BELGRADE WON’T WILT IN PEKING BLAST

“THE first time as tragedy, the second time as farce...’ That is how history is said to repeat itself, and this has certainly been confirmed by the new dispute between the Stalinist world.and Yugoslavia.

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That Peking instead of Moscow is acting as the major spokesman of Stalinism has scarcely made the level of the antiTito polemics any higher...

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Most important thing about the Peking declaration is the way it tries to bring back to life the 1948 Cominform resolution. The Yugoslavs’ reply—in their theoretical magazine Komunist—is sardonic and vigorous. They ask:

‘Is the purpose of the article a discussion on ideological divergences which may exist between Communist Parties?’ and answer:

‘The article obviously is designed to preclude constructive Marxist clarification of definite problems facing socialism today, and to subject a Communist Party to some kind of “ideological isolation” just because it places those problems on the agenda.’

These words show how deep is the split between Belgrade ;

’ ference intended for discussion of policy into an irrelevant shouting match’. .

Whatever else might be said about the questions that were : : asked, they were hardly ‘irrelevant’—all related to the bomb and how to get rid of it.

Perhaps this was a misprint for ‘irreverent’? - There was certainly no misplaced reverence about the meeting: and- that was the most reassuring feature about it to many newcomers to the Labour Party. ;

May Day proof As there was no proper provision for discussion, questioning -inevitably assumed:a ‘discussional’ ‘character, And Bevan, the chief speaker, did nothing to lower the temperature. when he called one of ‘his questioners a. ‘selfsatisfied little person who. thinks she knows all the answers’.

This referred to Vivienne Mendelson; who spoke for the Norwood resolution at the Brighton conference and is evidently now a ‘marked woman’ for some people. .

The reception which The Newsletter’s banner and placards were given.on the May Day march to Hyde Park proved that the ideas behind the questions: put to Bevan.are widely held and gaining support.

BRIAN PEARCE munist line has been to support Bevan.

-- Khrushchev, it is generally known, told Bevan.that Britain must keep the H-bomb. (Accounts of Khrushchev’s motives differ, but the most. plausible version is that he fears that if Britain renounces the H-bomb America will insist on givin it to west Germany.) es The campaign for Britain to stop making the H-bomb cannot therefore be a party. one, until the Labour Party can. be induced to change its policy.

to Coming together of people It must be what it.is at the moment—a coming together of people from all parties or none, people who feel that the ‘interests of “nations, classes, and parties are less important than the interest of the whole human race, in simply staying alive.

When Wolfgang Harich suggested that both communists and . social-democrats were afflicted with such hopeless gangs of leaders that they rust by-pass the leaders and get together for common. aims, the east German leaders regarded. the suggestion as so explosive that they. put him in prison for ten years.

It remains an explosive idea, and in this country it’s. beginning to happen.

London, N:10 Alison Macleod