Conceptions of foreign policy were thus mixed up with the pros and cons of domestic reform; and both foreign and domestic aspects were equally important in the last incident of the struggle before Stalin's death, the ‘doctors' plot’.
The alleged discovery of the conspiracy in the Kremlin was designed to make domestic reform impossible. It was also calculated to inflict a blow at ‘appeasement’. Its purpose was to create an atmosphere of war-like fever and nationalist hysteria, and to cut off the communist bloc from any contact with the West. In such a mood the ‘alien’, the citizen suspected of ‘divided loyalties’, is naturally regarded as the worst ‘security risk’, to use a current expression. And who could be a worse ‘security risk’ than the Jew with Zionist sympathies or the ‘rootless cosmopolitan’ whose brothers or cousins lived in the West?
There is circumstantial evidence that alongside officials of the political police some army leaders were also involved in the case of the doctors' plot. In that affair both scored a dramatic but indecisive success. Between the middle of January, when the tale about the Kremlin physicians was first published, and March, there were several indications that the struggle continued unabated behind the scenes. At the height of the anti-Jewish campaign two spectacular ceremonies were staged to honour two Jews. Mekhlis, former chief political commissar of the army, who had just died, was given an elaborate State funeral quite out of proportion to his official importance. Ilya Ehrenburg, the writer, was honoured with a high award and used the occasion to argue in public against racial discrimination. Pravda fully reported his speech, which it would hardly have done without orders from above.
At this stage Stalin may have been too ill to intervene, or else he kept himself au dessus de la melee and allowed the leaders of the opposing factions to do as they liked.
From Moscow the struggle had already spread to the provinces, and also abroad — to Prague, Warsaw, Budapest, and Bucharest. The two factions competed for control over the administrations of the satellite countries. This fact produced a curious diversity in the regimes of those countries and the methods employed by their Communist Parties.
The most striking contrast was between the Czech and the Polish scenes. In the Czech party a complete upheaval was carried out with lightning speed in 1952. Slansky, Clementis, and other prominent leaders were demoted and after only a few months executed as traitors, Zionists, Trotskyists, and foreign spies. The Slansky trial was a prelude to the spectacle that was to be enacted in Moscow; in both places the same hand pulled the wires. In Poland, Gomulka and his associates had been charged with ‘nationalist deviation’ as long ago as 1948. Yet for nearly five years no purge trial was staged. No accusation of terrorism, sabotage, or foreign espionage was added to the not unfounded charge of nationalism levelled against Gomulka. Nor has any other purge trial modelled on the Stalinist pattern taken place in Poland so far. Poland and possibly Rumania were obviously aligned with the conciliators and reformers in Moscow, while Czechoslovakia was swayed by their opponents, and in Hungary the two factions held each other in check. This state of affairs could last only as long as the struggle had not been resolved in Moscow.
On March 5th and 6th the ‘peace party’, led by Malenkov, carried out its coup, placed itself in power, and at once intimated its desire for an improvement in Russia's relations with the West.
The first moves which Malenkov's government made in this direction were relatively easy to take. The Soviet diplomatic envoys were instructed to speak softly. So were the Soviet newspapers. The Chinese and North Koreans were promptly persuaded to prepare for the winding up of the Korean war. Overnight they dropped their previous objection to ‘voluntary repatriation’ of prisoners of war, the objection on which the armistice negotiations had foundered.
These first moves made their impression in the West. But the real test of the new policy was, and at the time of writing is still, to come. Has the conflict between East and West not been allowed to drift too far to make a genuine easing of tension and conciliation extremely difficult or even impossible? Soft words are certainly not enough. The aggressive language in which East and West have spoken to one another aggravated the international tension, but it was not its major cause. A cease fire in Korea may bring about an improvement; but by itself it cannot solve the conflict of interests that led to the Korean war. Beyond Korea there remain the grave issues of control over armaments and of Germany and Austria. Over all these questions Russia and the Atlantic powers failed to find a common meeting ground during many years. Will they be able to find it now?
The domestic reforms already initiated in Russia strongly suggest that the new government is anxious to call a halt to the armament race. A Soviet regime freer than Stalin's needs for its survival firm popular support. It must therefore strive to raise the national standard of living; it must off er more butter and fewer guns.
Hitherto mutual fear and suspicion have dominated every debate on disarmament. The Western powers were apprehensive of Russia's superiority in ‘conventional’ arms; while Russia feared American superiority in atomic and other ‘unconventional’ weapons. Each camp hoped to redress the balance in its favour, Russia by accumulating a pile of atom bombs, and the United States by building up the armies of the Atlantic Alliance.
Of late there has been a feeling in each camp that it may not be able to ‘redress the balance’. It is not known whether Russia's rulers had hoped to attain parity in atomic weapons with the United States in the foreseeable future. If so, recent American progress in that field must have caused sober reflection in the Kremlin. On the other hand, it has become apparent that the Atlantic powers had taken far too optimistic a view of their ability to raise joint armies which could counterbalance the armed strength of the Russian bloc in Europe and Asia. The armament race has reached a point at which each of the chief participants has reason to wonder whether he has much chance of winning.
Yet, while the results of the race so far may not have favoured either side, neither has seemed able to stop it. Each bloc would like the other to reduce its strength in those fields where it is superior. Russia has clamoured for the destruction of the atom bombs and for a ban on their use. The Western powers have demanded that Russia should first reduce her vast standing armies. Each side has been wondering just how great the other's superiority is. The West has pressed Russia to reveal the size of her armies; and Russia has asked about the size of the American stock of atomic weapons. Both have closely guarded their secrets and refused to divulge them, unless the other side sets the example first. And even if one side were to disclose its strength, the other would refuse to believe the truth of the disclosure, unless it was allowed to check it on the spot. Thus every debate has invariably led back to the question of ‘international supervision and control’.
The history of this century is strewn with the wreckage of international conventions on disarmament; and it is extremely difficult to believe in the efficacy of new conventions. But it is possible that now, when Russia is moving away from the Stalin era, some of the old obstacles to agreement may vanish. As Russian obsession with secrecy lessens, a degree of conventional international supervision of armaments may become feasible. There has always been ground for the suspicion that what Stalin concealed so stubbornly from the world was not merely and perhaps not primarily the state of Russia's armaments but her low standard of living, her lack of freedom, and her concentration camps. Malenkov's government may be more inclined to allow United Nations commissions to travel inside Russia and inspect military establishments.