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Show $3eliind tlie Jdeadiined Everyone still is talking about the sudden shakeup in the Soviet hierarchy that surprised no one. But Nikita Khrushchev's rise to the summit of Stalin-like Soviet power could be one of the best things that happened to the U.S. Now, at last, we know without a doubt, whose "finger is on the button." The blunt, outspoken, bullet-headed miner's son has assumed all the powers Stalin held, following the forced resignation resig-nation of the goateed Premier Bulganin. This could be one of the best things to happen for the United States because we have been reminded re-minded again that Khrushchev is far more than a "comradely Communist" or a drunken clown. We may even begin to take him more seriously than we have in the past, regarding him as a far more dangerous foe than Stalin ever was. Stalin was predictable. Nikita is dangerous because he is not. He is as disarming as the disarmament disarm-ament he seeks to foist upon the West. All those who have met him personally say that it is hard to believe he is the conniving, conniv-ing, brutal personality he has had to be to get where he has. That Khrushcsev chose not to replace Bulganin with another puppet, more faithful and subservient sub-servient to him shows the dis-trustfulness dis-trustfulness of the man. He now is through with the game of playing play-ing off Kremlin clique against Kremlin clique, Stalinist against anti-Stalinists, the Communist party against the Army. The Military was cut down to size when Zhukov fell. Bulganin, a figurehead since Khrushchev engineered en-gineered his removal from the Army to replace Malenkov, has been expected to fall from favor. However, what must be remembered re-membered as the biggest surprise sur-prise of the latest shakeup is not the game of "musical chairs" which isn't new in the Kremlin. It is Khrushchev's reluctance to trust even his most faithful followers, fol-lowers, of which there are many truly subservient to him. He has chosen to consolidate all raw power under himself as Stalin did, because there still are many old Stalinists inside the Soviet Communist party still after Ni-kita's Ni-kita's hairless scalp. We can now expect him to deal more forcefully force-fully witht hese, although blood-lessly. blood-lessly. But with power goes responsibility, responsi-bility, and Khrushchev, placing himself at the summit of Soviet power, will find it harder to find logical scapegoats for problems, he, himself, has set out to solve. The Russian press has built Nikita Ni-kita up as the leading Marxist theorist, ranking him with Marx and Lenin, as an intellectual, as a world statesman, scientific genius ge-nius and "farmer leader of the workers." He assumes responsibility, personally, per-sonally, for the solution to the ever-deepining Soviet agricultural agricul-tural crisis and the shortage of consumer goods and has promised prom-ised the Russian people a "better standard of living than the U.S. soon." He has promised to ease the crushing arms burden, win the race for control of space, and has declared that the whole composition of the Cold War will be turning toward Russia's favor soon. But the most dangerous venture ven-ture Khrushchev has committed himself to is to promise-greater freedom of movement and of expression ex-pression to the Russian people. His suppresion of the Hungarian rebellion is a reminder that he will seek to prevent this from getting out of hand. But Hungary Hun-gary was also a reminder that Khrushchev is presiding over new forces inside the Communist world which remain our best hope for changing the systj itself. V Khrushchev has been accelerating accele-rating Russian educational opportunities, op-portunities, academic freedom, removing dogmatic restrictions from Russian science. He has fostered fos-tered a freer exchange of people and of ideas between East and West and has shown more willingness will-ingness to at least give lip service serv-ice to compromise Cold War issues is-sues than Stalin ever did. At the same time, he has shown no hesitation hesi-tation in stirring up trouble wherever convenient to force the West to compromise with him. He has missed no opportunity to criticize the U. S. economy's recession, even criticizing AFI CIO President George Meany. (J has plugged for greater Easr. West trade as a means for ending end-ing the U.S. recession. He has warned that continued U.S. arms spending on a big scale will, indeed, in-deed, cause the "hair curling depression" de-pression" former Treasury Secretary Sec-retary Humphrey warned about. He knows the U.S. is sensitive to the "depression issue" and is using it to make gains in the world wide Cold War. Khrushchev is far more challenging, chal-lenging, imaginative than the capricious, predictable, unimaginative unimagi-native Stalin. He has shown he generally prefers persuasion and peaceful competition to force, to which he resorts as a last resort. |