’M Ë i ' U m , March ï t l . ¡¡¿S.

THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW

PRO ECCLESIA DEI, PRO REGINA ET PATRIA

VOL. 201, No. 5885

LONDON, MARCH 7th, 1953

NINEPENCE

FOUNDED IN 1 8 4 0

PUBLISHED AS A NEWSPAPER

MINISTERS IN WASHINGTON The Subordination o f the European Theme MANAGER VERSUS COMMISSAR IN MOSCOW The Social Background o f the Struggle for Power. By Victor S . Frank

CONTROLLING THE PRESS IN FRANCE

A Legacy o f the Liberation Period

PROFESSOR TOYNBEE, “THE WEST” AND THE WORLD

Thoughts on the Reith Lectures: Concluded. By Douglas Jerrold

THE ONE AND THE MANY Society and the State. By the Bishop of Brentwood

RELIGION IN MEXICAN ART The Exhibition at the Tate Gallery. By C. A. Burland

STALIN IN EXTREMIS I T seems in th e highest degree unlikely th a t the news of Marshal S talin’s haemorrhage would have been released from the K rem lin if his recovery was thought possible. I t is more probable th a t the news has been delayed. Lenin was struck down and physically helpless many months before he died, and Stalin, too, may linger w ithout the power to control the conflicting ambitions o f those who have been for so long his principal lieutenants.

his youth, and whose career has been m ade a lm ost entirely inside the Communist Party. H e jo ined the Politburo eight years ago, but he has no experience whatever o f any country outside the Soviet Union. M arshal T ito Paves the Way

No one has been groomed as the obvious successor, and yet Stalin has left such a trad i tio n o f personal mastery th a t few members o f th e Politburo could face the fu tu re with any confidence with another politician exercising even a p a r t o f the decisive and ruthless authority with which Stalin term inated so many political careers and lives. So much o f the violence o f o riental history in the past came ou t o f the simple fact th a t those near the throne, sons, uncles, brothers, felt they had either to become the masters o f the Army and the police, o r be th e victims o f whoever else succeeded.

In preparation for his visit to England, Marshal T ito has been receiving representatives o f British newspapers and emphasizing th a t his Government intends to become more democratic, in the Western instead o f the Eastern sense of th a t much abused and highly ambiguous word. We are bound to watch these pronouncem ents, and to compare them with what actually happens in Yugoslavia, because a life-long training in the techniques o f Communism, such as M arshal T ito has had, is a train ing in th e tactical use o f ambiguities. I t is one o f the main merits o f th e highly p ro pagandist life Tito Speaks th a t it brings out how professional a Communist revolutionary he has been for over th irty years ; and the Western Powers will always have to be watchful lest they give their assistance under m istaken impressions.

The unique eminence o f Stalin is illustrated by the fact that, immediately he disappears, there is no o ther statesm an in the Kremlin with whom the advocates o f American and Russian conversations can urge President Eisenhower to make contact, no one whose authority to speak and commit the government o f the Soviet U n io n is a t all certain. On the contrary, there have been abundant indications th a t Stalin’s personal authority has been decisive in keeping together the exponents o f conflicting policies, and th a t he personally leant to the more cautious side, for this has indeed always marked him.

A man so ruthless th a t he alarm ed Lenin, he was nevertheless a m an who knew well how to wait. In his great conflict with T rotsky i t was T rotsky who was fo r world revolution a t once and everywhere, Stalin fo r the sounder bu t slower policy o f consolidating a base in the Soviet Union and concentrating on th a t first. Over and over again, while he could be merciless where he felt he had nothing to fear, as in the liquidation o f th e kulaks, he drew back when any difficulties mounted, as in Spain, and la te r in Greece, and in the agreement with H itle r in 1939—a defensive measure which proved a gross miscalculation.

The probable successor to Stalin is commonly said to be Georgi Malenkov, who has worked closely with Stalin since

But, in itself, a movement towards Western forms may also be the chief way by which Marshal T ito can hope to lessen the gulf which separates himself from th e peoples over whom he has asserted his rule. The C roats and Slovenes particularly were for long a p a r t o f the Holy Rom an Empire, and then o f th e Habsburg Empire, and belong to Western Europe, and the trea tm ent o f their religion cannot be treated as a subject apart, bu t is central to the whole character o f the society proposed for them. What Kind of S tate Education ?

Hence everything will tu rn on the kind o f educational policy pursued in the compulsory State schools. M arshal T ito makes great play with a parallel with the American State schools, in which no religious instruction is allowed. But those schools do no t inculcate the Marxian atheism which is th e intellectual diet prescribed, like Mrs. Squeer’s brim stone and treacle, to take away the children’s appetites fo r anything else. This is the crux o f the matter. I t is no t an in te rnal question, because the value o f Yugoslavia as an ally against Moscow will obviously be progressively impaired if the young men grow up thoroughly inculcated with a Marxism according