Evening star., 1949-12-18
Russiu und the Kostoys

Twice during his trial. at Sofia, Trai-
cho Kostov, to the CONSERVATION of his
Judges" did the opposite of what every
defendant is expected to do in all such
Communist travesties of justice. Proclaim
ing his innocence, declining to ask for
mercy, refusing to grovel in the customary
show of sickening self -abasement, he
firmly denied having been guilty of plot
ting with Marshal Tito of Yugoslavia, and
with the anglo American imperialists," to
overthrow the Kremlin's puppet tyranny
in Bulgaria.
So, having thus embarrassed and infuri-
ated his Judges" by undermining the
propaganda purposes of the trial." Mr..
Kostov-former Vice Premier and once one
of Bulgaria's highest-ranking Comnu-
nists-was sentenced to be hanged, whereas
his co-defendants got off with prison
terms after having publicly confessed"
and reviled themselves for their sins But
now that his sentence has been carried
out, he has been denied even the right to
be remembered among his countrymen as
an individual who had the courage to
guarantee his own doom by standing up
to his accusers and declaring, in effect,
that they lied, bore false witness and
otherwise did violence to truth and justice.
Needless to say that could not be allowed
to get into the record without being "recti-
fed to coincide with the party line. Hence,
the Kremlin-serving historians, being
capable of any kind Of invention, have
rushed to the state-controlled Bulgarian
press and radio to tell everybody that the
dead Kostov, just before going to the GAL
lows, admitted everything and pleaded in
the miserable spirit of cowardly traitor.
to be allowed to live and have another
chance to join in the fight against Tito
and the "imperialists" of Britain and
America.
Aside from its monumental indecency-
which speaks for itself as a measure of
Red totalitarian morality-all this sug-
gests certain amount of desperation in
the Soviet Unions effort, in Bulgaria and
every other satellite land, to stamp out the
contagion of "Titoism." The puppet re-
gimes now in control over there sit on top
of vast majorities who are sullen under
oppression, who are anti-Russian in senti-
ment, who want individual freedom and
national independence, and who look for
ward to the day when additional Titos-
whether Communist or non Communist
will dare to lead them in breaking away
from the grip of the Kremlin. Here is a
smoldering force whose potential ex-
plosiveness can hardly be exaggerated.
Certainly, if detonated by sudden crisis
POLITICAL economic or military-it could
easily shatter the Red empire all the way
from Russias western borders up to and
including Czechoslovakia. That Is why
recent months have been marked by con-
stantly increasing numbers OF witch hunts,
treason trials and intra-party purges
within that empire. The thing Is not q
sign of strength; it is sign of weakness,
of worry, of fear-the oppressor's way of
seeking, security when the oppressed are
restive and resistant enough to be fright
ening.
In sum, trials" of the sort that have
just been enacted In Sofia leave little room
for doubt that the Soviet Union is at
tempting to head off and eliminate q real
threat to itself in the lands it now domi-
mates. Regardless of what is true or just,
the Kostovs in that part of the world will
all be in danger of dying, and of being
smeared by their killers after they die, as
long as the Kremlin keeps on trying to
become master of the continent. In the
long run, though, what they stand for
the independence Of peoples-is likely to
triumph. History, at any rate, is full of
lessons of aggressors who bit of more than
they could chew and perished-in due
course-of indigestion.
REORGANIZATION Momentum