CHANGE OF -ISM

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 79, 13 January 1944, Page 4

CHANGE OF -ISM

THE announcement of the Communiist Party in the United States that it will henceforth abandon Socialism as its objective and support Capitalism is a radical change of front. In terms of votes at the forthcoming American elections it may not mean very much; as a portent of the new attitude of mind being adopted towards the various -isms it is significant. Under Stalin some of the principles of Capitalism have been creeping back into the Soviet Communist State because they seemed best fitted to provide the mainspring of human endeavour. At Teheran the “Big Three” did not confer as the champions of any particular political or economic doctrine so much as national leaders seeking a formula of collaboration in peace and war. The American Communist party, with or without suggestions from Moscow, can see that the hopes of Teheran are not going to be implemented by rigid adherence to any one immutable form of political and economic philosophy. Not everything in Capitalism is good, but some of its bad features are being neutralised by various kinds of controls until we have operating in western countries to-day a form known as controlled Capitalism. It is being made to work, which is the acid test of any -ism, and there are signs that it may be the most generally accepted economic system after the war. The American Communists are .espousing this type of watereddown Capitalism because they can see that, cleansed of some of its most objectionable features, it is passing the test of experience. That does not mean that Soviet Russia is about to turn completely over to Capitalism any more than prudent democracies are going to shy at certain economic measures simply because they form part of the Communistic creed. Efficacy for the times in which we live is the guiding principle,