Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1956-06-05
Darkness All Day Lonq


The text Of Nikita KhruShchev's
sensational anti-Stalin speech reads, in
large part, like something extracted from
Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon" or
George Orwell's 1894" Although it prob
ably is an abridged version, and although
the State Department does not vouch for
its authenticity, there is little reason to
doubt that it says essentially the same
things as were said last February to the
Moscow Congress of the Soviet Commu-
mist Party.
AS far as substance goes, the charges
made in the speech have been known to
the world for many weeks past. But the
text greatly increases the original i'm
pact of the story For the statements
attributed to Mr.. Khrushchev Che has yet
to deny them) add up to as damning an
indictment as anybody could deliver
against Josef Stain and the terrible
decades OF his one-man rule Here we
have spine-c chilling picture of a tyrant
gone beSerk with power-a supremely
vain and evil man. a psychopath of the
worst kind, who imposed reign of terror
on all of Russia. His will was law, and
to carry it out he resorted unrestrainedly
and at times insanely, to lies, plots,
counterplotS, torture, blood purges, abso-
Lutte oppression and merciless mass muir
der And he came close to wrecking his
country with his military judgments and
decisions, including his refusal to listen
to advance warnings against Hitler's
attack
When he told this story to the secret
Moscow session last February Mr.
KhruShchev merely confirmed what most
free men had assumed for long time
before that. But he did not anSwer-nor
does the purportedl text of his speech
number of big questions that still puzzle
even the best of our Soviet experts. He
has failed, for one thing, to explain why
he and RusSia'S other new collective
leaders" apparently did nothing to re-
strain Stain but instead acted as his most
fawning sycophants until the day he
died Cor was he murdered?). He has
suggested that they we're all too terrified
by the man, but this is hardly explanation
enough to abSolve them of their own
large measure of guilt for all that hap
pened under his rule, not excepting the
Korean aggression. Nor has anybody
made clear as yet exactly why these men
have decided to undertake SO large and
so risky task as Stains deglorification
from synthetic divinity to unspeakable
devil
Director Allen W. Dulles of our Cen
trail Intelligence Agency has said that
this decision has been motivated only
in part by the Kremlin'S desire to acquire
international responsibility. The major
reason for it, in his view, is that Mr..
KhruShchev and his colleagues have
found it eXpedient, and perhaps impera-
tive, to placate large body of anti
StaliniStS at home, and to that extent
the development may mark the start of
a significant liberalizing trend. But still,
all of us had better keep in mind Mr.
Dulles warning that "the final and real
test of the Soviet leaders will remain their
willingness to accept those basic inStitu-
tional changes that can give the Russian
people and the world in general genuine
assurance that a one-man or three or
four-man dictatorship cannot again plot
in secret the massive domestic and inter-
national crimes" of Stains day.
AS matters stand, such institutional
changes-including particularly the Gre
alton of iopposition parties, an independ-
ent judiciary and free press-seem as
remote as ever in the Soviet Union Ac-
cordingly, unless or until they take place,
the free world must continue to reckon
with dangerous Russian tyranny. The
Disqualification Of Stain has yet to alter
that fact in the slightest. There is still
darkness all day long in the Red empire