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NEHRUíS FATALFRIENDSHIP

Sita Ram Goel

Society for Defence of Freedom in Asia

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The Sources of Communist PowerIn India

According to a widespread opinion, in this country aswell as abroad, the sources of communist power in Indialie in our poverty, hunger, disease, social injustice,economic exploitation and political oppression. Thisopinion implies a belief that communism is an ideologywhich attracts the poor and the down-trodden masses. Butwe have no data to support this belief; in fact, all availabledata knocks the bottom out of it. Communist influence inIndia has never been so strong in the poorer country-sideas in the more prosperous towns and cities. Again, in thetowns and cities also the CPI has always derived its strengthmainly, if not entirely, from the educated, propertied andprofessional sections of what the communists callìbourgeoisieî. Sri Ajoy Ghosh, the General Secretary of theCPI, confesses in the Comin-form Journal : ìDespite thebig headway we have made in the recent period, ourposition among the working class, among the agriculturalworkers and poor peasantsóthe classes which constitutethe granite foundation of the proletarian partyóis stillextremely weak.î

Looking at the main political parties vis-a-vis theCommunist Party of India we come to the same conclusion.While the poor parties in opposition, the PSP and the JanaSangh, oppose communism as an ideology and seldomtolerate fellow-travellers in their ranks, the ruling CongressParty continuously hobnobs with communism and is riddled

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with fellow-travellers. Again, inside the Congress Partyitself, while the rank and file is anti-communist thedominant section led by Prime Minister Nehru has alwaysbeen tender towards the Communist Party of India and isincreasingly gravitating towards the Soviet Union.

Vyshinsky and Stalin Define Communism

Our first problem, therefore, is to find a definition ofcommunism. Any attempt at identifying the sources ofcommunist power, without an adequate definition ofcommunism, is foredoomed to failure.

There are popular notions that communism is anideology of certain economic, political, social and culturalends, namely, equality, liberty, fraternity, and so on. Butthere are so many people who fervently believe in theseends and yet denounce and are denounced by theCommunist Party. In fact, communist scriptures repudiateequality as a ìbourgeois prejudiceî, ridicule liberty as aìbourgeois illusionî and look down upon fraternity asìbourgeois sentimentalism.î

Some scholastically inclined people try to definecommunism in terms of Marxism-Leninism, Dialectical andHistorical Materialism, Scientific Socialism and so on.But there are many persons, groups and parties whosubscribe to these dogmas and yet are excluded from thecommunist camp. It is true that we find these dogmasliberally sprinkled throughout communist literature andcommunist parlance. But their sum-total is not equivalent tocommunism. Some essential element is still absent.

What is that essential element? The Soviet theoreticianP. Vyshinsky writes in Voprosy Filosofi : ìAt present theonly determining criterion of revolutionary proletarianinternationalism is : are you for or against the U.S.S.R.?

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An internationalist is not one who verbally recognisesinternational solidarity or sympathises with it. A realinternationalist is one who brings his sympathy andrecognition up to the point of practical and maximum helpto the U.S.S.R., in support and defence of the U.S.S.R. byevery means and in every possible form.î

Stalin also confirms this definition. He writes : ìArevolutionary is a man who, without any reservation,unconditionally, frankly and honestly, with no secretmilitary consultations, is prepared to defend and fight forU.S.S.R............. An internationalist is he who withoutreservation, with no vacillation, with no conditions isprepared to defend the U.S.S.R. He who intends to defendthe revolutionary movement in the world apart from, oragainst, the U.S.S.R. goes against the revolution and mustinevitably slide into the camp of the enemies of therevolution !î (Stalin, Works, Moscow 1954, p.54).

Stalin does not permit even neutrality in this matter.He continues : ìNeutrality in this matter, waverings,reservations, the search for a third position, are attemptsto avoid responsibility, to wriggle out of the unqualifiedstruggle to defend the U.S.S.R................It meansimperceptibly slipping into the camp of the enemies of theU.S.S.R.î (Ibid). It need not be explained that the termsìcommunistî, ìinternationalistî, ìrevolutionaryî,ìproletarianî etc, are interchangeable in communistvocabulary.

Thus communism, in the final analysis, is Sovietpatriotism and can attract only those who believe in theSoviet Union as a radically superior country. Communistideology has no use for Marxism-Leninism or Dialecticaland Historical Materialism or Scientific Socialism except inso far as these dogmas provide them a technical jargon and

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a philosophical scaffolding of the Soviet case. Thoseportions of the dogmas which go against the Soviet Unionin their logical sweep are brushed aside as unessential andthe Masters are constantly edited and re-edited to makethem up-to-date from the point of view of the Soviet Union.This is the most important criterion in locating the sourcesof communist power in India or, for that matter, in any non-communist country.

There is No ìCommunist Party of Indiaî

Another important consideration in identifying thesources of communist power is the fact that communism isnot merely an ideology but also an organisation. We mustbe very clear about the nature of the communist party andnever forget that it is an organisation created, financed,maintained and directed by the Soviet Union. Thus, there isno such organisation as the Communist Party of India.What we have is the Soviet Communist Party working inIndia. Uptil 1943 this Soviet Party styled itself as theCommunist International. In fact the Communist Party ofIndia used to describe itself as a ìSection of the CommunistInternationalî right up to 1943. The first para in thePreamble to the 1934 Constitution of the CPI reads : ìTheCommunist Party of India, being a Section of the CommunistInternational, is the most advanced organised section of theproletariat of India, the highest form of its classorganisation.î This overt description was dropped in the1943 Constitution when the Comintern went undergroundto please America and Britain who became allies of theSoviet Union under the impact of Hitlerís War. But thereality remains the same till today.

The Soviet Communist Party makes use of localconditions in India, but it does not thereby become an

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Indian organisation. The mainstay of the party in Indiahas been students who went to various British andContinental universities and got recruited into theComintern network. Comintern agents regularly come toIndia, particularly at Communist Party Congresses, to guideand instruct the ìCommunist Party of Indiaî. What confusesmany people is that the party sometimes enters anapparently ìpatrioticî phase because of a shift in the policyof the Soviet Union. A recent instance is ìnationalisticîhysteria raised by the ìCommunist Party of Indiaî againstthe U.S. Military Aid to Pakistan. In the words of A. Rossi,the French specialist on communism: ìWhatever pose itstactics may cause it to adopt, it will remain a foreign growthwithin the body of the nationóa cancer, whose naturalfunction is to destroy healthy tissue and undermine vitality.Those who think it can one day be assimilated are thevictims of the most dangerous political illusion of our time.î

So communism is an ideology as well as anorganisation. While the ideology perverts and subvertsmenís minds, the organisation infiltrates and disintegratesall institutionalised life within a given community. In fact,there is a dynamic integration between the ideology andthe organisation. The prevalence of communist ideology inany sector of social life facilitates the task of communistorganizational infiltration ; and communist infiltration, overtor secret, always helps the spread of communist ideology.This interdependence of communist ideology andorganization should never be lost sight of in any correctestimation of communist power and the location of thesources of that power.

With this background, we can proceed to identify thesources of communist power in India. For the sake ofevidence, we shall trace the sources of their ideological

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and organisational power separately, though, in the finaleffect, they are inseparable.

The Soviet Myth

If ideologically communism means Soviet-worship, thegreatest source of its ideological power is the Soviet myth.And the Soviet myth still finds a widespread acceptanceamongst our politically conscious intelligentsia. We havebeen led to believe that the Soviet Union is a new type ofsociety where economic inequality and exploitation havebeen abolished ; where there is no ruling class with amonopoly of economic and political power ; where thenecessities of life have been ensured to every individual ;where class and party strife has been transcended by a newtype of economy and polity ; where literature, art andscience have unlimited scope for development ; where theGovernment and the people are entirely engaged inpeaceful, socialist construction ; and where the desire forworld peace and amity amongst nations is deep and heart-felt.

So long as this Soviet myth remains unexploded, theìCommunist Party of Indiaî will continue to enjoy a veryfavourable atmosphere for building its organisation andspreading its network of spies, saboteurs and professionalagitators in every strategic sector of national life.If the Soviet Union is all that we are told, there shouldbe no harm in the ìCommunist Party of Indiaî comingto power and building a similar paradise in this countryas well.

The Soviet myth has been carefully and systematicallyfostered by the ìCommunist Party of Indiaî through heapsof cheap Moscow literature and a network of newspapers,periodicals, publishing houses, bookstalls, frontorganisations and paid propagandists very frequently let

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loose on our people after brief visits to the Soviet Unionand other communist countries. The Party has been helpedin this task by many liberals and leftists who otherwiseassume a posture of doubt towards theoretical communism.

Recently some serious attempts have been made inIndia to explode the Soviet myth. The greatest credit in thisrespect must go to the Praja Socialist Party. But, on thewhole, responsible sections of Indian opinion have beenrather half-hearted about the job.

Nehru and Others Strengthen the Myth

The Congress has mainly accepted Pandit Nehruíslead who maintains that the Soviet achievements arecolossal though made by paying an equally colossal cost.Pandit Nehru has never specified the nature of thoseachievements or the nature of the costs involved. He onlyasserts that the Soviet Union had to pay those costs becauseof certain historical circumstances, and recommends thatsimilar achievements are possible in India without payingthe same costs. It is very difficult to make any sense out ofthis algebra which refuses to specify the value of anyquantity involved in the equation. But there is little doubtthat this sort of approach to the Soviet myth leaves itessentially intact.

The Gandhians have accepted the same approach asSri Nehru, though they add an ethical colour, to thecontroversy. They believe and say that the Soviet Unionhas used questionable means such as violence to achieveends which are undoubtedly desirable. Thus the impressionthey leave about Soviet achievements tends to fortify thecentral core of the Soviet myth. They make it more readilysaleable by putting the Gandhian stamp on it.

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The leftists (I do not include the Praja Socialists inthis category) contribute their mite to the Soviet myth intheir own manner. Firstly, they raise a smoke-screenof technical Marxist-Leninist jargon and cloud up acommon-sense understanding of the Soviet Union.Secondly, they accuse the Soviet Union of betrayinginternational socialism, of refusing to impose ìrevolutionîon the rest of the world, and thus leave the impression thatthe Soviet ìrevolutionî is a desirable thing.

The liberals add their weight to the chorus by stating,in soft and measured terms, that though the SoveitUnion has sacrificed political democracy to a certain extent,it has to be admitted by all honest persons that a greatmeasure of economic democracy has been achieved there.Their pose of scepticism against any firm handling ofthe Soviet myth works itself out towards the samedisastrous end.

The American Spectre

The Soviet myth is negatively supported by a spectrethe spectre of ìAmerican Impressionî. This spectre servesa manifold purpose. Firstly, every independent effort toexplode the Soviet myth can be denounced as inspired byìAmerican Imperialismî and, therefore, rejected asessentially partisan, if not totally false, Secondly, the SovietUnion can be made to look ever more bright against thebackground of an America which is painted ever moreblack. Thirdly, in cases where the Soviet sins become tooobvious, we can be told that they are not essential to theSoviet system and that they have been forced upon theSoviet Union by Americaís ìimperialist encirclement andinterferenceî. And in the last resort, the glaring ugliness ofSoviet life can be apologised for and abolished in terms of

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such ugliness as can be discovered in or invented about theAmerican way of life.

The ìCommunist Party of Indiaî divides its tremendouspropaganda power almost equally between maintaining theSoviet myth and sustaining the spectre of AmericanImperialismî. And most of the responsible sections ofIndian opinion have joined this communist campaignagainst America for one reason or the other. In fact,America has already become a closed question in thiscountry. America can no more be discussed freely andfrankly. She has to be abused according to an agreed ritual.I do not think I exaggerate when I assert that communismin India is advancing as much on the wings of the Sovietmyth as behind the smoke-screen of anti-Americanism.

Our foreign policy, especially after the grant ofAmerican military aid to Pakistan, has become a powerfulmotive which simultaneously props up the Soviet myth andthe American spectre. The Government of India nowfrowns upon efforts to explode the Soviet myth in the nameof goodwill towards a ìfriendly nationî. The outstandingnewspapers in this country are increasingly employingcommunists and fellow-travellers in responsible positionsto please the Prime Minister. Even a paper like theStatesman has been forced to accept an inveteratefellowtraveller like Prem Bhatia (who writes undervarious guises) as its reporter and columnist. Quite a feweditors and journalists have changed their tone, if not theiropinion, to suit the Prime Ministerís taste.

Marxist Thought-Categories

The Soviet myth and the spectre of ìAmericanImperialismî are sanctioned, in the final analysis, bysomething more than mere propaganda by the communists

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and their allies. The ultimate basis of their acceptance isprovided by Marxist thought-categories which are acceptedas ìscientificî truth even in avowedly anti-communistcircles. Firstly, as the system of capitalism or freeenterprise is more or less universally regarded as thesource of all ills from which mankind suffers, and theabolition of that system is praised as a virtue in itself, theSoviet Union stands justified axiomatically while Americastands self condemned. Secondly, America as a capitalistcountry is supposed to be constantly threatened with wantof raw materials and markets for her finished goods andthus always on the look-out for colonies by imperialistpenetration of other economies. It is asserted that so long asAmerica cannot find suitable and sufficient outlet for herindustrial surplus, she must pile up armaments to use hersurplus productive capacities and, in the last resort, wage aworld war to dominate the whole world. The Soviet Union,as a non-capitalist country, faces no such problems and assuch is neither in need of colonies nor in search of war.There are many more such categories which I cannotdiscuss here for want of space. Their final upshot is awhite-washed Soviet Union and a blackened America.There are very few people amidst our politically consciousintelligentsia who have been through these categories andrealised that they do not interpret the real situation. Ouruniversities are totally dominated by professors andlecturers who regard these categories of thought asincontrovertible and holy truth and who continue to poisongeneration after generation of our young men and women.

Now I pass on to communist organisation whichsustains and employs the Soviet myth and the spectreof ìAmerican imperialismî ; penetrates all institutionalisedlife ; inhibits, assails and chokes out all endeavours

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at exposing the Soviet myth and communist infiltration.Today this organisation enjoys all constitutional and legalrights which democratic India can afford and has becomehighly respectable in the public eye due to the PrimeMinisterís patronage in pursuit of his foreign policy.

Three-Pronged Organisation

The organisation is three-prongedóopen, camouflagedand secret. The open organisation consists ofwhat is commonly known as the ìCommunist Party ofIndiaî which has a constitution, publishes party manifestos,maintains party organs, publishing houses, anetwork of party offices, members and paid whole-timers, participates in all sorts of elections and sends itsrepresentatives in our Parliament, the State Assembliesand all sorts of local bodies. The camouflaged organisationconsists of what are called ëfrontí organisations, suchas the All-India Trade Union Congress, All-India KisanSabha, All-India Studentsí Federation, All-India PeaceCouncil, the Progressive Writersí Association, the IndianPeopleís Theatre Association, the National Federation ofWomen, the Indian Association of Democratic Lawyers, theIndia-China Friendship Association, the Indo-Soviet CulturalSociety, the Congress of Scientific Workers, etc. The frontsbuild specialised platforms in every walk of our social life,politicalise every non-political issue, create fellow-travellers, use non-political reputations for politicalpurposes, infiltrate, control and influence the government,the press, the universities, political parties and every typeof club and association, and organise exchange ofdelegations with communist countries and communistorganisations abroad. The secret organisation consists ofwhat is popularly known as the ìundergroundî but which

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the communists call the ìTechî. No member of the ìTechîcan be recognised as a communist or a fellow-traveller.Their special job is to infiltrate the Armed Forces, thePolice, the policy-making organs of the Government, tocarry on espionage for the Soviet Government, to carryarms and ammunition and prepare for insurrection, civilwar, or coup díetat, whichever method suits the Party in itsfinal bid for power.

Rs. 20 Crores For CPI From Russia

The primary source of this organisational strengthis the Soviet money (amounting to twenty crores of rupeesor so every year) which flows into this country specificallyfor maintaining this organisation. Ample finances enablethe Communist Party of India to maintain : I) sixty toseventy thousand wholetimers with monthly wages rangingfrom fifty to hundred rupees for ordinary whole-timers,to several thousand rupees for important partyfunctionaries, communist Members of Parliament and StateAssemblies etc. ; 2) scores of daily, weekly and monthlynewspapers ; 3) hundreds of publishing houses andbookstalls ; 4) hundreds of party offices with clerical staff,office machines and vehicles, and 5) several hundredprofessional fellow-travellers clustered around the frontorganisations. Enormous amount of money is spent insubsidizing papers like the Blitz, arranging conferences,festivals, dramas and frequent delegations and missionsabroad. The communists buy off and allure intellectuals,writers, poets, artists, sports men, publicists, journalists, etc.with the help of money in cases where the ideological pullfails or proves inadequate.

And this tremendous organisational power is usedby the communists not only for spreading their ideology,

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politics and organisational network, but also for denyingopportunities to, and character assassination of, all thosewho are opposed to communism. While persons, groupsand parties amenable to communist ideological influenceare attracted into the communist network, persons, groupsand parties opposed to communism are set against eachother by sheer organisational manoeuvres and whisperingcampaigns. Today this organisational domination by thecommunists has assumed serious proportions in India.

Infiltration on Three Fronts

First of all, our universities are deeply infiltrated bycommunist professors and student whole-timers. I knowmany university teachers who openly ëteachí communismin their classes. Anyone who tries to oppose them or tocarry on some amount of anti-communist work ishounded out and blackened in no time. Thus the nationgets a large number of communised young men andwomen to run her administration, economy and education,in times to come.

Secondly, the press has, to a very large extent, passedinto the hands of the Communist Party. One has onlyto look a little more closely into the headlines, newsitems, feature articles and editorials of leading dailiesand weeklies in the country to see the obvious communistslant. In the course of my research I have come acrossnumerous instances of reports and news-items in whicheverything said against the Soviet Union, world-communism or the communist organisation in this country isdeliberately left out and everything favourableto the communist cause flaunted very prominently. Thusan iron-curtain is being sprung up round this country,all unknown to people who run the government or thepolitical parties.

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Thirdly, the ruling Congress Party has beenconsiderably penetrated. Though the Congress Party stillswears by Gandhism, its slogans have already becomecommunist slogans for all practical purposes. Manycommunists and fellow-travellers, such as the MarxistForward Bloc, are entering the Congress under the pretextof supporting Nehruís foreign policy and Avadi resolutionon ìsocialistic patternî. The anti-communists inside theCongress are being increasingly silenced by the spectre ofìAmerican imperialismî. The communist task has beenfurther facilitated by the destruction of inner-partydemocracy inside the Congress, mainly by Nehru. If thepresent trend continues, it is absolutely sure that thecommunists will, in near future, make a bid to capture theCongress organisation and, through it, the country.

And, No Opposition!

Negatively, the communist organisational offensiveis aided because the field is devoid of all competition. TheCongress party which has the resources and the personnelto accept and meet the communist challengeorganisationally, has neither the competence nor the willto do the job. Lacking all ideology except what Nehrumay say from time to time on concrete issues, the Congressorganisation spends all its time in faction fighting on thelocal as well as the ministerial level. And the other twoparties, the P.S.P. and the Jana Sangh, suffer from extremepaucity of resources and personnel to meet communistorganisational challenge, even though they have theknowledge and the will to meet it. The unfortunate crisisinside the P.S.P., whose base on the population is the sameas that of the communists, has given further organisationaladvantage to the communists.

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I do not want to elaborate here on the failures ofopposition parties to fill the gap left by disappearance ofcommunist opposition. That is a wider question ; though itsimplications have a relevance to the estimation ofcommunist strength. In my opinion, the refusal of theopposition parties at this juncture to attack Nehruís foreignpolicy and the increasing influence of communism in thecountry will prove ultimately the most disastrous event inthe history of India. Whether the refusal is an outcome ofconfusion, cowardice, or calculation is immaterial.

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Nehruís Fatal Friendship

ìI want with my vote to support Henderson in thesame way as the rope supports a hanged man,î wroteLenin in what is considered to be his maturest work,namely, Left-wing Communism : An Infantile Disorder,first published in June 1920. And this has been theguiding principle not only of the communist parties intheir ìunited frontî tactics, but also of the Soviet Statein its ìfriendlyî relations with other states.

The Excuse For This Friendship

Ever since the signing of the U.S.-Pakistan MilitaryAid Agreement, our Government has, to all intents andpurposes, abandoned its policy of neutrality and enteredon a phase of enthusiastic friendship with the Soviet Unionand its satellite, Red China. Whether there wasa predisposition for this change, and the U.S.-PakAgreement provided merely a handy excuse, is a largerquestion which I do not want to discuss here. But thismuch is clear, that our government has recently startedmaking earnest endeavours to popularise Soviet Russia andits satellite, as a first step to inhibiting all efforts, howsoeversmall, at an objective estimate of these countries and theirprofessed religion of communism. Scores of officialdelegations and missions have been recently swarming

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towards the Soviet Union and Red China, and one candiscover a note of unity in their praise for the communistcountries such as can only be master-minded by adeliberate propaganda effort. That effort is very muchobvious in the news bulletins over the All India Radio andthe documentaries released by the Ministry for Informationfor display in thousands of our cinema houses.

Those who have made a close study of communism, theSoviet Union and the history of the International Communistmovement can see in this new policy nothing butdisaster and ruination for independent, democratic India. Iknow that these people are scoffed at as ìIndianMacíCarthiesî ìreactionaries obssessed with the spector ofsocial revolutionî, ìAmerican Agentsî and ìenemiesî ofIndia. I also remember that the very same scoffers used thevery same technique when they denounced peopleopposed to the Muslim League and its slogan of Pakistan asìcommunalistsî, ìagents of British imperialismî, ìdistruptorsof national unityî and so on. The Muslim League triumphedand Pakistan became a fact because the nation allowed thescoffers to triumph. It is an irony of history that the samepeople who created Pakistan are today leading the countryinto another disaster, this time in the name of opposition toPakistan !

How Communists Captured China

In this article I wish to present the concrete cases ofthose countries for which friendship with the SovietUnion has proved fatal. The first and a classicalexample is our great neighbour, Republic of China.The Father of the Republic, Dr. Sun Yat Sen, signedan agreement with Soviet Russia on June 20, 1923, as aresult of which the Chinese communists entered the

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Koumintang Party and Moscow sent a team of ìadvisersîto implement the ìallianceî. The communists immediatelystarted Trojan-horsing the Koumintang Party, its massorganisations and the Chinese Army. Towards the end ofMarch, 1927, Moscow sent the following message to itsagents in China : ìThe work of the communist cells in thearmy must be intensified ; they must be organisedwherever they do not now exist and wherever theirorganisation is possible ; where the organisation of theCommunists cells is impossible, intense work must becarried on with the help of concealed communistsî, (Stalinon China, pp. 89-90, Peopleís Publishing House Ltd, 1951).And on April 5, 1927 Stalin said openly before theCommunist Academy in Moscow : ìThe peasant needs anold worn-out jade as long as she is necessary.....So theyhave to be utilised to the end, squeezed out like a lemonand then flung away.î

Accordingly, the communists made a bid to captureShanghai and the Republican Government in Hankow.China was saved only because Chiang Kai-shek who hadreceived his training in Moscow understood the communisttactics and was sufficiently vigilant. Nevertheless, thecountry had to pass through a terrible blood-bath in April1927. Moreover, communist infiltration in the Armyenabled Chu Teh and Chou En-Lai to escape with a numberof well trained troops, and the country had to suffer a civilwar from 1927 to 1934 when Chiang Kai-shek at lastsucceeded in driving the communists out of the heart ofChina. The Soviet Government helped the communistrebels with money, arms and advice and threw to winds itsìallianceî with the Republic of China.

But Chiang Kai-shek himself repeated the mistake ofDr. Sun Yat Sen when in August 1937 he signed a Non-

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Aggression pact with the Soviet Union. Moscow wasshaking under the impact of the Anti-Comintern Pactbetween Germany, Italy and Japan. Nanking needed anally against Japan but could not pursuade the WesternPowers to give up their ìneutralityî. The ChienseCommunists announced another ìunited frontî withKuomintang on September 22, 1937, abandoned their land-confiscation programme, ìabolishedî their Soviet formof Government and ìrenamedî the Red Army as theNational Revolutionary Army. But Maoís directive inOctober 1937 to the Eighth Route Army was : ìThe Sino-Japanese war affords our Party an excellent opportunityfor expansion. Our fixed policy should be seventy percentexpansion, twenty percent dealing with the Kuomintangand ten percent resisting Japan. Our forces shouldpenetrate deeply into Central China, sever thecommunications of the Central Government troops invarious sectors, isolate and disperse them until we areready for the counter-offensive and wrest the leadershipfrom the Kuomintang.î As a result of the communistsabotage and civil war against Nationalist armies, aided andabetted by the Soviet Union to please Japan, China had tosuffer speedy defeats and was saved only because WesternPowers overcame Japan in 1945. Meanwhile, the SovietUnion had signed a Non-Aggression Pact with Japan in1943.

The coup de grace to the Chinese Republic wasdelivered when Chiang Kai-shek was forced by hisAmerican ìalliesî to sign a Treaty of Friendship andAlliance with the Soviet Union on August 14, 1945. Interms of the Treaty, the Soviet Government promised ìtogive moral support and aid in the form of militaryequipment and other material resources, it being

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understood that such support and aid would, in theirentirety, be extended to the National Government as theCentral Government of China.î But the Soviet occupationArmy in Manchuria blocked the entry of Nationalist troopsto accept Japanese surrender, gave the ChineseCommunists a free hand to equip themselves with colossalquantities of armaments, stock-piled by Japan inanticipation of a last ditch fight against Americans,permitted them to set-up civil administration in all Japaneseoccupied territories, and supplied them with Lend-Leasestores piled up by America in Siberia for a Soviet waragainst Japan, besides other military equipmentsmanufactured in the Soviet Union. And when thecommunists, after their victory in the civil war, establishedthe Peopleís Republic of China on October 2, 1949 theSoviet Union was the first country to recognise it and opendiplomatic relations with it on October 2, 1949. TheCommunist Party of India summed up the matter in thefollowing words : ìWe cannot fail to note the fact that theChinese Red Army was surrounded and threatened withannihilation again and again until it reached Manchuria.There, with the industrial base in hand, and the greatfriendly Soviet Union in the rear, Chinese Liberation Armyrebuilt itself and launched the final offensive which led it tovictory.î (Statement of the Policy of the Communist Party ofIndia, November 1951).

Communist Contribution to the Fall of France

France was the next country to try friendship withSoviet Russia. The French-Soviet Alliance was finallynegotiated in May, 1935. The draft agreement,however, had been formally signed early in 1934. Eversince then the French Communist Party had entered a

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ìpatrioticî phase. On July 27, 1934 a ìpact of unityî hadbeen signed between the French Socialist Party and theCommunist Party of France. On October 9, 1934,communist leader, Thorez, gave the call to broaden theìUnited Frontî into a ìPopular Frontî to include the FrenchRadicals in the Bloc. When this had been achieved, theCommunists raised the slogans of ìFrench reconciliationîand a ìNational Frontî against Fascism, aiming to rope inthe Catholic and capitalist parties also. This effort, however,was a failure because the Catholics refused to co-operatewith the communists. But the elections held in April 1936gave a majority to the ìPopular Frontî parties, thecommunists being a decisive segment of that majority. Thenew Government was headed by the socialist leader, LeonBlum. At this point the communists took a turn, refused tojoin the Government, fomented industrial trouble andcaptured the organised working class. To theirindispensability inside the Government majority they thusadded a hold over the most strategic sector of French life.

At the outbreak of the war in 1939 the communistswere in complete control of engineering, building, textile,electrical, leather and agricultural workers. Their infiltrationin the unions controlling aeroplanes and ammunitionfactories was considerable. But, meanwhile, the ìPopularFrontî had disintegrated and disappeared ; in its place, theFrench nation was faced with the Stalin-Hitler Pact. Moscowhad used its ìfriendshipî for France as a lever for reachinga more favourable agreement with Berlin, and thecommunist Trojan-horse had been firmly planted in Paris.And while Poland was being partitioned between Germanyand Russia, and Scandinavian countries, overrun by HitlerísWehrmacht, the French Communist Party, was hecticallypropagating against the ìimperialist war started by the

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French ruling classes against the German workersî,advocating mass desertions from the French Army,organising widespread sabotage of industrial production,especially of aeroplanes and ammunition. The Party leader,Thorez, deserted from the Army, escaped to Moscow andcarried on the same traitorous propaganda over the SovietRadio. A large proportion of the arms issuing from factorieswhose workers were under communist control, were eitherduds or sabotaged to produce mortal accidents. Thus thecommunists made a major contribution to the downfall ofFrance in June 1940. The German Armies could easily tearthrough a French Army whose rear had been paralysed bysabotage and whose morale shaken by desertions anddefeatist propaganda on a mass scale.

This is not the place to re-call how the FrenchCommunist Party actively co-operated with the Germanarmies in occupied France till Hitler attacked theirSoviet Fatherland ; how, while the patriotic resistancegroups fought against Germans, the French Communistskilled thousands of French people after accusing themof ìcollaboration with the Nazisî when in actual fact theironly guilt was that they did not like the communists andwere determined to thwart a communist bid for power afterthe withdrawal of German forces ; and how the Partycreated large-scale disorders and strikes while France wasundergoing throes of post-war recovery. The conclusionwhich emerges from this story is that friendship with theSoviet Union cost France a military defeat, thousands ofinnocent French lives, and almost her independence.Today, France is a house divided against itself ; thepowerful French communists are dedicated to sabotageevery French action till they themselves seize power. That

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the communists will fight for Russia in any future war hasbeen declared in very clear words by the Party boss,Thorez, who still presides over the Party from his palace onthe French Riviera.

The Betrayal of the Spanish Republic

Another country which tasted Soviet ìfriendshipîand paid the inevitable price at the same time as Francewas Republican Spain. The Communist Party of Spainwas negligible when the Spanish workers sprang to actionin defence of the Republic against Francoís revolt inJuly 1936. The resistance was entirely led by theSocialists, the Anarcho-Syndicalists and the P.O.U.M.The Communists became influential only when Sovietarms started arriving in Spain towards the end of 1936and the Comintern organised the International Brigade.Very soon they obtained entry into the RepublicanGovernment at Madrid, presented the army and the police,and took possession of all other strategic positionsin the Republican apparatus. The Soviet supplies wererefused to all army units except those fighting undercommunist control. The Socialist Party was split fromwithin on the question of supporting communist policies,the Anarcho-Syndicalists were disarmed and disbanded,and the P.O.U.M., including their leader, Nin, weremassacred in cold blood. The Spanish Republic hadbecome a puppet in the hands of Moscow when Stalinstarted fishing for an understanding with Hitler towardsthe end of 1938. By December 1938 the Soviet suppliesdwindled into insignificance so that in the beginning of1939 Franco had a walk-over. The Hitler-Stalin Pactwas announced a few months later. Soviet Russia had

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not only sacrificed the Republic of Spain but also theSpanish Communist Party and the thousands of believingcommunists and fellow-travellers from all over the world.

The Rape of Czechoslovakia

The last and a very recent instance of Sovietìfriendshipî is provided by Czechoslovakia. Dr. Benessigned the Treaty of Friendship, Mutual Assistance andPost-war Collaboration with the Soviet Union on September12, 1943. Immediately the Czech communists who hadtaken refuge in Moscow became influential and obtainedimportant places in the post-war Czech Governmentorganised at Kosice on April 4, 1945. The communistsobtained the Ministries of Interior, Information, Educationand Agriculture. The popular parties such as the SlovakCatholics and the Czech and Slovak Agrarians wereexcluded from the Government under communist pressure.As the first fruit of ìfriendshipî, Czechoslovakia had tosurrender Sub-Carpathian Ruthenia, an area of 4,921 squaremiles, to the Soviet Union on June 29, 1945. The secondfruit was that the Communist Party of Czechoslovakiaobtained 114 seats out of 300 in the National Assemblyelected in 1946, after excluding from the election allpopular parties who were manifestly opposed tocommunism.

The end came quickly thereafter. The communistministers started talking of an ìanti-communist blocîwithin the Government which was, in fact, completelydominated by them, and of ìreactionary forcesî outside.They discovered a ìplotî in October 1947 and destroyedthe Slovak Democratic Party which had entered into acoalition with them at the beginning of the new regime.

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Next they started moving towards the Socialists; thenext powerful party represented in the Government. Aìdeadlockî was manufactured in the Government overthe appointment of certain police officers and theSocialists, were forced to resign in protest. Dr. Benes,the President of the Republic, decided to resist thiscommunist game, when Prague was suddenly visited bythe Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister on February 19,1948. What happened after that is well known. Whilethe Russian Army massed on the border the CommunistParty of Czechoslovakia staged a coup díetat on February27, 1948, and established its dictatorship. On March 10,1948, Jan Masaryk, the Foreign Minister was thrownout of a window and died on the pavement below. OnSeptember 3, Dr. Benes was murdered in his retirement.Their names are never mentioned in Communist literaturewithout being preceded by the epithet ìtraitorî.

The question now arises: why should ìfriendshipîwith the Soviet Union be so fatal? The answer is providedby the specific nature of the Soviet State. It is an extra-ordinary state in the sense that it is ideologically committedto world conquest in the name of ìproletarian worldrevolutionî, and maintains the international communistconspiracy as an instrument of that commitment.Consequently, as soon as a country becomes friendly tothe Soviet Union it has to provide full opportunities tothe communist party working within its own borders.All criticism of communism or the communist party hasto be inhibited in the name of ìfriendshipî with theSoviet Union. In fact, the Soviet Union has to bepopularised, leading to a direct increase in communiststrength inside the country. And the Communist Party

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can always be depended upon to play the Leninist-Stalinist game of biting the hand which feeds it, of kickingthe ladder which raises it, of ìsqueezing the lemonand throwing it away.î In case the Soviet Union entersinto another alliance which runs counter to its previousalliance, the fattened communist party organises sabotagein the interests of the new alliance.