Soviet Foreign Policy: New Goals or New Manners?

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WILL the dismantling of the Stalin myth, the most startling result of the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, be followed by the modification or abandonment of the basic goals of Stalin's foreign policy? Or merely by a change in Soviet manners and methods? Nikita Khrushchev's bitter attack on Stalin, delivered to a secret session of the Congress on February 25, has now been published in America, at least in part, in what appears to be an authentic version.^[i] It gives evidence of substantial changes in the "style" in which the post-Stalin Party Presidium proposes to exercise its dictatorial power at home, while pursuing the same basic goals of building heavy industry and military power. But it gives no evidence of doubt as to the correctness of Stalin's basic foreign policy.

True, Khrushchev attacked Stalin bitterly for his blind faith in Hitler's word and for his refusal to believe Churchill's warnings against the impending German attack on the Soviet Union. The available extracts depict Stalin as a bullheaded and uninformed meddler in military strategy and, by implication, enhance the military stature of both Khrushchev and the army command. Stalin is also accused of "an incorrect position with respect to the nationality question." "He undertook a whole series of reprisals against several nationalities and national minorities." Most striking is the downgrading of the "Short Biography" of Stalin. "The short Stalin biography, which appeared in 1948, is an expression of that uncontrolled self-praise, an attempt by Stalin to show himself as 'an infallible genius'."