This may be too charitable an interpretation of his behaviour under Stalin. It is more probable that until very late in the day he had no mental reservations at all, and that he was indeed, as the world had known him, the most devoted and fanatical of Stalin's assistants. All the more remarkable would his conduct then appear after Stalin's death, for it would underline the fact that Russia's urge to shake off the worst of Stalinism had become so strong that it compelled Stalin's arch-devotee to become the liquidator of the Stalin era.

An analogy to this situation may be found in what happened in Russia during the last years of the reign of Nicholas I, the Iron Tsar (1825-55), and during the first years of his successor Alexander II (1855-81).

Nicholas I was the most tyrannical of the Tsars of the nineteenth century. The last period of his reign, writes an historian of Russia, ‘was one of complete suffocation’. The universities were placed under the strictest police surveillance. The teaching of some subjects was completely forbidden. Philosophy could be taught only as part of Divinity. Even the most loyal Slavophiles were savagely persecuted. Newspapers were forbidden to report new inventions until it was officially declared that they were useful. A special commission examined all music to ensure that no conspiratorial code was concealed in it. The censorship banned expressions like ‘forces of nature’ or ‘the movement of ideas’. But the greatest crime of all was to discuss the main social problem agitating Russia — the peasants' serfdom. The Tsar was determined to preserve serfdom intact.

Under Nicholas I ‘hypocrisy permeated Russian society from top to bottom’, writes another historian. The Tsar set the example. When a Siberian governor proposed capital punishment for a gang of criminals, the Tsar commented on the governor's report: ‘The death penalty has been, thank God, abolished in Russia; and it is not for me to restore it. Let every one of the bandits be given 12,000 lashes.’ (The strongest man could not survive more than 3,000 strokes.) All affairs of State were wrapped in deep secrecy. The budget was never published; only the Tsar and a few Ministers knew its contents. It was a grave offence for any official to divulge even the most trivial fact. Herzen was banished from Petersburg because in a letter to his father he described an incident in the street in which a policeman killed a passer-by. ‘It was this hypocrisy… which made the reign of Nicholas I peculiarly oppressive… When Nicholas died even his closest collaborators realized the necessity for a change.’ But to the end the Tsar repeated: ‘My successor may do as he pleases; for myself I cannot change.’

‘My successor may do as he pleases; for myself I cannot change’ might have been Stalin's last dictum as well.

That Alexander II would bring about any change in his father's system of government was as little expected as it was in our day that Malenkov would in any way depart from Stalinism. The new Tsar had been greatly attached and entirely loyal to his father, although it was believed that his tutor had inculcated a more liberal spirit. Alexander shared his father's narrow conservatism and barrack-square tastes. As heir-presumptive he had taken a prominent part in framing the most repressive measures. On several occasions he defended the interests of the serf-owners even more zealously than Nicholas. ‘In the most reactionary period of the reign, after 1848, Alexander was almost prepared to go further than Nicholas.’

Yet no sooner had Alexander ascended the throne than he initiated a series of quasi-liberal reforms and began to prepare for the abolition of serfdom. When the dismayed nobility implored him to keep to his father's ways, Alexander replied: ‘It is better to abolish serfdom from above than to wait till it begins to abolish itself from below.’

No immediate threat of a revolution from below was appnaret, however. There were no effective, articulate centres of opposition capable of leadership in such a revolution. The broad classes of Russian society were not ready for political action: they were prepared to go on living under autocratic rule. Accustomed to leave all political initiative to the Imperial Court, they continued to place all their hopes on the Court. But these hopes were clear and insistent enough to impel the new Tsar on the road of reform. Abolition of serfdom became a national necessity — for under the old system Russia's economic and social life was sinking into a morass of irrationality. The supreme need of the time harnessed to its service the man who as heir presumptive seemed firmly to have set his face against it.

The analogy between the Russia of 1855 and that of 1953 is made here with all necessary reservations and with appreciation of the differences in the social background and in Russia's position in the world. The epoch of Nicholas I was one of economic and social stagnation, although it was also characterized by an intense, largely latent, movement of ideas within a very narrow circle of the intelligentsia. The Stalin epoch was one of unprecedented economic and social progress. Despite the abolition of serfdom, the Russia of Alexander II was also stagnant economically, which is not likely to be the case with Russia after Stalin.

Yet, within limits, the similarities between the two periods are undeniable. By the end of the Stalin era Russian society was so accustomed to leaving all political initiative to its rulers that it had become incapable of independent action. Reform could be initiated only from above, from inside the ruling group. As one analyses Malenkov's first moves, one can almost hear him pleading in the inner circle of the Kremlin: Better to abolish the worst features of Stalinism from above than to wait until they are abolished from below.

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.