CZECH COMMUNISTS PLAN FOUNDATIONS OF THEIR CONTROL OF COUNTRY

Wanganui Chronicle, 30 April 1949, Page 8

CZECH COMMUNISTS PLAN FOUNDATIONS OF THEIR CONTROL OF COUNTRY

(By Sydney Brookes, a Reuters Correspondent in Prague.) Czechoslovakia's Communists, confident now of their control of the country, are already laying tile foundations for (lie Imai stage in toe development of this ‘People’s Democracy"—the stage which will bring Communism. A series of conversations with Communist Party Leaders reveal tuat they anticipate difficulties before the nnal stage is reached. Whatever their personal opinion o. Communism or Communist techniques, Western observers, with whom trie Communist claims have been checked, are almost unanimous in agreeing that the regime is here to 5,..y. mere is less agreement, however, about the prospects of Communist success although the most conservative and critical observers are concede tli.it Czechoslovakia has produced no really effective opposition to Communism. Nearly all Czech Industry is now working under what are called "Socialist forms’ of organisation. Ninetylive per cent of Czech Industry ,s Nationalised. This, in Marxist terms, i is still a long way from Communism, but it does mean that the State owns industry, and the Communist Parly through its many ramifications, controls industry. Ninety-live per cent of Czech agriculture is not nationalised. Nevertheless, Communists here say that they are well satisfied with developments in industry. The small artisan class has been tinder pressure. ' The Party Leadership is trying to relieve them. A move was begun to apply pressure and squeeze them out but it was soon found that this was a mistake. Until other forms could be organised, the Communists discovered that they still needed windows mended, plumbing unblocked, cars repaired, ploughshares tipped. The Artisans and owners of small workshops were reprieved. They are, however, being encouraged to form themselves into cooperatives—a form of organisation which is acceptable as a “Socialist Form." • In agriculture, on the other hand, Communists are forced by their political theory to work for collectivisation. They dre forced by economic necessity to handle the peasants with a delicate touch. They may not depart from the Party “Line": But they must have uninterrupted food production, for this reason the Czechoslovak Communists guaranteed land ownership in the Constitution they produced last May. They tell the peasants that the peasants own the land and are secure in their ownership. They have broken up large estates and placed a limit on tne area of land any one man may own and work. But in point of fact, they have created thousands of new land owners by re-allocating the confiscated property among land-hungry peasants.

Reports of peasant unrest and suspicion are discounted by leading Communists. They claim that the Land Reform won them the gratitude of the peasants. They claim that the state system of guaranteed prices gives the peasants good incomes. They claim that the new system by which the peasants sign contracts to deliver fixed quotas- of produce is appreciated as advantageous to the peasants. The Communists have no sympathy, however, for the larger farmers, legally, a Czech farmer is still entitled to work his own 50 hectares (about 130 acres) but the Communists regard the larger farmers as a class which is “ripe for liquidation." The Policy as now defined is to squeeze them out. They are being subjected to all sorts of discriminatory treatment. The land having first been split up the parts are to be put together, in such a way that the reassembled whole can gradually be adapted to Socialist forms. Peasants who seem unwilling to voluntee. themselves into “more progressive forms ’ are to be persuaded by various means.

Preference in the allocation of machinery and materials is to be given to co-operatives. The state farms, covering at present about five per cent, of the arable land, will demonstrate the economic necessity foi using machines to work large area. o.f land. 'Die Communists believe the not many peasants will be conten. with the heavy work on their dominutive strips while they can see what the tractors are doing on the adjoining co-operative or state farm. Gradually, Czech agriculture will be adopted more closely to the Communist system. Nationalisation will become a fact—and the Constitution will then be altered to make it a do clared fact. The Communist tactics include the provision of 50,000 or more tractors, made by Czech Industry within the Five-Year Plan by 1953, it is calculated, these and existing machines will be providing the peasants with working examples of agricultural efliciency which the: cailnot fail to follow. All increases in industrial production are dependent on Czechoslovakia's ability to secure raw materials —and in the markets of the west, the Czechs already see the beginning of a fall in demand for their products. This may develop aS Western European recovery progresses. But in spite of these obstacles Czechoslovakia’s Communist.: remain confident.