19 MARCH 1948, Page 15

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 44 COMMUNISM HERE " Six,—,Mr. W.

J. Brown's article on this subject is able and challenging, but it fails in that it attempts no examination of the alleged difference between Communism, as at present controlling Russia, and State Socialism, as operating in this country. What is the difference ? The conception of Mandan Communism as first accepted by Russia was the ideal of the State control of "ail of the sources of production, distribu- tion and exchange." The revolutionaries enforced this form of govern- ment on an inarticulate population by bloody revolution, and the Com- munist Party (never numbering more than five million there) took control. The State (that is, the Communist Party) took over all national Russian assets. Later, when they found •their programme an unworkable one, they adopted a naked dictatorship. The State Socialists (voicing the views of Bernard Shaw, G. D. H. Cole and Harold Laski among others) in this country, accepted the same goal—the State control of " all of the sources of production, distribution and exchange", and were returned to power by a minority of British electors to implement this programme. So far (in Lord Passfield's classic phrase) they have adopted the "inevitability of gradualness,"- and have only nationalised coal, trans- port, electricity, gas and the health services. That, however, is not State Socialism (the Liberal Party has advocated a similar course for the control of all monopolies for twenty-five years) but it is the beginning of a policy which may be continued indefinitely. Its supporters will say that it differs from Communism in as much as it is not a dictatorship, and is not revolutionary, and that it has received the assent of Parliament, but in the process Ministers have framed more than two thousand Orders in Council which have never been submitted to-the House of Commons for approval. It may fairly be said, therefore, that the difference between Communism and State Socialism is only one of degree ; the ultimate aim is the same in both cases.

The effect of this policy can already be seen in the White Paper Survey of last week, and the speeches of Sir Stafford Cripps on the same subject. The one forecasts the pos•sibility of mass unemployment in this country in the near future, which many critics of the present Govern- ment have been anticipating for the last two years ; the other threatens the possibility of a " dictatorship ", which appears to be the inevitable outcome of our present policy. Meanwhile it is wise to realise what the new weapons are that we have created in the process. Mass unemployment will almost certainly result in large-scale strikes ; if this happened with coal and transport, our industrial life could be suspended in fourteen days. We would need no majority vote to secure this result— Communist infiltration could., and would, seize the opportunity to bring it about. Then only the " dictatorship " which Sir Stafford Cripps envisages could attempt to deal with the situation.

But, it may be argued, this could never happen in Great Britain ; we are a democratic country, and the common sense of the ordinary citizen would prevent it. Unfortunately our citizens would have little voice in the matter. Czechoslovakia was as democratic as we are (perhaps more so), but a small minority of resolute men were able to overthrow their Government, and impress their will on the people. There are still millions of voters who believe that we have some secret source of inexhaustible wealth behind us, and do not realise that we are at present living on rapidly diminishing capital, and totally dependent on U.S. assistance. This is natural, with inflated wages and almost unlimited sub- sidies. Is it yet too late to see the rocks starkly ahead, and alter our course while there is yet time to do so ? Meanwhile, the Russian policy is unchangeable and unchanging, as Lenin, Stalin and Molotov have frequently declared it ; it is " world Communism or downfall." For this reason, the present international unrest is largely politically