HIS DISCIPLES ARE SILENT

change of plans?

It seems that Leitch's exotic adventures included a trip to Moscow with his boss, Lord Thomson, to see Khrushchev.

Leitch reports that the Canadian billionaire spent most of the time trying to launch a takeover bid for 'Pravda'.

The courageous editors of the 'Sunday Times' saw these rude references to his lordship only days before serialization. Hence the series was temporarily scrapped.

We can confidently predict that when the articles appear in the magazine they will not include the Moscow trip with The obituary column in the 'Morning Star' last Monday, March 5, contained two interesting items. One read: 'Stalin, Joseph. In memory of Joseph Stalin, General Secretary of CPSU— May, Tom, Pam Hirons'.

The other, a more expensive 'box' layout, said: 'In Memory of comrade JOSEPH STALIN, builder and defender of Socialism who died March 5, 1953— Jean and Harry Fawcett'.

But the mourning Hirons and Fawcetts scanned the Communist Party's daily paper in vain searching for any further mention of their departed hero. He didn't rate a single mention.

How different from 20 years ago, when Stalin's name was going to live for ever! This is what the arch-Stalinist agent Monty Johnstone had to say 'Challenge' the Young Communist League paper, on March 14, 1953:

'In the passing of J. V. Stalin the working people of the whole world have suffered an irreparable loss ... No man in our times has done so much as Stalin to change the course of world history through the inestimable leadership and help he has given the oppressed of the world in their struggle for freedom and a happier life ... His life is an example to every young socialist of courage, tenacity, faith in the people, the combination of study and action, constant devotion to principle ...

'On his passing we can say, people in every country in the world are plunged into the deepest grief at the news that the heart of the most outstanding revolutionary leader of all times - COMRADE JOSEPH STALIN-has ceased to beat ... Stalin-loved as no other man in world history has ever been loved by working people . . • Stalin—who has written golden pages in world history whose lustre time can never efface; indeed, with the advance of years, their grandeur and nobility will increase 'With tear-blinded eyes and a grief we have not the language at our command to describe, we swear that our Communist Party and our "Daily Worker", ', will do all in their power to pick up that banner of national independence [!] that Comrade Stalin spoke about in his speech to the 19th Congress, hold it proudly aloft, and never allow it to be sullied power in the world. ETERNAL GLORY TO THE MEMORY OF JOSEPH Pollitt rated Stalin above Lenin, though the Party theoreticians were slightly more modest. They only considered Stalin the equal of Lenin-though, of course, the equal of Marx and Engels as well:

'Stalin was indeed, from first to last, an exponent of the Marxist art of combining theory with practice at the level of genius—a level which put him abreast of his great predecessors, Marx, Engels and Lenin this gigantic igure in world history we may sav what Engels said at Marx's graveside in Highgate 70 years ago: "His name and his works will live on through the centuries". ('Daily Worker, March 6, 1953).

JAMES KLUGMANN:

•As we mourn the death of the world's greatest working-class leader, we receive a magnificent gift and guide for those fighting in Britain in the of socialism - the first volume, in English, of Stalin's "Collected Works" 'One of the greatest features of all Stalin's work-his combination of the most profound theoretical understanding and constant theoretical explanation with the most consistent revolutionary practice and the utmost simplicity and clarity - is reflected throughout these early writings of the young Stalin 'From the style of Stalin alone-its simplicity, its illustrations from the daily experience of the workers, its logic, its humanity and warm love for those for whom he is writing ... how much there is learn Legacy, 'Labour Monthly, April, 1953).

In the same issue of •Labour Monthly', R. Palme Dutt's eulogy reached a religious fervour:

"The genius and will of Stalin, the architect of the rising world of free humanity, lives on for ever in the imperishable monument of his creation-the soaring triumphs of socialist and communist construction.

'After nearly six decades of tireless theoretical and practical activity and political leadership, rising from height to height of achievement and from triumph to triumph, the greatest disciple and successor of Marx and Lenin completed his lifework on March 1953. . .

'Through all the storms of a thunderous dawn, of the dissolution of an old era and the birth of a new, he steered the ship of human hopes and aspirations with unflinching tenacity, courage, judgement and confidence. Now the road lies plain ahead. Departing, he could say with Bunyan:

• "My sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage, and my courage and skill to him that can get it. My marks and scars 1 carry with me to be a witness for me"

'Like a penetrating searchlight, the loss of Stalin laid bare _The contours of the modern world, the light and the darkness. memoration of Stalin, the pro- The comfound study of his teachings and example, and the absorption of the rich treasury of the inheritance he has left us —-all this is now and will continue the indispensable weapon for further advance.' (Palme Dutt, "Labour Monthly,' April 1953)

The last word must be with the late D. N. Pritt, the great apologist and defender of the Moscow Trials, in which Stalin butchered the Bolshevik Party. In 'Labour Monthly', April 1953, that hack wrote:

'We can indeed be thankful of the Stalinist ments of our history, developments of our So thankful, in fact, that they are forced to maintain a shameful silence.