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THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV

PART 7

CONSULTATIONS WITH

Mr. Guivy Zaldastani

Mr. George Nakashidse

Mr. Dimitar K. Petkoff

Mrs. Catherine Boyan Choukanoff

COMMITTEE ON UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES >^ '^i<?^
EIGHTY-SIXTH CONGRESS ^

SECOND SESSION

3

JANUARY 8, 1960
(INCLUDING INDEX)

Printed for the use of the Committee on Un-American Activities

UNITED STATES
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
62624 WASHINGTON : 1960

COMMITTEE ON UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES

United States House of Representatives
FRANCIS E. WALTER, Pennsylvania, Chahman
MORGAN M. MOULDER, Missouri DONALD L. JACKSON, California

CLYDE DOYLE, CaUforoia CORDON H. SCHERER, Ohio

EDWIN E. WILLIS, Louisiana WILLIAM E. MILLER, New York

WILLIAM M. TUCK, Virginia AUGUST E. JOHANSEN, Michigan

Richard Arens, Staff Director
II

CONTENTS

Page

Synopsis 1

January 8, 1960. Testimony of —

Mr. Guivy Zaldastani 7

Mr. George Nakashidse 15

Mr. Dimitar K. Petkoff 24

Mrs. Catherine Boyan Choukanoff ' 30

Index i

III

Public Law 601, 79th Congress

The legislation under which the House Committee on Un-American
Activities operates is Public Law 601, 79th Congress [1946], chapter
753, 2d session, which provides:

Be it enacted by the Senate and House oj Representatives of the United States
oj America in Congress assembled, * * *

PART 2— RULES OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Rule X

SEC. m. STANDING COMMITTEES

*•**♦••

17. Committee on Un-American Activities, to consist of nine Members.

Rule XI

POWERS AND DtJTIES OF COMMITTEES

*******

(q) (1) Committee on Un-American Activities.

(A) Un-American activities.

(2) The Committee on Un-American Activities, as a whole or by subcommit-
tee, is authorized to make from time to time investigations of (i) the extent,
character, and objects of un-American propaganda activities in the United States,
(ii) the diffusion within the United States of subversive and un-American propa-
ganda that is instigated from foreign countries or of a domestic origin and attacks
the principle of the form of government as guaranteed by our Constitution, and
(iii) all other questions in relation thereto that would aid Congress in any necessary
remedial legislation.

The Committee on Un-American Activities shall report to the House (or to the
Clerk of the House if the House is not in session) the results of any such investi-
gation, together with such recommendations as it deems advisable.

For the purpose of any such investigation, the Committee on Un-American
Activities, or any subcommittee thereof, is authorized to sit and act at such
times and places within the United States, whether or not the House is sitting,
has recessed, or has adjourned, to hold such hearings, to require the attendance
of such witnesses and the production of such books, papers, and documents, and
to take such testimony, as it deems necessary Subpenas may be issued under
the signature of the chairman of the committee or any subcommittee, or by any
member designated by any such chairman, and may be served by any person
designated by any such chairman or member.

*******

Rule XII

LEGISLATIVE OVERSIGHT BY STANDING COMMITTEES

Sec. 136. To assist the Congress in appraising the administration of the laws
and in developing such amendments or related legislation as it may deem neces-
sary, each standing committee of the Senate and the House of Representatives
shall exercise continuous watchfulness of the execution by the administrative
agencies concerned of any laws, the subject matter of which is within the jurisdic-
tion of such committee; and, for that purpose, shall study all pertinent reports
and data submitted to the Congress by the agencies in the executive branch of
the Government.

IV

RULES ADOPTED BY THE 86TH CONGRESS
House Resolution 7, January 7, 1959

Rule X

STANDING COMMITTEES

1. There shall be elected by the House, at the commencement of each Con-
gress,

*******

(q) Committee on Un-American Activities, to consist of nine Members.

* * « >K * * *

Rule XI

POWERS AND DUTIES OF COMMITTEES

0*****0

18. Committee on Un-American Activities.

(a) Un-American activities.

(b) The Committee on Un-American Activities, as a whole or by subcommittee,
is authorized to make from time to time investigations of (1) the extent, char-
acter, and objects of un-American propaganda activities in the United States,
(2) the diffusion within the United States of subversive and un-American prop-
aganda that is instigated from foreign countries or of a domestic origin and
attacks the principle of the form of government as guaranteed by our Constitu-
tion, and (3) all other questions in relation thereto that would aid Congress
in any necessary remedial legislation.

The Committee on Un-American Activities shall report to the House (or to the
Clerk of the House if the House is not in session) the results of any such investi-
gation, together with such recommendations as it deems advisable.

For the purpose of any such investigation, the Committee on Un-American
Activities, or any subcommittee thereof, is authorized to sit and act at such timet-
and places within the United States, whether or not the House is sitting, has
recessed, or has adjourned, to hold such hearings, to require the attendance
of such witnesses and the production of such books, papers, and documents, and
to take such testimony, as it deems necessary. Subpenas may be issued under
the signature of the chairman of the committee or any subcommittee, or by any
member designated by any such chairman, and may be served by any person
designated by any such chairman or member.

*******

26. To assist the House in appraising the administration of the laws and in
developing such amendments or related legislation as it may deem necessary,
each standing committee of the House shall exercise continuous watchfulness
of the execution by the administrative agencies concerned of any laws, the subject
matter of which is within the jurisdiction of such committee; and, for that
purpose, shall study all pertinent reports and data submitted to the House by
the agencies in the executive branch of the Government.

We declare that what has been modified by war cannot
be modified again without war.

Nikita Khrushchev
Moscow, February 8, 1960

VI

THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV

SYNOPSIS

Khrushchev's bloody suppression of "the'people of the nation of
Georgia in their efforts to gain their freedom, the forced deportations
of Georgians into other parts of the Soviet Union, his suppression of
liberty of the subject people of Georgia, and the starvation and
inhumanities which Khrushchev's terror mechanism is currently
inflicting on the people of Bulgaria are related in the accompanying
consultations with the Committee on Un-American Activities.

Guivy Zaldastani, vice president of the Georgian National Alliance,
and George Nakashidse described the merciless reign of terror existing
in the former nation of Georgia, their native land now under control
of Khrushchev's international Communist apparatus. Describing a
peaceful assembly of students in the capital of Georgia in March of
1956, Mr. Zaldastani stated they —

gathered in the center of Tbilisi, the capital of 4 Georgia.
They appeared before the Government House on Rust'haveli
Street. They were soon joined there by factory workers and
several thousand other citizens. They shouted for individual
liberties and demanded the dismissal of Khrushchev.

)|( 4( 4: * ift

Russian troops were ordered out of their garrisons, and
tanks and machine guns surrounded the city.

* * * * *

The tanks moved in. In one section along the river, the
enclosing tanks cut off all means of escape as the citizens tried
to seek cover. They were flanked on one side by closed
buildings, and on the other by sheer cliffs, dropping to rocks
and the swift currents of the River Km-a, which was running
through the center of the town. - This obvious death jump
was the only chance of escape. The casualties were reported
to exceed 600.

The heroes of the day were two boys and a girl, who had
set up a transmitter to the free world, which was apparently
heard in Turkey, refusing to surrender to the Russian troops.
The door of the building was forced open then, and all three
were bayoneted and thrown into the street.

The bodies of those killed in the fighting were not returned
to the families of the victims. The wounded were ordered
to remain in their homes until fully recovered, so that the
number of casualties in the city would not become known.

What started as a peaceful demonstration of distrust to
the Soviet rulers had been tmned into a bloody uprising.
The only arms used by the demonstrators were small pocket
guns. The only chance for success was to make this demon-

2 THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV

stration for freedom a peaceful one, counting on human
conscience to recognize Georgia's rights as a nation. A
civihzed government would have understood and very likely
would have accepted discussion on these rights. For
Kirushchev, the only answer, however, was death to those
who challenged his authority. The right to assemble and
petition could certainly not be given by Khrushchev to those
who destroyed his picture and asked for his dismissal.

Commenting £on suppressionTof religion in his native Georgia,
Mr. Zaldastani continued:

It is a challengeHo the regime to attend church services.
Ministers do not have the right to make sermons because
of the danger of expressing anticommunistic thoughts.

In regard to certain press accounts that the Communists under
Khrushchev no longer operate slave labor camps within the Soviet
empire, Mr. Zaldastani observed:

It is a change of name. It is not a change of the natm^e.
It is a Communist strategy to change names as evil is dis-
covered.

For instance, the Soviet Secret Pohce, which was origi-
nally known as the Cheka, later became known as the
GPU. Then it became known as the MVD, and is now
known by some other name. I don't know what they caU
it now.

In the same way the slave labor camps, which have existed
in the Soviet Union since its conception, stiU exist, but under
different names. They are being called now "correction
camps," "labor camps," et cetera.

"In the terrible epoch of Yezhov, in 1937-38, when the bloody
purges reached their summit in the whole union, the name of 'Khru-
shchev, the hangman of the Ula-aine,' was often mentioned at our
Promethean reunions," Mr. Nakashidse stated. He continued:

Hundreds of thousands of party members, professors,
students, journalists, writers, artists, workers, engineers,
peasants, and clergy were executed by him, or banished to
Siberia.

1^ Hf Hi: * *

As a member of the "almighty" Politburo since 1939,
Khrushchev is one of the instigators and executors of the
barbarous massacres of the Ukrainian Vinnitsa, of the Polish
Katyn, of the cruel, merciless expulsion of the Caucasian
nations — Chechen-Ingushes, Karachay-Balkars, Crimean
Tartars and Kalmyks — from their native countries to Siberia
and Central Asia.

His really bloodthu'sty nature was revealed at the time of
the Hungarian uprising. Surprised and terrified by the
worldwide significance of the national movement, he and his
government issued, on October 30, 1956, a declaration where
they solemnly pledged to fulfill the Hungarian nation's de-

THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV 3

mand, and to withdraw the Russian troops from Budapest
and Hungary. This declaration contains such gems as:

"The countries of the Socialist nations, joined together by
their great friendship, can build their relations only on the
principles of the whole equality, on the respect of territorial
integrity, on the recognizing of the state's independence and
sovereignty, on the nonintervention in the inner affairs of the
other nation * * *."

According to this official declaration, the Hungarian revo-
lutionary government and her freedom-fighting military
forces were invited to negotiate with Russia to bring about
the realization of their proposal.

The whole world knows what happened then, how Khru-
shchev "fulfilled" this promise that he had made public.

Mr. Nakashidse related details of the exploitation by th© Com-
munists of Soviet Georgia, the destruction of its cultural life, and the
deprivation by Khrushchev's terror mechanism of all basic freedoms.
This regime maintains itself in power "by terror, by force, by intrigue,
under the bayonets of Moscow," he concluded.

Dimitar K. Petkoff, of the Bulgarian National Com.mittee, and
Mrs. Catherine Boyan Choukanoff testified respecting Communist
suppression of the people of theu' native country, Bulgaria.

Mr. Petkoff stated:

An example of the exploitation of Bulgaria by the Soviet
Union is the deportation of the youth into the Soviet Union.
They were said to be "volunteers," but in fact there was no
opportunity for them to refuse to go. There was unemploy-
ment in Bulgaria, and any young man who was called by the
party and told, "You must go to the Soviet Union," could
not answer "I don't want to go." The Communists would
say, "You are not willing to work and are sabotaging the
Soviet national economy, and you are a traitor and an
enemy." In fact, there were no volunteers at all. It was a
deportation to the Soviet Union. The youths were sent to
different places, even in Siberia, but mainly in Kazakhstan.

The Bulgarian Prime Minister, Anton Yugov, revealed in
an interview with a foreign correspondent, which was pub-
lished in the Bulgarian newspapers on July 30, 1957, that the
total amount of deported was 10,000 young men. From that
time those deportations have continued, so they are much
more.

Commenting on Khrushchev's description of himself and other
Communists as "humanitarians," Mr. Petkoff said:

My people regard it as a sacrilege to suggest that either
Khrushchev or his Communist apparatus could be humani-
tarian. They are under the whiplash. They have seen their
sons deported to far lands. They have had their property
seized. They have had friends and relatives literally des-
troyed by this awful mechanism which is the enemy of their
own freedom, both as a nation and in their individual lives.
It is cynical to suggest that either Khrushchev or his regime
could be humanitarian.

52624—60 2

4 THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV

Let me give you a few illustrations of what I am talking
about:

About the humanitarianism of Khrushchev, I can say that
all the elected members of the National Assembly (Parlia-
ment) of 1947 — the only one in which there was a democratic
opposition — were arrested. Some of the leaders were killed
and some went into exile, like Dr. Dimitrov here. The
elected representatives of the people were imprisoned and
many are still in prison under this regime of Khrushchev's,
with his smile of humanitarianism.

Here are some of the members of the National Assembly
who are known to have died in prison or have been sent to
their homes to die under the regime of Khrushchev:

Raicho Daskalov, Dr. Diniu Gotchev, and Trifon Kunev
of the Agrarian Party; Ivan Slavov, Hristo Punev, and Petko
Tarpanov of the Social Democratic Party.

Aleksandur Girginov, a former minister and democratic
leader, also died in a Communist jail.

There are other prominent national leaders still under
arrest: Ivan Kostov, Angel Darjanski, Konstantin Mura-
viev, and Dimiter Gichev, all of the Agrarian Party; Kosta
Lultchev, Petar Bratkov, and D. R. Dertliev, these of the
Social Democratic Party.

And there are many unknown.

Gentlemen, these are not just statistics. I am giving you
the names of human beings who were destroyed and im-
prisoned, and by Khrushchev.

Regarding prison camps in Bulgaria, Mr. Petkoff stated :

Tens of thousands of people are now in prisons and camps
in Bulgaria. For those crimes, and in general for the pres-
ent enslavement of the Bulgarian nation, the Soviet dictator,
Nikita Khrushchev, is responsible.

Mrs. Choukanoff read to the committee excerpts from messages
from the Bulgarian people suffering "in the Red Hell":

We can hardly procure anything here, either to
eat or to wear. Misery is everywhere, thanks to
the Communists. They are the lowest and the
worst, and there are no greater crooks than them.

:(: 4c 4: * *

We hardly get enough to eat. If you would
decide to send me something, please don't bother
to send clothes — the duty is much more than I can
pay, but you can send me some food. It %vill be
good if it can reach in time for the holidays which
are approaching. Otherwise I guess I'll have to part
with that rooster I've been keeping in the yard for
some years now. But the poor thing is so old
already that I wonder if it will ever get cooked.

Mrs. Choukanoff stated : ,

It is probably true that there is an apparently abundant
supply of consumer goods, of food and of all kinds of deli-

THE CREVIES OF KHRUSHCHEV 5

cacies in the stores. But in reality, the supply is quite
limited, and, besides, everything is so highly priced that it
is beyond the reach of the common people. Those things
can be afforded only by the members of the so-called new
class, by a few privileged collaborators, by the diplomatic
corps and by such visitors from abroad that the regime
allows in the country.

As to whether there has been any improvement in the situation in
Bulgaria since Khrushchev ascended the pinnacle in the Communist
regime, she said :

If there is any evidence to that effect, it must have escaped
my attention. On the contrary, all indications are that the
Communist regime in Bulgaria is tightening, rather than
relaxing, controls over the different phases of national life.

Concluding her testimony, Mrs. Choukanoff observed that —

the fact remains that the Communist regime has reduced
Bulgaria to a state of obedient subordination to the will of
the Kremlin bosses. And this appears to be as true in the
fields of art, literature, education, and culture generally as it
is in those of police control, the economy, and foreign affairs.
Having succeeded in transplanting Soviet police methods
on Bulgarian soil, in merging the nation's economy with that
of the U.S.S.R. and in abandoning even the pretense to a
foreign policy of its own, the same regime has been trying as
hard to stifle any intellectual independence and to regiment
all artistic and creative efforts. It is here, however, in what
might be called the spiritual sector, that it has encountered
some of its most serious frustrations.

THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV
(Part 7)

FRIDAY, JANUARY 8, 1960

United States House of Kepresentatives,

Committee on Un-American Activities,

Washington, D.C.

consultations

The following consultations with Messrs, Guivy Zaldastani and
George Nakashidse were held at 10:20 a.m., in room 226, Old House
Office Building, Washington, D.C, Hon. Francis E. Walter, Chair-
man of the Committee on Un-American Activities, presiding.

Committee members present: Representatives Francis E, Walter,
of Pennsylvania, and Gordon H. Scherer, of Ohio.

Staff members present: Richard Arens, staff director, and Fulton
Lewis III, research analyst.

The Chairman. The committee will come to order, and the first
witness will be sworn.

Do you, Mr. Zaldastani, solemnly swear that the testimony you
are about to give this committee will be the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

Mr. Zaldastani. I do.

STATEMENT OF GUIVY ZALDASTANI

Mr. Arens. Please identify yourself by name, residence, and
occupation.

Mr. Zaldastani. My name is Guivy Zaldastani. I live at 55
Atherton Street, Milton, Mass. I am a manager-buyer in a Boston
department store and I am also vice president of the Georgian National
Alliance.

Mr. Arens. Give us a word, please, about the Georgian National
Alliance.

Mr. Zaldastani. The Georgian National Alliance is an American
organization dedicated to oppose Communist imperialisrn and whose
purpose is to contribute to the reestablishment of an independent
Georgian nation.

The organization has two printed organs: "The Voice of Free
Georgia," a quarterly publication in English, which has been tem-
porarily discontinued because of lack of funds; and "Georgian Opin-
ion," a monthly publication in Georgian, of which I am a member
of the editorial board.

Mr. Arens. Please give us for the record, Mr. Zaldastani, a word
about that area of the Soviet Union known as Georgia.

8 THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV

. Mr. Zaldastani. Georgia is one of the oldest nations in the Chris-
tian world with a history which can be traced back to the Hittite and
Assyrian civilizations. In ancient times Georgia was composed of
two areas: Colchis (a name familiar through the legend of the Golden
Fleece) and Iberia.

Georgia's colorful past, highly developed culture, Christian ideals,
advanced forms of government, geographic wealth, pleasant climate
and scenic landscape have made her the provocation and envy of her
neighbors — Greeks, Romans, Persians, Moslems, Turks, and presently
Russians. Yet with numerous invasions and the continuing threat
of losing her national identity, she has emerged repeatedly, holding
fast to her culture, religion and unique language.

In the 12th century, Georgia reached an apex in her political and
cultural achievement. Her literature, art and architecture brought
about a flourishing "golden age." In government the concept of
individual freedoms and equality of the sexes were firmly established,
but the culmination of this era of enlightenment came under the reign
of Queen Thamar, who set up a reform program, whereby legislative
and executive powers were entrusted to a parliament, leaving the
monarch only the rights of veto and confirmation.

This humanitarian and democratic doctrine preceded similar move-
ments in Western Europe by almost a century.

Georgia has no cultural, social, racial, ethnic, or linguistic ties with
Russia. Her high degree of literacy, historical and religious back-
ground are forms of national pride, and she cannot imagine herself
as part of the organized perversity that the Soviet Union represents.

Mr. Arens. Where is it located geographically?

Mr. Zaldastani. Georgia is situated in the Caucasus between the
Black and Caspian Seas. Primarily an agricultural country her wine,
tea, fruit, and tobacco products are important exports. Silk has been
a national industry since the fifth century A.D. Mineral deposits
are considerable. She possesses the largest and finest manganese
mines in the world, as well as coal, iron, oil and uranium. Good
transportation networks of railroads, highways, and airways connect
her capital Tbilisi to both Moscow and the Aliddle East.

Mr. Arens. Could you give us just a rough estimate of its physical
size?

Mr. Zaldastani. Its area is a little smaller than Hungary — just
about the size of the State of Virginia.

Mr. Arens. Please, sir, tell us about the population of this area
known as Georgia, in the Soviet Union.

Mr. Zaldastani. The population, just over 4 million, is basically
rural; however, in Tbilisi alone there are over 600,000 inhabitants.
To help me describe the chief characteristics of the Georgian people I
happen to have a copy of a book. The Last Years of the Georgian
Monarchy 1658-1832, by David Marshall Lang,^ from which I would
like to read a few lines.

Mr. Arens. Please go ahead, Mr. Zaldastani.

Mr. Zaldastani (reading) :

Generalizations about peoples are always dangerous, and
the Georgians are no exception to this rule. But most
observers would agree that, along with a high level of intel-

' David Marshall Lang, The Last Years of the Georgian Monarchy 1658-18S2, Columbia University Press
New York, 1857; published in Great Britain, Canada, India, and Palcistan by the Oxford University Press

THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV 9

lectual ability, they are quick-witted and prone to volatility
and change of mood. They are gifted in dance, song, and
poetry, and Georgian folklore is an inexhaustible mine of in-
vention. They tend to take an optimistic view of hfe, are
generous in hospitality * * * .

Mr. Arens. Would you kindly give us a word about your personal
background?

Mr. Zaldastani. Well, I was born in 1919 in Tbilisi, the capital
of Georgia.

At the time of my birth Georgia was an independent republic. In
1921 Soviet Russia invaded that country, and after a very fierce
fight, which lasted 6 to 7 weeks, the Georgian Army was defeated by
the Soviet forces. At that time the Georgian government left Georgia
and found asylum in Paris.

Up to 1924 my family stayed in Georgia. My father was hiding
from the Soviet authorities and took a leading part in the organiza-
tion of the national insurrection of 1924. After the failure of that
insurrection my father escaped to Paris, and our family joined him a
year later.

I grew up in France, where I attended L'Ecole des Sciences
Politiques and graduated from the University of Paris Law School.
During the war I served in the French Marine Corps. In 1948 I
came to this country.

I graduated from Harvard Graduate School of Business Adminis-
tration and since then I have been working in Boston.

Mr. Arens. Are you a citizen of the United States?

Mr. Zaldastani. Yes, sir, I am.

Mr. Arens. When were you naturalized?

Mr. Zaldastani. I was naturalized in 1954.

Mr. Arens. Mr. Zaldastani, do you have evidence of crimes by
Khrushchev in your native country of Georgia?

Mr. Zaldastani. Yes, sir.

Mr. Arens. Can you characterize, first of all, the sources ofjyour
information?

Mr. Zaldastani. The information which I am prepared to submit
to the Committee on Un-American Activities stems from documentary
material which I have in my possession, as well as from confidential
sources of information stemming from Georgia, which I obviously
cannot reveal at the present time because it would jeopardize the lives
of people who are presently there transmitting the information.

Mr. Arens. Will you kindly, Mr. Zaldastani, proceed at your own
pace to present your information respecting the crimes of IQirushchev
in your native land?

Mr. Zaldastani. To present the proper evidence of Khrushchev's
crimes in Georgia I would lil^e to quote Webster's definition of a crime:
"A gross violation of human laws."

Being an American citizen and testifying before the representatives
of the United States Congress, the only laws which would be natural
to apply here are contained in our own Constitution.

However, the events we are about to report which incriminate
Khrushchev do not only violate our own concept of human rights,
but also the Charter of the United Nations as weU as the very laws of
the Soviet Union.

10 THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV

The first amendment to our Constitution outlines our individual
freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to
assemble and petition. These laws were ignored and violently
repudiated by Khrushchev in Tbilisi, Georgia, in March 1956.

In 1956, as before, Muscovite imperialism was challenged by the
Georgian masses who were seeking individual liberties and liberation
from the Muscovite yoke.

What happened in 1956 in Tbilisi was a natural continuation of
Georgia's fight for survival. It was normal for Khrushchev to expect
trouble. He was afraid that at that time — in 1956 — a strong uprising
in Georgia, if not controlled at once, could spread throughout the
Soviet Union.

Early in that year he had elevated Vasili P. Mzhavanadze, an
old comrade of his Ula'ainian bloody purges, and first secretary of the
Georgian Communist Party, to the Central Conmiittee of the Soviet
Party, placing him under his direct command.

He sent 15,000 party agitators to Tbilisi, which is roughly about
one agitator for every 15 men, to control the city and to indoctrinate
the population.

Mr. Arens, What do you mean by an "agitator"?

Mr. Zaldastani, The word "agitator" was used in the report given
by Tass. I assume they meant it to be used in the common sense of
the word — one who excites public discussion in order to prepare and
educate the public for an idea. However, I think we should assume
that they were trusted Communists sent to stir up and prime the
population in the ways of Russian communism.

As I said, the purpose was to control the city and to indoctrinate
the population.

At the time, the military tribunal — officers and soldiers — stationed
in Georgia were made up entirely of Russians, as the Georgians could
not be depended upon.

Since the fall of Beria the secret police had been reorganized and
was in the hands of trusted men. There was no room left for sur-
prises. Yet, in spite of all this organization, in spite of this control
on every man, woman, and child living in the city, some people came
out proclaiming hatred of their Soviet overlords and made a futile
attempt to contact the free world.

Mr. Arens. Has anything of that sort happened before in Georgia,
to your knowledge?

Mr. Zaldastani. Actually it has. In fact, at times historical
analogies help to understand current events.

To understand what happened in March of 1956 in Tbilisi,
Georgia — a few years after the death of Stalin — I should like to go
back to 1924, just a few months after the death of Lenin.

Georgia at that time had been overwhelmed by the Soviet Army,
after a brief but bloody war. The whole population resented the
establishment of the Soviet puppet government, which effected daily
executions by the secret police, deportation of the intellectuals to
Siberia, the closing of the churches, and the constant indoctrination
of communism.

To uphold their principles in view of death was far better than
living under the existing conditions; yet, one had to wait for the right
moment to insm'ge in order to have some chance of success.

THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV 11

After the death of Lenm, which happened in January of 1924, the
struggle for a successor commenced. Georgia felt the time had come.

In August of that year a general insurrection broke out, but without
the help of any foreign power, its destiny was inevitable: thousands
of men died, more were deported. The fervor of these brave Georgians
was never to be forgotten by Moscow.

In 1956, just as in 1924, Georgians saw hope for a successful stand
against their evil dictator.

Mr. Arens. Who was the evil dictator to whom you allude?

Mr. Zaldastani. Well, by March of 1956, Khrushchev already
had established himself as the primary leader of the Soviet Union.
Just a few months before March he had denounced Stalin, thus wiping
out the existing Stalinist hierarchy, who had up to that time threatened
his dream as supreme "monarch." There was no more triumvirate
at that time. He was the sole ruler of the Communist Party as well
as of the Soviet Union.

Mr. Arens. Was Khruschchev directly responsible for the bloody
suppression of the efforts of the Georgian people to gain their freedom?

Mr. Zaldastani. There is no question about it, Mr. Arens.

Continuing with the analogy: After Stalin's death in 1953 — just
as after Lenin's death — the struggle for succession had commenced.
Malenkov, Bulganin, and Beria, had tried to consolidate their posi-
tions, but failed. In 1953, Khrushchev^ — -just as Stalin did in 1924 —
seized the general secretariat of the Communist Party; and from that
position, Khrushchev's influence grew. The Georgians realized that
before Khrushchev established himself as a head of the Soviet Union,
they must put their dreams of independence into action. The time
was running short.

In February of 1956 Khrushchev denounced Stalin and exposed
the crimes of the Stalin era. A wave of shock and confusion spread
throughout the Communist world. The time for "speaking out"
against the regime was ripe. The facade was Stalin — the hope was
the spread of revolt throughout the Soviet Union against the Com-
munist tyrants.

Mr. Arens. What actually happened then, in March of 1956?

Mr. Zaldastani. In previous years the anniversary of Stalin's
death had been celebrated by solemn ceremonies, meetings, and
speeches of praise. But no such glory was accorded Stalin on March 5,
1956. The officials meant that day to be like any other. Yet, 2
days later, a body of students gathered in the center of Tbilisi, the
capital of Georgia. They appeared before the Government House on
Rust'haveli Street. They were soon joined there by factory workers
and several thousand other citizens. They shouted for individual
liberties and demanded the dismissal of Khrushchev.

Then the first party secretary, Vasili Mzhavanadze — a right-hand
man of Khrushchev in Georgia — came out to appease the crowd.
But the crowd answered by shouting, "Get out! Get out!"

Eventually the demonstrators dispersed.

The next morning all communications with Georgia ceased. The
visiting French President, Vincent Auriol, was flown out of Tbilisi.
Prime Minister Hansen of Denmark, scheduled to land in Tbilisi
that day, was rerouted to Stalingrad at the last minute — the reason
given: bad weather. Six U.S. physicians scheduled to visit Tbilisi

52624—60 3

12 THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV

for a few days "agreed" to drop the Georgian capital from their
itinerary, at the suggestion of the Soviet officials.

Russian troops were ordered out of their garrisons, and tanks and
machine guns surrounded the city.

Marshal Voroshilov was sent in from Moscow.

Mr. Arens. Who is he?

Mr. Zaldastani. Marshal Voroshilov was, at the time, a member
of the Politburo, and the nominal President of the Soviet Union.

Apparently the troops received the order to fire at the crowd. Some
demonstrators took over some buildings of the Communist Party,
the post office, a newspaper building, hoping to cut off the directives
of the Communist Party, and to get in touch with the outside world.

As the shots were fired, the demonstrators tried to organize street
barricades by overturning trollies and blocking streets.

The tanks moved in. In one section along the river, the enclosing
tanks cut off all means of escape as the citizens tried to seek cover.
They were flanked on one side by closed buildings, and on the other
by sheer cliffs, dropping to rocks and the swift currents of the River
Kura, which was running through the center of the town. This
obvious death jump was the only chance of escape. The casualties
were reported to exceed 600.

The heroes of the day were two boys and a girl, who had set up a
transmitter to the free world, which was apparently heard in Turkey,
refusing to surrender to the Russian troops. The door of the building
was forced open then, and all three were bayoneted and thrown into
the street.

The bodies of those killed in the fighting were not returned to
the families of the victims. The wounded were ordered to remain
in their homes until fully recovered, so that the number of casualties
in the city would not become known.

What started as a peaceful demonstration of distrust to the Soviet
rulers had been turned into a bloody uprising. The only arms used
by the demonstrators were small pocket guns. The only chance
for success was to make this demonstration for freedom a peaceful
one, counting on human conscience to recognize Georgia's rights
as a nation. A civilized government would have understood and
very likely would have accepted discussion on these rights. For
Khrushchev, the only answer, however, was death to those who
challenged his authority. The right to assemble and petition could
certainly not be given by Khrushchev to those who destroyed his
picture and asked for his dismissal.

Mr. Arens. Were these demonstrations pro-Stalin?

Mr. Zaldastani. None whatsoever. In fact, there is no evidence
which substantiates that there were any pro-Stalin demonstrations.
Western journalists, looking for an interpretation of the few facts
given by Reuters, connected the uprising with the anniversary of
Stalin's death, and the earlier denunciation of Stalin.

Obviously pleased with that false interpretation, Mikoyan himself,
while touring in India, tried to reinforce it, and on March 27, 1956—
which actually is about 19 days later — he made the statement that
"even though there were no disturbances in Georgia, some people
took the ree valuation of Stalin a bit hard." Actually the downgrading
of Stalin was just an occasion for the national uprising to start.

THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV 13

As a matter of fact, the Georgian Communist Party meeting right
after the uprising, on March 19 and 20, will substantiate my state-
ment. This meeting took the following resolutions:

1 . The Chief of Police — the MVD — demanded that every
citizen deliver a rebuff to all those trying to resurrect the
survival of bourgeois nationalism.

2. Mr. Sergei Dzhorberadze, the Communist Party leader
of the University of Tbilisi, was denounced and ousted, for
"failing to suppress elements of nationalism among the
Georgian student body."

Later, on March 24, the newspaper "Zarya Vostoka" (Dawn of the
East) complained that Georgian students were putting too much
emphasis on ancient Georgian history when Georgia was an independ-
ent kingdom with a strongly developed sense of nationalism. The
party organ said that university party leaders should have been more
diligent in suppressing elements of nationalism among the students.
Later, in an interview, Viktor Koupradze, the rector of the University
of Tbilisi, himself said that "during the disturbances some demonstra-
tors shouted forbidden and illegal nationalistic slogans."

Mr. Arens. Specifically what was Khrushchev's responsibility in
these crimes which you have just recounted?

Mr. Zaldastani. Khrushchev's part in these crimes is revealed
through his close collaboration with the man who was directly responsi-
ble for the suppression of the revolt: Mr. V. P. Mzhavanadze.

Remember, at the time of these crimes, Khrushchev was, as he is
now, the all-powerful head of the Communist apparatus in the Soviet
Union. The crime which I have related could not have occurred
without his acquiescence and approval.

Khrushchev, for many years, was a close collaborator of Mr.
Mzhavanadze, who was his henchman in Georgia.

In February 1956, Khrushchev made Mzhavanadze a member of
the Central Committee of the Communist Party, and as a reward to
Mzhavanadze for his conduct during the uprising, Khrushchev
sponsored him for nomination to the Presidium of the Communist
Party in June of 1957.

Mr. .A.RENS. Is there freedom of religion in Soviet Georgia?

Mr. Zaldastani. Georgia is one of the oldest Christian countries
on earth. She was the second state which adopted Christianity as a
state religion.

During the fifth century she was one of the first ones to translate
the Bible, and this translation is presently used as a historical source.

Yet, in a country with such a background, religion is not being
taught to the children today. It is a challenge to the regime to attend
church services. Ministers do not have the right to make sermons
because of the danger of expressing anticommunistic thoughts.

In 1922, Katholikos Ambrosius, head of the Georgian Church, was
saddened by the fact that there were only 1,500 churches left in
Georgia. Before his death in prison, Katholikos Ambrosius spoke
these last words at his trial:

My soul belongs to God, my heart to my country: you,
my executioners, do what you will with my body.

14 THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV

In 1951, Harrison E. Salisbury of the New York Times, while visit-
ing Tbihsi, talked to Katholikos Calhstratus who mentioned that
there were only 100 churches left in Georgia. Kathohkos Calhstratus
was also arrested, put to torture, and died in prison.

There is no freedom of rehgion in Georgia.

Mr. Arens. Do you have information respecting forced deporta-
tions of Georgians to other areas of the Soviet empire?

Mr. Zaldastani. The facts of forced deportations of Georgians into
other parts of Soviet Russia, especially to the Arctic Circle and Si-
beria, are innumerable, and thousands of instances could be cited.
However, just one example: After the rioting in Tbilisi that was men-
tioned before, 27 full trainloads of Georgians, mostly students, were
sent to forced labor camps in Central Asia. This fact has been proven
without any doubt whatsoever by many foreign observers and journal-
ists, and is confirmed without question by my own sources of infor-
mation.

Mr. Arens. We have read in the recent past where the Communist
regime denies the existence of slave labor camps within the Soviet

empire.

What observations would you care to make on that?

Mr. Zaldastani. It is a change of name. It is not a change of the
nature. It is a Communist strategy to change names as evil is dis-

covered.

For instance, the Soviet Secret Police, which was originally known
as the Cheka, later became known as the GPU. Then it became
known as the MVD, and is now known by some other name. I don't
know what they call it now. • i • ,

In the same way the slave labor camps, which have existed m the
Soviet Union since its conception, still exist, but under different names.
They are being called now "correction camps," "labor camps," et

Mr. Arens. Can the free world trust Khrushchev in these impend-
ing international conferences? i , ,

Mr. Zaldastani. To my mind there is not the slightest doubt that
Khrushchev, as any other Communist leader, cannot be trusted.

Let us not forget that the end always justifies the means for a
Communist, and to ignore a treaty, or a signatiu-e, is just part of
the strategy toward supremacy of world communism.

Mr. Arens. Can we believe Khrushchev's professions of peaceful

intent? , , , • • .

Mr. Zaldastani. We can only beheve that he is at war against

Western civihzation. i i i i

Mr. Arens. And there will be peace in his eyes only when he has
completed the conquest of the world by international communism?

Mr. Zaldastani. Yes.

The Chairman. Thank you very much, Mr. Zaldastani.

Mr. Arens. The next witness will be Mr. Nakashidse.

The Chairman. Do you, Mr. Nakashidse, solemnly swear that the
testimony you are about to give this committee will be the truth, the
whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

Mr. Nakashidse. I do.

THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV 15

STATEMENT OF GEORGE NAKASHIDSE

Mr. Arens. Please identify yourself by name, residence, and
occupation.

Mr. Nakashidse. My name is George Nakashidse. I live at 22
East 89tli Street, New York 28, N.Y.

I attended Georgian State University in Tifiis from 1918 to 1922.
While preparing for my final examinations, I was arrested, with many
other students, by the Bolshevik government, which was installed in
Georgia by the Russian bolshevik mihtary forces in 1921.

After 11 months of imprisonment I was exiled. I first studied law
abroad, at Heidelberg University in Germany. I then went to
Prague, Czechoslovakia, where I received my doctorate of law at the
Ukrainian University in 1927, and my Ph. D. from Charles University
in 1929.

In 1930 I went to Poland, where I was invited by the Orient Institute
and by Warsaw University to lecture on Georgian language and
literature.

In 1945, when the Russian Army occupied the whole of Poland, I
went to Germany as a political refugee, and stayed there until 1948,
at which time I emigrated to Argentina.

I arrived in the United States Sji months ago as an immigrant.

I have always participated in anti-Communist organizations. For
instance, I was the leader of the Anti-Bolshevik Georgian Student
Movement in Tifiis in 1921-22. In Prague I was president of the
International Anti-Bolshevik Student Organization. In Poland I was
the vice president of the well-known anti-Communist organization,
the Promethean Movement, created by the representatives of the
subjugated nations. In Germany I was a member and also the
rotative president of the International Central Committee of Political
Emigrants and Refugees. In Argentina I was the vice president of
the anti-Communist international organization, "Liberation Europea."

Mr. Arens. When did you come to the United States?

Mr. Nakashidse. I came to the United States on the 26th of
September 1959.

Mr. Arens. Do you have current sources of information respecting
the situation in your native country of Soviet Georgia?

Mr. Nakashidse. Yes, sir. As I have explained to you already, I
am a participant in a number of anti-Communist movements operating
in various areas of the world, and am the direct recipient of informa-
tion from sources which cannot be publicly revealed without jeopar-
dizing innocent lives.

Mr. Arens. Mr. Nakashidse, the Committee on Un-American
Activities, as vou know, is developing information respecting the
crimes of Khrushchev.

Based upon your own background as a one-time resident of Soviet
Georgia, and your continuous interest in the operations of the Com-
munist conspiracy in Soviet Georgia, do you have information bearing
on this subject of tlie crimes of Kliruslichev?

Mr. Nakashidse. The first time I heard the name of Khrushchev
was when he became a member of the central committee in 1934.
The Ukrainians, the Polish consulate members in Kharkov, Moscow,
and Kiev, had characterized Khrushchev as a "fanatical and impla-
cable Communist."

16 THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV

In the terrible epoch of Yezhov, in 1937-38, when the bloody
purges reached tlieir summit in the whole union, the name of "Khru-
shchev, the hangman of the Ukraine," was often mentioned at our
Promethean reunions.

Hundreds of thousands of party members, professors, students,
journalists, writers, artists, workers, engineers, peasants, and clergy
were executed by him, or banished to Siberia.

In 1937-38, the Promethean League, at public meetings, interna-
tional conferences, and by publications in various languages, de-
nounced before the civilized world the atrocities performed by Yezhov,
Beria, Khrushchev, and other hangmen of Stalin in the Ukraine,
Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkestan, Northern Caucasus, Georgia, and
other subjugated countries.

As a member of the "almighty" Politburo since 1939, Khrushchev
is one of the instigators and executors of the barbarous massacres of
the Ukrainian Vinnitsa, of the Polish Katyn, of the cruel, merciless
expulsion of the Caucasian nations — -Chechen-Ingushes, Karachay-
Balkars, Crimean Tartars and Kalmyks — from their native countries
to Siberia and Central Asia.

His really bloodthirsty nature was revealed at the time of the
Hungarian uprising. Surprised and terrified by the worldwide
significance of the national movement, he and his government issued,
on October 30, 1956, a declaration where they solemnly pledged to
fulfill the Hungarian nation's demand, and to withdraw the Russian
troops from Budapest and Hungary. This declaration contains such
gems as:

The countries of the Socialist nations, joined together by
their great friendship, can build their relations only on the
principles of the whole equality, on the respect of territorial
integrity, on the recognizing of the state's independence and
sovereignty, on the nonintervention in the inner aft'airs of the
other nation * * *.

According to this official declaration, the Hungarian revolutionary
government and her freedom-fighting military forces were invited to
negotiate with Russia to bring about the realization of their proposal.

The whole world knows what happened then, how Khrushchev
"fulfilled" this promise that he had made public.

Before the congress of the Hungarian Communist Party, and also
before the factory workers last December, Khrushchev boasted that
he, against the fear and opposition of some government members,
had ordered the Russian tank divisions against the freedom-loving
people.

And this man, when he spoke before the United Nations, before
Senators, and others, without ever blushing, played the role of fervent
defender of the sovereignty of every nation.

If we all pledge to respect the principle of nonintervention
in the other states' inner affairs — which means the recog-
nizing of every nation's right to elect its own state's form, its
own system, its own order which pleases it^ — the peace in the
world will be secured, and we want nothing more.

In pronouncing these and many such phrases, had Khrushchev
forgotten about Poland, about Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Rumania,
Bulgaria, the Baltic States, Albania? And had he forgotten about

THE CRIMEA OF KHRUSHCHEV 17

almost 40 years of uninterrupted struggle for national freedom by the
Ukraine, Turkestan, Northern Caucasus, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and
others?

We know the Communist regime was forcibly introduced in Poland,
Hungary, the Ukraine, Georgia, and other countries, which were
treacherously occupied by the Russians. Were not the puppet
governments created long before, for every one of these nations by
the Russians, completely disregarding the wishes of the nations?

We will only cite here some words from the declaration of the leader
and ideologist of the Georgian Communist Party, Philip Makharadze,
to the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party, on
December 6, 1921:

The arrival of the Red Army and the establishment of
Soviet power in Georgia had the outward appearance of a
foreign occupation, because in the country itself there was
nobody who was ready to take part in a rebellion or a revolu-
tion. And at the time of the proclamation of the Soviet
regime, there was in the whole of Georgia not a single Com-
munist member capable of organizing action or providing
leadership, and this task had been accomplished mainly by
doubtful, or sometimes even criminal elements.

And such was the situation in every other country that the Russian
bolsheviks forcibly occupied.

Khrushchev knows it very well, because all his vertiginous career
he owes to his merciless fight with millions of Ukrainians and others
who struggled bitterly for the restoration of independence of their
enslaved nations. He knows that. But notwithstanding, he speaks
about the sacred rights of nations, nonintervention, respect of the
national freedom, because he knows very well that nobody will
bother him with inappropriate questions, and that the Western
democracies prefer to hear and be delighted by great words about lofty
ideals than to see sorrowful, tragic facts, such as they are.

Mr. Arens. Has anything changed in the policy of Russian Com-
munists since the death of Stalin?

Mr. Nakashidse. No. The "collective leadership" was only a
repetition of the triumvirate of Stalin, Zinoviev, and Kamenev, which
was created after the death of Lenin as a consequence of their struggle
with Trotsky for heritage. Soon Stalin outmaneuvered his allies
and became the almighty dictator of the Soviet Union.

Has Khrushchev acted otherwise, in spite of his assertions about
the unwavering fidelity to the principle of collective leadership?

Even the degrading of Stalin by Khrushchev in the 20th congress
was nothing new. Stalin used to do it almost systematically when
he wanted his and his Communist Party errors passed over to bis
potential rivals, and often to completely innocent people.

It is enough to mention here these processes with every kind of
absurd accusation, against Trotsky, against Kamenev, Zinoviev,
Radek, Piatakov, against Rykov, Bukharin, Tukhachevsky, just to
name only some of the more familiar names, and not worrj'ing your
ears with the thousands of similar processes in tlie cities and provinces
of the whole Soviet Union. The difference was only that Stalin
accused and degraded the living, and Ktu-ushchev did it with the dead.

Mr. Arens. Was this resolution of the 20th congress to rehabilitate
unjustly condemned party members anything new?

18 THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV

Mr. Nakashidse. No. Almost in every congress which followed
the terrific pui'ges there were similar resolutions. For instance, on
the 26th of January, 1938, we have the resolution under such a title
as "Rehabilitate the Unjustly Purged and Severely Castigate the
Calumniators." It served usually to the slackening, the relaxation,
of the overstrained explosive situation. Khrushchev only repeated
a known and tried precept.

Khrushchev's era brought no relief to the peoples of the Soviet
Union.

Mr. Arens. Were there any liberal policies previously carried on in
theU.S.S.R.?

Mr. Nakashidse. Yes. From 1922 to 1929, under Lenin himself,
the New Economic Policy (NEP) was introduced for the purpose of
saving the country from complete ruin and destruction. NEP gave
economic and national freedom. The peasants could own as much
land as they were able to cultivate, only they were obliged to turn
in a certain portion of their produce to the central government.
National freedom was so unlimited that almost all of the Communist
parties and governments in the Soviet Union demanded from the cen-
tral government full freedom in their respective States.

Mr. Arens. Do you have information respecting economic exploi-
tation of Soviet Georgia?

Mr. Nakashidse. Yes, I do.

The colonial policy of the exploitation of Georgia's rich natural
resources exclusively for Moscow's aims is continued.

The mining industry — manganese, iron, copper, lead, zinc, barytes —
has been even more expanded. Metallurgical works, iron and steel
plants, machine building, the automobile industry, the chemical
industry, find markets for their products only in Russia. The same
is true of agriculture. The Georgian tea, citrus and other fruits, to-
bacco, and wine you can find almost everywhere in the Soviet Union.
But it is difficult to buy even 1 pound in any Georgian city.

According to the 21st congress, in Georgia as everywhere in the
Soviet Union, measures are taken to reduce drastically the private
plots of the collective farmers, depriving them of a unique source of
additional income, so badly necessary for their existence. That this
decree has evoked general discontent among the population is easy to
understand.

Mr. Arens. Is there an exploitation in the cultural life in Soviet
Georgia?

Mr. Nakashidse. The answer is yes.

On the cultural front, after the enthronement of Khrushchev, the
forced "Russification" of the Georgian youth stepped in and became
a nightmare for both teachers and the alumni. In an article entitled,
"Measm-es Necessary to Improve tbe Teaching of the Russian
Language and Literature in the Schools of the Georgian Republic,"
Communisti N3 1954, such shortcomings are enumerated: "Notwith-
standing, a whole series of measures such, for instance, as the introduc-
tion of an 11-year period of study of Russian, the foundation in
Tbilisi of a Russian pedagogical institute, the state of teaching
the Russian language and literature in the scliools of Georgia is
unsatisfactory." "Too many students and pupils fail in Russian
examinations." "Georgian schools seldom arrange meetings devoted
to Russian literature." "They do not hold conferences in Russian."

THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV 19

"No Pioneer meetings in Russian." "Not a sufficient number of
textbooks in Russian." And so on.

The top Georgian Communist leaders demand steadily from the
Georgians to cultivate the feeling of love and friendship toward a
great Russian nation, to stress — the enormous progressive significance
of the unification of Georgia with Russia as a political, economic, and
cultural development for the Georgian people.

They scorned severely the works of the known Georgian historians
who dared express just an opposite opinion. Recently the State
University of Tbilisi published the fifth volume of the history of the
Georgian people, by academician I. Dzhavakhishvili. The leaders
of the University committed a rude political mistake by publishing this
book. It was published without regard to contemporary Soviet
historical achievement, without a critical preface or commentary.
And yet the materials and sketches of the fifth volume contain mistakes
of a national character, since facts telling of the relationship between
Georgia and Russia in the 17th and 18th centuries appear in a dis-
torted form. The book ignores the enormous progressive significance
of the unification of Georgia with Russia.

In the History of Georgia, published in 1950, the centuries old ties
between the Georgian and Russian peoples are not fully elucidated.
Moreover, despite the historical truth the authors assert that the
alliance with Russia was of little use to Georgia and did not justify
the hopes of King Irakli and his followers. This bourgeois nationalist
point of view was expressed with even more frankness in the book of
Sh. K. Shkhetia, Tbilisi, in which the consequences of joining Georgia
to Russia were described in the darkest colors.

Professor Kultadze, on the basis of certain compiled facts, has tried
to prove that the orientation of Georgian leaders toward union with
Russia was a mistake, adversely affecting the fate of Georgia.

The whole history of the Georgian people, especially concerning
the relations with Russia, is completely distorted. Every time, and
everywhere, the great Russia appears to be the disinterested "pro-
tector" of the Georgian people.

It is impossible to enumerate all the examples of the falsification
of the historical facts.

But to make it more clear to the Americans how history is Avritten
in the Soviet Union, I cite here som^e sentences from the Georgian
daily "Communisti" for August 15, 1959:

The Popular-Democratic Republic of Korea had suffered
great hardships. She held out in Korean history unprece-
dented war, and went out victoriousl}^. Sixteen imperialistic
powers under the leadership of the United States attacked her
in 1950, and for more than three years, using the most bar-
barous means, had conducted the bloody and disastrous
war.

That is how the Russians described a historical event of some years
ago. So there is no wonder that our history and literature are so
distorted that no Georgian can recognize his past and present, and
discern the truth from the absurd falsifications.

The trials for "nationalist-patriotic deviations" go on as before
The executions and deportations continue. The colonization of
Georgia by Russian elements is even accelerated.

52624—60 4

20 THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV

Mr. Arens. Do the people of Soviet Georgia have freedom as we
know it here in the West?

Air. Nakashidse. The economic exploitation has persisted so that,
just as in the Soviet Union, there is no right of free election, no free
speech, no free press, no free assembly, and there is no right to strike.
Some naive American and European tourists assert that Georgians
and others must love their government. Why they should think
that is something quite bewildering to me.

Mr. Arens. What is the attitude of the people of Soviet Georgia
toward Khrushchev and his Communist regime?

Mr. Nakashidse. There is almost universal hatred of Khrushchev
and the Communist regime which holds the people of my native
state in subjugation.

Yesterday it was Stalin and his terror. Today it is Khrushchev
and his brutality. Tomorrow it will perhaps be some other Com-
munist. May I comment that the change in name or in leadership
will in no sense lessen the terror mechanism so long as the Communist
regime is in power.

As we see from the speech of Khrushchev in the 20th congress,
Stalin was hated by the people, and even by his most faitliful disciples
and collaborators. Whether Khrushchev has more luck, I cannot
say. But why enslaved nations must love Khrushchev and his gov-
ernment is for us completely unnatural.

Have any oppressed people ever loved their oppressor?

The United States has never experienced occupation by a foreign
nation. But such nations as Denmark, Luxembourg, Belgium,
Holland, Norway, France, only have recently been freed from foreign
domination. As far as I can tell, all these people had hated not only
Hitler, but even each German at the time of the occupation of their
countries.

We know that European powers had given liberty to India, Burma,
Malaya, Indonesia, Tunis, Syria, Morocco, Ghana, Guinea; and many
others are fulfilling the desire of peoples to be free and independent.
Wliy should the Western statesmen think that the satellites and other
oppressed nations love their oppressors and have no desire to re-
establish their lost sovereignty? Is the feeling of national dignity the
privilege only of the Americans, the Europeans, and some Asian and
African peoples? Or are the}^ convinced of the superiority of the
Soviet Union's regime where everyone is content and happy?

Had not the Second World War clearly demonstrated the true feel-
ing of the Soviet peoples toward the Communist regime, when even
the Nazi conquerors were enthusiastically greeted everywhere and
millions of soldiers voluntarily surrendered to the enemy?

Is it any different today, after the tragic events in Georgia in March
and May of 1956, after Poznan, after responding to the petitions of
the concentration camp prisoners in Karaganda, Kengir, Norilsk,
Vorkuta, and others, with machineguns and heavy tanlcs, after
treacherously crushing the heroic Hungarian nation under the wheels
of tank divisions?

Mr. Arens. After the experience of Soviet Georgia is it possible to
peacefully coexist with the Communist regime?

THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV 21

Mr. Nakashidse. One of the top Communists in Soviet Russia,
Pospelov writes in Pravda for July 30, 1953, as follows:

The Party and the government go out from Lenin's
directive about the possibility of long-time coexistence and
peaceful competition between two systems.

But we know from the speeches and writings of Lenin that he advised
his followers to do all that could cause conflicts and disorders in the
capitalistic world.

Stalin, the staunch coexistentialist, always preached the taking
advantage of the international conflicts for expanding communism.

It is necessary to benefit every opposition and conflicts
among the capitalistic groups and governments in order to
bring in the capitalistic world the putrefaction. (This is
from volume 5 of Stalin's works.)

At the same time, Stalin's aim to build socialism in one country
was founded on the principle of coexistence. He gave concessions to
foreign financiers, he made trade contracts with many foreign cap-
italists, he preached peace, and subscribed, almost with every state,
the pact of nonaggression. His government in 1936 entered pomp-
ously in the League of Nations, pledging solemnly to fulfill the noble
principles of the League. Everyone knows what really happened.
They all know what happened diu-ing World War II, and after the
Soviet Government signed the Atlantic Charter, the United Nations
Convention, and many others. How it fulfilled its obligations before
the democratic world is very well known. What guarantee has the
free world that today will be otherwise? Is the Communist Party
today more democratic, more peaceful, and less totalitarian?

Mr. Arens. Have the Communists abandoned their goal of world
conquest?

Mr. Nakashidse. All you have to do is to read the Communist
press to prove the fallacy of this naive hope.

Mr. Arens. Is Khrushchev really a humanitarian man, one who
can achieve wonders and give the world peace and happiness?

Mr. Nakashidse. This is Khrushchev: the man who made his
career by the massacre of millions of Ukrainians and other peoples,
who was the most faithful and beloved servant of his master, who
proved to be such a hypocrite that fie fooled Stalin, Beria, Molotov,
Kaganovich, Bulganin, Zhukov, Malenkov, and others, who after the
funeral of his deified boss and infallible leader, slandered him and
ascribed to him all the basest qualities, who treacherously shot, with-
out a trial, his friend Beria, and ousted from the collective leadership
and government his loyal collaborators such as Kaganovich, Malenkov,
Bulganin, and others. Will he respect any treaty with the demo-
cratic world?

Only gullible and incorrigible idealists can believe and confide in
such a wonder.

For 40 years we, the Georgians, observed the policy and methods
used by the Russian Communists: They recognize without any
reserve the independence of any state and conclude with it the pact
of nonaggression and friendship, then, in the suitable moment, attack
and occupy the very same country. This is the way they conquered

22 THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV

the previously recognized countries of Ula-aine, Turkestan, Armenia,
Northern Caucasus, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Baltic States, eastern Po-
land, et cetera.

For instance, Georgia was recognized de jure by the great Entente —
England, France, Italy, Japan, Belgium — in January 27, 1921.
At an official banquet to celebrate that event the representative of
the Soviet Union expressed his satisfaction that finally the capitalistic
Entente had followed the example of the socialistic Soviet Union
and recognized Georgia de jure. While delivering the most sincere
greetings from Lenin and Trotsky, and assuming everlasting friend-
ship between the U.S.S.R and the Republic of Georgia, Soviet troops
were gathering at the Georgian border.

Informed about it. Lord Curzon, then the Foreign Secretary of
Great Britain, sent a telegram of protest to Moscow. This is what
Chicherin, the Soviet Commissar for Foreign Affairs, replied:

Russia has recognized tlie independence of Georgia.
Russian polic}^ supports the principle of self-determination
of small nations. We have made no demands on Georgia.
Soviet Russia has not committed, and will not commit in the
future, any hostile acts against the Republic of Georgia.

On February 11 the Russian Red Army attacked Georgia from
five directions. The result is known.

That almost 40 years ago we, the small nations, were fooled by the
Russian bolsheviks, is no wonder. But why, having such experience
regarding how Moscow respected its obligations before and after
World War II, the democratic world hopes that the Communists
will ever renounce from using lies, provocation, treason and force in
achieving its ends, that is for us really incomprehensible.

That Western democracies do not wish war is known to everyone
in the Soviet Union. Khrushchev knows perfectly well that Ameri-
cans have always had, and have today, peaceful intentions.

From a military standpoint ,you were the mightiest state in 1945.
With your allies you could have forced Russia to fulfill all her obliga-
tions toward the satellites and toward the Soviet nations. But
you trusted Stalin and hoped tliat he would honestly fulfill all his
interior and exterior obligations.

Will 3^ou repeat this mistake with Khrushchev only because he
assures you of his peaceful intentions?

He knows, in spite of his boastings and menaces, that the democratic
world even today is more powerful than that of the Communists.
The only aim which he pursues is to lull you, to disarm you morally
and materially, in order to attack you unexpectedly, as is their tried
and ever-successful custom, and achieve theu- dream of world domi-
nation.

Mr. Arens. What percentage of the people of Soviet Georgia are
members of the Communist Party?

Mr. Nakashidse. Based upon current sources of information which
I have described to you, I am confident that not more than 5 or 6
percent of the people of my native Soviet Georgia are members of
the Communist Party. And may I say, too, that even of this 5 or
6 percent, many are members of the party only because of oppor-
tunism. If tomorrow Georgia had the chance to enjoy free election,
there is no doubt she would vote for a democratic government.

THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV 23

freeing herself from Russian imperialism which is expressed today in
world communism.

Mr. Arens. Mr, Nakashidse, how then does the regime maintain
itself in power, if only 5 or 6 percent are members of the Communist
Party?

Air. Nakashidse. By terror, by force, by intrigue, under the
bayonets of Moscow.

As a good illustration, I may as well note that the commander in
chief of tlje Russian occupation armies in Georgia is automatically a
member of the cabinet of the so-called Georgian Socialistic Republic.
And at the yearly meeting of the cabinet he makes the speech which
is equivalent to the State of the Union Speech of the President of
the United States.

Mr. Arens. Can you give us further illustrations of this?

Mr. Nakashidse. Yes. At the present time, as in the past, people
of my native Georgia are not accorded even the semblance of trial
for any trespass which they may allegedly commit against the state.
In times of unrest they are tried by military tribunals which are sent
in by Moscow and composed entirely of Russians.

Mr. Arens. What is the reaction of the people in Soviet Georgia
to the new look on the international scene, of sweetness and light,
and the entertaining and international conferences held by the free
world with Khrushchev?

Mr. Nakashidse. All the evidence which is available to us, all the
reports of foreign tourists and journalists who have lately been
traveling in Georgia in increased numbers, point to the fact that the
Georgians are extremely amazed, resentful, and astounded by the
friendly treatment which has been accorded to Khrushchev in his
visits to the countries of the Western democracies.

Usually, the Georgians show extreme friendship and good will
towards America, and the only criticism that the visitors to Georgia
ever hear about Ajnerica are two: One is the efforts to have friendly
relations with Khrushchev and his like; and second, the fact that the
Hungarians in the revolution were not aided by the United States.

It seems to be inconceivable to Georgians that a man like Khru-
shchev, who has quite definitely been responsible for some of the most
atrocious crimes committed in the Soviet Union, is being treated as
an equal by the best representatives of Western democracy.

The Chairman. Gentlemen, we tliank you for the splendid contri-
bution which you have made in this series.

AFTERNOON SESSION, FRIDAY, JANUARY 8, 1960

The following consultations with Mr. Dimitar K. Petkoff, of the
Bulgarian National Committee, and Mrs. Catherine Boyan
Choukanoff, were held at 2:15 p.m., in room 226, Old House Office
Building, Washington, D.C., Hon. Francis E. Walter, of Pennsyl-
vania, Chairman of the Committee on Un-American Activites,
presiding.

Committee members present: Representatives Francis E. Walter
(chairman) and Gordon H. Scherer, of Ohio.

Staff members present: Richard Arens, staff director, and Ray-
mond T. Collins, staff investigator.

Also present: Dr. G. M. Dimitrov, chairman of the Bulgarian
National Committee.

24 THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV

The Chairman. The committee will come to order, and the first
witness will be sworn.

Do you, Mr. Petkoff, solemnly swear that the testimony you are
about to give this committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth, so help you God?

Mr. Petkoff. I do.

STATEMENT OF DIMITAR K. PETKOFF

Mr. Arens. Please identify yourself by name, residence, and
occupation.

Mr. Petkoff. My name is Dimitar K. Petkoff. My residence is
304 West 92d Street, New York City. I am working as a member of
the executive committee of the Bulgarian National Committee and
I am a vice chairman of the legal committee of the Assembly of
Captive European Nations.

Mr. Arens. Give us just a word about the Bulgarian National
Committee.

Mr. Petkoff. It is an organization whose members are exiles who
left the Iron Curtain. We are not American citizens, even though
we have been here a long time, because we represent the people who
are in Bulgaria and are against the Communist government.

Mr. Arens. Kindly tell us just a word about your own personal
life, including where you were born, and a word about your education
and your life in Bulgaria.

Mr. Petkoff. I was born in London, England. My father was
there working in the Bulgarian Embassy at that time. My grand-
father, Dimitar Petkoff, had been Prime Minister of Bulgaria and
my uncle, Nikola Petkoff, who was hanged by the Communists in
1947, was the leader of the parliamentarian opposition. I was edu-
cated in Bulgaria and France. I am a graduate of law, a lawyer, and
I was in the foreign service, mainly in the capital, Sofia. In 1945 I
worked 1 year as a diplomat in the Bulgarian Embassy in Bucharest,
Rumania.

Mr. Arens. When did you leave Bulgaria?

Mr. Petkoff. I left Bulgaria in 1948. In October I escaped
illegally by the frontier. I was in a Communist jail in Yugoslavia,
and after they let me go to Trieste, Italy, I was in Eiu-ope for sev-
eral years and I came to United States in 1954.

Mr. Arens. Mr. Petkoff, you have described to this committee
off the record the various sources of your information respecting the
present situation in Bulgaria; is that correct?

Mr. Petkoff. Yes.

Mr. Arens. And those sources of information cannot be revealed
on this record publicly because it would jeopardize lives; is that
correct?

Mr. Petkoff. Yes.

Mr. Arens. Mr. Petkoff, would j^ou tell us first of all where
Bulgaria is located within central Europe?

Mr. Petkoff. Bulgaria is located in the middle of the Balkans,
in the southeast of Europe, and is a country of 8 million inhabitants,
with neighbors at the south, Greece and Turkey. On the west and
the north are Communist countries. On the west is Yugoslavia, and
on the north is Kumania.

THE CRIMES OP KHRUSHCHEV 25

Mr. Arens. So that this record will now reflect some of the ele-
mental historical facts with reference to Bulgaria, would you kindly
recount on the record the political facts regarding Bulgaria and its
history, say in the last two or three decades, or perhaps since World
War I?

Mr. Petkoff. Bulgaria for several centiu"ies w^as under the Turks,
part of the Turkish Empire, and it became an independent state in
1878, after a war between Eussia and Turkey.

Bulgaria took part in the Fh-st World War on the side of Germany,
and was defeated.

After that war there was a democratic government in Bulgaria.

In 1923 there was a military coup. Later, before the Second
World War, the democratic constitution was suspended under the
personal authority of the king.

Bulgaria was again on the side of Germany, and it was a satellite.
It was occupied by the German Army, and at the end of the Second
World War the Russian Army came on the Hiver Danube and occu-
pied Bulgaria.

The government was changed, and there was an effort to change the
foreign policy, but the Russians, without agreement of the British or
the Americans, declared war on Bulgaria and invaded the country.

In fact, there were no military operations between Bulgaria and the
Soviet Army. Then, in September 1944, a coalition government was
established in Bulgaria.

Immediately there was very strong pressure from the Soviet Army.
The Communists started to kill thousands of people.

There was continual interference by the Soviets in the Bulgarian
political life, especially in the army.

Mr. Arens. Mr. Petkoff, as you know, the Committee on Un-
American Activities is assembling factual information respecting the
crimes of Khrushchev and his regime.

Would you kindly proceed at your own pace to present to the com-
mittee the information that you have bearing on that subject, insofar
as it relates to your native land of Bulgaria?

Mr. Petkoff. In a very short time, because of the continual inter-
ference of the Soviet Army, the Communists became the rulers of the
country. The other parties, which were democratic parties — -the
Peasant Party and the Socialist Party — were obliged to leave the
government.

From May 1945 the Communists were already the masters.

Because of the international situation and Bulgaria being a former
satellite of Germany, and since no peace treaty was concluded, during
the following 2 years the Communists did not establish a total dictator-
ship in Bulgaria.

They even allowed some legal existence to democratic parties like
the Agrarian Party, the Social Democratic Party, the Democratic
Party.

But after the peace treaty, which was signed in February 1947,
they found themselves able to sovietize Bulgaria without intervention
from the other allies, United States and England, and they started
to establish a total dictatorship.

They elected a parliament in 1946 in which the Communists won
the majority, thanks to the Communist terror and the presence of
the Soviet Army, but they still tolerated an opposition.

26 THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV

There were 100 men elected from the opposition parties. But feel-
ing themselves very strong in 1947, after the peace treatj^, they held a
mock trial for conspiracy against Nikola Petkoff, who was the leader
of the parliamentarian opposition, and condemned him to death in
August 1947 and hanged him in September. This was the occasion
used to destroy, to outlaw, the opposition parties, who were accused
of being conspiratory parties.

I think from that time on, 1947 and 1948, the full sovietization of
Bulgaria began.

In 1948 they started to make mass forced collectivization after
they had destroyed the legal opposition, and it was the first step to
the total communization of our country.

Mr. Arens. What is the situation in Bulgaria today under Khru-
shchev's Communist regime?

Mr. Petkoff. Bulgaria today is a fully communized and sovietized
country.

This sovietization is continuing and even growing. For that
reason we and the whole Bulgarian people consider Khrushchev, the
present ruler of the Soviet Union, as responsible for this crime, namely,
the suppression of the national independence of Bulgaria.

Mr. Arens. What information do you have respecting the laws in
Bulgaria?

Mr. Petkoff. The laws in Bulgaria are in fact an imitation, a copy,
of the Soviet laws. There is almost no difference, or a very insignifi-
cant difference, between the Soviet and Bulgarian laws: The laws
concerning, for instance, property and labor; concerning the trial rules
in justice for the civilian laws and for the penal laws.

They were completely changed, and they are today almost the same
as in the Soviet Union.

Mr. Arens. What is the situation in the army?

Mr. Petkoff. In the Bulgarian Army the Communists changed
the graduation, and the grads are exactly the same as in the Soviet
Army. The method of instruction is also exactly the same as in the
Soviet Red Army. Tlie arms are of Soviet origin, and the Bulgarian
commanders are, in fact. Communists who have spent all their life in
the Soviet Union and were, the most of them, officers in the Soviet
Armj' during World War II. They are today commanding in Bul-
garia, and the Bulgarian staff is still directly subordinated to the
Soviet staff of the army.

Mr. Arens. What is the situation concerning the economy in
Bulgaria?

Mr. Petkoff. The Bulgarian economy is wholly dependent on the
Soviet Union. It was all the time coordinated with the Soviet econ-
omy— but they begin now to make a full economic integration in
Eastern Europe. For that purpose there was from the 10th to
the 14th of December, in Sofia, a meeting of what they call the Council
for Mutual Economic Assistance — known as COMECON in the
West — under the direction of Aleksei Kosygin, Vice Premier of the
Soviet Union, first alternate of Khrushchev, and chairman of the State
Planning Commission of the U.S.S.H. He came personally to direct
those meetings.

Another thing about this COMECON. In the Saturday Evening
Post of November 28, 1959, an American reporter, Fred Warner Neal,
gave an interesting report on Bulgaria. In a meeting with the Soviet

THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV 27

Ambassador in Sofia, the Soviet Ambassador, according to Mr. Neal,
overtly inferred that the center of activities of the COMECON in
Bulgaria was the Soviet Embassy. You can read that in the Saturday
Evening Post. It is just a confirmation by an American journalist of
a well-known fact from all the information we have from inside.

Mr. Arens. Do you have a word about the social structure in
Bulgaria?

Mr. Petkoff. The social structure in Bulgaria is exactly the same
as in the Soviet Union. The industry was fully nationalized, which
means that it is in the hands of the state. The trade — internal and
external — is also in the hands of the state. The banks are owned by
the state, and now the whole agriculture is collectivized.

Mr. Arens. What about the cultural life.

Mr. Petkoff. There w^ere hundreds of Soviet books translated
into the Bulgarian language which were published in our country,
and their total is in millions of copies.

The Russian language is obligatory in the schools and is learned
to the same extent as the Bulgarian language.

Mr. Arens. Do you have information respecting collectivization
in Bulgaria?

Mr. Petkoff. We have information, and it is coming from the
whole Bulgarian people. I will show the period from 1955 until today,
which is the Khrushchev period. The agriculture was collectivized;
according to official Bulgarian Communist statistics, 60 percent in
1955 and 75 percent in 1956. This was told by the Fu-st Secretary of
the Bulgarian Communist Party, Todor Zhivkov. The collectiviza-
tion was raised to more than 90 percent in 1958. This was told by
Anton Yugov, the Chief of the Bulgarian Government, the Prime
Minister, at the Seventh Congress of the Communist Partv, June 1958.
It means that during the Khrushchev period the collectivization
raised from 60 percent to more than 90 percent.

This result was obtained by mass terror, by persecution of peasants.
They were killed and they were threatened, and only by such rnass
terror this collectivization was achieved. For that reason we consider
it is a crime of Khrushchev.

Mr. Arens. Have there been forced deportations of Bulgarians
during Khrushchev's regime?

Mr. Petkoff. Yes. An example of the exploitation of Bulgaria
by the Soviet Union is the deportation of the youth into the Soviet
Union. They were said to be "volunteers," but in fact there w^as no
opportunity for them to refuse to go. There was unemployment in
Bulgaria, and any young man who was called by the party and told,
"You must go to the Soviet Union," could not answer 'T don't want
to go." The Communists would say, "You are not willing to work and
are sabotaging the Soviet national economy, and you are a traitor
and an enemy." In fact, there were no volunteers at all. It was a
deportation to the Soviet Union. The youths were sent to different
places, even in Siberia, but mainly in Kazakhstan.

The Bulgarian Prime Minister, Anton Yugov, revealed in an inter-
view with a foreign correspondent, which was published in the Bul-
garian newspapers on July 30, 1957, that the total amount of deported
was 10,000 young men. From that time those deportations have
continued, so they are much more.

Mr. Arens. What percentage of the people of Bulgaria are members
of the Communist Party?

28 THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV

Mr. Petkoff. I cannot tell you, but it is a minority of the Bul-
garian population. The Communists pretend that there are half a
million. Anyhow the most of them are not really Communists, be-
cause before the Communist regime there was an insignificant minor-
ity, and many people went into the Communist Party in order to save
themselves from persecution.

Mr. Arens. If most of the people in Bulgaria are not Communists,
how does the Communist regime maintain itself in power?

Mr. Petkoff. Onl}^ by dictatorship and terror, by force and
brutality. The Communists were brought into power by the Soviet
Army, and they are kept now by the Communist police, which is in
fact an army, and this is recognized by themselves. Tlie Bulgarian
Prime Ministers have said that they would not rule Bulgaria if the
Soviet Union had not helped them.

On the other side the "dictatorship of the proletariat" — ^which means
Communist dictatorship by brute force — ^is their principle.

Mr. Arens. What is the attitude of the people in Bulgaria who
are enslaved by the Communist regime toward the sweetness and
light that we are now seeing on the international scene, part of which
involved the invitation of Khrushchev to the United States on his
recent visit?

Mr. Petkoff. The people feel very sad and disappointed, because
the population is against the Communist tyranny, and their hope
was in the Western Powers, and especially the United States of
x^merica. They looked at those countries and their rulers as the
symbols and the champions of liberty in the world, and they feel very
disappointed and sad when they see them sitting together with their
oppressor.

Mr. Arens. During his recent visit to the United States, Khrushchev
described himself and the Communists as "humanitarians."

What is the reaction of the people of Bulgaria to this characteriza-
tion?

Mr. Petkoff. My people regard it as a sacrilege to suggest that
either Khrushchev or his Communist apparatus could be humanitar-
ian. They are under the whiplash. They have seen their sons de-
ported to far lands. They have had their property seized. They
have had friends and relatives literally destroyed by this awful mech-
anism which is the enemy of their own freedom, both as a nation and
in their individual lives. It is cynical to suggest that either Khru-
shchev or his regime could be humanitarian.

Let me give you a few illustrations of what I am talking about:

About the humanitarianism of Khruslichev, I can say that all the
elected members of the National Assembly (Parliament) of 1947 —
the only one in which tliere was a democratic opposition — -were
arrested. Some of the leaders were killed and some went into exile,
like Dr. Dimitrov here. The elected representatives of the people
were imprisoned and many are still in prison under this regime of
Khrushchev's, with his smile of humanitarianism.

Here are some of the members of the National Assembly who are
known to have died in prison or have been sent to their homes to die
under the regime of Khrushchev:

Raicho Daskalov, Dr. Diniu Gotchev, and Trifon Kunev of the
Agrarian Party; Ivan Slavov, Hristo Punev, and Petko Tarpanov of
the Social Democratic Party.

THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV 29

Aleksandur Girginov, a former minister and democratic leader, also
died in a Communist jail.

There are other prominent national leaders still under arrest: Ivan
Kostov, Angel Darjanski, Konstantin Muraviev, and Dimiter Gichev,
all of the Agrarian Party; Kosta Lultchev, Petar Bratkov, and D. R,
Dertliev, these of the Social Democratic Party.

And there are many unknown.

Gentlemen, these are not just statistics. I am giving you the names
of human beings who were destroyed and imprisoned, and by
Khrushchev.

Mr. Arens. Now, resuming your comments respecting the Com-
munist Party of Bulgaria, to what extent is it an instrument or arm
of the Kremlin?

Mr. Petkoff. The Bulgarian Communist Party is wholly subordi-
nated to the Soviet Communist Party.

As a fact, we can show personal interventions of Khrushchev. For
instance, in 1956 there were some local Communists, like Georgi
Chankov, who was Vice Premier, Dobri Terpeshef, and General Boris
Kopchef and Colonel Yanko Panoff. Those were representatives of
the local Communists in Bulgaria and were maybe a little more
independent from Moscow. The resolution for their elimination was
made by, and is an interference of, Khrushchev in order to give the
whole power to those absolutely subordinated to Moscow.

A second interference of Khrushchev: He came himself, he was the
main speaker, the mam organizer of the Congress of the Communist
Party in June 1958.

Mr. Arens. In Bulgaria?

Mr. Petkoff. In Bulgaria, in Sofia. Khrushchev personally came.
He directed everything which was done in this Congress, and he
dismissed the Bulgarian Minister of War, Panchevski. He did it
because even the Communist army was dissatisfied with the regime.

This was a personal interference of Khrushchev in the political
situation in Bulgaria and the government of the country.

Mr. Arens. To what extent are the policies of Khrushchev, an-
nounced in the Soviet Union, copied within Bulgaria?

Mr. Petkoff. In Bulgaria, in January 1959, a change was an-
nounced in the administrative system, and this was made law in
March 1959. This administrative law is a copy of the Khrushchev
^'decentralization" in the Soviet Union in December 1957. It was
an imitation of the Soviet law in this way: As in the Soviet law, some
ministries were suppressed, mainly the economic ministries of heavy
industry, light industry, food, and so on, and there were created
administrative regions which are ruled by ''People's Soviets," and
those "People's Soviets," have in their hands the whole adminis-
trative and economical power. It is just the same reform as in the
Soviet Union, only the number of regions is different because Bulgaria
is a small country. This is a Khrushchev change, absolutely copied
and brought here.

A change in the educational system also was announced by the
First Secretary of the Communist Party in April 1958. It was made
a law in July 1959. This law is a cop}^ of the Khrushchev educa-
tional law of December 1958.

The same change of the whole educational system was made by
the law adopted in July 1959 by the Bulgarian National Assembly,

30 THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV

as in the U.S.S.R. The motivation was exactly the same. They
tried — so they said — to "bring the education nearer to hfe." In fact,
the two main pm-poses of this law were to oblige the youth, the pupils
and the students, to give up a big part of their time of education in
order to work in the factories and the kolkhozes. In this way the
Communists extracted millions of working hours from the youth.
This was done in Bulgaria exactly as in the Soviet Union.

The second aim was to try to create a wholly communized youth
and to inspire hate of the enemies of the Communist regime: This,
it is said, is in the report of the secretar}^ of the party. And they
extended very much the teachings of Marxism and Leninism.

Mr. Arens. Do you think the Communist dictatorship and the
Soviet exploitation have diminished in Bulgaria as of now?

Mr. Petkoff. No. In October 1950, there was a decision, in-
spired by Khrushchev, to implement the 5-year plan in 4 years. This
brought a terrible perturbation in the whole economic system and a
very great misery, a lack of food in the towns and the villages. This
enterprise was a complete failm-e. It brought also an opposition from
the whole nation, which was translated in passive resistance and in
mass sabotage, and was accompanied by a very big terror of the Com-
munist police against the people. Tens of thousands of people are
now in prisons and camps in Bulgaria. For those crimes, and in
general for the present enslavement of the Bulgarian nation, the
Soviet dictator, Nikita Khrushchev, is responsible.

The Chairman. Thank you very much, Mr. Petkoff.

Mr. Arens. The next witness will be Mrs. ChoukanofF.

The Chairman. Do you, Mrs. Choukanoff, solemnly swear that
the testimony you are about to give this committee wiU be the truth,
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

Mrs. Choukanoff. I do.

STATEMENT OF MRS. CATHERINE BOYAN CHOUKANOFF

Mr. Arens. Please identify yourself by name, residence, and
occupation.

Mrs. Choukanoff. My name is Catherine B. Choukanoff. I was
born and educated in Bulgaria, and I am now residing at 303 North
Fulton Avenue, Mount Vernon, N.Y.

Mr. Arens. And yom- occupation, please?

Mrs. Choukanoff. I am currently employed as a map drafter. I
also do some writing on the side.

Mr. Arens. Give us, please, a word on your personal background.

Mrs. Choukanoff. I was born in Bulgaria. After completing
my secondary education, I went through the Free University of
Sofia, majoring in political science. While there, I worked chiefly
as secretary in the government service, was personnel director for the
Department of Supplies during World War II and, for a while after
that, a reporter for the Ministry of Information.

In the latter capacity, I had the opportunity to cover the so-caUed
people's trials, conducted chiefly by Communists after my country
had been invaded by the Red Army in September 1944. That
experience gave me the first foretaste of Communist justice, Soviet
style. Charged as war criminals and Nazi collaborators, some 2,700
men — including the regents, practically all wartime cabinet ministers

THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV 31

and most members of parliament, man}'' high government officials,
Army officers, leading members of the police force, et cetera — were
tried, sentenced to death without the right to appeal, and executed
within 24 hours after sentence was pronounced. Meanwhile, tens of
thousands of other people — minor officials, Western sympathizers,
liberals of all shades, anti-Communists and just plain folks — were
being liquidated by the Communist-directed police, without the
benefit of a public trial, without any publicity, without any explana-
tion whatever. They were just disappearing — day and night — and
were never heard of again.

There was a pattern to this terror, whether it was carried out in
the open by the people's courts or secretly by the poUce. On the
surface, it looked like an understandable attempt to punish and render
harmless those responsible for allowing Bulgaria to drift into the
Nazi-Fascist camp. In actuality, however, it was a concerted and
far-fetched effort to eliminate all actual and potential opposition to
whatever plans the Communists, respectively Moscow, had for the
country, and to cow the rest of the people into submission.

Needless to say, the Bulgarian Communists proper — those who had
stayed home before and during the war — could never have done that
by themselves; they were too few and, for all I know, they didn't have
such intentions. The most they were hoping for at the time was to be
included in a broad coalition government of democratic parties that
would break away from the imposed alliance with the Axis and aline
Bulgaria with the united nations fighting Hitler. In fact, during the
weeks and months preceding the Soviet invasion, they were carryijig
on extensive negotiations to that effect with both Ivan Bagrianoff who,
as Prime Minister between June 1 and September 1, attempted to
restore Bulgaria's neutrality, and his successor, Konstantin Mura-
viev, who declared war on Nazi Germ^any in the early da3's of Septem-
ber. Bagrianoff, incidentally, was subsequently executed as a "war
criminal," as were most of his fellow mmisters, and Muraviev, so far
as I know, is still in jail, as are his own fellow ministers, except those
who have since died, also in jail.

But to come back to the Red terror which started September 9,
1944, and which has not yet abated. It was the work chiefly of the
Bulgarian expatriates who had been living in the Soviet Union since
the twenties, and who were brought back to Bulgaria by the invading
Red Army. Of course, they couldh't have carried out that terror
all by themselves either. They, too, were too few for that — much
fewer, in fact, than the local Communists. But they, apparently,
were willing and properly coached and, besides, they had all the help
that the armed and police forces of the Soviet Union could give them.

Ironically, though the Soviets had declared war on Bulgaria without
any provocation, without any warning and, as Mr. Pelkoff has just
pointed out, "behind the back of their allies," they said at the time
that they were entering the country as "friends and liberators" of the
Bulgarian people. That was rather perplexing for at least two reasons.
In the first place, the Bagrianoff government had managed to per-
suade the Germans to withdraw most of their troops from Bulgaria,
and whatever German soldiers were still on Bulgarian territory in early
September were being disarmed by the Muraviev government.
Under the circumstances, and with the Germans retreatmg on all other
fronts, Bulgaria was no longer in need of liberation. In the second

32 THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV

place, it was hardly an act of friendship on the part of the Soviet
Union to declare war on a country which had been doing its best to
maintain friendly relations with it, and which had already decided to
fight Germany — a fact well known at the time in Moscow.

Yet, most Bulgarians tried to believe — they wanted to believe —
that the Soviets, that is the Russians, must have some justifiable
reason for acting that way; that, whatever the appearances of their
act, they meant no harm and were really coming to Bulgaria as friends.
After all, their forefathers had come there once before, back in the
time of Alexander II — "the King Liberator" — and the result of that
visit was the emergence of a free, independent and sovereign Bulgaria
after five centuries of bondage. The memory of that visit had de-
veloped through the years into the kind of gratitude and affection for
Russia, which made it possible for Kmg Boris to reject the repeated
demands of Hitler for Bulgarian divisions on the eastern front.
Understandably, my fellow countrymen were hopeful that the Soviet
Union would appreciate all this ; that it would even reciprocate m some
way or other. Such hopes were, moreover, openly encouraged by the
Soviet minister in Sofia, who remained there throughout the war, and
who was in constant and friendly contact with representatives of both
the Government and the opposition in the country.

The entry of Soviet troops in Bulgaria on September 8, 1944, and
the events that followed smothered all these hopes and, along with
them, the age-long friendship between the Bulgarian people and
Russia.

Mr. Arens. When did vou leave Bulgaria?

Mrs. Choukanoff. I left Bulgaria in 1946, less than 2 years after
the Soviet Army entered Bulgaria.

Mr. Arens. How long have you been a resident of the United
States?

Mrs. Choukanoff. Since March 1946.

Mr. Arens. Ai-e you a citizen?

Mrs. Choukanoff. Yes, I am a citizen.

Mr. Arens. Do you have sources of information respecting the
situation currently in Bulgaria?

Mrs. Choukanoff. Yes. I have sources of information which
I have discussed with you off the record.

Mr. Arens. Kindly proceed at your ovm pace, Mrs. Choukanoff,
and address yourself to the subject under consideration by the
committee, namely the crimes of Khrushchev, specifically in reference
to your native land of Bulgaria.

Mrs. Choukanoff. Well, one can hardly put a finger on any con-
crete crimes of Mr. Khrushchev in relation to the people of Bulgaria
in the sense in which he could be accused of crimes against the peoples
of the Ukraine, Hungary, and even Poland. He is, nevertheless,
definitely guilty of a sort of "negative" or "passive" crime against
the Bulgarian people, too.

Having, as he does, all the power to exert every kind of influence
over the regime of the Communists in Bulgaria, there is to date no
evidence that he has used that power to influence the same regime for
the better. On the contrary, the latter continues to act very much
the way it acted when it was first set up with the help of the Red
Army and under the auspices of Stalin. If, therefore, that Soviet

THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV 33

satellite regime in Bulgaria — ^established, furthermore, in utter dis-
regard for international morality and in violation of interallied agree-
ments— is one of the crimes of Stalin, then it is obvious that Khru-
shchev has not lifted a finger to correct that crime of what he has himself
described as a "paranoid tyrant." And therein, perhaps, lies his own
greatest crime in relation to the people of Bulgaria.

Needless to say, Mr. Khrushchev would be the fu-st to deny that
he could — or would — exert controlling influence over the government
of supposedly "free, independent, and sovereign" Bulgaria.

As head of the ruling party and the government in the Soviet
Union, he undoubtedly has controlling influence over the armed,
police, and administrative forces in his own country. All the indica-
tions are that without the active or readily available support of these
Soviet forces, the Communist regime in Bulgaria could not survive
a week, perhaps not even a day. According to public admissions
of leading Bulgarian Communists, it could not have even hoped
to gain a foothold without the benevolent — and armed — intercession
of the Soviet Union. The same Communists have also admitted that,
at the time this intercession started in September 1944, their party
did not have more than 4,000 to 5,000 members. Even some of these
soon dropped out of the party voluntarily, were expelled or even
liquidated, when they balked at blindly following the new Moscow
line, brought to them by the handful of Bulgarian expatriates from
the Soviet Union. Traycho Tostov, first secretary of the party prior
to the return of the expatriates, was one of a number of lifelong local
Communists who were executed or otherwise liquidated in the struggle
that ensued between local and expatriate Communists before the
latter could get the upper hand and impose the will of Stalm, respect-
tively Moscow, on Bulgaria. The expatriates are still having the
upper hand, and Moscow's will is still the supreme law in Bulgaria,
though Stalin has long since died.

It is true that under the guidance of the expatriates the Bulgarian
Communist Party soon boosted its membership to over half a million,
and that it became, as they say, a "mass party." It would be quite
misleading, however, to take this membership figure as an indication
of mass support, or that over half a miUion adult Bulgarians have
really embraced the Communist gospel. The mass membership of
the Bulgarian Communist Party can more truly be explained, first, by
the fact that it would allow no other political parties, unless they are
properly infiltrated and controlled by splinter parties; secondly, by
the fact that, as a result of the people's trials, of the countless "unoffi-
cial" executions, and of the scores of overfilled prisons and concentra-
tion camps, practically all actual and potential opposition leaders
have been eliminated and the population has been generally cowed
into submission, and, finally, by the fact that, for over a decade and
a half now, the Communist Party has been proving to be the only^-
though, perhaps, temporary and not very secure — refuge in Bulgaria
for all kinds of job seekers, collaborators, opportunists, and other un-
savory characters.

This latter fact has been confirmed time and again by the repeated

party purges, sometimes affecting scores of thousands of members.

Whatever the party membership at this time, it does not seem to be

either solidly united behind the ruling clique, or very reliable. An

34 THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV

old Bulgarian immigrant in this country who recently visited Bulgaria
told me:

Before going there, I figured that perhaps 10 percent of the
population are supporting the regime, and that the remaining
90 percent are more or less opposed to it. After staying there
for several weeks, I was convinced that 999 out of every 1,000
Bulgarians are definitely in opposition, and that that is true
of many party members, too.

I recently spoke with two ladies — also Bulgarian immigrants in
this country — who had gone back to Bulgaria last summer to visit
relatives. What they had to say corresponds roughly with the above
impression. Among other things, they told me that at the time of
the Hungarian revolution, the Communist regime in Bulgaria had
become so panicky that many of its police organs were discarding their
uniforms and trying to conceal themselves in localities where their
connection with the regime was unknown. The people on the other
hand were jubilant and, apparently, ready to follow the Hungarian
example and throw out their own rulers. What happened to the
Hungarians, however, soon discouraged them. The authorities, in
turn, regained confidence and tightened again theu' grip on the people.
The two ladies also told me that, though they had regular Bulgarian
visas and were not themselves bothered by the authorities, most
people they spoke with were visibly afraid to be seen with them, and
that was true even of their own relatives.

All three recent visitors to Bulgaria agree that the main, if not the
only support the Communist regime there can rely on, is the abundance
of Soviet agents in the country and the easy availability of those
Soviet armed and police forces, over which Mr. Khrushchev has, no
doubt, controlling influence. The conclusion is unavoidable that
Mr. Khi'ushchev is as much a guardian-angel of that regime now, as
Stalin was before him, and as responsible for its crunes.

What are these crimes?

Apart from the terror that continues and the total subjugation of the
Bulgarian people to the will and the whims of a foreign power, the
crimes of the Sofia regime, respectively of its Kremlin boss, are both
numerous and varied. They affect every single facet of the nation's
life — political, economic, cultural.

If the impressions just cited are open to the criticism that they
may be superficial and second hand, being the impressions of tem-
porary and perhaps prejudiced visitors, I have some letters here which
are anything but superficial or second hand. They are from people
who have lived always in Bulgaria, and whose idea of conditions
there could not possibly be distorted by any foreign experience.
One of these letters is from a sick, simple, and almost illiterate Bul-
garian peasant whom I do not know personally. He had asked for —
and received — some medicines from the United States, and is writing
back to express his gratitude and, apparently, to give his unknown
friend a piece of his mind. I will try to translate this letter for you
in full, except for some words and expressions which are, if I may say
so, a little too rough for the record. It was WTitten in mid-December
1957 and, appropriately, opens with greetings for the New Year:

May it be happy for all [the Bulgarian peasant writes]
both for you and for us — the oppressed ones in the Red

THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV 35

Hell. As for you out there, pray to God that nothing of
the kind happen to you * * * for nobody then could help
you. Guard your freedom.

We here are so lost that even those who wanted it (com-
munism) before are now begging God to help them, to deliver
them from themselves, just as the tuberculosis patients are
begging for Rimifon and other such drugs.

In our little Bulgaria we have hospitals, and pharmacies
too, but no medicines, and tuberculosis, as well as cancer, is
clearly spreading, especially after 1945. So keep on sending
us medicines, and please don't try to make profit from us
sick people. All of us who are still alive are looking to the
West and to the good that is there.

We can hardly procure anything here, either to eat or to
wear. Misery is everywhere, thanks to the Communists.
They are the lowest and the worst, and there are no greater
crooks than them. The black marketeering that is going
on here could perhaps be stopped, if it should be stopped,
but not communism. If you let yourselves be fooled by
their false propaganda, then the rest of the world — honest
and noble — would also perish, and only these lazy bums, who
have no feeling and respect for anybody or anything but the
party, will alone survive. (May they burn!) * * * I don't
know what you think about them. Inasmuch as you have
not eaten their soup, you may, perhaps, think that it is
something good to eat. You better ask us unfortunates,
who are dying here. I believe you will understand * * *
but if, by any chance, you have confidence in and sympathy
for the Red Thief, then may the Lord have mercy on you,
and better kill yourselves than wait. But I hope that your
noble nature cannot be fooled so easily.

Hoping that you will understand me, I wish you the best
of everything and urge you again to send medicines to
everyone who would ask you for such * * *
Sincerely,

B.

Here is another letter — from an old lady. I'll read just one passage
from it:

We hardly get enough to eat. If you would decide to
send me something, please don't bother to send clothes —
the duty is much more than I can pay, but you can send me
some food. It will be good if it can reach in time for the
holidays which are approaching. Otherwise I guess I'll
have to part with that rooster I've been keeping in the
yard for some years now. But the poor thing is so old
already that I wonder if it will ever get cooked.

One of the most striking features of the Communist regime in
Bulgaria during Stalin's time was that the country was almost her-
metically closed for travelers — both incoming and outgoing. With
very few exceptions, only diplomats and party officials could travel in
either direction.

36 THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV

Since Khrushchev look over the rule of the Soviet empire, this
ban on travel has been somewhat relaxed. Besides diplomats, more
Western newsmen and quite a few foreign tourists are now allowed to
enter Bulgaria. Quite a few Bulgarian citizens are also allowed to
leave the country temporarily. But such travel is limited almost
entirely to sick persons in need of unavailable medical care, and to
people in their late sixties or older without any marked political
preferences. Even they may be refused exit visas several times before
they are finally given one.

This is no doubt an improvement. But the fact remains that, 15
years after the war, the huge majority of Bulgarians, old and young
alike, are still denied the right of foreign travel, even for the purpose
of visiting their own children, parents or other relatives living abroad,
whom they haven't seen for many years and whom they may never
have a chance to see again.

Mr. Arens. We have read in certain publications recently articles
to the effect that there is a bountiful supply of consumer goods in
Bulgaria in the stores.

Mrs, Choukanoff. It is probably true that there is an apparently-
abundant supply of consumer goods, of food and of all kinds of deli-
cacies in the stores. But in reality, the supply is quite limited, and,
besides, everything is so highly priced that it is beyond the reach of
the common people. Those things can be afforded only by the mem-
bers of the so-called new class, by a few privileged collaborators, by
the diplomatic corps and by such visitors from abroad that the regime
allows in the country,

A good example of the discrepancy between the prices of available
goods and services, on the one hand, and the purchasing power of the
bulk of the people, on the other, was provided by one of the Bulgarian
ladies already referred to. Dm-ing her visit to Bulgaria last summer
she spent 3 weeks at a Black Sea resort hotel. Her bill amounted to
about $500, which does not seem to be much, even though the food,
as she said, was not on a par with the luxurious hotel. But, converted
into Bulgarian currency, the same $500 would amount to 3,400, or
5,000, or 12,500 levas, depending on whether it is converted at the
official rate of exchange, at the tourist or the black market rate.
Inasmuch as the average monthly income in Bulgaria today is about
500 levas, to afford 3 weeks at a Black Sea resort hotel, an ordinary
Bulgarian citizen must work from about 7 to 25 months, and save
every penny he makes.

The lack, especially, of food in Bulgaria today, 15 years after the
war, is strange indeed. Primarily an agricultm-al country, with about
80 percent of the population engaged in farming, Bulgaria has always
had enough food for herself and some to spare — for export. Although
until recently farming methods there were quite primitive, her prewar
export of food and other agricultural products exceeded by far all
her other exports. Since the Communists took over, over 90 percent
of the countless tiny and primitive old farms have been collectivized
into large and supposedly far more efficient agricultural units which,
furthermore, have been mechanized to a degree never before attained
even by the few model private farms in the past. Yet, most of the
Bulgarian people do not have enough to eat today. Why?

Needless to say, one of the reasons for that is that Bulgaria is still
exporting considerable quantities of food — chiefly to the Soviet

THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV 37

Union and other countries of the Communist bloc. But these quan-
tities are hardly greater, if indeed as great, as her prewar food exports
to Germany and elsewhere on the Continent. Why, then, the present-
day mechanized and "far more efficient" collective farms cannot do as
much in filling the local needs as did the small and quasi-primitive
private farms of the past?

The obvious answers are: First, that whatever the theory behind
them, the collective farms are not anywhere as efficient as they are
supposed to be, and secondly, that the collectivized farmers are not —
or do not want to be — anywhere as productive as the private farmers
were. Added to this is the fact that even young peasants, who have
never known what it means to own a piece of land, are running away
in droves from the collectives and trying to find elsewhere any kind
of jobs for more or less stable wages, rather than depending on
''sharing" the profits of "their own," but state-controlled, collective
farms.

Mr. Arens. Has there been any improvement in the situation in
your country since Khrushchev ascended the pinnacle in the Com-
munist regime?

Mrs. Choukanoff. If there is any evidence to that effect, it must
have escaped my attention. On the contrary, all indications are that
the Communist regime in Bulgaria is tightening, rather than relaxing,
controls over the different phases of national life. Apparently it fears
that any Soviet-American agreement for lessening of world tensions
might only tend to weaken its hold on an unwilling nation.

Such tightening of controls is perhaps more pronounced in some of
the other satellite countries, such as Poland and Hungary, where there
had been some relaxation following the revolts during the latter part
of 1956. There had been no such relaxation in Bulgaria at the time
and, consequently, the regime there does not seem to feel as great a
need to "de-relax."

However, according to a recent dispatch by M. S. Handler from
Vienna (New York Times, January 4, 1960), Communist leaders
throughout Eastern Europe seem to be taking extra precautions
against any domestic dissidence that might be stimulated by an
eventual agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union :

The first official indication that precautionary measures
would be taken by the Communists in preparation for the
coming East-West summit conferences [Handler notes] was
furnished by the Hungarian Communist Party Congress in
Budapest, November 30 to December 5. Gyula Kallai, a
member of the party Politburo, warned that opponents of the
regime must not expect any softening of attitudes by the
Communist party to accompany a relaxation of East-West
tensions. Mr. Kallai said the Communist party, on the con-
trary, would sharpen the class struggle against its enemies.

Handler adds :

Premier Khrushchev, who attended the Hungarian meet-
ing, alluded to the need for more precaution when he said
that the time had come to "strengthen the world Socialist
camp in every way" and that "we must, figuratively speak-
ing, synchronize our watches." The Communist leaders in
Eastern Europe evidently feel that a period of peaceful co-

38 THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV

existence can help the reahzation of then* domestic economic
policies. But they have no intention of letting dissident ele-
ments challenge their authority in consequence, as happened
in somewhat similar circumstances in 1956,

After pointing to different domestic policies that most satellite
regimes have adopted in order "to convince the people that no com-
promise with the class enemy is possible and that there will be no
relaxation of the effort to achieve complete socialization," Handler has
this to say in regard to Bulgaria (and Rumania) :

These states will continue their policy of almost complete
isolation from the West, Opposition to the Communist re-
gimes in both countries has been eliminated to a degree not
yet achieved in the other East European countries and, there-
fore, Bulgaria and Rumania have little need for new measures
to deal with an East-West relaxation of tensions.

If this ascertainment about Bulgaria by the New York Times cor-
respondent is correct, and I have no reason to doubt it, it only shows
once again that a minority party — or, rather, a Moscow-oriented
clique within that minority party — continues to rule supreme over
the nation by whatever means it has at its disposal. And these
means are, basically, the borrowed power that the Soviet Union is as
readily lending it under Khrushchev, as it did under Stalin,

In other words, the minority Communist regime in Bulgaria, which
succeeded in eliminating all organized opposition by murder, imprison-
ment and overall oppression during the time of Stalin, continues along
the same line now, during the time of Khrushchev, and there is no
evidence that the latter is annoyed by that, much less that he con-
templates withholding Soviet aid to the regime in question.

This regime, furthermore, is basically the same now as it was during
Stalin's time. It is true that Vulko Chervenkov, who symbolized the
Stalinist control over Bulgaria, was removed as prime minister and
as party secretary on the "recommendation" of Khrushchev during
the so-called de-Stalinization period. But Chervenkov remained in
the government as deputy premier, his influence continued to be
pronounced, and seems again to be on the increase. What's more, the
man who replaced Chervenkov as prime minister is none other than
the same Anton Yugov who, as Minister of the Interior in the early
postwar cabinets, was personally in charge of the mass liquidations
that eliminated aU organized opposition to a Moscow-controlled
Communist regime in the country.

Needless to say, the power of Yugov today, like the power of Cher-
venkov yesterday, is not rooted in the will of the Bulgarian people;
it springs from Moscow. And just as the origin of and the inspiration
for Chervenkov's crimes could be traced to Stalin, so the origin of
and the inspiration for Yugov's crimes can be traced to Stalin — and
IDirushchev. The continued exercise of that power in Bulgaria by
either Yugov, Chervenkov, or anyone else of their Communist clique
is, therefore, the greatest crime of the present Soviet premier in
relation to the Bulgarian people.

I would like to call your attention to an article in the Saturday
Evening Post (November 28, 1959) by a recent American visitor to
Bulgaria. Prof. Fred Warner Neal, who had spent a good deal of
time behind the Iron Curtain in the past, first as a U.S. naval officer

THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV 39

in Kussia and later as a diplomat in Eastern Europe, was eager to see
for himself, as he puts it, "What the alleged 'relaxation' of totali-
tarianism really amounted to." He decided that Bulgaria would be
the ideal place for the purpose, inasmuch as the picturesque Balkan
country had in the meantime become "the vacation mecca for the
New C3lass from all over the Soviet Empire."

And indeed. Professor Neal writes after having made his observa-
tions there:

If you want to watch the Communist big shots of Eastern
Europe at play, lolling in luxury amid a poverty-stricken
peasantry, the place to go is Bulgaria, the most backward,
most tightly controlled, most Russianized of the Soviet
satellites — and at the same time the main tourist resort
behind the Iron Curtain * * *. The Bulgarian resorts are
filled to capacity with, if not quite "everybody," at least
those trusted enough to be allowed to travel. By plane,
train, and bus, the Communist elite streams into the
country. * * *

But Bulgaria, I soon found [continues Neal] is not only
a place where commissars cavort at plush resorts. The
"most satellite" of the satellite states, it also is the "most
policed" of the police states. Not one block of its quiet,
clean capital city of Sofia is without an armed policeman,
and at night they carry submachine guns. Plainclothes
police, keeping a watchful eye on foreigners, are so ubiquitous
as to be obvious. And one does not have to travel far from
Sofia to see forced-labor battalions marching to work with
military discipline. Even fun, like everything else, is plan-
ned here by the state. The country's role as the official
playground of the New Class is part of Moscow's new
scheme for economic specialization among its satellites. * * *

Political and sociological aspects of Iron Curtain tourism
are even better illustrated at Varna (on the Black Sea coast)
the destination of most of the vacationing Communists.
Here, with units of the Soviet Black Sea fleet maneuvering
offshore, one sees members of the New Class from all the
Soviet-bloc countries luxuriating on the so-called Golden
Sands of this Red Riviera. The tourists invariably include
selected groups of Russians, Czechs, Hungarians, Ruman-
ians and East Germans, a few Poles and very, very few
Bulgars,

Although at places like Varna there are a few special rest
homes for certain key groups of workers such as miners,
workers generally never associate with the New Class of
either rank, nor, of coiu-se, do the peasants, who constitute
the bulk of the population of Eastern Europe,

The New Class also has some interesting social distinctions
based on nationality. The Russians are at the top. Two
of the best hotels are reserved for them exclusively, and any
Russian tourist, regardless of position, always receives special
treatment. After this come the Czechs, primarily because
they usually have more money, are better educated and
better dressed.

40 THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV

Professor Neal goes on to note that —

There is marked contrast between Varna, bubbhng with
animation and gaiety, and other parts of Bulgaria. Sofia,
for example, with broad boulevards, shiny marble buildings,
and lovely, old Orthodox churches, is the prettiest city in the
Balkans, But there is no activity — -no cars, few horses and
not many people on the streets. It is clean and well kept,
but it is probably the quietest city of its size— 643,700— in
Europe. Everywhere there are militiamen and soldiers, all
dressed exactly like those in the Soviet Union. This grim
atmosphere, together with the vast, mausoleumlike buildings
in its center gives Sofia the air of something akin to a military
cemetery. * * *

Having tried during his sojourn to find the real center of authority
in the country, Neal notes:

In Bulgaria today there may be some doubt about whether
the No. 1 man really is Party First Secretary Todor Zhivkov,
Premier Anton Yugov, or Deputy Premier Vulko Cherven-
kov, sometimes referred to as Little Stalin. However, there
is no doubt that the No. 1 Bulgarian, whoever he is, takes his
orders from the Soviet Embassy in Sofia. The embassy is
the real center of power in Bulgaria. The present Ambas-
sador, Yuri K. Prikliodov, a large, forceful man, looks and
acts the the part of a proconsul. I telephoned him * * * and,
doubtless because any American in town was such a curiosity,
he invited me to call. * * * By and large. Ambassador
Prikhodov talked frankly about Bulgarian politics, but he
insisted that he never interfered in internal Bulgarian affairs.
However, he quickly added, "Our advice is sometimes
sought." In the beginning, he said, when the Bulgarians
were just learning how to operate a Communist state, it was
different, but now "these people can do a fine job them-
selves."

Referring to some samples of this "fine job," Professor Neal writes:

Bulgarian officials like to point to their "progress in
agriculture." It is progress of a very special type, how-
ever. Some 95 percent of Bulgarian agriculture is collec-
tivized, and now the government is striving to make it 100
percent. Although the plight of the peasants has improved
in the last 2 years, Bulgarian agriculture still has the lowest
productivity in Europe * * *.

Poverty and resentment against the regime may be more
widespread among the peasants, but is by no means confined
to them. Not only are wages low and prices high but also
unemployment — never supposed to occur in Communist
countries — is widespread. Paradox-ically there also is a
shortage of certain kinds of labor * * *.

Government efforts to cope with both unemployment and
labor shortage are drastic. Thousands of Bulgarian young
people are shipped off annually to the Soviet Union to help
relieve unemployment, but at the same time labor battalions,
made up not only of young men of military age but also

THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV 41

white-collar workers and civil servants, are used to ease the
pressure on the labor market. Government propaganda
insists that the labor battalions and the "excursions" to the
U.S.S.R. are voluntary, but this brings reactions varying
from wry smiles to bitter laughter. * * *

Both economic pressure on the population and the wide-
spread dissatisfaction are evident in the constant flow of
harsh government decrees. Many of them involve the
death penalty, not only for such offenses as trying to flee the
country but also for theft. Theft of "people's property,"
which covers just about everything in Bulgaria, is an ever-
increasing worry to the regime.

As for Ambassador Prildiodov's insistence that he "never inter-
fered in internal Bulgarian affairs," the following passage of the
Saturday Evening Post article is quite revealing. Neal writes:

When I was finally ready to leave the country, I ran into
one last "Bulgarian situation." I had surrendered my pass-
port to the police on arrival, and they still had it. Several
times on the day of departure I had demanded the passport
from the Balkantouriste office in the hotel. Always the same
answer: "lou will have it right away." Finally at 5 p.m.
the tourist official said it was impossible to get the passport
until morning because the police were all away at a soccer
match. At this I protested so loudly that the hotel manager
and one of the several secret policemen always hanging
around the lobby came over. They would fix it, they said.
A half hour later they were back. The passport office was
closed, they announced. I would have to delay leaving until
the next day.

When I had left the Soviet embassy several days earlier,
the ambassador had told me, "If there is anything I can do
for you here, just call me."

Now I was furious and panicky. My visa expired that
evening. So I reached for the telephone and shouted, "Very
well, 1^1 call my friend, the Soviet ambassador."

Immediately people came running from all over, and sev-
eral of them told me all at once, "No, no, don't do that."

"AU right," I said, "then get my passport."

Again the hotel manager and the policeman left, this time
accompanied by the tourist official. In thirteen and a half
minutes by my watch they were back. This time they had
the passport. I was glad too. I had suddenly remembered
that the Soviet ambassador was out of town.

Mr. Arens. Do you have information respecting literature and art
in Bulgaria?

Mrs. Choukanofp. Whether because of fear from or affection for
Ambassador Prikhodov, respectively the Soviet Union, the fact re-
mains that the Communist regime has reduced Bulgaria to a state of
obedient subordination to the will of the Kremlin bosses. And this
appears to be as true in the fields of art, literature, education, and
culture generally as it is in those of police control, the economy, and
foreign affairs.

42 THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV

Having succeeded in transplanting Soviet police methods on Bul-
garian soil, in merging the nation's economy with that of the U.S.S.R.
and in abandoning even the pretense to a foreign policy of its own, the
same regime has been trying as hard to stifle any intellectual in-
dependence and to regiment all artistic and creative efforts. It is
here, however, in what might be called the spiritual sector, that it has
encountered some of its most serious frustrations.

Education, for example, like all other aspects of cultural, political,
and economic life in the country, is also modeled on the Soviet pattern,
with the entire school system serving as a tool for indoctrination in
the Communist ideology. All educational institutions are under full
control of the Communist Party, and conducted in the "Communist
spirit." Even the nurseries are designed to "lay the foundations of
Communist education" among the children attending them. The
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, the supreme scientific and scholastic
institute in the country, is no exception to the rule. Article 15 of the
law regulating this institute provides that persons "who have mani-
fested or manifest Fascist or other activity against the people cannot
be members of the B.A. of S." In actual practice, this means that
scientists or scholars with any independence of thought have no place
in it, to say nothing of outright anti-Communists.

An educational reform decreed in July 1957 supplanted a previous
Communist reform on the grounds — among other things — that
"certain questions on education were decided hastily" and that "the
transplantation of the Soviet school experience was done mechan-
ically." The new decree tended to shift the emphasis in education
to vocational, rather than scholastic training, and to reduce the number
of graduates who "neither desired nor were accustomed to manual
work."

Only a year later, however, as soon as Khrushchev's theses on
"Strengthening the Ties between School and Life" were published,
the 1957 decree was criticized by Party Secretary Zhivkov as "inad-
equate." The result was still another reform, finally passed in July
1959, which very closely followed the new Soviet law in tying of edu-
cation with experience in the production processes. A striking featmre
of the new reform was the almost complete abandonment of the liberal
arts and humanities — fields which tend to breed intellectual
independence.

While this reform, with its emphasis on the need of technologists
and technically skilled workers for all levels of industry, agriculture,
and trade has, no doubt, a good deal to recommend it, it obviously
has some other aims which are not so commendable. As Zhivkov
had rightly pointed out in this connection, it is far more difficult to
"socialize" the minds of the people than it is to socialize industry and
agriculture. The other aims of the reform are, undoubtedly, to over-
come this difficulty — by breaking down whatever remnants there stiU
are of the old sJDirit of inquiry, to "socialize" and sovietize the
mentality of the nation.

The function of literature and the arts in the Communist scheme
of things is to further this educational and "socializing" process out
of school. As Zhivkov had put it before the 7th party congress m Sofia
(June 1958), then- main purpose is "to help the Party in the Com-
munist and esthetic education of the masses."

THE CRIMES OF KBRUSHCHEV 43

Judging by reports in official Communist publications, the party
has been having — and stUl has — considerable difficulties in persuading
aU literary and artistic workers to concentrate their efforts on this
particular pm'pose, much less to follow blindly the party's specific
directives to that end.

It is, no doubt, true that most Communist writers and artists — and
a few non-Communists too — have been readily following the party
line in their work. It is likewise true that a number of others have
been trying hard to acquiesce in the same line, as the most likely way
to survive and make a living. As for the rest, who may well be in the
majority, they have long since abandoned their literary and artistic
pursuits and switched to less "spiritual" endeavors, such as trans-
lating, clerical work, or plain manual labor; under the circumstances,
the latter group is outside the scope of this review.

Even among the working writers and artists, however, it has not
always been easy going for the party line. As everywhere else behind
the Iron Curtain, there has been simmermg discontent below the
Bulgarian cultural scene ever since the Communists took over. This
discontent reached the boiling point as soon as Khrushchev's revela-
tions about Stalin became known. In Bulgaria proper, it broke out
in the open immediately after the party plenum in Sofia of April
1956, which could not have overlooked same revelations.

Encouraged by developments at and after this plenum, especially
by the withdrawal of Chervenkov from the premiership, Bulgarian
dissident intellectuals, many of them lifelong Communists, found the
atmosphere propitious at last to speak out and sa}'" what they really
had on their minds. Some of them soon came out with works which,
though not openly anti-Communist, were obviously meant to show
that the Communist spirit in Bulgaria had been distorted and the
Communist regime corrupted to the point of bankruptcy. At their
meetings, meanwhile, dissidents not only criticized the regime, but
went as far as to renounce "socialist realism" and deny the party's
right to control culture. Although little of what went on at these
meetings reached the press, judging by the reaction of the regime, it
couldn't have differed much from what was happening in Poland and
Hungary. Bulgaria was obviously a part of the "revisionist" trend
that was sweeping all of Eastern Europe at the time.

Indeed, for a while in 1956 and early 1957, Bulgarian dissidents
had something of a field day. Not only did their unorthodox works
pass the censor, they were not even subjected to official criticism.
But that did not last long. With the suppression of the Hungarian
revolution by Comrade Khrushchev, the East European regimes soon
regained confidence and, as could be expected, they did not wait long
to put the screws on the dissidents who had caused them so much
trouble.

In Bulgaria, the job was entrusted to none other than the man who,
at the height of his power, had done his best to put all intellectuals
in the straitjacket they were trying so hard to break away from.
Appointed Minister of Education and Culture, Chervenkov hunted
down every trace of dissent, deviation, or Western tendencies in the
arts, literature, and journalism, and by June 1958 he could claim that
order and quiet had been restored on the Bulgarian cultural scene.

44 THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV

Before Cherveiikov could make' this claim, many things had hap-
pened, at least some of which can be docmnented. For example:

At a Writers' Union meeting on "revisionism" in July 1957,
a number of writers were denounced for misrepresenting the
errors caused by the cult of personality, for misquoting Lenin
in support of literary freedom and "under the guise of the
struggle against dogmatism, refuting socialist realism in a
most dogmatic manner." (As reported in the Union's organ,
Literaturen Front, of July 18, 1957.)

Although Klu-ushchev's reassertion of party authority over
Soviet writers at the time tended to facilitate the same job of
Chervenkov in Bulgaria, the latter was meeting serious diffi-
culties. Like their Hungarian colleagues, Bulgarian writers
responded to his efforts by a "silence strike," for which they
were severely criticized in Otechestven Front (the organ of the
so-called Fatherland Front CoaHtion) of October 17.

The same issue of Otechestven Front contained an attack on
Communist writers Todor Gcnov and Emil Manov for try-
ing to play the part of "martyrs." Genov's play "Fear" and
Manov's novel "An Unauthentic Case" had already been the
targets of severe criticism in the regime press for their un-
favorable references to Communist reality. The Otechestven
Front significantly reminded these two and other Communist
writers that "everybody is free to write and say what he
pleases. * * * However, every free union of people, includ-
ing the Party, is free to expel Party members who use the
Party label to preach anti-Party views."

Manov's attempt to defend himself served only to intensify
the counterattacks of the regime press against him, against
Genov and a number of others, including the poet Lamar
{Vecherni Nomni, October 29, 1957).

At a meeting of the party organization withm the Writers'
Union, held between November 29 and December 1, Party
Secretary Andrei Gulyashki named 10 leading writers withm
the party organization, who had opposed the party line. He
added that these dissidents had support among the younger
intellectuals, and deplored the passivity of nondissident
Communist writers who had not struck back for the party
line against the rebels. Gulyashki also said it was known
that some of their fellow members approved of the Polish
and Hungarian revolts, while others opposed the forced
collectivization of agriculture (Literaturen Front, December

26, 1957). , , ,

Gulyashki's remarks, however pointed, were perhaps mel-
lowed somewhat by the fact that he himself, as chief editor
of "Plamuk," was not beyond reproach. This periodical
had been a major outlet for much of the "revisionist" writ-
ing, and six members of its editorial board were to be purged
shortly. Early in 1958 the purge of dissidents from posi-
tions of responsibility was extended to other publications,
including Otechestven Front, whose editor in chief, Stefan
Stanchev, and chief editorial writer, Vladimir Topencharoff,
were dismissed. The latter, a former Deputy Minister of

THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV 45

Foreign Affairs, was also dismissed from the presidency of
the Union of Bulgarian Journalists.

Party organ Rabotnichesko Delo turned its guns (February
16, 1958) on educators and scholars. It attacked a number
of prominent Communist personalities in the Academy of
Sciences and in the Karl Marx Institute of Economics.
These were also accused of "revisionism," as well as
of "an un-Marxist approach" to current scientific and politi-
cal problems. The entire editorial board of Filosojska Misul
(Philosophical Thought) were reproached about the same
time for complacency in the face of alleged manifestations of
"bourgeois ideology."

In April 1958, the board and secretariat of the Writers'
Union were purged of all "unreliable" officers, who were re-
placed by such who had invariably toed the party line.

During the discussions accompanying these developments, writers
were generally criticized for avoiding "the noble themes of the present
day," such as collective farming, factory life, and the building of
socialism, and for concentrating on "digging up the past," i.e., his-
torical novels; also for allowing themselves to be influenced by Western
writers, particularly by "the impressionist Hemingway." The "pre-
dominance and universality" of socialist realism was monotonously
expounded instead. But while all speakers supported the party line,
some qualifi.ed their support in terms which were somewhat disturbing.
Thus, a young Communist poet, Georgi Djagaroff, had the temerity
to observe that "the comrades seem to have the impression that
socialist realism is like the tablets of Moses' Ten Commandments —
everlasting and unchangeable. But this is not true, * * *"

Despite such mild manifestations of independence, however, it
seemed bj^ June 1958, when Chervenkov made his claim, that he had
really done what he had set out to do — that he had rooted out all
signs of deviation and nonconformity, and that the party was again
in full control of the cultural situation. But, as further developments
soon came to prove, Chervenkov had merely succeeded in sweeping
the problem under the rug. Less than a year after "order and quiet"
had allegedly been restored on the cultural scene, new cracks began
to appear in it. It soon became evident that it was far easier to stop
writers from writing what was forbidden, than to get them to write
what was prescribed.

In the year since then: Todor Genov, who had subjected himself to
"self-criticism" and had tried his best to write what the regime wanted,
has been criticized that the tenor of his latest play, "Monument,"
amounted to "insulting condescension."

The party press has continued to lament the writers' susceptibility
to Western influence, and party spokesmen continue to complain that
the creative artists, though paying lip service to the party, just keep
on bypassing its specific directives.

But not only has writers' resistance been of a negative and passive
nature; Orlin Vasilev, one of the foremost Communist writers in the
country, has brought out a new play, "The Buried Sun," for which he
was accused by Rabotnichesko Delo of distorting the picture of the
Bulgarian Bolshevik, and of presenting socialist reality as "foggy,
lacking faith, with no outlet in a helpless situation." In this play.

46 THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV

the party organ added, "the author tries to show how people put into
leading posts, having rich and pure revolutionary past, have turned
now into petty bourgeois, spiritually and morally impoverished souls."

While Vasilev's "The Buried Sun" was still being criticized, there
appeared Dragomir Asenov's novel "The Roads Bypass One Another,"
which was immediately attacked for "degrading the ideal, the image
of Communist manhood." Literaturen Front complained that Asenov
is arguing that "a good Communist could be just as much of a rogue
as anyone else." The "lifcblood of the novel," it concluded sadly,
was that "Communism had lost its value."

These are only some of the signs which show that the whole series
of problems on the "spiritual sector," so thoroughly swept under the
rug by Chervenkov less than 2 years ago, are again breaking out in
the open. It may be doubted that the revival of these problems will
again assume the dimensions of the 1956-57 dissension and ferment.
The external causes for that seem to be missing now, and, besides,
Bulgarian intellectuals have again learned the bitter lesson that any
deviation from the party line is just about as unhealthy now, when
Khrushchev is pulling the strings in Moscow, as it was under Stalin.
However that may be, recent developments on the cultural front in
Bulgaria have proved once again that literature and the arts continue
to be among the most uncontrollable factors, even in a Communist
society.

The Chairman. I want to thank you very much for your splendid
contribution to the committee's efforts.

(Whereupon, at 4:10 p.m., January 8, 1960, the consultations were
concluded.)

INDEX

Individuals

Pag«

Ambrosius (Katholikos) 13

Asenov, Dragomir 46

Auriol, Vincent 11

Bagrianoff, Ivan -- 31

Beria (Lavrentij 10, 11, 16, 21

Boris (former King of Bulgaria) 32

Bratkov, Petar 4, 29

Bukharin (Nikolai I.) 17

Bulganin (Nikolai) 11, 21

Callistratus (Katholikos) 14

Chankov, Georgi 29

Chervenkov, Vulko 38, 40, 43-46

Chicherin (Georgi V.) 22

Choukanoflf, Catherine Boyan 3-5, 30-46 (statement)

Curzon (George N.) 22

Darjanski, Angel 4, 29

Daskalov, Raicho 4, 28

Dertliev, D. R 4, 29

Dimitrov, G. M 4, 23, 28

Djagaroff , Georgi 45

Dzhavakhishvili, I 19

Dzhorberadze, Sergei 13

Genov, Todor 44, 45

Gichev, Dimiter 4, 29

Girginov, Aleksandur 4, 29

Gotchev, Diniu 4, 28

Gulyashki, Andrei 44

Handler, M. S 37, 38

Hansen (Hans C. S.) H

Hemingway, (Ernest) 45

Hitler (Adolf). 20, 31, 32

Kaganovich (Lazar) 21

Kallai, Gyula 37

Kamenev (Lev B.) 17

Khrushchev, Nikita 1-5, 9-18, 20-23, 25-30, 32-34, 36-38, 42, 43, 46

Kopchef, Boris 1 29

Kostov, Ivan 4, 29

Kosygin, Aleksei 26

Koupradze, Viktor 13

Kultadze 19

Kunev, Trifon 4, 28

Lamar 44

Lang, David Marshall 8

Lenin (V. I.) 10, 11, 17, 18, 21, 22, 44

Lultchev, Kosta 4, 29

Makharadze, Philip 17

Malenkov (Georgi) 11, 21

Manov, Emil 44

Mikoyan (Anastas'I.) 12

Molotov (V. M.)-I 21

Muraview, Konstantin 4, 29, 31

Mzhavanadze, Vasili P 10, 11, 13

Nakashidse, George 1-3,15-23 (statement)

Neal, Fred Warner 26,27,38-41

i

ii INDEX

Page

Panchevski (Peter) 29

Panoff , Yanko 29

Petkoff, Dimitar _ ' 24

Petkoff, Dimitar K 3, 4,"2i^30 "(statement^ ; 31

Petkoff, Nikola ._ 24 26

Piatakov (Georgii L.) ' 17

Pospelov (Petr N.) 21

Prikhodov, Yuri K 40 41

Punev, Hristo 4* 28

Radek (Karl) ' ' 17

Rykov ( Aleksey I.) 17

Salisbury, Harrison E 14

Shkhetia, Sh. K I9

Slavov, Ivan - - 4 28

Stalin (Josef) 10-12, 16, 17, 20^22, 32-35,' 38, 43,' 46

Stanchev, Stefan 44

Tarpanov, Petko 4 28

Terpeshef, Dobri ' 29

Topencharoff , Vladimir 44

Tostov, Traycho 33

Trotsky (Leon) ___ 17 22

Tukhachevsky (Mikhael N.) 17

Vasilev, Orlin 45 45

Voroshilov (Kliment Y.) ' 12

Yezhqv (Nicholas I.) 2, 16

Yugov, Anton 3, 2'?, 38, 40

Zaldastani, Guivy 1, 2; 7-14 (statement)

Zhivkov, Todor 27, 40, 42

Zhukov (Georgi K.) 21

Zinoviev (Gregori) 17

Organizations

Anti-Bolshevik Georgian Student Movement 15

Assembly of Captive European Nations 24

Bulgaria, Government of:

Army 26

Ministry of Information 30

National Assembly 4, 28

Bulgarian Academy of Sciences 42, 45

Bulgarian Agrarian Party 25

Bulgarian Democratic Party 25

Bulgarian Fatherland Front Coalition 44

Bulgarian National Committee 3, 23, 24

Bulgarian Peasant Party 25

Bulgarian Social Democratic Party 25

Bulgarian Socialist Party 25

Bulgarian Writers' Union 44, 45

Communist Party, Bulgaria 27, 29, 33

Seventh Party Congress, June 1958, Sofia 27, 29, 42

Communist Party, Georgia (U.S.S.R.) 10, 13, 17, 22

Communist Party, Hungary: Congress, November 30-December 5, 1959,

Budapest 37

Communist Party, Soviet Union:

Central Committee 10, 13

Politburo 2, 12, 16, 37

Presidium 13

Twenty-first Congress, January 27-February 5, 1959, Moscow 18

Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) 26, 27

Georgian National Alliance 1, 7

International Anti-Bolshevik Student Organization 15

International Central Committee of Political Emigrants and Refugees 15

Karl Marx Institute of Economics 45

Liberation Europea 15

Promethean League 15, 16

Union of Bulgarian Journalists 45

U.S.S.R., Government of. Embassy, Sofia, Bulgaria 27, 40

University of Tbilisi (Georgia, U.S.S.R.) 13, 19

INDEX iii

Publications Page

Buried Sun, The (play) 45, 46

Communisti 19

Filosof ska Misul (Philosophical Thought) _._ 45

Georgian Opinion 7

History of Georgia 19

Last Years of the Georgian Monarchy, 1658-1832, The 8

Literaturen Front 44, 46

Monument (play) 45

Otechestven Front 44

Plamuk 44

Rabotnichesko Delo 45

Roads Bypass One Another, The (book) 46

Saturday Evening Post 38

Vecherni Front 44

Voice of Free Georgia, The 7

Zarya Vostoka (newspaper) 13

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