ITESTIONS OF THE WEEK '

The Socialist Split in Italy THE Manchester Guardian's Rome correspondent has described the past week-end as possibly the most important week-end in Italian politics since the liberation of Italy was effected." The event which has caused such excitement is the split in the Italian Socialist Party. which has led to the esistence of two Socialist parties and virtually two Socialist congresses. The split has, of course, come over relations with the Communists. Signor Saragat, speaking at the Socialist Congress under the presidency of the Socialist leader. Nenni. bitterly criticised the Socialist following of the Communist lead. " Our party,".he said, " is radically wrong in trying to form a bloc with the Communists . . . . The Italian Socialist Party is reduced to-day, by Signor Nenni's policy. into a position in which it can have no influence at home or abroad, in the East or in the West."
Signor Saragat's followers met in the Palaz_zo Barberini, where a thousand delegates listened to the speeches outlining the spirit and programme of the rebel parts. Denying that his party was untiCommunist. Signor Saragat came to the heart of the matter when he said; "-But each one of us has an inalienable right to decide what is right and what is wrong. Liberty is just this: the right to criticise. Let us be frank; there has never been such a collapse as there is to-day of the moral and social conscience, The working classes are in danger of decadence through dogmas." Signor Saragat was giving a lead, not only to his compatriots but to Socialists everywhere. It is not a question of being " anti-Communist," since being nntiesnything is purely megative. It is a question of standing rigidly by one's own principles if one is to survive. In the West it is a critical moment for Socialism. In saving itself by being true to itself it can do much to save civilisation. The test has not come in this country, but it is certainly a pity that the British Socialist delegates in Rome were only able to attend Signor Nenni's Congress. Support of Saragat is vital, and the success of Saragat will do much to
restore Anglo-Italian relations. Already more than a third of the Socialist deputies are with him, and others are undecided.
The Real Significance of the Strike THE Road Haulage strike is having a very bad press everywhere but in the columns of the Daily Worker, though that particular paper, standing, as it does, for the higher form of democracy where strikes would be tantamount to treason against the State, should be the most severe critic of an unofficial strike which clearly disrupts the Socialist economy of the country at a moment scarcely less, critical than war itself. This universal condemnation is a symptom. however. of the general acceptance of the benevolent despotism. within which an employing government, a vast trade union machinery and the working people
By Mkhael de
ate linked together. As a result, no one has a good word to say for men determined to challenge their new masters for a more rapid settlement of their grievances, a settlenicra delayed by the top-henyiness of modern trade union and negotiating machinery. We say this without seeking to justify a particular strike that may do infinite harm to the country with quite insufficient reason, but to underline a point that has surely become very clear. namely, that the British worker will never be reconciled to any despotism, however benevolent, however pink and however popular. When he feels himself to have a real grievance, he will always be as ready to take direct action as much against his own chosen masters as against capitalist employers.
Perhaps it is because the Daily Worker realises this that it defends British strikers while upholding the
Russian anti-striking system. But the real moral is that in this coonMy there are definite limits to the
amount of higher " democracy which the people will swallow, however ready the middle classes may be to he socialised. That the warning should be sounded by those in whose chief interest the socialisation is undertaken should not surprise the careful observer. Economic liberty is to-day more highly prized than political liberty, and in any social system it is the manual working class which has most to gain and least to lose by exercising that liberty. That is why in totalitarian countries the machinery for suppressing the voice of the peasantry and the working classes has to be so effective.
But it will certainly be ironical if our British Labour experiment ultimately founders, not on the opposition of its more natural opponents, the upper and middle classes, but on the refusal of the working classes to lose their right to act when they believe that the shoe pinches too hard.
The Lesson of the Polish Elections THE preparations for Sunday's elections in Poland have very clearly established a most impor
tant point. It is this In the Moscow-dominated countries it is always much more important that the party in power should maintain its power than that even a pretence of respect for freedom should survive. hi Russia itself and in the Balkan countries, this question has never really been put to the test. There, for one reason or another, it has been possible to rig elections so cunningly that the final result is made perfectly safe, while a pretence of democracy can be kept
up. Either democracy is given a totally new meaning, as in Russia itself, or the countries arc so remote or so well guarded that the real truth only leaks out some time after the elections, when public interest has dropped and the matter, in any case, cannot be remedied.
Poland. however. has presented some unique features. The Polish people are Catholic and Western in
la Bedoyere
their outlook. They have had a
long training in resisting the totali
tarian oppressor. The extraordinary circumstances of their betrayal by the world in the hour of their glorious victory has given the world a specially guilty conscience about their future fate. Even their rulers, moved by such conditions, may have very sincerely wanted to have genu inely democratic elections. Certainly foreign observers have been allowed a degree ot freedom unobtainable in other parts of Eastern Europe. However. all this has resulted, very naturally, in a state of opinion which would have made a government defeat in real elections quite inevitable. Rather than face such a defeat. even Si the hands of a party and leader fully prepared to make the best of the post-war situation of Poland vis-a-vis Soviet Russia, the Communist-Socialist Government has been forced quite openly to resort to persecution, terrorism and every device of power known to the modern dictator to ensure results which will enable it to keep power by a mockery of legalism. It will be very interesting to see how it works out in the end — or rather, how it will be worked out.
Applied to France SO now we know. Contemporary Commanism is not just a question of getting away with it when you can and when circumstances favour you ; it is a quest lion of getting power somehow and sticking to it at the cost of all prestige and decency and in the face of public opinion. No agreement or pledge, however solemn, can be allowed to stand in the way.
This not only fulfils the worst forebodings of those who have fought throughout for Poland and attacked the many compromises with Russia even when made by the sincerest of Polish patriots lest worse occur; it has its lesson for us in the West.
Thus, in France, the strong Communist Party is making much of its claim to be an independent and French Communist Party, not necessarily subject to Moscow values and dictations. And there are many non-Communists in France who are inclined to accept these pretensions. It may well be that the Communist Party leaders, do believe that they are saying the truth when they make such professions. But the truth is quite plainly that a totalitarian party cannot in any circumstances afford to lose. In a country like France there will always be an anti-Cornmonist majority, just as there is in Poland. But should the Communists in France be ever allowed to gain real power, they will face anything rather than relinquish it. And in thus refusing, no matter what the circumstances, to accept any verdict but the verdict of their own force, manipulated by the most abject and unpopular of means, they will show themselves to be completely totali tarian and the rabid opponents of the liberty which the French Republic has striven to maintain since its foundation.
Those who still need to be persuaded that Communism, whatever may be its accidental good points, is totally irreconcilable with any authority outside itself, have but to look to the Poland described in the article from our Polish correspondent this week.
Germany and Russia's Vicious Circle
THOSE of us who believe, with
the Apostolic Delegate to Germany (Bishop Muench of Fargo), that the overwhelming Allied duty to that country is now one of compassion will, surely, be all the more loath to say anything that might further harm relations between Soviet Russia and the rest of the world. For the Germans and• Austrians depend in a more direct was' than any other people on a spirit of peace and understanding between Russia, America, France and ourselves. Without that peace and understanding there can be no hope at all for them, since their country will inevitably remain divided or, at best, united again under a compromise that will be anything but satisfactory. All the more reason, then, to rejoice at the apparent success of Lord Montgomery's visit to Moscow and such signs as there may be of a better feeling there towards Britain. But it is entirely vain to expect Russia to be moved by anything but her own immediate interests as seen by a Power deeply suspicious of the world around her—a world she must meet on three separate and enormous fronts, West, South and East, even if we do not take account of the Northern front now opposed over the Arctic. to Canada and the U.S.A.
Therefore, we must face the fact that the German and Austrian treaties, preliminary work for which is being faced by the Foreign Ministers' Deputies in London, will depend. so far as Russia is concerned. on the over-all view which she is taking of her security. The point she has to decide is the real value to her of a restless Poland and a hostile Eastern Germany over which her power extends as compared with relatively friendly and free countries over which her authority would be much more limited.
Unfortunately her past attitude of truculent unfriendliness to the rest of the world (still being maintained in her propaganda) has effected a marked alienation from her throughout the world, and especially by both political parties in America, and this makes it now harder for her to change her tactics. It is a vicious
circle. Indeed, it is obvious that even granted Russia's dislike of all " capitalist " countries, she would have been far better advised in her own interests to have accepted the " capitalist " mode of conducting foreign affairs,