BALKAN STATES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25852, 24 May 1945, Page 5

BALKAN STATES

COMMUNIST REGIMES CAREFULLY-LAID PLANS LONDON, .May 22. “ While it is undesirable to draw general conclusions, developments in the Balkans point to the existence of a carefully-preconceived plan to establish a Communist regime of a similar kind in every country in the peninsula,” states The Times Istanbul correspondent. “ The first step is to secure such key positions as Ministries of Justice and Interior with control of police and gendarmerie; secondly, to exterminate political opponents and break up kindred parties which might become rivals. The strength of the party seizing power is then increased by the adhesion of people prompted to join from fear or opportunism.”

The correspondent declares that this process has been carried out in Bulgaria, where public life to-day is under complete Communist sway. The real ruler of Bulgaria is not the head ol the Goverinment, Georghiev, but a woman, Tsola Dragoitcheva, secretary of the Communist Party, whose orders are final and undisputed. Ihe first consequence of Communist ascendance has been the extermination of political opponents through trials by peoples' courts and other means. At least two pdrsons in each of the 8000 villages have also been murdered.

The method used in Rumania is almost the same except that the pace is slower. Here, as* in Bulgaria, the Communists hold the Ministries of Justice and Interior and control the police. It was hoped that the resistance movements in the Balkans against the Axis would result in the co-operation between the progressive parties .continuing after the war. That hope has been disappointed by the Communist extremists, with the result that, as in Greece, the people in other Balkan countries are obsessed by the fear of Communism, and are almost instinctively moving towards the Right, although they do not dare show their feelings openly.