Campaign Against Stalin To Be Slowed

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30975, 3 February 1966, Page 15

Campaign Against Stalin To Be Slowed

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright)

MOSCOW, Feb. 1.

The Kremlin plans to slow down or even halt its destalinisation campaign in a new search for “historical truth,” “Pravda” said yesterday.

The party official newspaper hinted that Soviet leaders are dropping the term “period of the cult of personality,” used since 1956 to describe the time of the great purges during Jos'ef Stalin’s 29-year rule. Revaluation of the late dictator’s role was called for by three of the Soviet Union’s leading historians in a “Pravda” article. It was seen as confirmation of widespread reports that the Kremlin had already ordered a new historical line. The historians said the party was right to denounce Stalin’s personality cult. But the term itself was erroneous and his role in it had been exaggerated. 1956 Congress The term “personality cult” was coined by a former Premier, Mr Khrushchev, in a slashing indictment of Stalin to the 20th Communist Party Congress in 1956, three years after Stalin died. Since Mr Khrushchev was himself disgraced in October, 1964, there have been fewer and fewer criticisms of Stalin Some writers have already written books saying he made good decisions as well as bad, particularly during the Second World War.

The importance of yesterday’s article was shown by the fact that it was signed by three top Soviet historians — an academician, Yevgeny Zhukov, Dr. Vladimir Trukhanovsky, editor-in-chief of the journal, “Problems of His-

tory,” and Dr. Viktor Shunkov.

They said the original crackdown on Stalinism was of great positive significance, and had had a beneficial influence on the life of Soviet society and the development of social sciences.

“But unfortunately, however, subjective influences alien to Marxism-Leninism were felt in this matter, and they found their reflection also in some historical works,” the historians said. ‘Erroneous’ Term

“The erroneous non-Marxist term ‘period of the cult of personality’ was circulated. “Use of this term, and exaggeration of the role of a single person, resulted voluntarily or involuntarily in diminishing the heroic efforts of the party and ’ people in the struggle for socialism, and in the impoverishment of history. “Our people are waiting for historians to produce an objective reflection of the history of Soviet society,” the trio wrote. The “Pravda” article follows a high-level review of Soviet history which could have major significance and repercussions.

The survey’s purpose was said to be to reassess the role played not only by Stalin, but by some of his victims, some of whom, like Trotsky and Nikolai Bukharin, are still “unpersons” in official Soviet history. The reassessment was called for because of a growing realisation that young Russians are being schooled to believe only that the Stalin era was a dark time for the Soviet Union, in which the dictator’s crimes vastly overshadowed his achievements. Informed sources said the process now under way was far from rehabilitation. Historians, however, were

under orders to rewrite basic textbooks to give Communist leaders, even Trotsky and Bukharin, the true place in history.

The new texts will note the part they played, but will also condemn their mistakes. This would be a considerable advance over Soviet historiography in the last 40 years, when men denounced as enemies or traitors simply disappeared from history books.