Hg The Editor
" Daily Worker's " Home Thrust
THE Daily Worker on Monday argued with some point that the foreign policy of the Labour
Government made nonsense of Mr. Attlee's declaration that affiliation with the British Communist Party was impossible because. the Communists rejected the moral values oa which the
Labour Party rested. Mr. Attlee's view, it argued, was an insult to M..s. Cow, a Communist country with %mica our relations were supposed to be extremely friendiy. But the Labour Party has made it amply clear that it is tak rig the campaign against affiliation extremely seriously and that it does sincerely believe that the Communist Party is a menace IA the country and the workers. What it has to explain, therefore, is why it fails to sec the danger to the world of Russian Communism, or, if it 4oes see it, why it continues to praise and appease Russia'?
Labour's Defences Exposed CLEARLY there are many good
answers to this question. The most important is that Russia is in fact a dominating Great Power posses ing rights and legitimate claims that are not, at any rate in the present state of world society, lost because of the condition of its internal rule (In passing we may note the present inconsistency of the Government's adoption of quite different standards in respect of the relatively small Power, Spain; we may note. too, that the " best " opinion took a very different view of Germany and Italy under their dice tators). Then again, the debt we owe to the Russians for their part in the common victory leaves us with the obligation of goodwill and leniency. Another reason is the obvious one that the world cannot be satisfactorily resettled without the co-operation of all the Great Powers
But such reasons arc not enough to defend the Labtelur foreign policy, nor to make Mr. Attlee's attitude to the Communists at home consistent with his attitude towards the Communist Power. abroad. They do not cover the long and consistent attempt (initiated by Churchill and the Coalition) totally to ignore the avowed philosophy and aims of Communism and to pretend that Russia is indistinguishable for purposes for commdn action with any other Power. Still less do they cover the marigold aggressions of Russia designed, first, to indoctrinate the whole world (including Britain) with Communism and, second, to upset any concepdon of a balance of power by the ore:scion of .a solid Russian-directed bloc at the expense of the elementary Freedoms of millions of free, and often
Christian. peoples. Finally, they do not cover the open propagation of political concervione of Rich-maw-101'p militarisadon and the technique of ruling and nersuadng by the tie, which in no essential way differ from the " Fascism " which Russia by ;ts greatest lie condemns. making this condemnation the basis of its foreign policy.
By positively c1a7ming for his Party that it is " based on the acceptance of moral 'values," Mr. Attlee has left himself without any metal defence for the above aspects of Labour's foreign policy, for it is of the essence of. a moral position that it cannot be compromised.
A New Moscow Phase TliE first stages of the Paris Conf& ence have revealed that Moscow has once again changed its stand. The news, so far as it goes, is welcome, particularly so in view of the likelihood that the change is the result of the stiffened attitude of Britain and America during the course of th.s year. But Russia, since the end of the war, has too clearly shown the quality of its ultimate designs to enable anyone but a simpleton to congratulate himself on such evidence of a change of attitude. A change of . attitude need only be a change of tactics, and the blind stubbornness of Moscow's recent behaviour seemed such a poor tactic that we shall do well to be on our guard now that it is being abandoned. But we may be sure that Russia had her reasons for her period of isolation. It is known what &eat difficulties she has had to face at home through the return of so many influenced by contacts with the West. The period when the majority of these may be expected to have been "reconditioned" by special measures is coming to a close. In a time of relative weakness at home and abroad the Soviet was content to test her various defences and decide at leisure on her long-term policy.
To the outsider it ha, always seemed that Russia's best line by far was the exp.oitation of Communist ideology through the foreign Communist Pa, tie, whose fullest freedom of action would be ensured by the maintenance of identity and coeoperative re'ations between Russia and the other countries of the world. It is likely that Russia is feeling her way back to this line.
Cleverer Moves .
TT has been planted out that the Soviet • is now beginning to stress the distinction between cx-enemy countries, Germany, Hungary, Rumania. Bulgaria, and liberated Poland, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. Not altogether satisfied with the state of the latter (in the case of the tough Polish peasants, no wonder), she wants to use her "v ctor" 'resources to hold down the former more ely. These veil fo.m the inner bastion, while her ideological hand, vadbusty armed well threats. lies or gifts, will stretch ac:oss the frontiers to thee. the political, social and moral undermining of suitable key countries. The old policy was comparatively easy to resist, and no doubt the Krem lin took due notice of the increasingly strong world reaction against it. It will be otherwise with a concilattory Russia who will disarm the foreign Governments while she is busy restoring her popularity with " the workerof the world." And she has started in good time in the case of France, where the Communists, on the eve of elections. have been notably strengthened by.Russia's smile
The FightMay Reach Britain
NOR should we imagine that this
country is wholly exempt from the dangerous consequences of such tactics. If we had to give one shoo answer to the question why the Labour Government is anx ous, if it possibly can, to appease Russia while engaged in open battle with the homd Communists, we should suggest: fear of Russia's popularity with very important sections of the Labour electorate. But any apparent gesture of good-will on Russia's part towards this country, towards international conciliation, still more to the democratic prin ciples of the working-class movement outside Communist countries would rapidly restore Russia's popularity and enormously strengthen the Communist position here. And in course of time the Communists would be in a posi
tion openly to challenge Labour. In other words, we should have reached much the same position as exists on the Continent.
No sane British observer, looking back on generations of working and fruitful political compromise in this country, can possibly welcome the evidence of fundamental political splits whether internationally or nationally. on the basis of attest-religious intran sigcanccs. But British political corn promise rested on a broad, if vague.
moral agreement. When that disap• pears and the challenge in the name of totalitarianism, force and itheism, is made, there can be no option but to accept it.
We are reluctantly convinced that this is the fundamental challenge of the day, and that Communist Russia is the challenger. If we are right, it is the duty of everyone to make the issue clear and not be deceived by the machinations of the enemy.
Scare Propaganda
Mr. Churchill in his Edinburgh speech sought to alarm the country by caricaturing the Government's home policy. We doubt whether anyone is in the mood to listen to a statesman who. despite his amazing war leadership. has proved in retrospect responsible for so many blunders from which the world is suffering. Nor does the old fear of change count as it used to. It is a pity that Conservative leadership does not concentrate on the betrayals that are going on abroad and on careful and reasoned examination of the many deficiencies in the Government's well-founded attempt to rationalise an outdated industrial and administrative system that needed the wide margin of world economic leadership to produce results—and then the results were to enrich the few at the expense of the many. Mr. Churchill's political propaganda resembles a little too much the technique of his one-time friends in Moscow.
The Precaution Comes Too Late
SIR William Beveridge, in an enlightened article in last Sunday's Observer, comes to the conclusion that the great problem in regard to Germany is how to' get the Potsdam deci• sions modified. "Ultimately there can not be lasting peace in Europe," he declares, " except peace that rests on goodwill. The Potsdam decisions, as now interpreted, commit us to the impossible task of permanent detailed gov ernment of a rebellious Germany by force applied by outside." How true! But why did not the Sir Williams of the world say so at the time? And why did not the Observers of the world utter their warnings before the consequences were upon us? It was not difficult to realise the truth since the Catholic Press and other independent and • relatively uninfluential organs were then foreseeing what Si! William Beveridge now discovers.
The American proposals for a twenty-five year four-Power Treaty to maintain control over Germany is a welconie assurance that responsibilities will be maintained. but it is another case of locking the stable door after the horse has fled. or. more accurately in this case. fallen sick with a disease that threatens to infect the world.
Contrast in Food Figures Happily specific famine warnings often turn out to have been exaggerated —or else the fate of the victims is never
adequately publicised But if we are to take literally Mr. La Guardia's letter to the U.N.R.R.A. mission in Austria, then Austria is faced with a calamity that dwarfs all politics. According to the warning, all outside supplies of food to Austria will cease in three weeks time, and then the Austrians will be dependent until the harvest on their own resources which will amount to no more than 230 calories per head This
is literally death. Yet it receives no headlines, and apparently causes little concern. And according to Dorothy Thompson Americans to-day arc consuming an average of 3,360 calories a day, an increase of over a hundred on last year's average, and the consumption of meat, for example, 16 per cent. above the pre-war figures, Palestine : Our Lord's Land IT is well that the Palestine Report puts great emphasis on the sacredness of the Holy Places and regions specially connected with the life of Our Lord. Whatever the present dissensions between Arabs and Jews, Palestine remains for the world at large the Holy Country where Our Lord was born, lived ; was crucified to rise on the third day. Even in the case of those who deny the Divinity of Christ there is general recognition of the unique character .of His life and of the unparalleled measure of His influence on the history of the world, To put it at its lowest, it would be a contemptible vulgarism to allow this unique record to be forgotten in the passing, and visibly un-Christian quarrels, of an historical phase. We hope in a later issue to give an analysis of the other aspect of the ReporL