Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR Replies to Charges by William Henry Chamberlin William Henry Chamberlin makes some attacks upon me that deserve a reply ["Appeasement on the Right," The New Leader, May 17]. He claims...
...Weir as a representative of progressive and enlightened capitalism...
...Theoretically, the Socialists entered the United Front merely to avoid triangular fights, not for any program or campaign reasons...
...I suspect it may be the last, in view of the singular arguments which he advances in his defense...
...Bhargava correctly characterizes the anti-Communist electoral front as Catholic-inspired, he does not give the real reason for its abandonment of professed neutrality toward non-Communist opposition parties...
...In fact, he has turned away from party politics and is now devoting his energies to raising the democratic consciousness of the masses...
...Therefore, it was not only against the Stalinist Communists in Travancore-Cochin, but also against the Revolutionary Socialist party (Trotskyite) and the Kerala Socialist party (Marxist...
...The policy he would have the United States adopt would multiply and compound the disastrous results of Yalta and Potsdam...
...Obviously, I was in no position to quote his whole article, and he is far behind in his homework if he thinks that "the Communists have always been enthusiastic advocates of the UN...
...I had never heard of Mr...
...And the statement that "to counter the Congress party's alliance with the clergy, the Socialists had entered into a limited electoral coalition with the 'United Front of Leftists'" seems to be little more than a virtuous alibi or afterthought...
...The voting figures, for example, indicate that the Congress party increased its strength from 39 to 45 per cent...
...Indeed, at one point it looked as though the state party might be willing to form a united-front government with the Communists...
...The Socialists would start a small meeting under their own flags...
...Herbert before I read his article, and I have no idea whether his thinking is motivated by isolationism, pacifism or dismal ignorance of the world in which we are living...
...Los Angeles Aubrey Herbert An article which advocates American withdrawal from Germany and Korea, from overseas bases and NATO, together with recognition of Red China and unlimited trade with Communist countries, is, as I wrote, "tailor-made to the specifications of the Kremlin...
...The Communists, on the other hand, have always been enthusiastic advocates of the UN...
...A Polish correspondent informs me that the Warsaw Trybuna Ludu ("People's Tribune") of March 31, 1953 did refer to Mr...
...I was in Travancore-Cochin a week before the elections, however, and in 20 villages I saw how the Communists exploited the situation...
...But, in attempting to link my policies with the Kremlin, Chamberlin conveniently omits my declaration that we should pull out of the United Nations...
...Herbert's fellow-contributor, Ernest T. Weir, was unconsciously a report of something that had already happened...
...Herbert's virtuous repudiation of "secret deals with a Ynlta-Potsdam odor" impressed The New Leader welcomes readers' comment, regardless of point of view...
...But the National Executive categorically rejected any such coalition...
...For space reasons, however, we prefer letters under 300 words...
...me as a very empty verbal gesture...
...I forecast that Communist newspapers would hail Mr...
...Ironically, too, he was undoubtedly a recipient of these blows himself...
...Furthermore, his denunciation of Munich and "appeasement" of the Nazis is all the more curious in the light of his very recent praise of just such appeasement in his book America's Second Crusade, and in his contribution to Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, a book edited by one of our leading "wrongheaded appeasers...
...The credit for keeping the Socialists from falling into the Communist trap after the elections should go to the All-India National Executive of the Praja Socialist party—particularly to leaders like Asoka Mehta and Jayaprakash Narayan...
...It is worth noting, also, that Narayan—the real heir of all that Gandhi stood for—commented recently that India's real problem was to develop a positive consciousness of democracy at the grassroots level...
...Herbert, in due course, will receive his appropriate recognition from the same or a similar source...
...Thus, the meeting would be turned into a typical Communist rally, leaving the Socialists helpless...
...William Henry Chamberlin Clarifies Several Issues in Travancore-Cochin Election May I comment on G. S. Bhargava's article on the recent elections in the Indian state of Travancore-Cochin ["India's First Socialist Re gime,'' The New Leader, April 12...
...He finds something sinister in my omission of his recommendation that the United States withdraw from the United Nations...
...Perhaps Mr...
...Bombay Atreya...
...In presenting the election results, too, the article gives only partial facts...
...Weir in very similar approving terms...
...While Mr...
...Chamberlin's arguments are redolently reminiscent of the World War II war cry that anyone critical of the Roosevelt foreign policy was "parroting the Goebbels line...
...The Praja Socialist party—which, thanks to the influence of Gandhism, has gone a long way from Marxism—would not have been opposed by the front if it had not entered into what Rammanohar Lohia termed an "electoral adjustment" with the Communists...
...it merely exposed the danger of any united effort that included the Communists...
...I am no enthusiast for the UN myself, but it is matter of historical record that the Soviet Government has repeatedly paralyzed UN action by use of the veto, has flouted the authority of UN commissions, and has abused the UN as an instrument of United States imperialism...
...It may interest New Leader readers to know that what I ventured as a prediction about Mr...
...The front did not campaign for any program...
...The Indian people, he feels, must solve their own problems with as little control as possible from political parties and the state...
...The front clearly explained that it would oppose any "Godless" creed...
...then thousand of Communist volunteers would stream forth from all directions with Red flags and shout their fullest support for "our United Front comrades...
...He also overlooks my statement: "There must be no more secret deals with a Yalta-Potsdam odor, which would arbitrarily hand over territory and peoples of other countries to Russia...
...He claims that I have laid down "a blueprint for American policy tailor-made to the specifications of the Kremlin...
...I submit that, by leaving these ideas out of the picture, he is distorting my foreign-policy views...
...Cambridge, Mass...
Vol. 37 • June 1954 • No. 25
