Where the News Ends:
CHAMBERLIN, WILLIAM HENRY
WHERE the NEWS ENDS Under Fire by Exile Factions, Liberation Group Shifts Policy By William Henry Chamberlin THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE for Liberation from Bolshevism will soon celebrate its fourth...
...I couldn't if I tried...
...Russian chauvinists accuse it of wishing to "dismember" Russia...
...X's original attack...
...The Committee's stand has been: "No predetermination...
...But the Committee, in considering requests for support, is now inclined to ask the question: What is your organization doing in a practical way to fight Communism...
...This proved impossible, primarily because the ?migr?s were so deeply split...
...The first president was Eugene Lyons, well known to New Leader readers...
...WHERE the NEWS ENDS Under Fire by Exile Factions, Liberation Group Shifts Policy By William Henry Chamberlin THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE for Liberation from Bolshevism will soon celebrate its fourth anniversary under its fourth president, Howland Sargeant, former Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs...
...The majority of Russian political organizations declare that the Russian people themselves were the first victims of Communist tyranny, and uphold the unity of the USSR within the 1939 frontiers...
...But a visit to the European headquarters of the Committee in Munich last August conveyed the impression that a shift of tactical policy, dictated by the stern lessons of experience, is under way and has brought considerable progress...
...The purpose of the Committee—to aid and support all efforts of the Soviet peoples to free themselves from Communism—has remained unchanged...
...Anyone who reads the ?migr...
...Most Ukrainian, Caucasian and Central Asian groups, on the other hand, argue that their enemy is Russia as well as Communism...
...Then a column or more of denunciatory prose, crackling with epithets, makes a pretty good effort to keep up with Mr...
...The Committee, wiser by four years of experience, is now trying to concentrate on practical anti-Communist work and to avoid embroilment in ideological and personal disputes...
...If this center is not yet as well equipped technically as some other centers of Soviet studies, it has the advantage of being staffed by men and women the great majority of whom know what life is in the Soviet Union and who can interpret Soviet news against this background...
...Such tragicomic controversies are of little value in fighting Communism...
...It is in practical enterprises of this kind and in supporting such activities as the recent exposure by two Soviet Moslem exiles of a hand-picked Soviet "pilgrimage" to Mecca that the Committee sees its most fruitful field of work in the future...
...Only after the liquidation of Communist rule can the peoples of the USSR—Russian and non-Russian alike—freely express their will about the issue of separatism, as well as about other political and economic problems...
...press is familiar with the polemical article which starts out: "I do not intend to get down to the level of personal vituperation which Gospodin [the old Russian word for Mr., often used in a disparaging sense in debate] X used against me...
...scholars, enlarging its library, issuing publications and holding frequent conferences...
...Nationality separatists see in the Committee a sinister tool of "Great Russian imperialism...
...Cooperation among Russian and non-Russian anti-Communist groups will certainly be welcome, if it ever develops...
...The task of creating a united front has been made even more difficult by personal and ideological feuds among ?migr...
...politics such counsels have little appeal...
...An Institute for the Study of the History and Culture of the Soviet Union, located in Munich, has been enlisting the services of more and more ?migr...
...The Committee has tried to maintain a middle-of-the-road position, urging Russian and non-Russian groups to cooperate against the Communist enemy while reserving their views about the future...
...in Moscow...
...First, there is the chasm between Russian and non-Russian groups...
...Emigration, with its material and spiritual frustrations, has made for even more dogmatism and intolerance...
...But in the hectic atmosphere of ?migr...
...Since March 1953, its station, Radio Liberation, has been on the air, broadcasting anti-Communist messages and uncensored news to the Soviet Union and to Soviet forces in the occupation areas...
...One of the Committee's principal aims at first was to create a united front of exile political organizations, pro-Communist, monarchist and fascist groups being barred...
...organizations...
...Indeed, the Committee has been showered with brickbats from extremists on both sides...
...He was succeeded, in turn, by Admiral Alan Kirk, former Ambassador to the Soviet Union, and Admiral Leslie Stevens, former naval attach...
...leaders and by frequent and confusing splits within the ?migr...
...they demand sovereign status for their peoples...
Vol. 37 • November 1954 • No. 44
