Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1956-03-18
Sic Transit Gloria Stain

Although they must still be read with
some measure of reserve, there is great
deal of plausibility in the current out
pouring of rumors and reports about the
sensational anti-Stalin speech that Nj
kita Khrushchev is said to have delivered
behind closed doors at the recent Mos
COW congress of the Soviet Communist
Party. For the reputation Of the old
dictator, whose remains now lie publicly
enshrined beside those of Lenin, has been
subjected by his successors to SYSTEM
attic downgrading process ever since his
death, and the Khrushchev attack-as-
suming that it took place-may thus be
viewed as logical climactic step in that
process.
What is it that Mr.. Khrushchev is
reported to have said? In substance 1t
is that Josef Stain throughout the night
marish decades of his one-man rule con-
Quoted reign of terror in which he used
every instrument of evil-the colossal
lie, plot, counterpart, the secret police,
torture, blood purges, total oppression
and pitiless mass murder-to satisfy his
psychotic vanity and impose his will on
all of long suffering Russia. More than
that, again according to Mr.. Khrush-
chev's rumored attack, this once-deif1ed
tyrant gravely imperiled the survival OF
the USSR by killing off thousands of high
military officers like Marshal Tukha-
chevsky, by later brushing aside advance
British American warnings of Hitler's
attack. and still later-as If mentally
deranged-by following course that left
the other members of the Soviet hier-
archy in daily fear of their lives.
1t is quite believable that Mr.. Khrush-
chev has said all this For if he has
really said it, or something much like
it, he has merely substantiated at long
last most of the things that students OF
Soviet history have believed for decades
past. But If he has actually done so,
why has he done it? Why have he and
his colleagues in Russia's collective
leadership" decided to put horns and
cloven feet on the synthetic divinity
that was Josef Stain? Why have they
chosen to shatter the holys-or unholy-
myth that they themselves once helped
to fabricate? One can only guess at
the answer. But perhaps as good guess
as any is this: That the dead tyrant is
remembered in Russia with so little love
and so much hate that his successors
deem it to be wise and necessary do
nestle policy to de-apotheosize him al
together, even to the extent of eventually
ousting what is left of him from the
shrine he shares with Lenin.
Certainly, it seems more than likely
that such policy--wholly apart from
it's international implications-would ap-
peal deeply to vast numbers of Russians.
This would be especially true of all those
related as friends or blood kin to the
innocent legions "liquidated" by Stain,
to the millions of peasants deliberately
starved by him in the 1930s, and to the
tens of other millions banished to his
slave-labor camps. In sum, even though
it might at first have the impact of
tremendous shock on public thinking
throughout the USSR, his complete de-
glorifcation probably would in the long
run win widespread popular acclaim
among the Soviet masses. Sic Semper
tyrannis. Sic transit gloria. =.