Death In The Kremlin: The World Responds

Beyond the Communist darkness, plain people everywhere showed their feelings plainly: surprise, relief, curiosity, apprehension. But in chancelleries, the dictates of conscience contested with the practices of diplomacy. Officially, a policy of de mortals nil nisi bonum (but not too much bonum) generally prevailed. Some responses:

United Nations delegates bowed their heads in one minute’s silence and Soviet Delegate Andrei Vishinsky mourned “the most grievous loss … for all human beings.” Vishinsky, close to tears, said Stalin’s name will be “immortal,” and over the protests of some New Yorkers, the U.N. flag was lowered to half-mast.

Britain’s message was officially described as “all that is required under normal diplomatic procedure.” The last of the Big Three, 78-year-old Prime Minister Winston Churchill, had offered his regrets “at the news of Mr. Stalin’s ill health,” but refused to comment on Stalin’s death in a silence more eloquent than even his oratory. Other Britons felt the need to sum up. “A great man but not a good man,” said Labor’s-Herbert Morrison. “The world is a healthier but not a safer place,” said London’s Economist.

The Vatican asked Roman Catholics to pray for the soul of a man unofficially described as “one of the greatest persecutors of the Catholic Church and of religion in general since the birth of Christ. [He] has arrived at the end of his arid life and must account to the Almighty for his actions. One cannot feel anything but profound commiseration …”

Red China, said its Communist Dictator Mao Tse-tung, “definitely, forever and with maximum resoluteness,” will stay faithful to the Soviet Union. He ordered three days mourning for “the most esteemed and dearest friend and teacher of the Chinese people.” Quickly getting in its endorsement of the new regime, Peking announced that 47,150 Chinese cadres have been spending two afternoons a week for two months studying a speech Malenkov made last October.

Egypt. “My first reaction,” said Strongman Naguib, “was to pray to Allah to give mercy to a great man.”

France mourned officially for two full days. Premier René Mayer’s government ordered the tricolor lowered on military posts. Next day, Le Figaro (circ. 426,000) protested: “Marshal Stalin is leaving us other souvenirs . . . His name is linked to the struggle of our troops in Indo-China and Korea. [The Soviet Union] helps in prolonging a terrible war . . . Have our authorities thought of the effect which [lowering the flag] will have on the morale of our combat units?”

West Germany. Chancellor Konrad Adenauer feared the temptation to regard Stalin’s death as a breathing spell: “We must . . . get on with things and not just . . . look with fascination at Moscow.”

India’s Parliament for the first time since independence adjourned in memory of a foreign Premier. Prime Minister Nehru’s eulogy: “A man with a giant’s stature and indomitable courage … I earnestly hope that his passing away will not mean that his influence, which was exercised in favor of peace, will no longer be available.”

Iran’s Prime Minister Mossadegh ordered all flags flown at half-mast, and when the U.S. embassy forgot, a Soviet representative rapped on the door and asked that the omission be rectified [it was]. U.S. Ambassador Loy Henderson drove to the Soviet legation and told tearful Soviet staffers: “In one of the darkest periods of history, Joseph Stalin [was] a staunch ally of the U.S.”

Italy. A gang of Italian Communists, out of long-ingrained Catholic habit, crossed themselves and genuflected before their dead leader’s portrait in the Soviet embassy. “When he was alive,” said Prime Minister Alcide de Gasperi, “the Dictator did not show our country either comprehension or consideration …”

Jerusalem. Inside their church, Russian Orthodox monks prayed for Stalin’s soul; outside, in Zion Square, beggars rattled their tin cups and shouted: “Haman is dead.”*Israeli leaders, fearful lest they provoke a new antiSemitism, kept silent.

Korea. Behind the lines, some G.I.s erected four roadside signs in a row, Burma-Shave style: “Joe’s dead; so they said; hurray, hurray; that’s one less Red.” Said Korea’s militantly anti-Communist President Syngman Rhee: “I am sorry he, as a human being, has died. What we are fighting for is not between human and human but between idea and idea.”

*Haman, chamberlain to King Ahasuerus (485-465 B.C.), was one of the Old Testament’s fiercest anti-Semites, “and him they have hanged upon the gallows”—50 cubits high (Esther 8:7).