The Bay of Plenty Times THURSDAY, JULY 1, 1948. COMMUNIST HOUSE OF CARDS

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXVI, Issue 14711, 1 July 1948, Page 2

The Bay of Plenty Times THURSDAY, JULY 1, 1948. COMMUNIST HOUSE OF CARDS

The news of the expulsion from the Ccininfonn of Marshal Tito and the Yugoslav Communist party suggests that the U.B.S.R. (or Union of Soviet and Satellite Republics, as it might well be termed) is far from-being a happy family. This fact is likely to have a far-reaching effect for good on the future’ peace of the world.

As a deserter from the Austro-Hungarian army, soldier ol: the lied army, Yugoslav recruiting sergeant for the international Brigade in Spain, an active worker in the (then) illegal Yugoslav Communist Party, and as a man with six years’ prison service both in Russia and Yugoslavia to his credit before be became famous 1 as a partisan leader against the Nazis, Marshal Tito was likely to prove a problem child to any dictator, lie has, however, gone further than that, and has committed the unforgivable sin of the Communist faith.

One thing demanded of its adherents is a blind acceptance of the doctrine that it lias an international destiny. Tito, as a dictator in bis own right has proved to be much less interested in the conversion of other countries .to the faith of Marx and Lenin, than in furthering the welfare of his own country. He sees definite to be derived from contacts with the West. This', in itself, is rank heresy in Communist eyes.

In thus failing to put the interests of Communism before those of Yugoslavia, Tito lias aroused the in* of the Kremlin, and of the instrument through winch it carries out its world policy, the Cominform. How successful will be Stalin ’s' attempts to discipline him, events of the next few months will show. Meanwhile the significance of his refusal to follow blindly where Moscow chaoses to lead will not be lost in such countries as Poland, Czechoslovakia. Hungary and Bulgaria, where Communism holds power not by the will of the people but by force. It will not be lost on (lie sixty-nine million Russian people who. are reported, on reliable authority, to be sincere, if “underground” Christians.

The imposing; facade of Russian solidarity has received a shrewd blow, appropriately enough at the very time that the Soviet is bluffing' its hardest in Berlin, ft has re-echoed hollowly from Tito's first brick-bat. IF the Yugoslav defection is followed by the countries named, it may well crumble like a house of cards, revealing Communism for the hollow sham that it is.