By PROF. G. D. H. COLE Socialist poses three questions on united action for Communists e a recent article in the New Statesman and Nation. I wrote that in my opinion, though there is still no chance of bringing the Socialist and Communist parties of East and West together for an attempt to reunite socialists for common action on a world-wide basis, the time has come for individual Socialists and Com- munists who do feel the need for such action to begin talking one with another about the basic principles of socialism and the means of bringing it about. The editor of the London Daily Worker thereupon asked me to say what questions I would wish to put to a Com- munist in the course of such a discussion. I do not find it any too easy to respond to his request; for my purpose in any such contact would be much more to find a basis for agreement than to put awkward questions in the hope of scoring a point. I should not wish to discuss anyone’s, or any party’s, past misdeeds except in relation to their bearing on the future; my concern would be to find out whether there is now a real prospect for discussion leading to agreed action, not between myself as an individual and those who follow the Communist party; line — which would be relatively easy in certain fields — but between such persons and the main bodies of non-Com- munist members of Labor or Social-Democratic parties, and of trade unions which follow in the main their line. . * One thing I should want to know is whether Communists still regard those who can be fairly called “right - wing” Socialists and trade unionists as “social traitors,” whose influence is to be fought by every avail- able means, and who are to be regarded as, shall we say, “lack- €ys of the bourgeoisie ?” May I take, to illustrate what I mean, two actual examples: from the past — Arthur Hen- derson and Ernest Bevin — with both of whom I worked closely for some time a long while ago. : Henderson was a “right- winger,” with whose views I disagreed profoundly; but he was also one of the most honest and selfless devotees of the Labor cause I have ever known. Bevin is less easy to sum up because, after starting well on the trade union left, he moved more and more rightwards, end- ing up as a quite disastrous foreign secretary after 1945, and also because, as a person, he was vain, egoistic and suspicious and, though able in many re- spects and fundamentally hon- est, lacked Henderson’s incor- ruptible singleness of mind. It seems to me altogether wrong to denounce either of these men — even Bevin in his last years — as a “social traitor” -i- a phrase which implies that ‘they were acting consciously against the interests of the class they purported to represent. ' JI think their policies — es- pecially Bevin’s — were often badly wrong, and I often opposed them on this ground. But I hold them to have been both honest men, devoted in their several ways to the cause of the workers; and I hold it always illegitimate to make honest disagreements a_ basis for moral blame, or for personal abuse that implies such blame. Henderson and Bevin are dead; but there are today in all the countries of the West, Social- ist and trade union leaders who resemble them; and I want to know whether Communists are now prepared to treat such men as honest holders of their right wing views, to argue with them without resorting to abuse, and in their relations with them to observe the principles of honor- able and even-up to a point comradely dealing. Unless they are prepared to do this, there is no sense in talking about working class unity, which involves bringing such men into comradely associ- ation with persons who have hitherto thought no epithet too strong to be applied to them. * Secondly, I want’ to know whether Communists, in the countries in which they hold the» power, are prepared to go the whole way in undoing, as far as possible, the wrongs that have been done by means of trumped-up allegations against deviators from the party line, or through the treating of devia- tionists as criminals on account of their opinions: and also whether, in future, the expres- sion of dissident opinions, both inside the Communist parties and outside of them, is to be allowed without danger of pun- ishment falling on the dissidents simply because their views are regarded as mistaken, or even as wrong. = Personally, I believe freedom of speech and freedom to form croups for the advocacy of vary- ing views to be of fundamental importance for socialism. I do not say there should be no restrictions on these free- doms: some are unavoidable in any organised society, but they * should be kept down to the bare minimum that the situation re- quires and should always be re- moved or relaxed as soon as the conditions allow. Freedom should always be the norm and restriction the rare exception. Do Communists now admit this and are they ready to act in this spirit ? * Thirdly, I want to know how far the argument that socialism can, under some circumstances, be won without violent revolu- tion really goes, and what the implications are, especially in relation to colonial countries. Is it implied that in some countries, including Britain, Communists are prepared to work on non-revolutionary lines and, if so, what does this in- volve? Again, in colonies where real advances are being made toward self-government and self-deter- rmination, are Communists pre- pared to support the parties which stand for such policies, and refrain from stirring up trouble against them even if they wish to remain attached to the Commonwealth ? I am not, of course, referring . to such areas as Kenya, in which no socialist should do anything short of taking a strong line against every form of racial discrimination. There are three questions. Naturally, if I were writing to right wingers, I should have plenty of questions to put to them about the reality of their wish to create a socialist society, about their attitude to Com- munists, and so on. This article, however, is not the place for such questions: it is simply a short answer to the’ question put to me on behalf of the London Daily Worker. It is meant to indicate the spirit in which I hope ‘the new International Society of Social- ist Studies, of which I have been chosen as president, will ap- proach its task of establishing closer and better relations among those, in all countries, who are working for improved mutual understanding and for a rethinking and restatement of socialist principles in terms re- lated to the practical problems of the present time. ‘ “IF WE'RE GOING TO BECOME MORE , CIVILISED WHAT DO WE DO WITH THIS 2” lo poy 4 ~%. Lae The $64 thousand million question. REPLY TO GAITSKELL ‘But I’m free,’ writes ‘imprisoned’ Socialist PROMINENT Rumanian Socialist, alleged in a recent list to be under arrest, has writ- ten to Hugh Gaitskell, leader of the British Labor party, saying he is “alive and free and well.” The writer, Traian Cercega, whose letter was published by the Rumanian news agency Agerpress, denied “tendentious and fantastic allegations” that he had been imprisoned, tortured or starved. He said: “T am told that you, the leader of the Labor party, together with some of your colleagues, have alleged that I and.some others like me are under arrest and have been deported, and that you expressed anxiety as far as my life and health are concerned. “A number of newspapers in. Britain and other countries are making the fantastic and ob- viously tendentious allegation that I am in Butyrka Jail in Moscow, in cell No. 287, and that a mysterious German or. Austrian prisoner spoke to me from cell No. 289 on November 4 or 5, 1955, by knocking at the wall or through a glass. sk “First of all I should like to reassure and gladden you: I am alive, free and healthy, and I am in my own country, my ad- dress is: Piata Republicei 36, Reshitza, Rumania People’s Re- public, and here I live in free- Allen answers: that. “Dewline is one of the greatest feats of engineering and lobistics in all history, a monu- ment to the ingenuity and hardihood of the North American human being. Unhappily, it may prove to be far more and far less than “Tt is the charter under which a tenth of Canada may very well become the world’s ’ most northerly banana republic. For the sum of money that has been officially estimated at $400 million we have at least temporarily Fas “We've thrust away our sovereignty” ~» ‘ HE FOLLOWING questioNs are from an article in the May 26 issue of Maclean’s Magazine by editor Ralph Allen. The article is headed: “Have We Lost Our North to the U.S.?” traded off our whole northern frontier. “Tn. law we still own this northern fron- tier. In fact we do not. We have not merely allowed our military allies, the people of the United States, to possess it; we have insisted that they possess it. We have done nothing so passive as simply giving up our sovereignty in the Canadian north; we have thrust it away from us ..3." In the same article, Allen tells this story: “The most experienced and responsible Canadian I met in the north was a man I’d rather not identify more closely than that. I asked him bluntly: ‘Do you and your friends resent the presence of Americans here-?” ‘No," he said sadly, ‘it’s the other way around. They resent our presence here.’ ” dom together with my family. “Tn order not to be too lengthy I wish to tell you during the days I was allegedly imprisoned in Moscow, I was actually tak- ing part, together with all the workers of Reshitza, in the cele- bration of the 38th anniversary of the October revolution. “In fact I have never been in Moscow. I live at Reshitza, where I work in my trade as moulder and far from rotting in prison, as has been alleged about me, I got married on April 11, 1953. The date is registered at the Reshitza People’s Council. “And in case some journalists, fond of sensational news, tell you that maybe the marriage certificate is a forgery, let me add that in February 1954 my son Nicolae, who resembles me, was born. I could not have acquired him through knocking at the wall of cell No. 287 in Moscow. “Beyond the political aspect of the matter there is a personal one, which is insulting to me, namely, the allegation that I _ was tortured in order to give a written statement repudiating my past. I have never been asked to make such a statement. % m bea “In 1930 I started working as an apprentice at the Reshitza_ works where I am working now. * At the age of 16 I.entered the ranks movement and engaged in vari- cus trade union activities. “During the fascist regime I was arrested and tried, together with another 32 Reshitza people. “After the liberation of our country I took part in the re-. establishment and unification of the trade unions. “IT was elected a member of the central committee of the Social Democratic party at the 1947 congress which empowered the party central committee to negotiate with the Communist party with a view to unity. “In order to convince yourself of the truth of all I have said about my condition, you only have to send a Labor party rep- resentative to Reshitza. All kinds of delegates are visiting us; so let a Labor party leader come as well, if he wants to. “And if he would care to be my guest at dinner, I promise to observe the rules of good man-— ners and hospitality and not to try in any way to disturb the - raeal, which he will take under my roof; and so much the less to do harm to the friendship be- tween the Rumanian and British workers. — ; \ , “With wishes for success of the cause of socialism and the cause of peace. “IT remain, yours truly, “Traian Cercega”’ May 25, 1956 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE 4 ‘ \ of the socialist youth —