COMMUNISM NOW
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greater simplicity, equality and doctrinal purity-everything, in fact,
that the new ruling stratum abhors? And yet the regime can rid it–
self of the Stalinist encumbrance only by appealing to the authority
of Lenin. It must do so even at the risk of arousing expectations it
cannot fulfill, and in the knowledge that the Soviet elite will go on
paying lip service to Leninism-as it has been doing for a genera–
tion-while intensifying its collective pressure for greater privileges.
Lenin is too potent a symbol to be neglected at such a testing time.
He would have to sanctify even so improbable (in the short run) an
event as the effective displacement of the Party by the Army as the
highest authority in the State. No military leader could rise to power
without invoking the magic name, and in all probability this would
be done with some degree of sincerity.
The present operation nonetheless has its dangers. What is a
mere slogan to the Party leaders may be taken seriously by their
followers, and perhaps by aspirants to power who would like to rele–
gate the Party to second place. How these conflicting tendencies can
be assembled under one roof is a problem that may well tax the in–
genuity of the ruling stratum for years to come. "Back to Lenin" is
a splendid slogan, on condition that it is not taken literally. What if
it becomes a rallying-point for genuinely democratic tendencies?
Lenin has not, after all, been dead long enough for pious evocations
of his memory to be entirely harmless.
If
there is trouble in the
near future it is likely to stem from this most impeccable of
Communist saints.
The great unsolved problem, assuming that the retreat to
"Leninism" can be executed without disaster to the ruling group,
is the future role of the Party in a society which in some respects
has outgrown its guidance. Totalitarianism means in practice that
State and Party must be merged at the highest level; ideally they
should meet in the person of a single autocratic ruler. It is arguable
that in repudiating this pattern the present collective leadership has
set itself in opposition to the logic of the system.
If
this is so, one
must expect a new personal dictatorship to emerge from the present
confused gropings of Stalin's heirs. Autocracy would seem to be
required to harmonize relations between the Party and the Army :
twin pillars of an overcentralized regime who must stand or fall
together. It was not the least of Stalin's achievements that he was
