A New Communist Line ?
The signs that a major change in Communist tactics is about to be made—or has been made already—are getting too numerous to be ignored. The speech by M. Marcel Cachin, the veteran Com- munist, at the opening of 'the French National Assembly on January, nth, in which he took a surprisingly mild line towards the United States and other " imperialists," has turned out to be no isolated phenomenon. On Sunday,'Signor Togliatti, the leader of the Italian Communists, expressed his regret that President Truman's recently expressed desire for accord with Russia was not repeated in his inauguration speech. In Germany, Herr Max Reimann, while emphasising the German nationalism which became part of the party line some weeks ago, has said that there is some chance of an understanding between East and West. And while all this is happen- ing the barrage of abuse against " Wall Street domination," " Western Imperialism " and similar phenomena has died away, to be replaced by an occasional perfunctory' shot, fired more in sorrow than in anger. In the light of such events Mr. Truman's unexplained assertions that some of the inhabitants of the Kremlin are being more reasonable than others take on a new significance. So does the fact that Academician Varga, Stalin's old assistant, who recently fell from grace for arguing that the Western Capitalist States might manage to stave off the next slump, and has apparently refused to eat his words, is still alive to tell the tale. Some spectacular infer- ences have been drawn, are being drawn, and need to be restricted. The Communist Party, line is a matter of day-to-day tactics—not of fundamental doctrine. The quantitative reduction in the volume of abuse of the West will not approach the point of qualitative change until propaganda dies down among the Russian satellites, until there is some verifiable evidence of Russian disarmament, until the Red Army withdraws to Russia, until Communists become reconciled to the Marshall Plan, until mischief-making in South-East Asia ceases, and until Premier Stalin withdraws from circulation those of his works which advocate world-wide armed revolt.
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