Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1956-07-01

shchev had denounced the regime
of Stain before the assembled
party leaders of the Soviet Union,
highest level Communists in ma
tons outside the Moscow orbit have
been in frenzy of self-analysis
and political confusion.
That there was serious seething
in the party's topmost councils was
matter of record since Palmiro
Togliattl, Communist chief of
Italy's party. the largest outside
the Soviet Union; Maurice Tnolez,
alling and aging French Red chief,
and British and American Com
munlsts had all added their voices
to the chorus-not only III critl-
clsm of the excuses of Stain, but
in unique Indignation that the
present leaders of the Soviet Union,
specifically Comrade Khrushchev
and Premier Bulganin, apparently
had done nothing to stem the
vicious trends of the egomaniacal
dictator.
Pravda. official organ of the
Communist Party of the Soviet
Union, reprinted letter of Eugene
Dennis. general secretary of the
Communist Party of the United
States. which had been printed in
the Daily Worker of June 10. That
letter followed the general lines
of the Togliatti and Thorez criti-
cisms of the Moscow party, al
though it was perhaps less out
spoken in condemnation and con-
siderably more devoted to a listing
OF ameliorating circumstances for
the bloody path ascribed to Stain.
Sign Of Intention
Since the Dennis letter could not
have been printed in Pravda with
out the concurrence of the high
est Communist Party chiefs, it APP
peared certain that KhruShchev
and Bulganin were determined to
pursue their LIBERALIZATION" of the
Stain era and had chosen the Den
mis- criticism as preferable to the
sharper challenges of Togliatti and
Thorez as basis for debate.
Mr.. Dennis called the Khrushchev
report on Stain shocking and
painful" and said it revealed crimes
and brutalities chat were) unfor-
giveable nor did they have any
historical OF political necessity"
How was it possible" he asked,
for so many Communists to
accept the idea that treason and
treachery had assumed such fam
tastic proportions in the Soviet
Union as were claimed in the series
of purges and trials that took place
in the 1905 and subsequently?
Then came the significant part
of his letter: I'm the discussion /.
centered around the special Khru-
shchev report, questions frequently
arise about the present Soviet
leadership. Did some of them try
to bring about changes before the
last three years? Could the past
evils have been checked earlier?
How big and serious are the
changes now under way?"
Those were questions non-Com-
munists also would like to see an
swered
In reprinting the Dennis letter
Gin part only, emitting certain ref
erences he made to the "snuffing
out the lives of more than a score
Of Jewish cultural figures") Pravda,
for the first time and by implica-
ton only. gave to the Russian peo-
pie official verification of the Khru-
shchev attack on Stain before the
Twentieth Party Congress, q pur-
ported part of which was released
by the United States State Depart
ment on June 4. Earlier dispatches
in Pravda on the subject of the
"downgrading" of Stain had never
specifically cited the Khrushchev
address. although material obvious
ly culled from it had been printed.
Still smashing at the hero legend,
the Soviet government Friday
heaped more ashes on the corpse
of Stain by publishing the will Of
Lenin. suppressed for S3 years. The
document. in the form of a letter
to the 18th Communist Party Con-
gress, dated December % and "a,
1922, describes Stain as rude,
rough and capricious
and warns that he could not be
entrusted with a post as response
BILE as that OF secretary of the party.
1t was in this post that Stain,
after Lenins death in 1924, welded
his power ruthlessly 70 eliminate