T H E T A B L E T , October U t h , 1952.

THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW

PRO ECCLESIA DEI, PRO REGINA ET PATRIA

VOL. 200, No. 5864

LONDON, OCTOBER 11th, 1952

NINEPENCE

FOUNDED IN 1 8 4 0

PUBLISHED AS A NEWSPAPER

FIRST STEPS FROM THE CLOUDS A Breathing-space in the Battle Against Inflation

MARSHAL STALIN SPEAKS The Apparent New Phase in Soviet Policy. By Victor S . Frank EASTERN EUROPE AND THE WESTERN SIX

A Resolution at Strasbourg. By John Biggs-Davison

A CATHOLIC BISHOP IS SHOT

The Liquidation of the Church in Bulgaria

THE LATE MAJOR DOUGLAS

By Paul Derrick

A LETTER FROM WALES

By H. W. J. Edwards

RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

By Rosemary Hughes

THE ABBEY THEATRE TODAY

By Gabriel Fallon

AUTUMN BOOKS SUPPLEMENT Reviews by David Knowles, John Beckwith, Adrian Morey, Robert Speaight, D . B. Wyndham Lewis,

Thomas Gilby, Yvonne ffrench, Janet Bruce, Lance Wright, Letitia Fairfield, Edward Quinn, David *Walker, Christopher Hollis, M . Bellasis, Peter Watts, Roland Hill, Mervyn Phipps,

J . C. Mar^h-Edwards, George Scott-Moncrieff, and B. C. L. Keelan.

leading the movement which goes forward under the pressure o f this kind o f steam.

THE AGE OF PARTIES T HE brickbats are flying in the Labour Party ; bu t this is a natural pastim e for large parties when they a re ou t of office. The division between the Cobdenite Liberals and the Liberal-Im perialists went deep between the fall o f Lord Rosebery’s Government in 1895 and the great L iberal victory ten years later, and the Boer W ar sundered the Liberal ranks ; yet they re-formed easily enough. The Conservatives were angrily divided between diehards and anti-diehards over the Budget and the Lords’ reform in 1910. Mr. Baldwin had to meet a sustained and highly intem perate attack on his leadership after 1929, when the late Lord Rotherm ere and Lord Beaverbrook endeavoured to collect parliam entary candidates to stand against the official party men in safe seats. Yet the Party discipline, under Captain Margesson all th rough the 1930’s, proved only too thorough. Parties re-form their ranks to confront the electorate, and to concentrate on the misdeeds o f the Minister in office.

Mr. Gaitskell, speaking o f a group o f “ frustrated jo u rn a lists” a ro und Mr. Bevan, spoke also o f darker forces ; o f the Communists, who, wearing more or less camouflage, are so busily posing as disillusioned and disappointed L abour Party idealists. These are the tactics here, ju s t as in Asia o r in Africa th e cue is the nationalist cue, and the business is to wreck the more moderate nationalists who seek an accom modation w ith the West. M . Malenkov’s Warnings

Mr. A ttlee and Mr. Morrison have seen the red light. They have had a warning th a t ten years in high office has made them dangerously responsible, and has created a gulf between them and the irresponsible, uninform ed Labour electorate, o r a t least th a t small p a r t o f it which dominates local Labour Parties. There is inevitably such a gulf between any kind of practical statesm anship, even statesm anship as financially im provident as was th a t o f Mr. Attlee and his colleagues, and the starry-eyed dreams o f the happy Socialist Commonwealth ro und the corner w ith which those who have listened to the Party p ropaganda for a lifetime have been indoctrinated. Mr. A ttlee and Mr. Morrison are being confronted and repudiated by their former selves, for both o f them in their tim e have talked any am ount o f w hat today is labelled Bevanism ; and they will have to ta lk some more, indistinctly, perhaps, and tongue in cheek, if they want to go on

The line o f the Kremlin towards Britain has come out plainly in the latest declarations o f Marshal Stalin and M. Malenkov, who may a t long last believe th a t the proletarian, as Marx described him, who has been so unaccountably scarce in England, is a t last being unearthed, and can be appealed to directly against the wicked ruling classes in America and his own country.

I t was to be expected th a t M. Malenkov would re-echo the sentiments o f Marshal Stalin as expressed in the magazine Bolshevik ; particularly the declaration th a t growing conflict in the Western camp would lead to war between the capitalist States. But he also had the more practical task o f impressing upon the delegates o f this nineteenth congress o f the Soviet Communist Party the watchwords for the future. There is to be an increasing emphasis on self-criticism, and on the raising o f the prestige o f the party members. This is obviously o f prim ary importance, if the new Five Year P lan w ith its vast program me o f industrialization and rearm ament is to be realized, fo r the party-m ember is the key man in the Communist system. The party statutes ascribe to him the role o f “ strengthening day-by-day contacts w ith th e masses,”