WILL THE COMMUNIST PARTY REMAIN UNCHANGED AFTER STALIN DIES?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-01065A000300060026-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 17, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 20, 2000
• Sequence Number: 26
• Content Type: NSPR

Approved For Release 2000/08/30 : CIA-RDP80-01065A000300060026-1
Books in Review-
Will the Communist Party Remain
Unchanged After Stalin Dies?
The Life and Death of Stalin
By Louis Fischer. (Harper; $3.50.)
Reviewed' by Carter Brooke Jones
Joseph Stalin is past 70. What ment the police is high in the
will happen to Russia and to an ascendant."
apprehensive world when he All Mr. Fischer's forecasts
dies? are, naturally, speculation. And
Mr. Fischer, who knows Rus- yet he was an American cor-
sia as few persons free to write respondent in Russia for 14
do, has no simplified answer. years and was personally
He does predict, though, that acquainted with many of the
the dictatorship, the Commu- important figures in the Soviet
nist Party, "an automatic ma- picture. Thus his prophecies
chine tool of unanimity," will are more than theories.
go on in much the same way. He doubts that, meanwhile,
He feels that "there will be no Stalin Will commit Russia to a
party controversy such as fol- full-scale war. The Red Prime
ltrwed Lenin's death." He adds: Minister's policy since World
"The people had no voice in se- War II, Mr. Fischer points out,
letting Lenin's successor and has been to equalize the balance
will, of course, have none when between his sphere and the free
Stalin dies." world by prolonged, wasteful
No Revolution Predicted guerrilla wars in non-Soviet
The author does not foresee countries or colonies or by en-
a revolution. While the Red couraging, if not fomenting,
Army conceivably could seize social upheavals. Another ma-
the government, "Bonapartes or conflict might be a gamble
are not in the Russian tradi- with Russia's,national existence.
tion," and "the nation would The author also recalls that
be slow to respond to a man on Stalin has backed down where
horseback." It "rarely reacts to we defied him, as in Greece and
glamour" and its historic re- Berlin, and has refrained from
volts "have low-calory brush spreading the Korean fight into
fires spreading spasmodically a world war.
from village to village and from . Best Portrait of Stalin
"
town to town.
Mr. Fischer does not see any
man on the political horizon
strong enough to take over sin-
gle-handed, at least immediately
after Stalin's demise. Stalin has
seen to that.
The man closest to Stalin
and hence most powerful, sel-
dom is heard of by the public.
He is, Mr. Fischer says, Lav-
renti P. Beria, head of the
secret police, the NCVD (or
MVD). But Beria, like Stalin,
is" a Georgian, and Mr. Fischer
doubts that the Politbureau-or
the country-would accept an-
other dictator not ethnically a
Russian. So he feels that the
answer may be a rule by Beria
with two or more native Rus-
sians. These Russians may be
Georgi M. Malenkov and the
former Foreign Minister, V.
Molotov. Molotov, in Mr.
Fischer's opinion, may be the
front man, Prime Minister,
titular successor to Stalin, but
actually Beria would be the
power.
"The choice in Russia is a
military dictatorship or a police
dictatorship, and at the mo-
The bulk of this searching
book, leading to the conclusions
summarized, is probably the
best portrait of Stalin ever
drawn-a likeness that takes in
his personal and official life
from his earliest years. It is a
remarkable study, crackling
with quotable phrases.
Mr. Fischer is not inclined to
blame any one too much for our
failures in dealing with Russia.
He does blow up the idea, en-
tertained at times by Presidents
Roosevelt and Truman and some
of their advisers, that "old Joe
or "Uncle Joe" is a prisoner of
the Politbureau. It is rather,
you gather, that the Politbureau
is Stalin's prisoners, Perhaps
the most powerful and ruthless
dictator in history, Stalin is a
lonely man; "he cannot com-
mand a single heart." He is only
hated and feared, inside and
outside Russia. He has no mag-
netism. He has only a genius
for organization.
If, you have any interest in
the state of the world, you can
hardly afford to overlook this
book.
? ``. /.fl/
Approved For Release 2000/08/30 : CIA-RDP80-01065A000300060026-1