Icelandic voters

back U.S. ouster

REYKJAVIK

Icelandic voters have endorsed at the polls the action
of their parliamentary representatives in calling for with-
drawal of NATO troops from the island republic.

___ Adoption of the resolution by the Althing last March
precipitated the fall of Premier Olafur Thors’ government

after the Progressives bolted
their coalition with his Inde-
pendence party to join the
‘Social Democrats in opposing
continued U.S. occupation of
»the big Keflavik air base.

The election, concluded last

weekend with a rebuff to the
independence party, was fought
largely around the issué of
‘withdrawal of foreign troops.
Of the four parties contesting
_ .the 52 seats in the Althing,
‘three opposed continued U.S.
,occupation of the Keflavik
base and only one, thé Inde-
pendence party, favored ad-
herence to the NATO agree-
ments under which the base
_and other installations were
-Sranted.

U.S. bogey
led labor

LONDON

The British Labor party
should become a socialist party
in order to “join the march of

“more than half of humanity.”
This is what Aneurin Bevan
- told a crowd of 30,000 attend-

ing the annual Northumberland
miners’ picnic at Bedlington.

“I want the Labor move- ©

ment to become a_ Socialist
movement and join with the
rest of the human race,” he
said .

.

The Labor movement, in-
stead of becoming socialist,
had allowed itself to be led by
the United States, Bevan con-
tinued. “We have accepted
their description of a bogey
man. "

“We have frightened our-
selves for the past five or six-
years into wasting our sub-
sStamce on unnecessary arma-
ments, on weapons which are
out of date, while the generals
are still babbling about old
campaigns.” -

[ROOFING

- Duroid, Tar and Gravel
Gutters and Downpipes
Reasonable

When the votes cast by more
than 90 percent of the elector-
ate — a record in Iceland’s
1,000-year parliamentary. his-
tory were counted this
week, the Social Democrats and
Progressives together had won
25 seats, the Independence

party 19 and the Socialist
Unity party 7.

It was expected that the
Social Democrats and _ Pro-
gressives would form a govern-
ment, with the Socialist Unity
party holding the balance of
power.

NATO officials, reluctantly
compelled to recognize the
strength of popular sentiment,
were nonetheless reported to
be hopeful of working out a
compromise . agreement to
maintain the Keflavik base on
a smaller scale.

French Communisi
critical of repoz

PARIS
The political bureau of the
French Communist party has
criticized both the manner in
which the report on Stalin
given by “Nikita Krushchev to
the Soviet Communist party’s
20th congress was divulged
and the contents.

The political bureau’s resolu-
tion notes that the manner in
which the report was’ pre-
sented and divulged enabled
the capitalist press to publish
facts about which French
Communists knew nothing.

“Such a state of affairs does
not favor normal discussion of

Italian Communist leader asks examination

‘Why did USSR stray so far2

All Communist parties must
in future make efforts to en-
sure proper democracy in
their own ranks, Palmiro Tog-
liatti, leader of the Italian
Communist party declared in
an interview published in Uni-
ta, Italian Communist daily.
Togliatti also asked Soviet
Communist party leaders to
examine “why Soviet society
could and did stray so far
from the democratic path.”

He stressed, however, that
there could and should be no
lessening in reciprocal confi-
dence and solidarity between
various parts of the world
Communist movement.

The 11,000 word interview
dealt with the questions rais-
ed by the recently published
speech of Nikita Khrushchev,
secretary of the Soviet Com-
munist party, to the party’s
20th Congress in Moscow last
February.

Togliatti said that since the
present Soviet leaders know
Stalin better than anyone out-
side the USSR, “we ought’
therefore to believe them
when they describe him as
they do.”

He continued:

“We can only think to our-
selves that, seeing how things
stood, and apart from the im-
possibility of making a change
in time, they (the Soviet lead-
ers) could at least have been
more prudent in that public
and solemn exaltation of the
qualities of this man to which
they had accustomed us.

“It is true that today they
criticise themselves, and it is
to their great merit, but in this
criticism there is no doubt
that some of their prestige has
fallen. .

“But apart from all this, as
long as they limit themselves
in substance to denouncing the
personal defects of Stalin, the
problem remains within the
tramework of the cult of
personality.’

“At one time, all that was
good was due to the super-
human, positive qualities of
one man; now, all that is bad
is attributed to the equally ex-
_ceptional and even staggering
defects of the same man.

“Both in one case and in
the other we are outside the
criterion of judgment which is
proper to Marxism.

“The real problems escape °

notice, such as the method by
which and the reason why
Soviet society could and did
stray so far from the demo-
cratic path and from the le-
gality, which it had traced
out for itself, arriving as far
as degeneration.

“An examination must be
made by following the various
phases of ‘the development of
this society, and first to make

PALMIRO TOGLIATTI ;

it must be our Soviet com-
rades.

“They know more than we,
who might err because of par-
tial or erroneous knowledge
of the facts.”

After discussing the “suf-
focation” of Soviet democra-
cy under Stalin, Togliatti said
what had happened had led
to the need and desire for ever
greater independence of judg-
ment, and the Soviet model
could no longer be obligatory
for other Communist countries.

The article is the first major
statement on the February
Congress of the Soviet Com-
munist party to be issued by
Togliatti.

The interview was given to

© periodical Nuovi Argomenti,

edited by the Italian novelist
Alberto. Moravia, though it

~

was also published by Unita
a few days before the appear-
ance of Moravia’s periodical.

Togliatti said:

“We must recognize openly
and without hesitation that,
while the 20th Congress hag
made an enormous contribu-
tion to the exposure and solu-
tion of many serious and new
prcblems of the democratic
and socialist movement, we
cannot consider satisfactory
the position adopted by the
congress, which is now being
amply developed by the Soviet
press, in regard to the errors
of Stalin and the causes and
conditions which made them
possible.”

He said Stalin’s growth into
a tyrant was probably gradual
and it was difficult at any
time in the past 20 years for
the other Soviet leaders to
get rid of him.

He added: -“I exclude the
explanation that it was im-
possible to make a change be-
eause of a machine of terror
which controlled the situation
through military and police
means.

“It seems to me far more
accurate to acknowledge that, -
despite the errors that he com-
mitted, Stalin had the support
of a very great part of the
country, and, particularly, of
his ruling cadres and of the
masses.”

He added: “Of the facts that
are disclosed today we had
and could have had no notion.”

‘Calling for an examination
of how Soviet society “strayed
from the democratic path,”
Togliatti said that one of the
questions to be answered was
how such tremendous succes-
ses had been achieved by the
Soviet system while such great
errors were present in its me-
chanism., :

“It is the Soviet leaders who
must give us the answer, un-
derstanding that this is to-
Gay one of the problems which
assails sincere’ militants of
the. international_ working
class movement.” :

What was most important
now was an accurate reply to
the question of how the errors

June 29, 1956 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PA aE

these problems in the jp,
says the resolution. “It
itates speculations and —
oeuvres by the enemig
-Communism.”

Tn an analysis of Krushe
references to Stalin the r 8
tion states:

“The explanations sq
given of Stalin’s faults,
origin and the circums
under which they happ

* are not satisfactory. A
found Marxist analysis is ;
pensable to determine the
plete circumstances uns
which Stalin’s personal py,

could be exercised.” 7
e

a socialist society and wh
“errors of a general ¢
against which the whole
of socialism should be pyy
guard did not arise.” “a

He said the major fac.
emerge from the 20th ¢
gress was that the Staliy, 2
gime suffocated _ demoge
in the USSR and that t
forts of all Communist Pape
must be directed to ensy
proper democracy within »&
own frameworks. .

He did not believe aly
had happened should leg,
a lessening in the recipy
confidence and solidarity P
tween the various parts 9
world Communist movem,=

“But there is'no doubt 4
it leads not only to the i
but to the desire for ever grep
er independence of judgmy
and that cannot but do g
to our movement.

“The international polj
structure of the world @
munist movement is cha
today.

“What the Communist pair
of the Soviet Union has
remains as the first great lz
del for the building of a
alist society, to which the w]
was opened by a profound. Ae
cisive, revolutionary frac
“Today the front of so
construction in the co
where the Communist form
ruling party is so vast, ¢
prising a third of humay
that for them the Soviet m,
cannot, and must not, 49>
longer be obligatory.
“In the rest of the w,
there are countries wheres
is hoped to achieve socialjé
without the Communists pr
cessarily being the ry
party. ; 9
“In other countries» ag
the march toward social
is an objective which dr
various movements toget}
movements which have —
vet reached any mutual agr
ment or even understandij0!
“One cannot talk of a si
guide, but rather of a met
of progress achieved by
lowing different paths,” &
liatti concluded, | ~ al

crept into the developmen
5
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