IS THE LINE CHANGING?
DALLIN, DAVID J.
East and West Is the Line Changing? By David J. Dallin «qpHE TIDE OF REVOLUTIONS" Stalin has said, "has been succeeded by an ebb, by a period of lull. . . . The world-wide revolutionary...
...As a matter of fact, .the Stalih analysis reported above was delivered exactly twenty-four years ago, on May 9, 1925...
...I would rather not have any of that...
...the economic recovery of the Western nations had reached a high levej...
...Remember," this was written for delivery over the air...
...With their urge to (rationalize and systemize every political move, the leaders have no doubt prepared formulas and resolutions valid for 1949...
...How much has the Kremlin revised its 194847 position...
...This program is a sort of intellectual atom-bomb which, I believe, should blow some of the conceit out of us.1 THE DIRECTORS OF BBC did a wonderful thing...
...Mjjn^jpfHcArsky/^ Soviet Conw^r^ recanef on March 18 and his chief, war minister Nikolai Bulganin, was relieved from his post a week later...
...It appears that in January 1949 an important conference of the "plenum" of the Bolshevik Central Committee (a large body of over a hundred^rrfembers) was held in the Kremlin and secret decisions of utmost significance were - reached...
...All concern writers who really matter...
...I AM QUITE CONSCIOUS that what I have said does not apply to programs like Invitation to Learning, the Chicago Round Table, the WNBC Symphony, the Theatre Guild Plays and a few others...
...HERE IS AN EXAMPLE of British radio style...
...The best music is played by the best orchestras—and played straight through without annoying stationbreaks...
...The same smoke and violence —the same sense of -a magnificent piece .. of natural self-expression that should be put lo some useful purpose...
...Communist, parties, therefore, should henceforth concentrate on so-called educational work, political propaganda and trade-union activity...
...Listeners hearing such vivid talk are sure to read more and with greater love and pleasure...
...The conclusions Stalin draws from this diagnosis are logical and courageous...
...and "im,>ftTialJsi.s" pro about to organize "a united front against the Sow ; Union" THE WEfST WOULD BE PLEASED to hear such a, diagnosis from Stalin today...
...The hooperating is a stupidity rating...
...What facts convinced Stalin and the Communist leadership that the situation has changed and the Communist movement has to be reoriented...
...I have a plan for improvhtg radio entertainment, but I won't go into >!it now...
...A few years of turmoil had passed after World War I; the Soviet state had become stable...
...They are, therefore, short and snappy-* as far as possible from haying the boring qualities Usually associated with literary criticism...
...But I am not in a preaching mooti...
...Webster's cartoon series, The Unseen Audience, correctly represents the millions of listeners laughing at the performers rather than with them...
...i Even more, symptomatic, Eugene Varga, Rus», sia's leading economist—who had been purged for having predicted a favorable^postwar del velopment for world capitalism—has reappeared on the political scene...
...Communists under direct guidance of the Kremlin...
...And we would then also experience all the pain of listening to the criticism sure to be heaped on the "bureaucratic" managers...
...The world-wide revolutionary movement has entered a period of retreat...
...They said: People are not all stupid, vain, vulgar...
...I merely record my sotrow at the.fact that bur great country, among its htany good things, cannot boast a Third Program...
...And does it have the...
...Dallin will discuss further the ideas he raises in this column...
...Living Writers (Sylvan Press, London, 157 pages, $2.75, which can be obtained at Bonnier's, Madison Avenue, New York) contains 12 talks by 12 critics on 12 living and popular authors...
...So, for persons who have brains and sense—or have the ambition to develop them—BBC started the Third Program...
...there are...
...To a certain degree the situation then was ¦analogous to the present one...
...many who have taste, intelligence, ambition...
...Has it finally reached the conclusion that the forces of the Soviet Union, its satellites, and fifth columns, are still too feeble to risk an all-out attack...
...not even the State Department seems to have learned the contents of these documents...
...No sooner were these decisions Tendered than shattering events occurred in China...
...The Coalition of the Kuomintang and the Communists under Chiang • Kai-shek prepared for the great Northern Expedition, which in the Communist view had to achieve both the unification of China Under the Kuomintang, and control of the Kuonihitang by the Chinese...
...There is nothing on this program which is not genuinely good...
...imperialist groups of-the advanced nations have reached a temporary agreement" about thtir colonies...
...Aldous Huxley has his good and bad qualities picturesquely assessed by Peter Quennell...
...Simultaneous with thV comeback, Jthe most orthodox economist in the Politburo, Nikolai Voznesensky, has fallen from grace...
...A few days later, contact was established between Dr...
...The best example is the American radio...
...Attempts to engineer uprisings, rebellions, putches in Europe have to be relinquished...
...Stalin realized the decisive role of developments in Europe, and remained true to his concept of a "tempdrary, stabilization of capitalism" for another decade...
...Of course, the retreat is temporary...
...at the same time tremendous successes in - China...
...If anyone is interested, I can easily be persuaded later...
...During .these years the' world, picture was "dual": in Europe "stabilization of capitalism" and retreat of Moscow's forces...
...On May 31 of the same year a great political strike broke out in Shanghai, and soon a revolutionary movement embraced a great part of the country...
...extension of the Soviet realm, creation of new, communist governments cannot \e .expected so long as the lull continues...
...SIMILAR QUESTIONS ARISE in the minds of serious Communists in Moscow today...
...Philip C. Jessup and Yakov Malik, On March 3 Vyshhisky^pr^ic^Molotot at Foreign Commissar...
...But during practically all the time when one naturally wants the radio on, the stuff that is available—for all the big names —is so unmemorable, so uniformly flattened out and commonplace, that a few minutes later it is impossible to recall What one has heard., What the "great stations and chains have achieved is a tiresome level of vulgarity and dullness...
...The conclusions drawn then added up to a truce with the non-Communist world ^nd retreat Into "Socialism in one country...
...courage to draw the practical conclusions it did twenty-four years ago...
...All but a few of our stations depend on advertising for sustenance...
...J have never favored turning radio over to the state or federal governments...
...Its composition was paid for by BBC, that is, the British Government...
...Nothing stupid and cheap is included to draw crowds...
...Commercials" are, of course, unknown...
...He listed these: "America, England, and France [have] succeded in reaching an agreement about Germany...
...Denis Johnstone is speaking about Sean O'Casey: "Sean O'Casey...
...Well, here is a way ^Improve them...
...C_J- M The Home Front The Third Program By William E. Bohn ONE TROUBLE WITH THE WORLD is that we" underrate people...
...We hearplenty of complaints about our -poor reading habits...
...For the time being, however, "slackening certainly means a loss for the cause of socialism," which in Stalin's parlance is tantamount to a retreat of communism and of the Soviet Union...
...Each took but 20 mmutes on BBC's Third Program...
...Following this conference, Stalin made his two statements to Kingsbury Smith of the INS...
...If it Vere run by some Washington bureau, it might be everf Worse than it is now...
...I wonder if it would not, by the way, pay some American publisher to produce something of this sort on a commercial basis...
...Every effort is made, therefore, to find the least common denominator of human intelligence and taste...
...as a writer, is not merely alive, he's'kicking...
...Their service to their so-called sponsors—and hence their ability to sign favorable contracts—depends upon the number of their listeners...
...All efforts to expand westward— through installing Communist governments in Hungary and Bavaria, provoking civil wars in Finland and the Baltics, and invading Poland— had failed...
...For obvious reasons they are kept secret...
...Now the curious result of this process is that in trying to be commonplace enough to suit practically everyone, the program builders suit practically no one...
...It is original...
...Late in April 1925 a conference of the Russian Communist party was held to assess the new international situation...
...Next week Mr...
...This "upward movement of the Chinese revolution" continued urttil Chiang suppressed the Communists two years later...
...George Orwell, a New Leader favorite, is dealt with in clear and enlightening fashion by V. S. Pritchett...
...E. M. Forster is sharply sized up by Rose Macaulay...
...it will develop into a new offensive...
...At the same . time one feels a certain apprehension in approaching close enough to make this survey...
...I have just been handed a book called Living Writers, a reprint of 12 scripts delivered over the British Broadcasting Corporation...
...His work, as one con. -templates It, has all the static consistency of a volcano...
...These scripts show what, has been done on the Third Program...
Vol. 32 • May 1949 • No. 21
