THE TABLET October 12th, 1957. VOL. 210, No. 6125

t : a ai.et A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER & REVIEW

Published as a Newspaper

Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Regina et Patria

FOUNDED IN 184 0

OCTOBER 12th, 1957

NINEPENCE

The Real Spiral: The Ever-growing Appetite for Higher Material Standards “Vous F A v e Z Voulu ’: The Political Plight of the French. By Frank MacMillan

Labour in Search of Policies: Mixed Feelings in the T rade Unions Ceylon’s Idle Dockyard: Choosing what Mr. Mintotf Fears. By 1. T. S. Crowther

On “National Communism**: The Analysis of Milovan Djilas. By Cyril A. Zebot

R.C. Chaplains R.N.: An Historical Account. By Mgr. C. D. Fay

At San Sebastian: The Catholic Conversations. By the Bishop of Salford

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

NEW MOON

iA7E may perhaps draw a crumb of comfort from the ®® supposition that when the Russians were obstructing the disarmament talks in London all through the summer it was not after all from a spirit of obstruction alone: it was presumably because the talks centred round proposals for international inspection, whether by aerial photography or by some other means, which might have led to the. premature disclosure of the great surprise that they were looking forward to presenting for the amazement of the world. It is not unreasonable that they should have wanted to be certain of making the greatest impression possible when their artificial moon was loosed into its fantastic orbit. No one can grudge them the dramatic way in which it has been done. This may be an international Geophysical Year, but no one expected it to be so international as to lead its participant^ to share their most brilliant secrets. The Russians have carried off their coup restrainedly enough, with no great boasting about their own technical superiority, content with the prestige that they knew they must win.

Psychologically the new moon may have rendered a service, if it helps to dispel the strong sense of inferiority which the Russians have felt in the past, and which has explained so much of their behaviour. They have thought — and quite rightly — that the Western world, and the Americans in particular, regarded them as a primitive people, rude newcomers in technology, whose machines were always unreliable. They have known that they were thought of as gauche and ponderous, unable to match the swift brilliance of the Americans; as a nation still placing its military reliance in hordes of peasant infantry, stealing wrist-watches and living off the land in their advances and scorching it in their retreat, their chief defence the immensity of their distances and the coldness of their winters, it angered them to think that they were so regarded, but so they undoubtedly were even ten years ago; and that kind of anger gave added danger to the international deadlock.

If noVv instead they are going to feel a complacent pride that only they can send a new moon spinning, accurately announcing each day at exactly what minute it will be observable from Chicago or Melbourne or Peking, then to this extent we may find that their new self-confidence has rendered us more secure.

The Russians came late into the field of nuclear physics upon which these achievements are based. Only nuclear power can approach the problem of getting a man-made object into outer space. The Large Soviet Encyclopaedia, which is not likely to understate what Soviet scientists have done, says that the first atomic explosion in the Soviet Union took place only in 1949, four years after the American bombs had fallen at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Now, eight years after that, the four-year handicap has been eliminated and, if what is spectacular is an indication, has been turned into a handsome lead. The Americans, accustomed to the idea that they have an easy superiority, have suffered a rude shock; and if it ever becomes possible to write a comparative history of nuclear research to see how this has come about, it is likely that the explanation will once again be found in the advantage enjoyed by those for whom the expenditure of enormous sums of money on vast experimental projects is not subjected to the critical attention of elected representatives. And that of course is the key to the whole transformation of Russia which is the setting of this particular achievement : the reason why the country that began its industrial revolution so much later is now able to claim that it will soon match the United States in industrial production as a whole. It is a question of the intensive concentration of highly disciplined'effort with only the most minimal regard for the living standards of the people at large, and a readiness to make scientists a highly privileged élite.

The most immediate task of the Western Powers is to prepare themselves for the new and substantially strengthened overtures which the Russians will certainly lose