THE TABLET, June 23rd, 1956. VOL. 207, No. 6057

Published as a N ew spaper

TH E TAB LET

A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER & REVIEW

Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Regina et Patria

FOUNDED IN 1840

JUNE 23rd, 19 56

NINEPENCE

The New Pattern : One Moral from Trinidad Mammoth Trade U n io n s : The Case Against Striving for Maximum Membership The Reason for NatO: I I : The Atlantic Doctrine and the Alternatives. By Eugene Hinterhoff Oxford A nalysts: “The Revolution in Philosophy.” By Frederick C. Copleston, S.J. Hostels Old and N ew : Some Lessons from the Past. By Thomas Rudd The Ballad o f Joan the Maid: For the Fifth Centenary. By Sir John McEwen Critics’ Columns : N otebook : Book Reviews : Letters : Chess

TOWARDS POPULAR FRONTS I T may be that Signor Togliatti has been reflecting that Marshal Tito has obviously lost nothing by standing up to Moscow. But Marshal Tito is respected there because he wields power, and Signor Togliatti has not yet achieved power in Italy. M. Khrushchev’s famous speech may help him to do so. One of the advantages of denigrating Stalin for the ends of Russian policy is that it can make the task of the French and Italian Communists easier as they set out to try to build a Popular Front to give the quietus to NATO. The Soviet Union as it now promises to be is much nearer to the left-wing Socialist idea than it has been possible to depict it as being under Stalin. It will be an attractive programme for the next Italian election to propose an economical and safe neutralism, such as the Asian countries are nearly all demanding for themselves, and more social welfare with the money thus saved.

There was a querulous note in Signor Togliatti’s remarks on M. Khrushchev, and the French Communists, too, have spoken rather sharply. France is a country where the sense of ridicule is very keen, and the French Communists have been made to look more ridiculous than most Communists, since events in France threw into particularly strong relief the way they chopped and changed at Stalin’s nod, and the way they offered him to the French working class as the one man to trust and follow.

These new Soviet tactics call for some re-thinking of British policy to Western Europe, as well as more largely elsewhere. The driving force behind the very real measure of French and German agreement, and behind the other achievements of Western unity, has been the Soviet menace. It has not been the only reason ; there are solid economic reasons for what has been done, and for more that should be done. But it is doubtful what would have happened if a certain sense of crisis had not been present. As that lifts, and the Germans are invited to think more about reunification, and the East German Government makes gestures of relaxation, Great Britain ought to come forward to play more of a part in the non-military sides of Western union. Otherwise there is a great danger that the whole policy will become a live and uncertain political issue in Italy and France and Germany, with the Communists and their friends representing the present policy as a totally unnecessary and rather dangerous alignment with American capitalism for purposes not clearly known which the workers of Western Europe can have no reason to support. The policy of union needs to be re-stated in larger terms, looking to the future as the first step towards securing for Europe some of the vast economic advantages which the United States can be seen to be enjoying, because it is a market of a hundred and fifty million people.

The Communist parties outside Russia have inevitably been weakened. Many of those who joined them when it was the order of the day to treat Stalin as above criticism must wish they had kept their independence, and those who did not join them are congratulating themselves. But it may not matter to the Soviet Union that these parties are weakened, if they can secure through other parties the same result of a working-class mass movement resolved on neutrality, ready to put America and Russia on the same footing, and adopt an attitude of guarded friendliness to each. That would be sufficient for the disruption of the defensive unity of Western Europe, and then the whole of German policy would be back in the melting-pot again.

The great weakness of any Popular Front propaganda in Italy or France is that it has to propound a kind of national Socialism, with the Government controlling foreign trade—a particularly unattractive policy in Italy, where it revives memories of the unsuccessful Fascist autarchy, and not much more popular in France. Out of Egypt

By a policy which is particularly the Prime Minister’s own, it has been decided to put up with any indignities and abuse from the Egyptians. Colonel Nasser has been very successful in his two-voiced policy. When he talks privately to British politicians and officials, even to journalists, he is quite friendly. When he addresses his people, he has to pander to their need—and it is also his own—for a beaten