Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955–1957, Soviet Union, Eastern Mediterranean, Volume XXIV

35. Intelligence Brief Prepared by the Office of Intelligence Research¹

No. 1902

Washington, March 30, 1956.

THE DESECRATION OF STALIN

The public desecration of STALIN by his successors constitutes a major psychological jolt whose ultimate repercussions on the Soviet population and Communists abroad cannot yet be foreseen.

Initial reports from both inside and outside the Soviet Union reveal that the attack on STALIN has produced disbelief, uncertainty, confusion, embarrassment, and anger.

Hazards Ahead. The Soviet rulers certainly realized that by publicly attacking STALIN they would create for themselves certain risks. Because they would hardly attempt political suicide, they presumably calculated that they could successfully cope with these hazards, which they may have unduly discounted.

The main risk was an intangible one: the psychological effect on Party members at home and abroad. For years millions within the USSR and abroad have been encouraged to believe in the wisdom of a demi-god and the consequent correctness of all Soviet methods and policies. About half of the present Soviet population has been born since 1929 when the cult of STALIN-worship began. Communist parties abroad attained their largest growth during the post-war period when STALIN-worship reached its all-time high.

The sudden effort to eradicate a quarter century of indoctrination that Communist loyalties should be directed toward the symbol of STALIN would require many Communists to make a deep personal readjustment. For years they had either uncritically accepted all things STALIN or disciplined themselves to suppress private doubts that Moscow has now publicly expressed. The Soviet rulers presumably count on intensive indoctrination, and the habit of compliance to lubricate the process of readjustment, but the speed with which the Communist rank-and-file can reorient itself after such a psychological jolt remains to be seen.

The Soviet rulers will need to set up guideposts to clarify the new path for the Party line. Pressures to resist the line and pressures to exceed it will have to be checked at all levels. The license to criticize STALIN cannot be allowed to become a permit to question basic Soviet policies, or the legitimacy of the current rulers, or their role in aiding STALIN’s rise and his mistakes. The rewriting of 36 years of Soviet history and the actual rehabilitation of some of STALIN’s victims will have to be controlled by countless decisions that may ultimately touch on all facets of Soviet life.

Evidently the Soviet rulers are willing to accept the consequences of a period of confusion and uncertainty. They presumably calculate that their machinery for persuasion and coercion will enable them to keep within limits the negative repercussions and in time will ensure support for the new line. The very act of initiating criticism of STALIN appears to indicate that the Soviet ruling group views its own position with confidence. The absence of various Soviet rulers from the USSR during the reported demonstrations in Georgia, apparently touched off by the attack on STALIN, further points toward assuredness among the ruling group.

Moving with Caution. Meanwhile, they appear to be unfolding their campaign against STALIN with some degree of caution.

The present leadership had begun to shrink STALIN’s symbol almost immediately after his death by withholding adulation from him and concentrating it instead on Lenin. This treatment of STALIN during the three years leading up to the Party Congress suggests that at least a substantial portion within the ruling group, if not all, agreed that he should be cut down in size.

Whether this shrinking process was also part of a premeditated program leading up to an open attack on him at the Congress is open to question. The treatment of STALIN fluctuated during this period. Although reduced in stature, he remained a positive symbol. His birthday anniversary in December received unusual attention and as late as January he was accorded favorable treatment. Had the Soviet rulers been pursuing a fully agreed program, it is possible that they would have sought to condition the Party and the population for the shock of public criticism of STALIN. The suddenness of the switch from passively withholding praise of STALIN to actively assailing him and the variations in the treatment of this issue by various speakers at the Congress suggest that the ruling group may have been divided on how far to go and may have reached a decision only shortly before the Congress.

Even at the Congress, they moved with care. In the published speeches they avoided criticizing STALIN by name, except once, although he was the unmistakable target for their attack. The detailed indictment was reserved for Khrushchev’s speech at a closed session on the last day of the Congress.

It is understandable why the Soviet rulers preferred to reserve their main attack for a closed meeting. Yet the possibility cannot be completely excluded that they had not intended to go beyond the charges made publicly, but that in view of the mixed reactions to these charges they felt it necessary to justify their attack by revealing a more detailed indictment.

Since the Congress they have continued to move gradually. A month after Khrushchev’s secret speech the Soviet press had yet even to mention the fact of its delivery. Soviet censors had allowed foreign correspondents to refer to it since March 17, but criticism of STALIN by foreign Communists has been deleted from reports of their speeches in the Soviet press.

For the first month after the Congress the indoctrination of the Party rank-and-file and apparently some non-Party persons has been confined to an oral basis. Party leaders and agitators have addressed meetings throughout the Soviet Union, presumably revealing the contents of Khrushchev’s secret speech or a reported secret circular from the Central Committee based on the speech. A British Communist correspondent in Moscow estimates 30 million Soviet citizens will have attended these meetings. Given the rapidity of rumors within the Soviet Union, a large share of the population can now be assumed to have heard of Khrushchev’s indictment of STALIN.

While the oral indoctrination continues, the Soviet press broke its silence on March 28 when Pravda published a commentary denouncing some of the evils of STALIN’s rule. Kommunist, the Party’s theoretical journal, and Red Star, Army organ, followed with critical articles. The Pravda piece centered on the point that it was absurd, even superstitious, to imagine that Soviet successes are the work of only one man. Rather it is the people, led by the Party, who make history.

The commentary appeared to be only a partial paraphrase of Khrushchev’s reported speech. It did not go as far as the charges already revealed in the published speeches of the Congress and it ignored various charges made by satellite leaders, who would be unlikely to exceed Soviet instructions on so delicate a topic Pravda did confirm that a large-scale “explanatory campaign” was under way and would purposely avoid a rapid pace because of the vastness and difficulty of the task at hand.

Meanwhile, the regime has indicated the new attitude toward STALIN by removing some, not all, pictures and statues of him from various public places. The Soviet radio is said to have stopped broadcasting the lyrics of the national anthem, which includes a favorable reference to STALIN. The name of the large STALIN Automobile Works in Moscow is reported to have been changed to Moscow Automobile Works. New history books are said to be in preparation. At least one prominent victim of STALIN’s purges has been seen in Moscow after nearly 20 years in prison, and others are reported to have been rehabilitated. There are rumors that petitions are being circulated demanding the removal of STALIN’s body from the Red Square mausoleum. How far the regime intends to go in displacing public symbols of STALIN is yet to be revealed. It should be noted that STALIN peace prizes were awarded to foreigners in mid-March.

Charges Against STALIN. Since the text of Khrushchev’s speech is not yet available, it is impossible to compile a complete set of the approved Soviet charges against STALIN. However, the allegations made in public at the Party Congress, the Pravda commentary of March 28, and the similarities in statements by foreign Communist leaders, suggesting that they were working from a common text, indicates the general nature of the charges. The most detailed set of charges appeared in the Yugoslav newspaper Borba on March 20, and these were described as still incomplete.

Apparently STALIN’s activities generally before 1934 are to be favorably regarded. He was hailed by Pravda for his role in the Soviet civil war, for opposing Trotsky, his role in building socialism. Foreign Communists also praised him for undertaking the collectivization of agriculture and for launching the program of forced industrialization. One line common to foreign Communists is to hail the “great victories” achieved during STALIN’s time, but to admit that “they may have cost more than was necessary.”

After the early ’thirties he is said to have “gradually” placed himself above Party and state and instituted one-man rule during which he made a number of errors and committed various excesses. In particular, his methods are said to have resulted in:

(1) Stultification of the Party apparatus and administrative overcentralization

(2) Illegal use of the police and resultant excesses, including unjustified repression even of fellow Communists

(3) Self-adulation, fabrication and distortion of Soviet history and unjust maligning of veteran Communists

(4) Theoretical errors, especially in regard to the growth of capitalism and nationality policies

(5) Failure to prepare the USSR for the Nazi attack and errors in the conduct of hostilities

(6) Unjustly liquidating a large number of Soviet military officers

(7) Inflexibility in foreign policy, including mishandling the Yugoslav issue

(8) Incorrect emphasis in agriculture

(9) Stagnation in arts and literature.

The Borba article spelled out these charges in greater details. It alleged that Khrushchev accused a “morbidly suspicious” STALIN of conducting a reign of terror over his associates as well as the population at large, ordering the death of Voznesensky, instituting the “doctors’ plot,” and committing other crimes. Pending clarification from Soviet sources, there is no way to judge the accuracy of these press reports.

Although the Soviet rulers have indicated that they do not intend to repudiate STALIN completely, they may find it difficult to preserve STALIN’s earlier merits once his reported excesses become widely known.

Motives for the Attack. The apparent effects of the attack on STALIN, apart from the psychological disturbances, probably throw light on the motives of the Soviet rulers. These effects included:

(1) One-man rule besmirched. STALIN’s mistakes and excesses were invariably traced to the fact that he had managed to place himself above state and party. The criticism of the evils of one-man rule thus served as a contrasting backdrop for the praises of the virtue of collective leadership and as a condemnation in advance of any future attempt of a single individual to acquire a monopoly of power.

(2) Identity of present ruling group established. The public burial of the cult or STALIN-worship appears designed to give the impression of a break with the excesses of the Stalinist past and to portray the present rulers as a more reasonable regime.

(3) Position of “Stalinists” undercut. The dethronement of STALIN also serves to dilute the authority of those who have referred to STALIN as an authority to justify their positions.

(4) STALIN’s reputation smeared. Assuming the correctness of Khrushchev’s reported description of the terrors of life under STALIN, his former associates doubtless shared an emotional interest in publicly smearing him. In addition, they undoubtedly believed that their action would find approval among certain groups of the population.

While these effects doubtless reflect varying factors in the Soviet decision, they do not seem in themselves to provide a satisfactory explanation for the Soviet rulers’ action. Much the same effect could have been achieved by simply letting STALIN be increasingly ignored. The conclusion seems inescapable, therefore, that the Soviet rulers deliberately wanted to make a spectacular impact such as the public denunciation of STALIN would produce. (Togliatti is reported to have said that the Soviet rulers told him that the Soviet party needed a severe and sudden shock.)

Did the Soviet rulers feel compelled to go to this extreme, or did they elect the action of their own free will? There is little evidence that they considered themselves under any immediate compulsion. Certainly the current international situation contained no pressure for them to dissociate themselves publicly from STALIN’s methods. The domestic situation is obviously less well known, but present evidence does not indicate that any internal pressures compelled them to defame STALIN. Suggestions that the Soviet military had forced them to attack STALIN accords the armed forces an independent political role in no way supported by available evidence.

Clearly the Soviet rulers face various domestic problems, but they have given no indication of weakness in their will to cope with them. Indeed in the critical field of agriculture, they demonstrated increased confidence in the stability of their rule by initiating, after the Party Congress, renewed pressure against the peasants.

Increasingly during their three years of rule, the new rulers have demonstrated their own approach to some of these problems. They have brought about a general relaxation in the atmosphere of tension that clouded STALIN’s last years. They have shown an awareness of the need of Soviet elite groups for a feeling of greater personal security: to be able to carry out their work without the threat of police terror. They have succeeded in ending one-man control of the police and thus reducing the threat of capricious coercion. They have sought to decentralize certain governmental and economic functions, distributing greater responsibility to the lower levels and to units outside of Moscow. At the same time, however, they have maintained an undiluted monopoly of political power, reserving to themselves the prerogative of final decision.

In essence, they have attempted to operate a totalitarian state without a single dictator and to reduce the paralyzing sanctions of STALIN’s rule.

If less reliance is to be placed on coercion, threatened and real, then other means of inducing the population to perform satisfactorily rise in importance. In a system where coercion plays a strong role, those below are expected simply to obey; they have little positive feeling of participation and are fearful of accepting responsibility.

During STALIN’s era the regime sought to persuade as well as to coerce, and repeatedly called for measures to raise “inner-Party democracy,” increase the activity and initiative of the Party rank-and-file, abolish a formalistic execution of decisions. Malenkov at the Nineteenth Party Congress especially emphasized the need for self-criticism and criticism from below, but revealed the ineffectiveness of such appeals when he admitted that some who had taken this course had suffered persecution and reprisals. Exhortations to greater effort apparently could not overcome the stagnation produced by fear and apathy.

The post-STALIN regime has similarly sought to revitalize the Party and to attract a more positive response from both elite groups and the population at large. The acceptance of responsibility and the exercise of initiative does not, however, come easy after years of experience in the penalties for failure, real and alleged. If the post-STALIN regime was to avoid a return to a greater reliance on coercion, it would have to convince the lower ranks of its seriousness in encouraging greater activity at their level and reassure them that such activity would not lead necessarily to personal jeopardy.

In such a context, the attack on STALIN can be viewed as a deliberate effort to stimulate the Party and the population by shock-treatment. Denunciation of terrorism would be expected to be received by the population, especially the elite, as a reassurance and to be answered by them with a more creative and enthusiastic approach to their work.

The regime might have been able to produce such a response by focusing the Soviet economic effort on raising the standard of living. Under the Sixth Five Year Plan, however, the Soviet worker is again being called upon to raise the productive capacity of the USSR. The goal of catching up with and surpassing the US economic output refers to heavy rather than light industry and thus offers little prospect for an early substantial rise in the Soviet general standard of living. Unwilling to divert resources for increased consumers’ goods as a stimulant to the Soviet worker, the regime has apparently sought to spur him on with psychological inducements.

What response will be finally forthcoming from the Soviet population can only be surmised at this time. Although the Soviet regime appears to be urging the removal of certain inhibitions, its followers can be expected to move cautiously in testing any new ground.

The defamation of STALIN can also be regarded as a logical extension of current Soviet foreign policy efforts to appear respectable and to win support abroad. At the national level, local Communist parties will have to surmount their embarrassment, but in time may find themselves in a stronger position to claim that they are independent and to appeal to other leftist groups to establish popular fronts. It has been suggested that the attack on STALIN cannot but have an effect on the relationship between Moscow and parties within and outside the Communist bloc. The bloc parties face the same general problems on this subject as in the Soviet Union itself. In some cases, doubt may be thrown on the status of Communist leaders who have long been identified with STALIN or who occupy STALIN-like positions. Outside the bloc Communist Party members have raised publicly questions about the permissibility of criticizing the Soviet Union and of relying more heavily on their own evaluations particularly of local situations. How far Moscow will permit such questioning and to what extent it will insist on a common international Communist line remains to be seen.

1. Source: Department of State, PPS Files: Lot 66 D 487, USSR. Confidential. A printed note on the source text reads: “This is an Intelligence Report and not a statement of Departmental policy.”