C O MIM IUN IS31

TOWARDS CATHOLICISM-11R
Communism in Practice
By Douglas Hyde
%A THEN Russia was brought into _Tv the war by the German attack, the British Communist Party, along with its sister parties throughout Europe, immediately dropped its anti-war activities and came briskly out in full support instead.
Right to the last moment the party leaders here believed that Hitler would not attack and denounced the rumours which preceded it as antiSoviet nor-mongering and wishful thinking oia the part of Russia's enemies here in Britain.
When the news broke on the Morning of June 22, 1941, a good deal of quick thinking was required. It was Sunday, and, as usual, most of the party leaders were in the provinces on propaganda trips. Those who were in London were quickly called together and .seroceeded to hammer out the new line.
There were some (a prominent trade union leader among them) who at first argued that the workers' reply must be that laid down in the early days of the Communist International-world revolution. All were certain that at last the German Communist Party would reveal its strength, that there would ho mass desertions to the Russian lines, sabotage in the factories, and before long insurrect ion.
The British leaders might be forgiven this particular forecast since a similar view was also held by the Russian leaders, Those Red Anny detachments who, believing this, marched with their bands playing the Internationale right up to the German guns in expectation of a sympathetic response from the other side speedily learned their mistake. The fact was that the Communist International had been totally misinformed as to the German Party's strength. There were, in fact, very few members left there by that time and the large numbers who suddenly appeared when the victorious Red Army marched into the Reich were in the main former Nazis and Others who were " jumping on the band Wagon."
The British party leaders decided that the task of the party would now be to stimulate support for Britain's war effort, to undo the party's own anti-war activities, to press for the fullest possible military and moral support for Russia.
When the " Daily Worker" was Banned That lead was got out to the party members as quickly as possible, and in this I was able to be of material assistance. When the Daily Worker was banned a news agency was set up in Fleet Street whose purpose was twofold. First, it aimed to get into the rest of the national Press "Daily Worker type " stories which would stimulate the right sort of activities in the factories. Its second, and even more important function, was to produce a daily bulletin, which was sent to Communist leaders in industry and trade unions all over the country, keeping the day-to-day application of the Party line before them.
It was on this agency that I was working at the time and so, on that Sunday, we rushed out a special issue containing the party leaders' statement and a clear line on what was expected of the pally members. By the following morning Communist shop stewards were calling meetings in war factories all over the country, explaining the fundamental change which had occurred in the character of the war, and demanding maximum output from every worker,
Soon the line was developed to include the demand for Joint Production Committees, with the workers' representatives permitted a say in production at managerial levels. Those employers who resisted were denounced with great earnestness and conviction for impeding the war effort.
The change in the line seemed completely iustified and explicable to me, as it did to other party members. Where before we believed the war was utterly wrong, now we saw it as something to be given 100 per cent. backing. Both attitudes were consistent with Marxist teaching and tactics.
Answer to Vital Questions
How are Communists able with complete conviction to make these rapid changes, and pursue one line one day and another the next ? In it that they are completely spoonfed and dumb, conscious and willing tools of Moscow ? The answer to such questions is vital to an understanding of Communist behaviour w-day.
The Communist believes that loyalty to country was put right out of date one hundred years ago with the publication of the Communist Manifesto, that loyalty to the working class of the world is a far higher thing. The class war, says Marx, has always existed, but the working class must he made aware of this and then proceed to fight it as a war. They must use military strategy and tactics, deceive the enemy, employ ruses, deceit, subterfuge. Any methods are considered permissible in warfare when the battle grows hot, this must go for the class war. too.
The old " bourgeois " conception of ethics, religion and morality must be thrown overboard as mere tricks of the ruling class designed to keep the workersthe rightful heirs to the riches of the world-in subjection. Right and wrong in the old accepted sense therefore cease to exist. Does it serve the class struggle or does it not ? ibis is the one guide to the behaviour of the individual or the party. But the old clear-cut line up of workers of the world versus the employing class of the world has been obscured by the success of the working class revolution in Russia. The Soviet Union is the one great strong-point in the hands of the workers. It is their one great strategic gain which at all costs must be defended. Thus in fighting on Russia's behalf the worker is fighting for his own class interests and, in the last analysis, for himself.
And so under all circumstances the Communist must be expected to put the interests of Russia (and today her satellites in Eastern Europe) before everything. In doing so he is, he believes, serving the best interests of his class, who, being the majority of any population, are loosely described as " the people."
This, then, explains why Communist scientists, writers. doctors, Members of Parliament, RS well as industrial workers, are all prepared to accept what Russia' e leaders request without question, and will assist Russia in every possible way under all circumstances.
One immediate effect of the great pro-Soviet wave which swept Britain when Hitler's bombers and invasion forces turned East was a tremendous rush of recruits to the Communist Party. Within a few months the membership had jumped from less than 30,000 , to just over 60,000. Optimistically the leaders planned for a 100.000 membership which was never realised, and the opportunity passed.
Churchill, a Communist Hero The party's activities and slogans became of the broadest possible character. Winston Churchill, who had for years been seen. as the Communists' great enemy, became their hero, whose picture was carried in processions along with that of Stalin. No Marxist had any doubts about the purely temporary character of that particular tactic, but undoubtedly there were many among the new recruits who were deceived.
For the first time the party began to recruit on what appeared to be a purely patriotic appeal. Many of the recruits of that period must long since have left the party, but among those who have remained there is undoubtedly a number who now have no place in its ranks and are held only by personal loyalties or by belief in short-term campaigns rather than long-term aims. It was in this period that the 20 months' ban on the Daily Worker Was lifted and the paper was able to cash right in on the wave of popular feeling. Within ten days of the lifting of the ban, the agency on which I was working was wound up, a scratch staff assembled and the Daily Worker resta rted. For months I worked for 14 hours
daily, with a six-day week. With
Russia fighting for her life, and later advancing victoriously towards the heart of Capitalist Europe itself, no sacrifice was too great for us to make.
The Reality ,
Then East met West when British and American forces rushed tit.TOSS the continent to be there in Germany as the Hitler regime collapsed. The workers in the factories had responded magnificently to the "tanks for Joe " campaigns. What colossal consequences, 1 felt, would flow from the impact of the forces of the capitalist world meeting the victorious Red Army me* products of a generation of Marxist Socialism.
But thing.s did not work out like that. For after the first pictures had been taken of Tommy and Ivan hand-in-hand and the fir.st.cheers had died down, a different type of story began to filter back.
I had known, of course, that the Red Army was drawn from the countryside, whilst the townsmen in the main filled the war factories, But our own pre-war propaganda had said that the countryside, too, had been transformed and that the new generation was the product of Russia's virile proletarian culture. The only way to deal with the obviously factual accounts of the appalling things being done by Red Army men in Germany, their lack of any sort of culture and their obvious poverty was frankly to admit in the Daily Worker that many people had had an exaggerated idea of the progess made in Russia since the Revolution.
Making all allowances for Russia's fattier backwardness there was still a great deal which took a lot of explaining away. In fact, whilst the dead they had left behind them inspired me, the living who reached Berlin, raping and looting like any other victorious army, troubled me a very great deal.
(To be concluded next week in a longer article in which Mr. Hyde describes his post-war disillusion and his approach to the Church).
'WORLD COPYRIGHT RESERVED]