CHAPTER EIGHT
AN ERA OF REFORM?
Malenkov's government began its work with the solemn assurance that it would preserve the continuity of Stalin's policy, both domestic and foreign.
What substance was there in that assurance?
Stalin's successors are committed to preserve and to develop further the broad lines of his economic and social policies. They are undoubtedly determined to forge ahead with industrialization. They will seek to enhance the collectivist structure of farming. They will adhere to planned economy. In other words, they will pursue the broad objectives of socialism, as understood by the Communist Party.
In these fundamental respects, therefore, their assurances of continuity need to be taken at least as seriously as Stalin's similar assurances after Lenin's death. Early in the Stalin era there still existed the material-economic, if not the political, possibility of a counter-revolution which might have restored capitalism. Private ownership still dominated rural economy and had important foot-holds in urban economy as well. Trotsky accused Stalin of paving the way for such a restoration by furthering the interests of the NEP bourgeoisie and the kulaks. Yet it was Stalin who suppressed both. In present-day Russia there exists no material-economic basis for any sort of restoration. It may be said that it was the broad historical function of Stalinism to bring about this state of affairs. Now, not merely the intentions of Stalin's successors nor even the use of political force, but the force of circumstances guarantees the continuity of the present economic order.
However, this is perhaps the only respect in which Malenkov's assertion of continuity was not hollow. In other respects the beginnings of a break with the Stalin era could be discerned in all the moves made by Malenkov's government in the first month of its existence.[19]
The Stalin cult began to wither as soon as its object had disappeared. Even the funeral orations, made by Malenkov, Beria, and Molotov on March 9th, for all their praise of the dead man, sounded strangely like an anti-climax to the shrill glorification which had surrounded the man while he lived. By the standards of the Stalinist liturgy, with its strict gradations of worship, the funeral eulogies were so subdued and perfunctory that the discerning ear could detect in them a hint almost of blasphemy. Malenkov made far fewer genuflexions than Stalin had made at Lenin's bier; and there was on this occasion no ‘We swear to Thee, Comrade Stalin’. Instead, Malenkov devoted most of his speech to a succinct and sober expose of governmental policy.
Even before this, on March 6th, only a few hours after Stalin's death, a decision was taken which to those familiar with the peculiar symbolism of the Stalin era was in a way more meaningful than a whole series of formal political resolutions. It was decreed that the Lenin Mausoleum, that central shrine of Stalinist Russia, be abolished and that a Pantheon be erected where the remains of Lenin and Stalin would be deposited. This decision was not merely a blow at the primitive magic of Stalinism — it indicated a desire to put an end to the Leader cult and to emphasize in a more civilized and rational manner the collective merits of the party. The decree stated that the Pantheon would receive, together with the coffins of Lenin and Stalin, the ashes of all those leaders and heroes of the revolution who had been interred at the Kremlin Wall in the Red Square and whose names had remained in obscurity during the years of the Stalin cult. Malenkov's government could have made no more expressive gesture before Stalin's body was even carried down into the vault.
Also within a few hours of Stalin's decease a most sweeping reorganization of party and government was announced. The Praesidium of the party, elected with so much flourish only four months earlier, was reduced to about a third of its size. Fourteen Ministries were merged into five (and the merging continued at such a feverish rate that by March I5th forty-five Ministries had been reduced to fourteen).