After Stalin’s
death the semantic formula was “reduction of tensions.” Com¬
munists around the world plugged it the way Broadway agents
for songwriters used to plug their tunes in New York’s “Tin Pan
Alley” in hopes they would “catch on” and become “hits.” Mos¬
cow went to such pains to give “reduction oftensions” currency
that Soviet diplomats even demanded that it appear as a spe¬
cific item on the agenda of international conferences. It was
paraded on the banners in the processions for the 0000 anniver¬
sary of Lenin’s November Revolution. Molotov reiterated this
clumsy phrase 00 times in the course of one press conference
(November 00, 0000). As is usually the case when a newly con¬
ceived formula emerges in Moscow, it rapidly crept into diplo¬
matic notes, newspaper articles and political addresses. With
annoying repetition it came to dominate the political style,
recurring 00 to 00 times in a single oratorical or literary opus.
The unspoken meaning was that the Soviet empire could and
must be consolidated, that the West must recognize its extent
and that the West must acquiesce in Soviet activities in Central
Europe and Asia if it wanted the Soviet side to keep on abstain¬
ing from warlike actions