in Tiflis, the capital of the Georgian Republic. There were unconfirmed reports that Soviet troops or police fired on the demonstrators on March 8. A brief chronology of the developments in Georgia was attached to a memorandum of March 19 from Beam through Murphy to the Acting Secretary, in which Beam concluded that there was “no information to indicate that the reported demonstrations in Georgia are serious or that the situation is not fully under control.” (Department of State, Central Files, 761.00/3–1956)↩