Soviet Union
When the Big Four Meet
Since there has been so little detailed consideration, as yet, of the latest Russian disarmament plan, by the press or by responsible political leaders, the New Republic this week dispenses with its Behind-the-Headlines reports in order to present the following analysis and interpretation. AT THE summit, where Britain, France, the Soviet Union and the United States are soon to meet, the weather prediction from all sides is cold. The men who are to meet there share one condition: they are shivering. For its own reasons each government privately fears the encounter.
A European Union Is Still Our Best Hope
Will the Pact Save Peace?
The North Atlantic pact, which involves one of the most fateful decisions in American history, is being discussed in a series of articles in the New Republic. Last week Captain B. H. Liddell Hart, noted British military expert, analyzed the defensibility of Western Europe, and in an editorial we gave our reasons for believing that the North Atlantic pact deserves support. The article below, by Blair Bolles, offering an argument against the plan, is published for its intrinsic interest.
Art, Business, and the Liberals
The liberal, as we understand it, is the person who sincerely wants as many of the good things of this world for his fellow man as he does for himself. His credo is the Bill of Rights (still a very revolutionary document), the Roosevelt Bill of Human Rights, the Truman Civil Rights Program, and all legislation stemming from them.
Let the Reader Beware
Lenin: A Biography, by David Shub (Doubleday and Company; $5). I’ll Never Go Back: A Red Army Officer Talks Back, by Mikhail Koriakov (E. P. Dutton; $3). Tell the West, by Jerzy Gliksman (The Gresham Press; $3.75). Of these three books, only one, David Shub’s biography of Lenin, is a useful contribution to an understanding of Russia and the Russians. The other two are not unfamiliar specimens. Each is an undocumented, uncorroborated narrative of harrowing personal experiences in the Soviet Union. Neither has any particular literary, autobiographical or historical merit.
Togliatti's Assassin Helped Moscow
It is singular testimony to the times that no one in Italy is praying more ardently for Palmiro Togliatti’s recovery than his own worst enemies. There is no doubting the sincerity of Prime Minister Alcide de Gasperi’s anguished cry that the attempted assassination of the Communist leaders was “the worst thing that could have happened.” Togliatti alive in Italy as the competent leader of a lacerated Left opposition, was high in the esteem of his followers but tainted with the stains of their recent defeat. Togliatti dead, murdered, would be invulnerable.
A Federal Economic Council
MUCH THINKING on the nature and methods of our economic system has been stirred up by recent events. The spectacle of the most advanced industrial country in the world suddenly hurled from the heights of prosperity into depression was a shock even to the firm believers in the providential working of natural economic law. Most people have been aroused to a sense of humiliation at the sight of an economically sound country unable to use its resources and to direct its economic destinies.
