LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
How to Deal with China sea,—Two contributions in your issue of January 19th give me an opportunity to put down some things that have been on my mind.
I recently spent sixteen months living under Communist rule in China, and this first-hand contact made many things plainer to me. Chief of these is the power of the Communists' propaganda. By what I have seen, It is by propaganda, supplemented by force and fear, that they have so extended their areas of allegiance. The crude technique, that used to be dismissed by the West as of little account, I saw succeeding. It convinces.
It wears down resistance. It obliterates memory. Although, for all the many virtues of the new regime, few even after a year either trusted or loved it, yet I saw a gradual increase of support, along with wider acceptance of the falsehoods of the indoctrination campaign. In the
present world-struggle of ideas, what seems to be counting most is not at all what is true, but what is accepted as true, as the result of propaganda ; not fact, but belief.
To those of us living in a Communist environment, the proposals of our statesmen for combating Communism seemed remote and unrealistic. These idealists appeared to imagine that the good deeds of the Western world—raising of living standards in other lands, courteous and fair diplomacy, care not to cause provocation, even when provoked.
the propagation of factual news—that these would convince the world of the rightness of the non-Communist cause. Human nature being what it is, assisted by Communist propaganda, it won't. It hasn't had any such effect in China. Even though Britain did yield to India's desire for self-rule, how can that win applause unless this is widely known ? But the true facts are just not known. How can the existence of the British Welfare State play a part, outside Britain, against the claims of Communism, unless people know about it ? And they don't. Just in what way would the raising of living standards in under-developed countries hinder Communism, unless this were allied to a powerful propaganda effort ? For Communist propaganda would quickly distort the achievement to the credit of Communism and the discredit of its enemies.
The only effective weapon against Communist arguments is counter- propaganda. In your review of Douglas Hyde's book, 1 Believed, it is pointed out that the underlying faith that keeps disillusioned Communists loyal to the cause is the belief that Stalin's Russia remains the best hope for the working-classes. My experiences confirm this. Let this illusion, or part-illusion, be made the target of a world-wide campaign giving the less lovely facts about Russia. That this is a sensitive spot to the Communist Parties is proved by the prominence they give to the portrayal of Russia as a contemporary Utopia. I met few Chinese who knew anything about the darker facts—living conditions, slave camps, &c. What, then, about ways and means ? Here is difficulty enough. But do we use sufficiently the means already available ? On the Far Eastern broadcast I cannot remember hearing a strong anti-Communist talking.
Very occasionally there might be reports of a speech at the United Nations complaining about Communist conduct, but in a tone so detached as to seem weak and uninteresting to any oriental listener. This sort of thing is worse than nothing, for the foreign listener, unfamiliar with " the English way," justifiably assumes that we haven't got a case to declare. Worse even than this is the habit of the B.B.C. of retailing gratis to the world, on the curious grounds of impartiality, the latest injurious and preposterous declarations of Communist spokesmen,
announced over the news on an equal level with extracts from speeches on our side or, sometimes, even without the latter as a counter. No inflection of voice, or comment, is added to suggest that such a declara- tion is not to be taken seriously, which is what the oriental listener does. Ac one of them said to me: "There must be something in it.or else obviously the B.B.C.. which is government-controlled, would not report it." In these ways we not only fail to oppose and counter Communist propaganda ; we even give it gratuitous assistance.
Then there is jamming. I often wondered whether there existed any technical reason why, in China, Moscow broadcasts were permitted to be clearly heard, whereas the wave-lengths used by the democratic stations were nightly jammed. Why is there no retaliation in kind ? If this is deliberate policy, 1 can state that, far from impressing people with our respect for free speech, this practice causes the oriental to think of us as merely stupid, timid, and having a weak case which cannot be defended.
Have not the democracies surrendered too easily to the idea that the Iron Curtain is impassable ? One observes how our utmost resources of science and finance arc being expended in the development of explosives and ways of projecting them. But has there yet been any corresponding attempt to solve this most crucial and urgent of all political problems in the world today—the problem of how to ensure the dissemination of factual news to the populations of totalitarian regimes ? Without the fullest use of continuous and strenuous counter- propaganda, I can see no final succcss, at any rate in the East, for all the military and diplomatic efforts of the democracies.—Yours truly, A. R. W.
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