The Southland Times THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1940. Trade Unionists and Russia

Southland Times, Issue 24057, 22 February 1940, Page 6

The Southland Times THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1940. Trade Unionists and Russia

THE PUBLICATION of a pamphlet by the British Labour Party, reported this morning in an official wireless message, may not be an event of any great intrinsic value; but it should be interesting as a declaration of the official Labour view on matters that have not escaped controversy. Party spokesmen have already condemned the Soviet invasion of Finland and there appear to have been few differences of opinion among the trade union leaders. Their general reaction of dismay and indignation has been deepened by the firsthand reports of their general secretary, Sir Walter Citrine, after his recent visit to Finland. Support for Russia has come mainly from a small and dwindling group of left-wing intellectuals, whose polemics in English journals have provided interesting examples of the mental acrobatics that can be performed by thinkers who have allowed their general outlook to be dominated by a fixed idea. The weakness of the case put forward by the remnant of the intelligentsia that still remains faithful to Stalinism rests partly on the fact that although they challenge the version of events supplied by the news agencies and furiously accuse the plain man of credulity, they themselves accept unquestioningly an opposite version from sources whose reliability they can have no means of testing. Moreover, they are so much concerned with theory that in most cases they have suffered' an impoverishment of imagination and are unable to see the situation as anything except an academic problem. The trade unionists, or the great majority of them, are not concerned with abstract questions. They are able to see quite clearly that the rights and values now being trampled with an equal ruthlessness by Hitler and Stalin are the conditions of that freedom, in social and industrial life, for which the workers have struggled through many years of progress towards democracy. The workers of Finland were in no need of emancipation: their unshakable loyalty to their country and Government unpleasantly surprised the Soviet troops who had been taught to believe that the Finnish defences would collapse, like the walls of a new Jericho, before the shouts of a communist vanguard. British trade unionists know that a Soviet victory in Finland would mean the destruction of a democratic regime. They are unable to see that the triumph of a political dogma thrust upon a free people at the bayonet’s point is any kind of compensation for the loss of freedom and security.

Factious Minority

The trade unionist is closer to the struggle than the theorist. He has much more to lose, if the totalitarian wave reaches his own country, than the intellectual who clings to an illusion. It is this nearness to danger, perhaps, that has closed the minds of the trade unions to a subversive propaganda. But in other parts of the world, particularly in Australia and New Zealand, there are workers who are slow to return to a realistic viewpoint. They are at a safe distance from the enemy, and while there is no threat of interference with their own freedom and privileges they are inclined to underestimate the danger of which British and French workers are uncomfortably aware. This shortsightedness is very different from the deliberate mendacity of a fanatical minority which continues to sow foolish and dangerous suggestions. But-if it is not culpable it is at least a source of dissension and weakness, and as such it should be given constant attention by Labour leaders. Unfortunately the psychological background does not lighten the task of those who now have to educate irresponsible opinion. The tone of political controversy in New Zealand has been low enough to create a fairly wide susceptibility to a propaganda which relies on a dubious sensationalism. Men who have learned to believe the worst about certain groups and individuals, here and elsewhere, do not easily abandon these beliefs. Nor can they quickly put aside the faith in Stalin, or in the system he is alleged to have built up as an approach to that golden time when the State will wither away. Yet the average worker in New Zealand is at heart a realist. If it may not be easy for him to put aside cherished beliefs, it is not less difficult for him to ignore the meaning of such facts as those that have now been collected and published by the British Labour Party. The essential need is to convince him that the facts are real. In most cases he has already recognized the truth of events: the large number of workers now serving in the Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force is a sufficient proof that the majority is solidly behind the Dominion’s war effort. And the noisy recalcitrants will have a decreasing influence as Stalin disproves in action the teachings with which his name has become identified.