T E E T A B L E T , June 20th, 1963

THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW

PRO ECCLESIA DEI, PRO REGINA ET PATRIA

VOL. 201, No. 5900

FOUNDED IN 1840

LONDON, JUNE 20th, 1953

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NINEPENCE

PUBLISHED AS A NEWSPAPER

A THREAT TO BRITAIN The Labour Policy of a Closed Economy THE GROWTH OF COMMUNISM IN ITALY

A Survey by Regions. By Giorgio Asinari THE NEW PHASE IN EASTERN GERMANY A Reflection of the Tensions in the Kremlin. By Franz Borkenau

THE LAND BETWEEN THE HOUSES

Self-Help for the Urban. By Jorian Jenks A PLEA FOR RECONCILIATION Dr. Oldham’s Book, “ Life is Commitment.” By T. S . Gregory RICHARD DOWNEY, ARCHBISHOP OF LIVERPOOL

His Life and Work

RIOTS IN BERLIN

G RAVE disturbances in Eastern Berlin have come as an immediate sequel to relaxations which the Russians confidently expected would have the opposite effect of relieving the tension and doing something to reconcile the East Germans to the Communist regime. But it is only by tyranny that the Russians can maintain public order, since they are without any support after eight years, and as soon as the tyranny is relaxed, public order is lost.

The significance of the local risings against the Communist regimes in Czechoslovakia and East Berlin lies in the fact that, for the first time in the history of countries modelled on the “State leading the workers of the world,” these workers themselves have dared to protest openly. Such demonstrations are quite unlike what may happen in Trafalgar Square or in the Champs Elysees, because they take place in the presence of a powerful and armed police regime. The Berlin workers protesting against the raising of their “production norms,” the workers in Pilzen and other Czechoslovak industrial centres rebelling against a currency reform which deprived them o f their savings and investments—these are indications of how the peoples in the “ Popular Democracies” would act if they were free to break away from Moscow. The situation in Berlin is, of course, not quite the same as that in the Soviet zone proper, and there have not yet been, and perhaps will not be, any reports of similar risings from elsewhere in East Germany. But if a small relaxation of Communist policy can produce such results, they will not be the last.

The demonstrations in Czechoslovakia had a more violent character : pictures of Communist leaders were torn from the walls, documents in State offices were set on fire, and it is even reported that a number of American flags were shown in the streets. There is profound discontent among the workers in the nationalized industries. Some may think that these risings were “ staged” in order to discover who is unfriendly to the Communist regimes ; they were, after all, directed not so much against the character of the Communist State as against particular measures such as were adversely affecting the building workers in Germany.

Last week’s relaxations in East Germany, the wider significance of which is dealt with in an article on another page,

must be seen in relation to the general elections which will be held in Western Germany this autumn. The primary target of the Soviet tactics remains the Federal Government’s Western policy, and the leaders of the East German Politbureau, after expressing their nostra culpa for the mistaken policy of the past, indicated the new line to be pursued. Premier Grotewohl applauded the West German Socialist opposition which, he said, had rightly diagnosed that Dr. Adenauer was the inveterate enemy of German unity and that events in East Germany were a mere consequence of that attitude. The East German Government, he said, had now made the first move in order to prevent a widening of the existing divisions. Sacrifices must be made for the sake of an understanding between Germans. An Eye to the Social Democrats

The cue for this language has come from Herr Ollenhauer of the SPD who, with a Four Power Conference on the horizon, is prepared to forget eight years of denunciations of the Potsdam Agreement, and to resurrect that settlement as “ a by no means frightening or forbidding affair.” A return to Potsdam may appear all the more promising from the Communists’ point of view because they may prefer the SPD as an ally to the very unsuccessful fellow-travelling movements in Western Germany led by misguided idealists like Herr Wirth and Herr Elfes. That there is in fact alreadya secret understanding between the SPD and East Berlin was suggested by the Berlin correspondent of the Neue Ziircher Zeitung who referred to a recent speech of Herr Wehner, a member of the SPD in the Bonn Parliament, as indicating a source of information in the Soviet zone.

The developments in that zone can only confirm the tactical character ascribed to them. The regime remains essentially the same both in its aims and methods ; the political and economic “corrections” constitute no major sacrifice. Measures such as the disbanding of the “ police” force and their employment in agricultural work, the scaling-down of farm collectivization and concessions to refugees willing to return, and to the middle classes, are necessitated by a desperate economic situation which has much in common with that prevailing in Czechoslovakia.