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Foreign Affairs HOUSE OF COMMONS Foreign Affairs [MR. ZILLIACUS.]
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so I permitted myself to look up the definition of Communism in the dictionary. I thought it appropriate to look it up in an American dictionary, to wit Webster's Standard Dictionary, which defines Communism as:
"A system of social organisation in which goods are held in common;-the opposite of a system of private property. Any theory or system of social organisation involving common ownership of the agents of produc- tion, and some approach to equal distribution of the products of industry."
Well, I cannot for the life of me see why that idea should be in such funda- mental antithesis to the ethics of Christianity. In fact, I note that there has been quite a controversy in "The Times" on that topic.
I also note the fact that there are tens of thousands of Communists in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union who are at the same time good Catholics, or Greek Orthodox Churchmen, or in some cases even good Baptists or Jews. I see no reason why in course of time Communism and the Churches in Com- munist countries should not make their peace and rub together, much as Marxist social democracy which also started with the same philosophy as Com- munism-has long ago made its peace with the Churches.
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Then we come to the argument that the Communist Parties are mere Fifth Columns," agents, tools and stooges of Moscow; that they owe all to Russian power and influence; and that all that is required is one little word from Moscow to bring them to heel, and even to induce them to disband, to disappear and for ever after hold their peace. All I can say is that if any genius on either Front Bench has discovered that little word which, when pronounced from Moscow, will instantly bring every Com- munist Party to heel, I am sure Stalin would be profoundly glad to hear of that little word so that he can try it on Marshal Tito. The plain truth is that the Communist Parties were originally Left-Wing revolutionary breakaways from the Social Democratic Parties dur- ing and after the first world war, and that they are as native to the soil of their country as the parties from which they sprang.
That does not, of course, alter the fact that they have been very closely
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associated with one another and wh the Soviet Union. They have very often interpreted "internationalism to mean that when father turns they all turn. But what it does mean is that if it is impos- sible for Moscow to induce a major Communist Party on its frontier-namely the Yugoslav Communist Party-even to do the things that nine other Communist Parties think it ought to do in its own interests, it is obviously absurd to reason as though the Kremlin were able to give orders to Communist Parties all over the world to disappear and hold their peace for ever after.
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Equally "phoney is the contention, which is part of the intellectual founda- tions of the war policy, that Communist Parties have a single, all-consuming object, which is to destroy and pull down reconstruction in the various countries in which they exist in order to create chaos and misery for the spread of Com- munism, because that contention over- looks the fact that the Communist Parties in Eastern Europe are, to this day, play- ing a leading part, both in the Govern- ments and in the trade unions, in the reconstruction of their countries on Socialist lines.
In France and Italy the Communist Parties played an equally active and con- structive part so long as they were included in the governing Coalitions which had issued from the resistance move- ments, and their battle today is not against American aid as such; they have always said that they are only too happy to accept American economic aid. Their battle today is against the power politics, the preparations for war and the anti- Communist intervention that is mixed up with Marshall Aid. They are fighting against the fact that the standards of living of the workers in France and Italy have gone down, and down and down, until in France today the average real wage has gone back to 1884, and is less than half of what it was in 1938. In Italy similar conditions prevail, in addi- tion to over 2 million unemployed.
Mr. Crossman (Coventry, East): What are the Communists fighting here?
Mr. Zilliacus: The Communists here are fighting to justify their existence.
Mr. Follick (Loughborough): They are fighting to prove their existence.
Foreign Affairs
9 DECEMBER 1948
Mr. Zilliacus: The point is that in this country the Labour Party leads the over- whelming majority of the working-class because we have got a democracy that works. But one of the first things we must learn is that in a large part of the world conditions are different, and if we want to do business with workers and trade unions we have got to do business with their existing leadership, and not try to introduce some alternative one.
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Foreign Affairs Trotsky on the issue of Socialism in one country versus permanent revolution. The Soviet Union today needs and wants peace as badly as any other country, including our own.
Taylor
Vice-Admiral fundamentally
Mr. Crossman: The hon. Member He made a very important statement. said that the Communists were not op- posed to reconstruction, but were opposed only to the driving down of the standard of living of workers. What are the British Communists opposed to? Are they opposing the present Government on the ground that it is driving down the present standard of living of the workers, or are We they opposing the Marshall Plan? ought to get that clear, because the hon. Member ought to know.
Mr. Zilliacus: Why should I know? I know no more than the hon. Member,
Mr. Crossman: The hon. Member knows exactly what the Communists are doing in France and Italy. He has told us exactly what they are doing. Has he no notion what they are doing here? What about the Communists nearer home? What are the Communists here doing?
Mr. Zilliacus: Judging by the papers, I should say they are fighting for higher wages, worker's control in industry, and a few other things. But their fight here is a comparatively insignificant part of the political scene, whereas their fight in France and Italy is the fight of the work- ing class, and to turn against them is to turn against the working class, which is in fact what the hon. Member for East Coventry (Mr. Crossman) has done, after forgetting his brief "Keep Left" episode.
The third contention is that we cannot come to terms with the Soviet Union because they are out for world revolu- tion and world conquest, and are guilty of indirect aggression. At bottom those charges rest on a faulty conception of the nature and relation to the Soviet Union of the great Communist Parties of Europe. They are false charges. The Soviet Union has ceased to be a revolu- tionary power ever since Stalin defeated
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South): So did Hitler.
(Paddington,
Mr. Zilliacus: Unfortunately, he did not. He said quite openly that he wanted
a war.
Mr. Follick: So has Stalin.
Mr. Zilliacus: Stalin has said again and again that he wants and needs peace. He means it and has shown it. The intellectual foundations of the war policy are, therefore, rotten foundations. As for the moral foundations, they do not exist at all, because anything more pro- foundly immoral than to suggest that we should risk the suicidal gamble of a world war in the hope thereby of wiping out world Communism, I cannot imagine. The folly of that policy becomes evident if one reflects that the first world war ended with the Russian Revolution and shook the capitalist order to its founda- tions. The second world war ended with the spread of Communism-that is, violent social revolution-over half Europe and a large part of Asia, includ- ing most of China. At that rate a third world war would wipe out most of what was left of Western civilisation and demo- cracy, and spread the evils of the "police State and violent revolution over most of the world.
Unhappily, whereas the Opposition wants to plunge us into war at one fell swoop in their hatred and fear of social revolution, the Government appear bent on buying Armageddon on the instal ment plan, for that is in effect what their policy of half-war is working out at. It starts with the same intellectual and
Leader of the Opposition, and it is moral premisses as the policy of the
drifting towards the same suicidal con- clusion. In the meantime, it really is important, by this time, to take note of the fact very seriously that, however good our intentions-and I admit they are of the superlative quality with which the path to a certain fiery destination is paved the fact remains that our foreign policy has been an unequalified failure on every major issue in every part of the world for the last three years.