COMMUNISTS: The New Line

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Of all the world's leaders, Joseph Stalin has the most power and publicly says the least. Last week he broke a year's silence. Bolshevik, the party's leading double-dome magazine on matters of Communist theology, published a 50-page memorandum from Stalin. Its very title gave promise of the grey gobbledygook that was to come: "Economic Problems of Socialism to Participants in Economics Discussions." But Pravda acclaimed Stalin's message as "the greatest event in the ideological life of the party and the Soviet people," and printing presses began rolling out 1,500,000 copies. The rest of the world began scrutinizing every leaden syllable to find out 1) what Stalin thinks, or 2) wants his followers to think, or 3) wants everyone to think he thinks. The search was rewarding.

Stolen Thunder. Stalin's message was published on the eve of the first Communist Party Congress in 13 years, and stole the thunder from Malenkov and Molotov, who had been chosen to make the principal speeches. For four hours, Rising Favorite Georgy Malenkov (TIME, Oct. 6) harangued his audience with the old familiar routine, i.e., the "bosses" of the U.S. are bent on "world domination and war," and therefore the Soviet Union must "strengthen its defense capabilities." He and Molotov (same theme) spoke for the crowds to hear. But Stalin, whose words Communist strategists the world over will most closely attend, did not talk that way at all.

In fact, for the non-Communist world, the most striking quality in Stalin's statement was the absence of the customary cant about capitalist "encirclement of the Soviet Union" and the imminent plans of U.S. "warmongers." Instead, Stalin seemed to pooh-pooh the danger of an attack on Russia, and said that the real threat of war arises from the imperialistic rivalries between capitalist countries for foreign markets. He chided his subordinates, faithfully clinging to yesterday's party line, for forgetting their lessons that "wars between capitalist countries [are] inevitable." Comrades who think that ideological rivalry between the Communist East and capitalist West is stronger than economic rivalry among the capitalist states "are mistaken. They see the outer phenomena twinkling on the surface . . . not . . . those deep forces which will determine the course of events."

"Certain comrades" had been deceived by false appearances. But these false appearances—that is, the strength of the Western partnership—obviously looked pretty impressive to Stalin himself. "Outwardly, everything, as it were, is 'satisfactory,' . . . But it would be incorrect to think that this 'prosperity' can be maintained 'forever and ever.' " Sooner or later, Japan and Germany would want to get out from "under the heel of American imperialism." England and France "in the end of ends will be forced to tear themselves out from the embraces of the United States and enter into conflict with them." These deep forces, operating beneath the twinkling surface, are, conceded Stalin, "acting so far unnoticeably."