by Josef Kalvoda
Vantage Press, Inc., New York, $5
Reviewed by Geraldine Fitch
The author, who is of course a Yugoslav, believes that Titoism has been used for both ideological and psychological disarming of the West, thus preparing the way for military disarming and bringing closer the ultimate goal—the surrender of the West. It has deprived the West of what Kalvoda believes was our most powerful weapon, the anti-Communist sentiment behind the Iron Curtain, which might have produced popular revolutions and liberation of the peoples of Eastern Europe.
In his thesis he also seeks to prove that there is no "mild" or different form of Communism, distinct from Soviet imperialism. He "does not believe that Titoism is a breach in the monolithic strength of the Soviet Union's defenses. He does not believe (as is generally believed in the West) that Marshal Tito's expulsion from the Cominform was a "blunder" or "misunderstanding" or "miscalculation" or the part of Stalin. He believes it was part of the great conspiracy of the master schemer, Stalin; that he (apparently) broke with Tito in order to gain time and a free hand in the East while the Western allies poured food and arms into Yugoslavia—arms which may yet be used against the free nations.
He makes out a very convincing case—and seeks to document his thesis - rather than to emotionally plead a cause. Kalvoda has thoroughly studied the Marxist-Leninist theory and practice. He points up the mistake of the Allies - mostly of Britain—in shifting their support from the patriot Mikhailovich and his Chetniks to Tito and his Partisans. Titoism, to his mind, has proved a smoke-screen of invaluable aid in hoodwinking, and neutralizing, the West, while the masters of Communism in the Kremlin complete their plans, continue their strategy, and prepare their nuclear weapons, for a literal annihilation of the free world.
This is the same Tito who in 1947 was in the lead of Communist countries in attacking the West psychologically. It was Tito who gave orders to shoot down unarmed American airplanes over Ljublana in 1946, which resulted in the loss of five American lives. (This act of violence was bitterly resented in the USA.) In October 1946, the U.S. government sent a protest to Belgrade about the arrest of naturalized Americans of Yugoslav origin who had returned to visit their homeland when World War II was over. When they were condemned to "slave labor", and other American citizens were not allowed to leave the country, the United States invalidated American passports for travel to Yugoslavia.
The expert on Yugoslavia, Reuben H. Markham, wrote at that time: "Tito seems to be testing out how far he can wear America down, or how much America will take. He seems to lead the shock troops of Communism and Slavdom against the United States." Tito's government closed the very modest American Information Service, saying it was carrying on a "hostile campaign" against the Yugoslav government. Two years after the end of the war, trials against so-called "American spies" were staged. Three Americans officially connected with the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade were, attacked in a violent press campaign, charging that the United States was trying to get Yugoslav military secrets.
In October 1947 Tito addressed the Union of Ex-Freedom Partisan Fighters, of which he was president, saying: "The Truman Doctrine is nothing else than an endeavor to provoke war in Europe and to enslave other peoples."
At that time, when Tito talked as if war were near between Yugoslavia and United States, many of the refugees in camps of the British zone of Germany, and the Liberated Prisoners of War who had refused to return to Yugoslavia, would have fought against Tito under the lead of the West. King Peter in his book said, "These men hoped that the Allies would soon let them have arms and equipment to fight against Tito. It was a bitter disillusionment for them when nothing happened."
Stalin as a realist, saw this possibility. If the West gave the dissidents and the refugee’s arms, the Tito regime would fall in a few days. And one satellite after another would follow the example of the Yugoslavs and fight for freedom. Stalin, who knew all the rules of the game of politics as well as of conspiracy, had to use his wits to prevent the break-up of his Communist empire. He came up with the idea of the "deviationist", the "revisionist", or "nationalist socialism"—in short, Titoism. National Communism became a weapon in the Cold War.
Josef Kalvoda says the West does not have fixed, long-range objectives (sometimes not even short-range ones), nor has it worked out a system for achieving its aims. The Soviet has its long-range aim of world conquest, but has short-range policies applicable to particular countries. World revolution uses varying tactics: open aggression for one, "peaceful" methods for another, united fronts, and national socialism. It leaves the non-Communist world confused, not knowing what to expect next. The democratic nature of Western states almost makes certain that effective countermoves will not be made, and gives the Soviet great freedom for maneuvering. The West 'has a great desire for "peace" but believes in fair play to secure it.
A postwar advantage of (apparently) expelling Tito from the Cominform was that the Churchill-Stalin agreement was ostensibly fulfilled: The Soviet interest of 50% was upheld, since the country remained Communist; and the British interest of 50% was supposedly fulfilled also, since the country did not belong to the Soviet empire. The West felt free to supply Tito with food, machinery and arms to keep him in power, and to help him "build Socialism in one country". At the same time, the Soviets turned to completing the conquest of the China mainland.
The author points out that when the break came, Tito did not know the whole story. He told the Yugoslav writer, Louis Adamic, that he was certain it did not revolve around the leaders. He said the Yugoslav leaders "love the Soviet Union"; also "Where would we be without the Soviet Revolution?" He was not completely at sea, for his faith in the international. Communist movement was not shaken. For Adamic's services in promoting Tito's cause in America, he was well-paid; but when he was no longer useful, and indeed (knowing too much) might spoil the whole game, he mysteriously "died."
Only Stalin and a few of his closest associates understood the game being played with Tito. Stalin knew Tito was the man who deceived the Anglo-Americans during World War II, an able Comintern agent and a reliable Marxist-Leninist. For his services with the Partisans, he awarded him the Order of Suvorov, the highest military honor in the Soviet Union. He was the right man, in Stalin's eyes, to carry out his plan of a modern "Trojan horse" in the Western camp. (We are still feeding the horse—with economic and military aid.)
The author's theory, for which he carefully builds up a strong case, is that Stalin "fired" Tito from the Cominform because he wanted 1) to prevent, or postpone, World War III; 2) to preserve the security and existence of the Soviet Union; 3) to gain time for developing atomic weapons; 4) to secure control over the vast areas of China, with the mineral resources and manpower. Zhdanov, who wanted war then, believing Russia would win an all-out war against the West, was also liquidated. In presiding over the conference to fire Tito, he signed his own death warrant, and was dead within two months. Dimitrov"died"; Sian sky, Geminder and Kostov were all executed as "Titoists". So enemies were purged, and Tito was kicked into his stable as the useful Trojan horse.
The fallacy of the George Kennan "containment" policy followed by the United States, the infiltration of Radio Free Europe by Communists (quite blatant); the plan of the Czech Christian Democratic Movement to confound "Titoist strategy", and a number of other things are explained and documented, so that the need for more dynamic policies in order to save the free world from Communism becomes a call to action.
JOURNEY TO THE BEGINNING
By Edgar Snow
Random House, New York, 1958 (434 pages)
Reviewed by Hang Chow
This is the life story of a man that has sold his soul for the cause of Chinese Communists. He calls himself Boswell to Mao Tse-tung. To qualify for that job he has to distort all his facts to make the Chinese Communists look right and the Nationalists look wrong.
He himself says that he is no neutral. He was one of those that made the missionary Yenching University a hotbed of Communist activities while he was teaching there. He let his growing library of Marxist and pro-Communist books and periodicals used by the students which they could not get elsewhere. Not satisfied with teaching and propagating Communism, he and his wife Nym and several others sponsored a large-scale demonstration of revolutionary proportions by students from the Yenching and other universities against General Sung Cheh-yuan on December 9, 1935. Though ostensibly for the purpose of working up public opinion against the Japanese, the demonstration was, by Snow's own account, grew into a revolutionary organization not so much against the Japanese as against the government. He allowed his house to be used as headquarters of the underground where a short-wave radio station was set up to send and receive messages from Yenan and the guerilla units. He was entrusted with the sale of gold, jewels and precious stones dug up by the Communist guerrillas from the graves in the neighborhood of Peiping. The funds so realized went into the Communist war chest. With all these activities, Snow denies that he is a Red. But if he is no card-carrying Communist, he must be an extreme pinko. A good circumstantial evidence may be had by his wife's jubilant outburst, "The Cossacks have jointed the students," when some of the policemen and soldiers in Peiping showed sympathies to the demonstrating students. Both he and his wife must have conditioned their thinking like the early Bolsheviks and had been expecting student demonstrations to develop into an October Revolution.
Ten years after the Chinese Communists have gained control over the mainland, during which time they have proved themselves to be oppressors and enemy of the people in general and of the peasants in particular, Snow still wants to perpetuate the hoax that the Chinese Communists are the agrarian reformers. After oceans of innocent farmers' blood have been shed, after it had been conclusively proved that no amount of taxes, usury, and exploitation of the landlords of the past could equal to one tenth of the violence and killings perpetuated by the Chinese Communists on the peasants, Snow 'still wants to pull wool over the eyes of the public by writing: "To die poor farmers they promised land and relief from ruinous taxes, usury, starvation and family break-up. To all they offered equality of opportunity in a new state free of corruption, devoted to the welfare of the common people, and founded on a share-the-wealth and share-the-labor philosophy."
Snow also wants to perpetuate the hoax that the Chinese Communists did all the fighting against the Japanese, while the main occupation of the National armies was to fight the Chinese Communists instead of the Japanese. This was disproved by General Wedemeyer who in his memoir categorically denied that the Chinese Communists did any fighting. On the other hand, General Wedemeyer said: "As the weeks passed, I began to understand that the Nationalist Government of China, far from being reluctant to fight as pictured by Stillwell and some of his friends among the American correspondents, had shown amazing tenacity and endurance in resisting Japan."
In his concluding chapter, Snow tries to sell once again his old line that the Chinese Communists are a different breed from the Soviets. "Peking might eventually become," said he, "a kind of Asiatic Moscow, an Eastern Rome preaching a kind of 'Asiatic Marxism' out of Moscow's control. As such it would, of course, come to constitute the symbol of the overthrow of the European colonial system in Asia, as well as the denial of our own principles of democracy bound up with ideas of private property rights in the ownership of the means of production. On the other hand, it might also set a frontier against the expansion of Communism as an extension of Russian nationalism in the East-a barrier as effective as that now erected at Belgrade in the West."
To show he was either ignorant of the real situation or purposely misleading, I need to point out the recent incident of Khrushchev versus Mao in the case of the people's communes. In starting the communes, Mao claimed that he had a system far in advance of the Soviets along the road to Communism. This meant a challenge to the Soviet leadership to the Communist nations in the ideological as well as in political conformity. Khrushchev had only to voice his disapproval and Mao had to resign from his chairman ship of the Peiping regime.