Taiwan Today

At the end of World War II, national Communist parties in Free Europe found themselves stronger in numbers and richer in opportunity than ever before or since. The courage of the participants in the resistance movement in various European countries, allegedly led by Communists, had won the Communists the friendship of many and the toleration of almost all. The national Communist parties reached the height of their success in 1946 when in France, their pre-war vote of 1,500,000 became 5,489,000. In Belgium, their percentage vote of 5.3 in 1939 was increased to 12.7 in 1946. In Denmark, three seats in the Lower House in 1939 rose to 18 in 1945. Their membership in Britain more than doubled. They were given a place in the coalition governments of 10 countries-Italy, France, Belgium, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Austria, Luxembourg, Greece and Iceland. 1947 saw the turning point in the fortune of the national Communist parties in Europe. In 1947, Communists resigned or were excluded from most of the coalition governments. The Soviet Union and her satellites-East Germany, Poland, Hungary, Rumania and Bulgaria­-rejected the Marshall Plan. Cominform was inaugurated. The rape of Czechoslovakia early in 1948 marked the beginning of the cold war in real earnest. With the organization of the world's Free Trade Union in 1949, the Communist-dominated World Federation of Trade Unions was dealt an almost fatal blow. Late in 1949, the fall of the Chinese mainland to Communist domination gave a jolt to European complacency. The formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the rearmament of West Germany gave heart to most of Free Europe. The preliminaries to the Geneva Conference on Korea and Indo-China were not cal­culated to further the interests of International Communism. In Free Europe today, six countries are for the moment immune to the menace of Stalinist Communism in their domestic politics. The Irish Republic has no Communist party. In Spain, Portugal, Turkey and Greece, Communism is banned. In Yugoslavia, Stalinist Communism is illegal. Spain and Greece had re­cent experience in being embroiled with Sta­linist Communism. Portugal, due to her geo­graphical propinquity to Spain, had seen Inter­ national Communism at work from the grand stand. From her historical encounters, Turkey had gathered the lesson that anything receiving Russian support-would be axiomatically inimical to Turkish interests. Yugoslavia, having divorced herself from Stalinism, has every reason to look askance on Malenkovism. In West Germany, the Communist Party, with a membership of 600, secured 1,207 votes in the most recent general election. In the United Kingdom, with a membership of 34,801, the Communist Party polled 21,642 votes in the most recent general election. In neither did it secure a parliamentary seat. Communist strength has increased to 5 seats out of 196 in the lower legislative body of Switzerland and 43 out of 200 seats in the lower legislative body in Finland. Other European countries in which Communist strength has registered an upward trend are Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Norway, Austria, Holland, Luxembourg and Iceland. The Communist Party is of great political importance in France. In Italy, it is a major political power. In France, the Communist Party IS strong, particularly in electoral strength and trade union support. At the polls, it is the largest single political party. In the labor movement it controls the largest labor union. It has an extensive party press. In the Chamber of Deputies, it operates in close cooperation with the Union des Republicains Progressistes, Mouvment Democratique de Renovation Madagascar, Parti Socialiste Unitaire Democratique, Mouvement pour Ie Triomphe des Libertes Democratiques and Union Democratique du Manifests Algerien. It occupies 96 out of 627 seats in the Chamber. In Italy, the Communists, supported by the Nenni Socialists, dominate the political left. Despite some membership losses in recent years, they have continued to gain in electoral support. In the national elections of 1953, the two parties polled 35.3 per cent of the vote as compared with 31 per cent in the 1948 national elections. The Communist Party and the Nenni Socialist elements control the Italian General Confederation of Labor which is the largest trade union organization of Italy. The Communist Party has 143 out of 590 seats in the lower legislative body. Palmiro Togliatti, in a report to the Central Committee of the Italian Communist Party, pointed out that "The best results were obtained in the southern provinces owing to the excellent work that had been done by the Movement for the Renaissance of the South and of Sicily." Giorgio Amendola, who is in charge of Communist propaganda and organization in southern Italy, wrote in the weekly Rinascita that "the Communist Party aims at becoming the largest party of the South through systematic activity and a program so framed as to appeal not only to all classes of workers, including casual land laborers and the poorer section of the peasantry, but also to all the other sections of the population, including the middle and the lower middle classes in towns and in the countryside." That he was not boasting could be seen from the electoral re­turns. In the province of Naples, the Communist vote which had been 74,765 in 1946 became 229,790 in 1953. In the province of Taranto, 88,100 electors voted the Communist ticket in 1953 as against 29,229 in 1946. In the province of Palermo in Sicily, the corresponding figures were 12,372 in 1946 and 81,291 in 1953. In the province of Cagliari in Sardinia, they were 39,238 in 1946 and 82,044 in 1953. In both France and Italy, Communist deputies in the lower legislative body have sufficient strength to hamstring the working of democratic government. How did they come by such power? In both, the Communist Party, emerging from the war with great prestige and resourses, captured control of the main trade unions. In both, the Communists were thought to be the strongest opponents of recently experienced and detested Fascism. In both, the Communists were able to capitalize and enlarge on the part they played in the underground resistance during the war. In both, there is fairly widespread anti-clericalism. In both, the revolutionary tradition is strong. Jacobinism and the spirit of Risorgimento have left roots in both deep enough to make many people automatically think that to vote as left as possible-to vote Communist-is the strongest protest against the present. In Italy, the main appeal of the Communist Party derives from social inequality, poverty, chronic unemployment and Malthusian inability to increase food production to catch up with the increase of population. In France, while general economic conditions are much better than those obtaining in Italy, the division between the "haves" and the "have-nots" is both deep-rooted and widespread. The Communist Party in France has been successful in preying on the psychology of a large section of the population who would always vote for the party which it regards as representative of the "have-nots." The greatest appeal of the French Communist Party depends on its assured position as the only real and pure movement of the workers. The French Communist Party also played upon the war psychosis of the French people by pretending to be the champion of peace. Its campaigns against the war in Indo­-China, the expense of military credits, American "interference" in European affairs and the rearming of West Germany have all found ready response. Picasso has been as good a symbol as Stalin. The tactic of national Communist parties in Free Europe in international relations is the detachment of their respective countries from the western alliance which they consider to be the single greatest threat against the interests of International Communism. Specifically, they would work to obstruct the development of NATO, the rearmament of West Germany, participation in the, UN sanctions against aggression in Korea and suppression of the Communist rebellion led by Ho Chi Minh in Indo­-China. They seek to create a psychological atmosphere which will undermine the confidence of countries in Free Europe in their own respective capacity for self-defence. They try always to defeat any attempt of the countries of Free Europe at organizing their military or economic strength. They do their best to in­ crease the friction which is normally inevitable between the United States and the countries of Free Europe. In domestic affairs, the national Communist parties would attempt to weaken the incumbent governments of Free Europe and break up the social and economic fabrics of their respective countries. They would try to build up large popular movements by appealing to individuals from as many social, religious, economic and political groups as possible. Instead of the hackneyed call to the class struggle, they would exploit the pro-western foreign policies of their countries. Little would be said for economic and political policies which are distinctively and evidently Communist in nature. Advocacy of the use of force to over­throw their governments would be scrupulously avoided. Contending that their governments have sacrificed national interests in kowtowing to the United States, they would claim tJ1at they alone are defending traditional national interests. They pose as the true nationalists of their countries and the true protectors of civil rights. They claim that they deserve the cooperation of all lovers of freedom. With different slogans to suit local conditions, they would claim to be the mouthpiece of all the discontented wherever found. They wouldn't mind using conflicting propaganda points It different times and different places. With such tactics, the national Communist parties in Free Europe would contribute to the attainment of the final goal of International Communism in Europe-satellization and conquest. The tactics of International Communism may change to suit particular new developments; there can be no conceivable change in the final objective of International Communism of world conquest. Finland or Iceland may take precedence over France and Italy to the dubious honor of being the next satellite. So long as the aims and tactics of International Communism are well understood by Free Europeans, there is still hope. When they take firm and united action to fight International Communism, Europe will remain free. The Birth of A New Satellite The announcement made by the Soviet Government on March 26 that the so-called German Democratic Republic has become a "sovereign state" is likely to deceive no one on this side of the Iron Curtain. The fact that Soviet troops will continue to be stationed on the "territory of the German Democratic Re­public" is irrefutable proof that East Germany is no more "sovereign" than any other of the half a dozen Eastern European satellites that have been set up since the end of World War II. As the United States Department of State has rightly commented, "If those troops were removed the entire puppet regime would collapse under the weight of the hatred and hostility of the populace which it has the effrontery to claim it represents." In addition to the continued control exercised by Soviet military forces, the so-called Socialist Unity (Communist) Party under the leadership of Walter Ulbricht will see to it that all instructions emanating from the Kremlin shall be implicitly obeyed and carried out through­out East Germany. After almost nine years of military occupation, during which the Communist party apparatus has been carefully built up, the Soviet Government is confident that it has the situation well in hand and can afford to declare the "sovereign" independence of the puppet East German regime. The Soviet statement declared, "The German Democratic Republic is to be free to decide at its own discretion its internal and external affairs, including the question of relations with West Germany." This emphasis on the freedom of the puppet regime to conduct its own internal and external affairs, particularly with reference to its relations with West Germany, should be read with the lessons of Korea in mind. It will be recalled that, before the outbreak of the Korean war, the Soviet Government had first of all set up a puppet regime in North Korea just as it has done in East Germany now; that it had helped to train and equip a North Korean army, as it will doubtless do in East Germany in the near future; and that, as soon as the North Korean army had been fully trained and equipped, it had withdrawn all Soviet occupation troops in preparation for the attack on South Korea on June 25. 1950. Some day the free world will wake up to find that the Soviet Government, when it is absolutely sure of its grip on its East German puppets, has withdrawn its occupation troops from East Germany. When that day comes, it will be the signal for the imminent outbreak of a "civil war" in Germany between the eastern and the western halves on the pattern of the war between North and South Korea. As The New York Times has justly observed, "as a 'sovereign' state, the new satellite could now rearm openly, as it has done surrepti­tiously." According to an estimate made by Anthony Eden, the British Foreign Secretary, the East German police army numbers 177,000 men equipped with tanks, self-propelled guns and aircraft, while the West German police force consists of only 110,000. With the Soviet Government's declaration of an independent and "sovereign", East Germany, there is nothing to prevent the 177,000 East German "policemen" from becoming an East German Army over­night. But in the case of West Germany the situation is entirely different. There, the European Defense Community is yet a paper scheme, and so long as the EDC remains unratified by France, West Germany cannot proceed to rearm in order to serve as a sort of counterpoise to the Soviet army in East Germany. In the meantime, the Soviet Government will, of course, do everything in its power to picture to France the horrors of a rearmed West Germany and dissuade her not to ratify the EDC treaties. In the end, therefore, the puppet regime in East Germany will be in a position of overwhelming military superiority over the German Federal Republic in the west, which will be no match for the puppet army once a Korean-type "civil war" breaks out. A corroborating evidence showing that the Soviet Union has some sinister purpose in mind is furnished by an item in the Newsweek magazine for April 12 under the caption of "Trouble Sign?" This is the story: "A potentially menacing piece of transport information from East Germany: double tracking of all main rail lines is suddenly being pushed hard, with particular activity centered around the city of Halle, which is the reloading area for most Russian zone freight traffic. Note: it was the Reds themselves who tore up the second tracks at the end of the war and sent them home to Russia." This double tracking of all main railway lines may mean that either the Soviet Union herself or the newly created satellite in East Germany will be using them, presumably for military purposes. The addition of another satellite to the long list of puppet regimes taking orders from the Kremlin is the grimmest warning that the Soviet Government is proceeding with its grandiose plan of world conquest without the slightest intention of budging an inch from the position it has always taken. There may be tactical changes and temporary shifts of emphasis, but the grand objective of world domination and world revolution will always remain to inspire the leaders and the rank and file of International Communism. Let all free peoples and nations take this warning seriously and resolve to meet the common danger with determination and courage. Quintessence of the Chinese Moral Character Wisdom, Benevolence and Courage which China has always regarded as universal virtues, together with Sincerity, the motive power of these three virtues, constitute the quintessence of our national moral character. From China's Destiny by President Chiang Kai-shek