RUSSIA: Return of Old Iron Pants

• Share

The man who went farthest, and stayed longest, with Stalin was Vyacheslav Molotov. Last week, after a brief eclipse, flinty-eyed Molotov, 66, moving into a key government job, gave renewed proof of his extraordinary durability in politics at its most hazardous.

A symbol of Stalinism after 43 years at Stalin's side, Molotov was shoved into the background during the new era of debunking the old dictator and cultivating such longtime Stalin enemies as Tito. But now that the fabric of Stalin's empire was rent by Titoism plus destalinization, Old Iron Pants could point the finger at Khrushchev & Co. as a pack of blunderers. His new job was one which would enable him to do literally this, if so minded. Although functioning in part as a kind of auditor general's department, the Ministry of State Control means what it says: through it the organs of government are controlled, i.e., policed, and it has power to bring charges against any state employee, be he commissar or clerk. Stalin held the office years ago and used it (together with the Party Control Commission which does a corresponding job within the party apparatus) to win absolute power. Most distinguished of recent State Control Ministers: Vsevolod Merkulov, a Beria man, executed along with Beria in 1953.

Molotov has also been made official arbiter of Soviet culture, and at a recent meeting of Soviet writers, artists and critics he reaffirmed the old Stalinist doctrine of "Socialist realism." No art is "good" or "worthwhile" unless it serves a positive ideological purpose, said he. In other words, Molotov was ordering an ideological re-audit, which the sorry Soviet system badly needs. But it is hard to see how playwrights, authors and critics can do much but keep quiet, or lapse into the dull old dogmatic ruts, until the Soviet leadership itself gathers its wits and decides where it is going.