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The role of ex-Foreign Minister Dmitry Shepilov, "who had joined them," was made clear by a Radio Moscow broadcast hours later. It was the big, rumpled Shepilov who, as editor of Pravda, made a call on Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1955, and sold him Soviet arms in exchange for Egyptian cotton. Speaking in Arabic, Radio Moscow last week warned Egypt not to identify Soviet policy towards Egypt with Mr. Shepilov (Shepilov's name was carefully omitted from the list of those fired, in the official version of the Soviet communiqué issued in Cairo). Anyone who thought Arab-Soviet relations had been consolidated thanks to Mr. Shepilov, said the Moscow commentator, "was making a big mistake." In organizing the Egyptian arms buildup which had led to the Battle of Suez last October, Shepilov had been Molotov's deputy. Evidently the dismal failure of that chapter of Soviet imperialism is now to be considered the "narrow-minded" Molotov's responsibility, and the unimportant Shepilov its scapegoat.
Opposition Is Sabotage. Had Malenkov, Molotov and Kaganovich actually opposed the party on matters of principle? Or had they merely opposed, by any means at hand, the rise to power of the ebullient, bull-throated Nikita, knowing that once in the saddle he would ride herd over them? The distinction did not matter. In the Communist code book, all opposition is sabotage. In ousting the "saboteurs," Khrushchev was able to announce proudly that "not a single member of the plenum of the Central Committee supported the group."* Thus did Khrushchev boast that he had restored the monolithic unanimity of the party. He also established himself as its sole voice.
But, knowing that Mao, Tito and other Communists with long memories of Stalin's personal autocracy would be looking over his shoulder, Khrushchev needed ideological justification for his arbitrary action. Pravda, on the day of the communiqué, printed a 10,000-word defense of the need for "one discipline and one law for all Communists." By way of explaining Khrushchev's sudden about-face toward his old drinking-party cronies, the article quoted an obscure letter written by Lenin during an earlier Bolshevik opposition crisis: "I would consider it to be a shameful act on my part if because of my previous close association with these former comrades I were to hesitate to condemn them." In this spirit, Khrushchev in the following week stepped up a vigorous condemnation of Malenkov & Co. that went far beyond the flat sentences of the communiqué. The momentum of destruction was accelerating.