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Be Patient, Comrade. The "ideological difference" which brought the Communists together in the Crimea revolved around the same problem that had taken them to Spain: Moscow domination of foreign Communist Parties. Since Khrushchev's and Bulganin's rapprochement with Tito last year and their joint recognition of Tito's "many-roads-to-Socialism" principle, the cautious movement towards a controlled autonomy in the Soviet satellite states has been getting out of hand. Local Communist Parties spurred on by the desperation of their nation's destitute workers, e.g., in Poland and Hungary, have apparently had the nerve to aim for an independent status as complete as that enjoyed by Tito. The reaction of Moscow's diehard Stalinists (among them Molotov, Malenkov, Suslov) has been to give off reverberations of the old Cominform line (Pravda: "What's this claptrap about national Communism?"), and to thwart Tito's suggestions—agreed to by Khrushchev—for loosenings and changes in neighboring satellite states.
When it was decided to change the leadership of the Hungarian party, an extreme Stalinist, perhaps the power and brains of the Stalinist faction, was left to carry it out. Onetime Cominform Spokesman Mikhail Suslov, a Central Committee secretary and member of the present Soviet Presidium, flew down to Budapest to depose reigning Party Boss Matyas Rakosi, in accordance with Tito's wishes. But in doing so, he established old-line Stalinist Erno Gero as Rakosi's successor.
In the confused, rumor-filled wake of the Reds' Yalta conclave, there was still nothing to contradict the best interpretation of why Nikita Khrushchev went suddenly to Belgrade, and Tito went as suddenly to Yalta. The interpretation: Khrushchev, unable to put down the Stalinist faction, went to Yugoslavia to persuade Tito to be a patient comrade, and to play along with the Stalinists, to insist too loudly on neither satellite autonomy nor further destalinization. When Tito proved stubborn, Khrushchev took him to Yalta to hear the arguments and to feel the strength of the forces against him. As he paced the Yalta seashore, Tito might have heard it suggested that, if he were serious about furthering satellite Communism and not merely intent on fragmentizing that empire, he should join an association of satellite states and parties, in which he could wield constructive influence (TIME, Oct. 8).