The early revolutionary activities of the indigenous Communist Parties brought upon themselves proscription from their governments. They did not succeed in extending their evil influence until the 1930's when they started to develop their armed strength. They emerged from World War II with augmented political and military influence. In early postwar years, Communist leaders sought by a deceitful design to continue the united front with non-Communist political groups and associate themselves with their struggle for national independence.
Relations between Soviet Russia and the democracies deteriorated, however, as a result of Stalin's attempt to expand Communist power in Europe, and there was a corresponding deterioration of the relations between Southeast Asian Communists, and local nationalist parties, with whom they had cooperated. This culminated in armed Communist rebellions in most Southeast Asian countries during 1948-50, but by 1954, most of these had utterly failed. Then, in response to another shift in Soviet policy, attempts were made to liquidate these insurrections. Since then, the Communist effort in this region has been directed towards the recreation of united fronts with nationalist groups, stressing cooperation with anti-Western elements. The objective of this new strategy, namely, ultimate Communist control, remains the same, and tactically, it is being pursued in two stages (1) the elimination of Western influence and support from the region, and (2) the subversion of indigenous nationalist elements.
In 1919, outlining the tasks of the then new Comintern (Third Communist International), Lenin called upon his followers to organize a "revolutionary struggle" in Asia in the fixed belief that the way to Paris was through Peking, and in 1920 various Communist Parties were founded in Southeast Asia.
The Second Congress of the Comintern adopted these on the "National and Colonial Questions" and laid down "Twenty-One Conditions of Admission of national Communist Parties to the Communist International." These conditions established "proletarian internationalism" i.e., subservience to the Soviet Union as the basis for relationships among Communist Parties, and revealed the basic techniques of organization as well as strategy that have been employed by Communist parties ever since.
As a follow-up to the Second Congress, the Comintern sponsored a Congress of the Peoples of the East at Baku in September 1920. Here nationalist and labor leaders from Asia made formal contacts with European Communists. In February, 1922, the First Congress of the Toilers of the Far East was convened in Petrograd. It was attended by delegates from China, Japan, Korea, India, the Philippines and Indo-China.
In 1921 Stalin, writing in "Marxism and the Colonial and National Question," amplified the importance of the colonial areas in the following manner:
"If Europe and America may be called the 'front,' the scene of the main engagements between socialism and imperialism, the non-sovereign nations and colonies with their raw materials, fuel, food, and vast store of human material should be regarded at the 'rear,' the reserve of imperialism. In order to win a war one must not only triumph at the front but also revolutionize the enemy's rear, his reserves. Hence the victory of the world proletarian revolution may be regarded as assured only if the proletariat is able to combine its own revolutionary struggle with the movement for emancipation of the toiling masses of the non-sovereign nations and the colonies."
It was, however, the Sixth Congress of the Comintern, held in September 1928, which codified the strategy and tactics to be pursued in "colonial and semi-colonial countries." This significant document, entitled "Revolutionary Movement in the Colonies and Semi-Colonies (Thesis Adopted by the Sixth Congress of the Communist International: 1928)," described the strategy as follows:
(1) Colonial rebellions and revolutions lead to crises in capitalist countries, to military intervention, and to international conflict. (2) Intervention and conflict enable the Western countries to increase the scope of their activities but disperse their military and economic strength. (3) The capitalist states will be weakened economically, politically, and militarily. Revolutionary movements in the East and West will be strengthened. (4) Revolutions, both of a Communist or a national democratic type, may be successful either in the East or in the West, or in both. If so, the capitalist states will be deprived of bases, manpower and resources.
Stages in the Asian "Revolution"
The Second World Congress of the Comintern conceived that in view of the conditions obtaining in colonial and semi-colonial areas, the "revolution" there would pass through two stages: (1) a bourgeois-democratic "revolution" and (2) a proletarian-socialist "revolution." The objective of the first stage would be "national liberation" in which the class struggle would be subordinated to the struggle for independence. Insofar as the goal was national independence, the national bourgeoisie would be regarded as an ally. However, when the next stage (proletarian-socialist revolution) was reached, the struggle would be directed against the nationalist bourgeoisie.
While the bourgeoisie is the principal enemy of Communism—the colonial or national bourgeoisie "at a certain stage and for, a certain period may support the revolutionary movement of its country against imperialism." According to a speech by Stalin in 1927, caution, however, would have to be observed, since the national bourgeoisie included reactionary elements composed of big, monopolistic, and bureaucratic capitalists who "derive benefits from existing arrangements and, thereby, compromise with imperialism to preserve and perpetuate their gains."
Stalin identified the USSR as "a powerful and open base for the world revolutionary movement ... around which it can now rally and organize a united revolutionary front of the proletarian and oppressed nations of the world against imperialism," in short, "a base for overthrowing imperialism in all countries."
The role of Soviet Russia was thus to assist revolutionary movements abroad. It would, according to the Program of the Comintern, render "support to all the oppressed, to labor movements in capitalist countries, to colonial movements against imperialism in every form." In return, Communists the world over were required to "facilitate the success of the work of Socialist construction in the USSR and defend it against the attacks of capitalist powers by all means in their power." The Comintern was to serve as the channel of mutual assistance.
As the years went by, the Comintern increasingly emphasized the obligation of all Communists to defend the USSR, even to the extent of subordinating the interests of their own country. Unqualified loyalty to the USSR became the mark of a true Communist. Thus: (1) in 1920, the Second Congress of the Comintern proclaimed: "The Comintern has adopted the cause of Soviet Russia as its cause. The international proletariat will not lay down its sword until Soviet Russia has become a link in the federation of the Soviet Republics of the world." (2) In 1935, Dimitrov, Comintern leader, writing in the "United Front," declared: "To every sincere worker in France or England, America or Australia, Germany or Spain, China or Japan, the Balkan countries or the Canary Islands—to every sincere worker, Moscow is 'his own Moscow.' The Soviet Union is 'his own state.' Our opponents very often set up a howl about orders from Moscow. Moscow, of course, does not issue any orders. To receive 'orders' from Moscow, i.e., to follow the example of the great Lenin and the great Stalin, means salvation to the world proletariat." (3) In 1948, Andrei Vyshinsky, in 'Communism and the Motherland,' said: "At present the only determining criterion of revolutionary proletarian internationalism is: are you for or against the USSR, the Motherland of the proletariat? An internationalist is not one who verbally recognizes international solidarity or sympathizes with it. A real internationalist is one who brings his sympathy and recognition up to the point of 'practical and maximal help to the USSR, in support and defense of the USSR, by every means and in every possible form.’ Actual co-operation with the USSR, the readiness of the workers of any country to subject all their aims to the basic problem of strengthening the USSR in their struggle-this is the manifestation of true proletarian internationalism."
Communist Strategy
Since the ascension of Communist power in Russia, there has been but one controlling strategy of Communism. Stalin in 1924, writing in 'Foundations of Leninism,' defended the essential elements of this strategy as follows:
Aim: the consolidation of the dictatorship of the proletariat in one country, where it could be a fulcrum for the overthrow of imperialism in all countries. Essential Force of the Revolution: the dictatorship of the proletariat in one country (USSR), and the revolutionary movement of the proletariat in all countries. Chief Reserves: the semi-proletarian and petty-bourgeois masses in the highly developed countries, the nationalist (liberationist) movements in colonial and dependent lands.
Chief Line of Attack: isolation of the petty-bourgeois democracy; isolation of the parties affiliated to the Second International whose policy is to come to terms with imperialism.
Plan for the Distribution of the Revolutionary Forces: an alliance between the proletarian revolution and the nationalist (liberationist) movements in colonial and dependent lands.
These essential elements of the strategy of international Communism, with the primacy of the Soviet Union as the central point, as outlined above, have remained unchanged. The extension of Communist power to Eastern Europe and China has expanded the fulcrum for the projection of Communist evil influence.
After the initial realization that world revolution was not an immediately attainable goal, techniques that had been developed in consolidating Communist power in the Soviet Union were translated into tactics to be applied to the more gradual, but still "inevitable" victory of Communism throughout the world. This body of tactical doctrine, which had been outlined earlier by Stalin, is encompassed under the phrase, "united front." It represents, essentially, an elaborate set of tactics of deception. Through "united front" activities, non-Communist groups are cajoled into thinking that Communists are acting on their own behalf, and thus into active collaboration with them. Once the Communists achieve their objective, these collaborators are either converted or destroyed.
The Communist Party employs united front tactics of two types: united front from below and united front from above.
In a united front from below the Communists make a direct appeal for the support of the people—workers, peasants, petty bourgeois elements, members of socialist and bourgeois parties, etc. This type of united front is resorted to when the Communists feel confident that they can succeed in seizing power without the help of other parties, whatever they may be. This tactic adheres closely to the ideal process of Communist takeover, as prescribed by Marxist-Leninist doctrine, namely, the Party as the "vanguard" of the people.
In contrast, a united front from above is an alliance negotiated by the Communist Party with the leadership of non-Communist, labor and socialist parties; its extension to include other parties, not necessarily labor or socialist, but "anti-imperialist" and "anti-fascist, "would make it a "popular front," which, from the ideological point of view, is the most diluted of the alliances formed with non-Communist groups. In either case, the agreement for joint action is reached with national leadership. This tactic is usually employed at times when the Communist Party is weak.
Compromise with rival parties is, of course, always a temporary expedient. During periods of compromise, the Communists re serve to themselves liberty of action for agitation, propaganda, and political activity. Even while they are co-operating with such parties, agitation goes on for the purpose of subverting the rank and file. In no wise is co-operation with non-Communist parties regarded as a reconciliation of Communism with socialism or liberalism. The Communists support the rival parties, in. Lenin's words, "as the rope supports a hanged man."
This was further stressed in 1935, by Dimitrov who reminded European Communists of the primacy of Party objectives in pursuing alliance with socialist parties: "Nor must the fact be lost sight of that the tactics of the united front are a method of clearly convincing the Social Democratic workers of the correctness of the Communist policy and the incorrectness of the reformist policy and that 'that are not a reconciliation with Social Democratic ideology and practice.' A successful struggle to establish the united front imperatively demands constant struggle in our ranks against tendencies to depreciate the role of the Party...The Party is above everything else. To guard the Bolshevik unity of the Party as the apple of one's eye is the first and highest law of Bolshevism."
At anyone period, the Communists are likely to employ one type of united front tactics predominantly without, however, this type being used exclusively. It is more to "left" than to "right" at one period and more "right" than "left" at another. Thus, Zinoview said: "United front from the bottom—nearly always; united from the top—fairly frequently, with all the necessary guarantees as to the tactics of mobilization that would facilitate the revolutionizing of the masses; united front from the top alone—never."
Frequent shifts of policy and tactics have enabled the Communists to develop leaders adept in use of either type of united front tactics. Short of a real struggle for power within the party, one set of leaders comes to the fore as the situation demands or when one policy is discarded in favor of another, while the other set recedes and awaits the time when the situation changes and the policy it identified with becomes again the party policy.
Armed struggle is not necessarily associated with either a united front from below or a united front from above. While a united front from below as an organizational technique adapts itself more readily to the armed struggle and united front from above generally adapts itself to "legal" struggle, both tactics can be applied in either a violent or a peaceful manner. For instance, the united front from above was the principal tactic used during the Spanish Civil War and the resistance movement in Europe and Asia during World War II, while the united front from below was used peacefully in Europe before 1935.
The application of the united front tactics in Southeast Asia was enunciated by Lenin at the Second Congress of the Com intern in 1920. Lenin on that occasion exhorted Asian
Communists to support national emancipation movements irrespective of their social character. They were told to enter into "a temporary alliance with bourgeois democracy without merging with it." This has been the essence of Communist united front strategy in the region since then, although the manner in which temporary alliances were to be used was given the most important definition by the Chinese Communists, whose dirty tricks had a major impact upon the contemporary development of Communist strategy in Southeast Asia.
Communist China-Deceptive Maoist Strategy
With the overruning of mainland China by Mao Tse-tung, a new center of international Communism was established in Asia. Mao evolved a strategy, which carried the Chinese Communists from total defeat in 1927 to occupation of China in 1949. The essential features of his intrigue were: 1. The organization of the Communist Party and its auxiliary organizations in strict accordance with Leninist principles. 2. Reliance on the peasantry as the main hordes of rebellion. 3. The building up of a "People's Liberation Army" largely recruited or commandeered from the peasantry. 4. Establishment and expansion of "separate armed bases"—the concept of "liberation areas." 5. Reliance on guerrilla warfare as the form of struggle. 6. A united front or a union of the four classes under the leadership of the Communist Party.
The peasantry as the main force of rebellion was a departure from the traditional Marxist view that the proletariat (urban industrial workers) compromises the leading force of the rebellion. USSR-picked Chinese Communist leaders had earlier insisted on the insurrectionary seizure of key urban areas by a Communist-led and organized proletariat, but their attempts failed. Mao, concentrating on the innocent peasantry, organized it into the main force of the rebellion.
The third feature of Mao's strategy, the creation of the "People's Liberation Army," designed to keep in political power and the communization of rural areas.
The fourth feature—the establishment and maintenance of armed bases—was a sinister scheme aimed at overthrowing the Government. Mao was shrewd in the earliest stages in that he avoided any major engagements with Government troops. His hideouts were inaccessible and far away from Government troops.
Mao's strategy combined features of both the united front from below and the united front from above. The CCP used the trick of united front from below in the deception that they were for proletariat, the peasantry, the petty bourgeoisie, and the national bourgeoisie. Only these four classes were regarded as the "people;" the rest were condemned as reactionaries. After the CCP stole power, it was ostensibly allied on the national level with so-called "democratic" parties such as the China Democratic League, the China Peasants and Workers' Democratic Party, the Revolutionary Committee of the KMT, etc.; there was therefore a semblance of united front from above. These parties were completely subservient to the CCP.
Soviet Endorsement and Application to Southeast Asia
Soviet endorsement of Mao's strategy came in 1949. Theretofore Soviet policy in Southeast Asia was characterized by surprising vacillation, largely as a consequence of Soviet preoccupation with European affairs. At the close of World War II, Eugene Varga, leading Soviet theoretician and economist (until his repudiation in 1947) championed the view that the "colonial" problem could be settled in a gradual and peaceful way. For the Communists in Southeast Asia, Varga's pronouncement was tantamount to approval of their support of nationalist groups in the formation of independent governments in the area.
In June 1947, the Soviet Academy of Sciences met in Moscow to discuss the situation in India. While there was a unanimous denunciation of the Congress Party of Nehru as "allies of imperialism," there was disappointment as to the; appropriate policy for the Communist Party of India vis-a-vis the national bourgeoisie. Balabushevich and Dyakov, Soviet experts on India, identified the entire bourgeoisie with imperialism. E. M. Zhukov, head of the Soviet Academy of Sciences' Pacific Institute, made a distinction between the big bourgeoisie and the medium capitalists. He suggested an alliance with the latter against the former. The difference in views went on unresolved for two years. A.A. Zhdanov, ideological spokesman of the CPSU and architect of the Comintern, speaking at the opening of the Comintern Congress in September 1947, referred to "the rise of a powerful movement for national liberation in the colonies and dependencies (which) has placed the rear of the capitalist system in jeopardy." Zhukov elaborated on Zhdanov's theme in an article, "The Sharpening Crisis of the Colonial System," published in 'Bolshevik' on December 15, 1947. Zhukov pointed ·out that (1) it was time for the Communists themselves to lead the struggle and break with the bourgeois nationalist leaders; (2) there must be nothing less than full independence demanded from the imperialist powers; and (3) any resistance to these plans must encounter the use of force and violence by the national liberation movements.
It was in the Conference of the Communist-controlled World Federation of Democratic Youth held in Calcutta in February, 1948, that the uncompromising line of Communism (as defined by Zhdanov in the division of the world into two antagonistic blocs) was presented to delegates from India, Pakistan, Burma, Malaya, Indonesia, Vietnam, Ceylon, and the Philippines who met with "guests" from USSR. The insurrections that broke out in Burma, Malaya, Indonesia, and the Philippines within a year of this conference have often been attributed to "Moscow directives" handed down by Soviet delegates to the Southeast Asian delegates at Calcutta.
In October 1948, issue of the Cominform Journal, a leading British Communist, R. Palme Dutt, who often advised the Communist Party of India on the "correct line," invoked Stalin's views on the colonial areas as being currently relevant to Asian conditions. These views clearly supported violent seizure of power in the region: (1) Liberation.... is not possible save by a victorious revolution. (2) Independence.... cannot be achieved unless the compromising section of the bourgeoisie is isolated.... unless the advanced elements of the ·working class are organized in an independent Communist Party. (3) No lasting victory is possible unless a real link is established between the movement for their liberation and the proletarian movement of the more advanced countries of the West.
In June 1949, three significant references were made to the China example. Zhukov, in a broadcast to Southeast Asia, stressed the importance of China's example in the conduct of national liberation movements in the area and urged the Communist Parties to lead these movements. Pravda, organ of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, published an article by Liu Shao-chi (Chairman of the "People's Republic" since May, 1959) entitled "Internationalism and Nationalism," (written in November, 1948), in which Communists in colonial and semi-colonial areas were told that it would be a grave mistake if they did not ally themselves with the anti-imperialist section of the national bourgeoisie in their current struggles. About the same time the Soviet Academy of Sciences met and approved Communist alliance with bourgeois elements in Southeast Asia, thus extending official approval to the major principles of Mao's strategy in Southeast Asia, i.e., armed struggle and alliance with the bourgeoisie. During the following months Pravda and the Cominform Journal carried pronouncements by Mao Tse-tung and Chu Teh exhorting Communists in Southeast Asia to emulate the Chinese example.
The meeting of the major Communist labor front, the World Federation of Trade Unions, in Peiping in November 1949, provided the occasion for formal Soviet endorsement of the Chinese model for the Asian Communist Parties. In the key speech at this meeting Liu Shao-chi, then CPG vice chairman and WFTU vice president, declared: "The national liberation movement and the people's democratic movement in the colonies and semi-colonies will never stop short of complete victory.... The great victory of the Chinese people has set them the best example.... Armed struggle is the main form of struggle for the national liberation struggles of many colonies and semi-colonies. The existence and development of the organization of the working class and of the national united front are dependent upon the existence and development of such armed struggles. This is the inevitable course for the colonial and semi-colonial peoples in their struggle for independence and liberation."
Thus by 1950 the Soviet Union had endorsed Chinese Communism as the model to be followed by other Asian Communist movements. As the "liberation" struggles progressed, however, and it became apparent that they would not succeed in most of the Southeast Asian countries, the Soviet position in respect of both the necessity of armed struggle and the Chinese Communist model began to change.
In November 1951, the Soviet Academy of Sciences approved Mao's four-class appeal unqualifiedly and the armed struggle "when and where" appropriate. This was not, however, an unqualified endorsement of Mao's strategy, since the same body found that Chinese Communist experience should not be "mechanically adopted" among the other countries of Asia. It held that "the experience of the Chinese revolution as some kind of 'stereotype' for people's democratic revolutions in other countries of Asia." This statement probably reflected Soviet reluctance to cede the leadership of the Asian Communist movement to the Chinese as well as a desire to retain tactical flexibility in the event armed revolutions did not succeed.
Strategy and Tactics in Southeast Asia
Communist tactics in Southeast Asia changed gradually after 1951, when both the internal tactics of armed rebellion and the external Communist bloc policy of open hostility began to be modified. The change appears to have been motivated by increasing Communist awareness of the degree to which stability in the region had been re-established and the favorable postwar climate for overt subversive tactics thus eliminated. The "soft" approach, however, only really took form after the Geneva Conference in mid-1954.
Current Communist strategy apparently involves postponement of the objective of direct control of the area through Communist regimes in each country. Instead current efforts appear to be directed towards the attainment of an interim goal: the creation of an Afro-Asian bloc isolated from Western ties and oriented towards the Communist bloc. In pursuit of this interim objective every attempt is made to foster distrust of the West and to promote neutralism. The Communists have sought legal recognition of their parties and formation of "united front" movements in order to establish "respectability" and promote and exploit nationalist sentiments in the interests of a neutralist and anti-Western orientation.
The abandonment of overt illegal action in favor of "legal struggle," i.e., the subversion of legally sanctioned institutions and organizations, was an admission of the bankruptcy of armed tactics in the face of increasing local capabilities to resist and in some areas to defeat the Communists. It constituted at the same time Communist recognition of advantages to be gained at this stage from a subtler form of assault combined with more limited objectives.
However, the former tactic of open armed attack against the established instruments of government has not entirely disappeared from Southeast Asia. The Communists' concerted efforts to abandon it have been unsuccessful where the resoluteness of their opponents has prevented the negotiation of an acceptable arrangement. The Communists seek terms, which will allow them maximum maneuverability for political action in continuing their struggle for national domination.
When the Communist Party enjoys legal status, it deliberately curbs its operations and moderates its policies in ways intended to broaden its popular appeal and thus enhance its parliamentary position. Communist activities in these environments are especially concentrated on the infiltration of political parties and of labor, student, and minority elements. Dissatisfied elements of the urban intelligentsia are especially vulnerable to Communist "political" tactics since these elements are particularly susceptible to the appeal of the extremist national and racial causes, which Communists exploit.
As the people of Southeast Asia have achieved national independence, nationalism has taken the form of assertion of their new status and attention to the defense of their sovereign rights. In this context subversion of the established national authority reveals the basic anti-national role of indigenous Communists. Political action through "peace" and nationalistic front groups, on the other hand, enables the Communists to pose as the champions on national sovereignty while covertly working to subvert it Communist political action also exploits the slowness of the newly emerged governments to active material and social gains.
The subversive activities of indigenous Communist organizations on the legal level are receiving substantial support from the Communist countries. Bloc countries, with the Soviet Union and Communist China in the lead, are striving for the normalization of relations with the countries of Southeast Asia through diplomatic recognition and the promotion of economic and cultural relations. The strengthening of friendly ties is intended to encourage neutralist foreign policies and undermine ties with the West. In this context, improved relations are used to mobilize support for bloc policies in the United Nations and other international organizations.
In terms of the local situation, friendly formal contacts between the bloc and Southeast Asian countries inevitably increase the prestige and influence of local. Communist groups and tends to handicap local measures to deal with the Communist subversive threat. The presence of official and semi-official Communist missions in Southeast Asian countries, moreover, provides local Communist groups with sources of aid, advice, and communications. Finally, in those countries having important Chinese minorities, the enhancement of Communist China's prestige reinforces Communist influence among local Chinese. Such have been the Communist intrigue in Southeast Asia.
Recognizing these advantages, the bloc has sought to establish formal relations with each of the Southeast Asian countries and place diplomatic missions in them.
The current pattern of Communist subversion in the region, as outlined above, is unlikely to change radically in the near future, since it is favorably adjusted to circumstances in the area and to the demands of Soviet and Communist Chinese foreign policies. It is therefore useful to review, briefly, some of the ingredients of the principal current Communist programs in the region.
The attention of bloc propaganda has been focused increasingly on Southeast Asia. Communist international radio broadcasts and the publication of books and periodicals for circulation abroad have been stepped up considerably. The Soviet Union, for example, has recently initiated broadcasts in Bengali and Ordu directed specifically to Pakistan, and Communist China has increased its motion picture production, whose impact is felt particularly in areas where there are large colonies of overseas Chinese.
Themes for this propaganda are generally geared to a Communist appraisal of the attitudes of particular audiences in Southeast Asian countries. The Soviet Union and Communist China have among their national minorities many of the races and all of the principal religions of the area. Communist propagandists thus emphasize cultural affinities to promote Southeast Asian feelings of solidarity with the bloc. Communist bloc economic progress is held up as an example to underdeveloped countries of the rapid national achievements to be won through Communism and this model is contrasted with the uneven variations of capitalist economies, which allegedly jeopardize trade relations and other economic ties.
Asian sensibilities on the subject of imperialism provide a special vulnerability to Communist propaganda, as do also legitimate desires for peace, which are exploited by Communist propagandists to encourage neutralism.
An increasingly important aspect of recent bloc activities in Southeast Asia has been a campaign to extend economic influence in the region. The economic offensive has been waged principally through the negotiation of trade agreements, but numerous offers of economic aid and technical assistance have also been made. By seeking to strengthen their economic foothold in the area, the Communists undoubtedly hope to exert political influence and to weaken the strong financial and commercial ties between Southeast Asian nations and their Western trade partners, who now also constitute the principal source of developmental assistance in the region. Moreover, Communist trade missions and other commercial and financial organizations provide channels through which Communist and pro-Communist elements in the region can be supported, especially in countries where there are no Communist diplomatic missions.
The Communist drive has sought to capitalize on the economic problems faced in varying degrees by all countries in the region and on the preoccupation of most countries with efforts to develop their national economies and answer popular demands for better living standards. Communist states have shown themselves willing even to make economically disadvantageous arrangements, buying commodities they do not need, supplying certain goods at below-cost prices, and exporting goods and technicians needed at home for the sake of the political impact on recipient nations. Recently, at the ECAFE meeting in Kuala Lumpur, the Soviet delegate even offered to extend credits to private enterprise.
The Communists are also pursuing an intensified campaign in Southeast Asia to gain support for their objectives through the use of international front organizations. The fronts that have been most active ·in the region have been the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY), the Women's International Democratic Federation (WIDF), and most recently the World Peace Council. All of these organizations during the past two years have focused heavily on colonial problems, and have sought to gain the support of Asians for anti-colonial and anti-imperialist activities. The specialized fronts, such as the WFTU, WFDY, and WIDF do not appear to have gained much advantage in the region, possibly because they have been closely associated over the years with Communist objectives and personalities. More recently front activities in the region have been increasingly channeled through the World Peace Council and the Afro-Asian Solidarity Movement. The WPC attracts the support of certain non-Communist groups and personalities because of its ostensible championship of "peace" and in this respect appears to have a special appeal for Asians of neutralist persuasion. Significantly, the WPC made its debut in Asia in June 1957 in a meeting in Colombo. On this occasion, it was apparent that the "peace" movement considered its prospects especially good in Asian area.
The Afro-Asian People's Solidarity Council held its first meeting on January 3, 1958. This new permanent organization was set up by the Afro-Asian Solidarity Conference held in Cairo in December 1957. All indications point to the conclusion that the new Council is essentially a Communist front since it is controlled by Communists or pro-Communists.
The new A-APSC had its origin in the international Asian Solidarity Committee which was established at a Communist-sponsored meeting in New Delhi in April 1955, a short time before the convening of the Afro-Asian Conference at Bandung. Its purpose was to give the impression that the New Delhi meeting was a preparatory conference for the Bandung Conference. This claim was indignantly rejected, particularly by the Indonesian Government which played host at Bandung. Nevertheless, the Communists succeeded in establishing a permanent ASC organization in New Delhi and branches in most Asian countries.
The ASC was relatively quiescent until the end of 1956 when it staged an Asian Writers Conference in New Delhi in December, at which it was decided to sponsor an Afro-Asian People's Conference in Cairo, and to re-name the ASC the Asian-African Solidarity Movement.
The Cairo Conference, which eventually took place in December 1957, was clearly engineered by Soviet and Chinese Communists and, as its discussions revealed, was notable chiefly for the blunt manner in which Communist propagandists monopolized the proceedings. The resolutions of the conference on Palestine, Algeria, nuclear weapons, racial discrimination, and imperialism were clearly Communist initiated. While, in the resolution on imperialism, Western "interference" in these countries was denounced, no mention was made of the Warsaw Pact, or of Communist "interference" in the affairs of the satellites, Tibet, Mongolia, or Soviet Central Asia. And ironically, Tibet is now on the headlines as a result of the most recent blood bath in which the Chinese Communists have massacred thousands of innocent Tibetans!
The Cairo Conference also provided the forum for seemingly impressive offers of Communist bloc economic aid to the African and Asian countries.
The Communist intentions with respect to the Afro-Asian People's Solidarity Council are clear: they hope through this mechanism, with its local branches (the most recent to be established is in Thailand), to further foment anti-Western sentiment and to swing the sympathies of Asian countries, were colonialism is no longer a live issue, to the support of African liberation. It is significant, however, that their performance at Cairo has engendered the hostility of a number of Asian countries and influential groups.
While Communist subversive tactics in Southeast Asia appear now to be guided by the dictates of peaceful co-existence, the threat is no less real than it was in the late 1940's and early 1950's when the "hard" line of violent takeover prevailed.
There are encouraging signs of increasing awareness in Southeast Asian countries of the true nature of the international Communist conspiracy, despite its current "peaceful" guise. The implications of the Declaration of Moscow, in November, 1957, which reaffirmed the Communist aim of world conquest, and of the new break in Soviet-Yugoslav relations, which has revealed once again the hypocrisy of alleged Communist support of peaceful co-existence, have not been missed in Southeast Asia.
Speaking on the subject "Will Asia Become A Red Continent?" at a meeting arranged by the Union Forum Committee at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, in the United States, on February 19, 1958, Dr. Hollington K. Tong, former Chinese Ambassador to the United States, said, inter alia:
"In the U. S. Congressional Record of June, 1954, there was published a truly historic document. How the United States got hold of this document has not been disclosed. It purported to give the Communist time-table for world conquest. It was taken to Moscow by a Chinese Communist leader in March, 1953. The document conceded that, under the existing conditions, Communism could not afford to employ more forcible measures in Europe than it was using to bring about further Communist gains. In the state of European alertness at the time, it said, any further intensification of infiltration and sabotage might bring on war. And Russia was not ready for war yet. But in Asia, the document declared, vigorous Communist action would bring gratifying results. In that continent according to plan, the main objective should be to isolate the United States—to strip it of its allies. This should be done, not through open violence, but by gradual and persistent pressure. The document was also quite plain in its declaration of Communist intentions for Southeast Asia. Detailed plans for the conquest of Indo-China, Burma, Thailand, Indonesia and the Malay Peninsula were set forth as the first step. The tactics adopted by the Communists in Southeast Asia, as stated in this document, was to include economic co-operation, alliance, united fronts, and coalitions."