TOGLIATTI'S 'PEACE CONCENTRATION'
Vacirca, Vincenzo
Togliatti's 'Peace Concentration' By Vincenzo Vacirca New Leader Correspondent in Italy ROME. THE DESPERATE EFFORT of the Communists and their satellites in the Italian parliament to...
...But a new labor university cannot afford to tolerate competing philosophies within its walls...
...The Communists stood aghast before this sudden act of independence on the part of a normally acquiescent . group like the Nenni party...
...They believed it to be a resurrection of the short-lived Democratic Front, whose death was regretted by few...
...Its spirit is the spirit of a humanized science, ot a science which does not try to sljun the ethical responsibility imposed upon it by its own logic arid by its place in modern society...
...Togliatti's proposal does not seem destined to meet with great success...
...Originally, they planned a general strike to paralyze the country's economic life—and thus place the government in a difficult position...
...The agit-props must live...
...It will have too much to compete with in the social order to invite at the outset basic dissension within...
...This project was dropped because the CP-controlled General Confederation 'of Labor has lost half of its membership in the past fourteen months...
...That it was not intended as an insult is madc#clear by Mr...
...It is no longer gaining followers, but is daily losing them...
...THE COMMUNIST PARTY at this time is isolated...
...It knows that, if left alone to itself in a completely hostile world, its strength would rapidly wane...
...But no propaganda twists can convince anyone with the least bit of common sense that Russia is an innocent lamb threatened by the United States...
...As developed and applied by M. C. 'Otto in his theory of creative i bargaining, it can help labor take the lead . In the discovery of ethical and scientific techniques applicable to the progressive and artistic resolution of all conflicts...
...The strike would thus have been a miserable failure, and would have exposed the fbbllrg strength of the Communists...
...The postwar infamies of the Soviet Union are too well known...
...THE DESPERATE EFFORT of the Communists and their satellites in the Italian parliament to prevent Italy's adherence to the Atlantic Pact has failed...
...I know of no other resolution of the contradiction between freedom and order which is to luccetsful in retaining the full values of both...
...A Labor Education Theory By Horace S. Fries JAMES T. FARRELL has recently pointed up some deficiencies in labor education...
...Right-wing Hutchensians and left-wing progressives (educational progressives) agree that the gravest educational difficulty is the want of clear aims, of an adequate educational philosophy...
...In this connection, the tragic Marxian debacle could point a lesson for labor education...
...THE CONFEDERATION OF LABOR...
...We should remember, however, that, like Marxism, it Is a doingthinking philosophy, although experi. mental and not dialectical...
...A labor university organized to work along prevailing higher educational lines would simply add another vested educntional interest...
...Without them, the Concentration would be lim. ited to Communists alone—plus perhaps a few neo-Fascists...
...The Italians are an old people...
...The writer does not know whether the first objective was achieved...
...Even the Nenni Socialists (adherents of Pietro Nenni—Ed), who have a pact of unity of action with the Communists, at first refused to join the Concentration...
...Occassionally, they have sudden outbursts of folly—the sun may be to blame—but then their good sense predominates again...
...But the Communists had two other objectives in opposing the Pact: 1—To inform their Kremlin masters that Italian agents were carrying out orders faithfully...
...Horace S. Fries teaches philosophy at the University of Wisconsin...
...As long as the Communists limit themselves to shouting, to hurling insults, and to uttering lies, no one worries...
...Republicans and Monarchists, and even Fascists...
...AN EXPERIMENTALIST philosophy can well afford to tolerate competing philosophies...
...It is a doctrine of faith, because it commits us to working assumptions which contradict the whole European quest for final certainty...
...This is not the place to demonstrate to labor that the pragmatic approach provides the fit philosophy for a labor university...
...Hence, they decided to create a new Fronts . . . X- S SINCE THE WORD, "FRONT," has not proved .very lucky in the past, Palmiro Togliatti, chief Communist commissar, prefers to call the new one a "Concentration" — a "Concentration of the Forces for Peace...
...The vigor of Marxism in its heyday sprang from the foundation it provided for the unification of theory and practice...
...Unfortunately for the Moecovites, they cannot adapt themselves to this situation...
...It does not aim to intensify Inevitable conflict, but It yields techniques and ideas for the continual enrichment and resolution of ] conflicts...
...RIGHT-WINGERS IN EDUCATION now preach a retreat to the old aristocratic position of the subordination of practice to theory...
...This was generally expected...
...After all, an outlet is necessary—especially for permanent revolutionists...
...In the words of a distinguished British biologist and educator, C. H. Waddington: 'It b an tthoa baaed on the recognition thai one belongs to a community, but • community which requires that one should do one's damnedest to pick holes in its beliefs...
...In fact, everybody is happy...
...In other words, all those who oppose "AngloAmerican imperialism...
...It has been estimated that there are 10,000 on the JtaTiao Communist Party's payroll...
...instead of calling for a strike, contented itself with plastering walls with manifestos inviting Italians to defend peace and condemn all military acts which might drag Italy into a war of aggression against the Russian "people" •—who are naturally the most peaceful end most democratic in the world...
...They must as something...
...Labor educators may have considered this an insult to organized labor...
...Beside them, the actions of America appear generous and benevolent...
...To live honestly they must And a justification for their salaries...
...Nenni's group has become part of the Concentration...
...About twenty national unions have severed their affiliation and declared themselves autonomous...
...But the promise itself can be made our reward if we wiM devote ourselves as loyal allies to carry it out...
...It cannot be denied that this strategic play is cleVer...
...The agitation for the "defense of peace" is aimed not only at rendering a service to Soviet imperialism, but is also a frantic attempt to win public opinion to Communism on a neutral, humane and sentimental basis...
...Their history is long and they have seen many things which have made them wise, skeptical, and philosophical...
...By the very nature of an experimentalist philosophy (if not by the "nature of Reality"), there can be no advance guarantee that the promise will be fulfilled, no cosmic insurance policy that guards against defeat...
...This is a realistic doctrine of enlightened faith, not a dogmatic claim...
...Most of its 2,000,000 members have not yet renewed their party membership for 1949...
...The manifestos were read by the public with relief...
...But how...
...The Communist Central Committee met to study this situation, and to determine the most effective means for keeping the agitation for "peace" fronf peacefully dying out...
...They did not even hint at mass demonstrations, disorders or uprisings...
...Unfortunately, labor education today is not the only form of education in which there are glaring deficiencies: education generally, but especially higher education, is in a sorry state...
...Whether his earlier criticisms prove, in fact, to be insults to labor will depend on what is done about his suggestion for a labor university...
...If we have the Socratic courage and the Socratic modesty to follow the argument where it leads (I mean the argument of Pierce, James, Dewey, Mead, and Otto), we can find an intellectual-emotional center which promises a significance' for modern life comparable to the significance of the beatific vision for the middle ages...
...To escape from this isolation, it% would willingly sell its soul to the devil...
...Yet it is sorrowfully evident that unless we grasp the implications, and incorporate them in our educational and social practices, the historical pendulum will again complete its fatal swing...
...The parliamentary struggle over the Atlantic Pact was the noisy prelude to a far greater campaign which the Communists intend to wage...
...The second certainly was not: Italians are not easily frightened by phony war scares, and very few believe in the possibility of a Russian victory...
...Among those remaining in the Confederation of Labor, democratic Socialist, Republican, and independent opposition is constantly growing...
...It is enlightened because it does not pretend to give the answers but shows us how men can put significant questions, progressively, not only to nature but, by means of a scientific and operational theory of men and culture, to the human enterprise itself...
...They must trouble waters which tend to become calm...
...and 2—To terrorize Italians with propaganda that war was imminent, and that Red troops would soon be crossing Italian frontiers...
...Farrell's letter in The New Leader of March 26, 1949, in which he pays the high compliment to labor that it can make the greatest possible contribution to education in America, not only to trade union education but to education in general...
...This move is to be followed by mass meetings, parades, wall posters, and all the usual forms of agitation to prevent the application of the "criminal and nefarious" Atlantic Pact to Italy...
...Its basic fault was not its failure to accomplish this unification, but rather, as Dewey has clearly shown, its failure to do so experimentally...
...Left-wingers are so involved in berating Marxism that they have hardly had time to grasp the novel and radical implications of an instrumentalist unification of theory and practice for education and social inquiry...
...The Communists, therefore, offered all sorts of promises and guarantees to convince the Nenni Socialists to change their stand—and succeeded...
...A considerable number of workers have joined newly-organized Catholic trade unions...
...But it is not exclusively American, and can secure the foundations of a new and healthy laborcultural international...
...Finally this philosophy is indigenous to America...
...He wants this to be an alliance of all the "friends of peace"—men and women, reactionaries and liberals...
...It is not dogmatic, because the experimentalist philosophy of pragmatism provides an, operational corrective and an internal discipline, not a debating society and an external party line...
...Horror of war is so widespread and universal that whoever raises the banner of peace stands to reap some capital...
Vol. 32 • May 1949 • No. 19
