Editorial
EDITORIAL Attlee's Leadership The test of leadership is the rebellious minority: When the beliefs and principles of a leader are threatened by a recalcitrant minority, does he fight to win, or...
...The starkest evidence of Mr...
...yet, we all know how thousands of Germans and Italians did desert their feudal princes to serve the revolutionary French...
...The resolution offered by Senator Ralph E. Flanders has been revised to make it one of condemnation, rather than an attempt to strip McCarthy of his committee chairmanship...
...In brief, his argument is that the Mao regime is a "revolutionary government undoubtedly supported by the masses of the people" and comparable to revolutionary France and the revolutionary United States...
...Hardly...
...in Formosa...
...Undoubtedly this sort of talk helps preserve "unity" in the Labor party, keeps Aneurin Bevan out of the partv leadership and thus improves the party's electoral chances...
...In England, we are now seeing more of the same in Clement Attlee's attitude toward the Bevanites...
...Not only has Mr...
...this effectively removes the issue of Senatorial prerogatives which threatened to complicate the debate...
...The Flanders resolution is a measure of the integrity of every one of our Senators...
...is what Mr...
...Attlee's transformation came in his speech to the House of Commons on July 15...
...Attlee's discussion of Communism in China reveals a moral myopia that should be an affront to democratic socialists everywhere...
...Attlee regards as America's "act of aggression" in Guatemala from Britain's action to halt Communism in Guiana...
...How different, basically, is this from what Mr...
...Attlee says also that he is "not in a position to judge" whether the Peking Communist regime is a "tool in the hands of Soviet Russia...
...Attlee passed up numerous opportunities to squelch this irresponsible minority, but he has gradually come to accept more and more of their views...
...Over the last two years, we have seen one approach to this dilemma in the Administration's attitude toward Senator McCarthy...
...and that its citizens, whether civilians or Army draftees, take every opportunity to desert it...
...The time has come for each and every Senator to stand and be counted on the reckless demagoguery which has been poisoning our national life...
...Attlee calls "the intervention of the U.S.A...
...The fact that some of his opponents have at various times also behaved discreditably is no excuse for him...
...But at what a price, Mr...
...But Mr...
...Attlee's distaste for Chiang Kai-shek, it should be noted that he had far less taste for the Poland of Colonel Beck and Smigly-Rydz in 1939, but he supported its defense against the onslaught of Hitlerism...
...The excellent series on McCarthy by Frederick Wolt-man in the Scripps-Howard newspapers made it clear that McCarthyism, like Communism, is a phenomenon which has little to do with the issues between liberals and conservatives or between Democrats and Republicans...
...What is most striking about this address is not so much its criticisms of Washington, but the evidence it offers that Mr...
...Not only has McCarthy imperiled our fight against Communism, but he has repeatedly attacked the very foundations of our free constitutional system...
...EDITORIAL Attlee's Leadership The test of leadership is the rebellious minority: When the beliefs and principles of a leader are threatened by a recalcitrant minority, does he fight to win, or does he sacrifice principle to maintain "unity...
...any more than the "anti-Communism" of Hitler was an excuse for the Communists...
...As for Mr...
...Senator Flanders also postponed bringing up his resolution for ten days, thereby permitting the GOP Senate leaders to go ahead full-steam with the Eisenhower program...
...It was this speech which Sir Winston Churchill called "one long whine" of criticism of America, and which a prominent Bevanite hailed by declaring: "That's what we were saying two years ago...
...Can one imagine French revolutionary soldiers choosing en masse never to return to France and instead to fight for monarchy...
...By this or any test, Chinese Communism is a counter-revolutionary, reactionary movement which has more in common with both Nazism and the tyranny of the Mongols than it does with the socialism of Mr...
...Attlee has not gone as far astray as did the late Labor Leader George Lansbury when he praised Hitler...
...Test on McCarthy On July 30, the United States Senate will be afforded an excellent opportunity to pass on the conduct of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy...
...To be sure, Mr...
...A substantial portion of America's international standing is at stake in the answer...
...And how different, too...
...Attlee himself recognized only a few years ago, are that the Mao regime has maintained itself by a mass terror which has claimed the lives of millions...
...Attlee, at what a price...
...Attlee has departed very far indeed from historic concepts of democratic socialism...
...The facts, which Mr...
...By July 30, therefore, the issue will be clear-cut: Will the Senate tell the American people and the world it condemns McCarthy's behavior, or will it publicly approve it...
...the realistic international views developed by Labor Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin have been forgotten...
...that it is constantly engaged not only in purges and brain-washing but in guerrilla campaigns...
...that it was organized, directed, aided to power and supported in its aggressions by the Kremlin...
...The Attlee of 1954 talks a lot more like Tom Driberg or Barbara Castle than he does like the Attlee of 1950...
Vol. 37 • July 1954 • No. 30
