The Grey River Argus MONDAY, MARCH 1, 1948. COMMUNISTIC EFFICIENCY

Grey River Argus, 1 March 1948, Page 4

The Grey River Argus MONDAY, MARCH 1, 1948. COMMUNISTIC EFFICIENCY

ALTHOUGH, in the estimation of countries where parliamentary methods have been the vogue for a century or two, the new regime in Czechoslovakia is an end, rather than a rectification, of democratic government, it should be recognised that parliamentarism is a much more familiar, not to say traditional thing in the West than it is in the East. This fact may, partly, explain the reports that the new regime has the support of at least a section of the town proletariat, and may not be expected to encounter the active . resistance even of the peasenl population. Worthy of recollection is also the original Communist thesis in Russia that the dictatorship of rhe proletariat did not exclude the peasantry, as they were so relatively large a body, although in the event collectivist farming has meant a very radical alteration. There is. however, nothing like the same reverenc' for the parliamentary form of democracy on the European Continent that there is, for instance, in Britain. If the Czechoslovakian revolution did not go the length, both of making one party really dominant, and of confiscating such a large part of the means of production, the mere superseding of party politics might not exactly be a denial of democracy. The real test is not parliamentary. .Ic is rather that of liberty. In man\ countries recent decades have seen a definite modification of freedom, through the organisation of the population by State agency for economic or military purposes, as the case might be. Where a radical difference between the West ern and Soviet objectives exists is in the degree to which the former allows discretion to individuals or groups, and to which the latter denies such initiative, but subjects all and sundry to direction down to the smaller details. Hence the declaration of the Czech regime that there can be no room for any opposition, but that the police must be the herrlinien, _ and therefore the judges, of the system which they claim to be democracy. As regards the nat iotia.l isat ion of industrii’s, businesses and lands, this is no longer unheard of in Western democratic countries, even if in Czechoslovakia it be destined eventually to go to the same lengths as in Russia or any of the other half dozen or so of countries which are now under the influence of Russia. Doubtless one explanation of th.? totalitarian character of the change in Czechoslovakia is the calculation that by no other means could the regime disposses so vast a proportion of the owning classes, nor exelude the possibility of a reaction should any but one party be allowed to retain a chance by democratic means to undo the whole scheme of collcctivation. Polls will doubtless be held, but the cardinal point to be noted is that it has been precisely in a manner dead contrary to that of election —namely, by the imposition of the will of a minority, and this with the use ol force—that the Communist scheme has been imposed. When a revolution is thus enacted, it may be logical for those responsible to conclude that counter revolution shall be thwarted in advance by such a dictatorship as will allow no opposition the chance of such a thing. Hence, as Western European spokesmen are now asserting, there is a radical cleavage between a free democracy and a one party, not to say, a police State such as Czecho Slovakia has become. It is indeed a tribute to the perfection of the Communist technique that in the present case the revolution has been so relatively a bloodless one. Some Czechs yet may fare like Maniu, Petkov, and other leaders liquidated or imprisoned tor life in countries now under Communist control, but the fact appears to be that the Communists in Czechoslovakia, thanks, of course, to the existence and might in the background of the Red Army, had in advance paved the way and greased the skids to launch the revolution in such a way that Pre- ! sident Benes confessed at the end ; that he must capitulate. He Jias ■ certainly been co-operating for a j long time, and to a growing ex- j tent with the Communists, which , was a straw which showed how < the wind blew. The lesson of the < change over is plain. The same <

thing could happen wherever the essential preparations were made. They doubtless have been far more thorough in Czechoslovakia than had been credited by ob servers who held that the industrial record of the Czechs precluded their transformation into a Communistic State. Hence the anxiety now professed in some Western countries Jest, the same thing happen to them.