THE TABLET, March 31st, 1956. VOL. 207, No. 6045

THE TABLET

Published as a Newspaper

A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER & REVIEW

Pro Ecclesia D ei, Pro Refjina et Patria

FOUNDED IN 1840

MARCH 31st, 1956

NINEPENCE

Stampeded: Hasty Acceptance o f Maltese Representation at Westminster

Little Gnomes of Zurich : The White Paper on Full Employment. By J. F. L. Bray

American Issues: The Decline o f Democratic Hopes in the Presidential Campaign

Easter Sepulchres: In English Churches. By J. C. Marsh-Edwards

As for Six Hundred Years: Easter in Assisi. By Tudor Edwards

Lauream Certaminis: By O. V. Calder, Kevin Nichols, Alban Leotaud and Eric Chilman

Critics’ Columns : Notebook : Book Reviews : Letters : Chess

SOVIET VISITORS

M MALENKOV may have been cheered wherever he • went, distributing chocolates at Blackpool and generally behaving and being accepted as though he were a popular radio comedian on holiday, but at least most of the Press and public has recognized General Serov for what he is. At least no crowds waited outside Claridges to cheer the sinister little figure who has as much human suffering to account for as Himmler had—the man who holds a triple Order of Lenin for his efficiency in deporting whole populations and in providing sufficient regiments of slave labour whenever called upon to do so ; an efficiency acquired in Poland in 1939 and displayed constantly since then. In Poland in 1939, when the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were conducting their agreed partition, General Serov had, of course, to work in partnership with the Gestapo. He can hardly have expected to receive ovations when he ventured into the Western world. Nor can he have expected to be regarded as a sort of free-lance butcher ; a lone practitioner of tyranny. Yet that is how many British columnists have regarded him, not appearing to see any connection between him and the amiable M. Malenkov or the senior guests who are shortly to arrive. Yet in fact General Serov is their servant, doing what he does on their orders, and to their satisfaction.

Yet he can count himself fortunate. The kind of thing that he has been doing, whether in deporting the people of Poland and the Baltic States or whether in providing labour for the East German uranium mines or for the Volga-Don Canal, did not come in for any expressions of disapproval when M. Khrushchev made his long speech to the Party Congress last month. The crimes of Stalin were denounced, and it was under Stalin that General Serov served his apprenticeship. But such matters as the deportation of populations or the maintenance of slave labour battalions were not included by M. Khrushchev in the list of Stalin’s crimes. They were taken for granted.

Few people in Britain know much about these things, although everyone in Eastern Europe knows about them. For this reason very few people in Britain appreciate the real objection that can be raised to the reception of Marshal Bulganin and M. Khrushchev in London, which is well stated in the Bishops’ Pastoral : that it will seem to condone immeasurable oppressions and blasphemies. The larger point is well made by Father Harold Rigney, of the Divine Word Fathers, the former Rector of the Fu Jen Catholic University in Peking, who is now in Ireland. He writes :

“It seems quite certain that the Moscow-controlled Communist Press, from East Berlin to North Korea, will fill their papers and periodicals with editorials, news reports and articles, and their radios will be loud with broadcasts, all hammering home the idea that the visit of Bulganin and Khrushchev to Great Britain, and especially their royal reception, are indisputable evidence that the United Kingdom is sympathetic towards and supports the Soviet Union and its satellites, and is ripe and ready to join the Communist group of nations. This propaganda will tend to crush and weaken the already greatly dwindling hopes of hundreds of millions behind the Iron Curtain for their liberation from the inhuman system of Communist Governments. Her Majesty the Queen, who is rightly beloved throughout the world, will thus be regarded by many as being obliged by her Government to co-operate in an act of cruelty.” Father Rigney, who writes thus, lived for more than six and a half years under the Communist regime in China, and for more than four years in a Communist prison in Peking. During this period, in and out of prison, he had ample opportunities to observe how the Press and radio seized every opportunity to distort the news so as to impress upon the hundreds of millions behind the iron curtain that one country or another was ripe for the Communist revolution and would soon come under Moscow’s control. “Such news items given out by the Communists,” adds Father Rigney, “greatly depressed untold millions of the Chinese population.” So now millions of East Europeans will be greatly depressed ; not perhaps at any thought that Britain might join the satellite States, but at the thought that the British simply do not understand what it is those States have endured.