Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR U.S. COLONIALISM It would probably take a whole library of history hooks to persuade Nneamaka Chukwura of Nigeria that the United States does not control Britain, Canada,...
...Monterrey, Mex...
...My discussion of the entire democratization effort rests on the premise that the -democrats' dilemma was due to the contradictions and the unrealism of Military Government policies...
...San Francisco Sheldon Pollack MOULDING COMMUNISTS Frank S. Meyer's views of the Communist movement in his book, The Moulding of Communists, which Colette Blackmoore finds so narrow in her review (NL, April 10), are in accord with most specialists' conclusions about the nature of Marxism-Leninism...
...Scholars within and without the Party, such as Mark Vishniak, Liu Shao-Ch'i, Bertram D. Wolfe, Arthur Koestler, Jacques Duclos, Ferdinand Lundberg, Nikita Khrushchev and Lenin himself are unanimous in calling the movement monolithic...
...In her review, Miss Blackmoore doesn't seem to realize that the Party understands this...
...I agree with Epstein's conclusion that the "salutary pro-democratic shock effect produced by revulsion against Nazism and the catastrophe brought on Germany by Nazism" goes right to the heart of an important idea about the whole of Germany...
...One word sums up the content of a Red's education: "leadership...
...but the deepening of control of non-Communist groups goes on everlastingly, even during the Bolshevizing period...
...Whatever sort of fanatic the fully moulded Communist appears, all of his apprenticeship has been in controlling people...
...The latter, like the old Forand bill, provides for surgery benefits...
...Distributing handbills, holding subscription drives, staging protest rallies, parading and picketing are all actions for mobilizing the masses...
...COLONIALISM It would probably take a whole library of history hooks to persuade Nneamaka Chukwura of Nigeria that the United States does not control Britain, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Belgium, the Netherlands and "that morally bankrupt, confused, weak and notoriously lawless country," France...
...Finally, as a reporter for the European edition of the Stars and Stripes, I spent a full week with French and Legion paratroops in Algeria in 1953...
...Nevertheless, it is at least fair to my data...
...However, my conclusion, after studying the situation in Marburg thoroughly, is that the shock effect was not strong enough there...
...Consider the average age of the Afrika Korps in 1943...
...And the more complete the training of the cadres, the more absolute their hold on the mass organizations...
...The former says 45 per cent are former SS men and the latter that the majority are Afrika Korps veterans...
...To judge from his conclusions, however, I fear that I failed to communicate a number of very significant points as clearly as I might have...
...His letter (NL, May 1) is bizarre and amusing but becomes tedious when he brings up that tiresome old saw about the most populous nation in the world deserving a seat in the United Nations...
...My position on this is exactly the one Epstein seems to have found wanting and, it seems to me at least, to be rather obvious in my discussion (pp...
...I should therefore like to call your readers' attention to the pamphlet, San Francisco and the House Un-American Activities Committee, published by the Northern California Chapter of Americans for Democratic Action and prepared under the direction of Paul Seabury, chapter chairman and professor of political science at the University of California...
...The controversial film "Operation Abolition," based on this incident, continues to be shown throughout the country but raises more questions than it answers...
...My belief is that the book makes perfectly clear that this is not the case...
...A few rough sergeants may have stood the test of time, but crack paratroop unit does not have half its men at or pushing 40...
...Communist training is above all practical...
...Third, the reviewer's comment that I assigned "too much responsibility for the much exaggerated failure of the Occupation on obstructive Germans and too little on the unrealistic policies of Military Government" again runs counter to my summary of the contradictions of Military Government policy, and also fails to appreciate my discussion of the dilemma of Bauer and others...
...The essence of the Communists' education of their elite is organizational...
...Bolshevizing the party" is only a rare exemplification...
...Many old, retired workers do not know how to write a letter to their Congressman, but readers of The New Leader can write, and I appeal to them to do so now...
...New York City Nicholas Raymond POST-WAR GERMANY I was much impressed with Klaus Epstein's concise and accurate review of my book, A German Community Under American Occupation (NL, May 1...
...Add to this the casualties borne by the Legion in recent years...
...207-10 especially) of the fundamental contradictions of military government policy...
...In their control of mass movements, the fact that the elite is so disciplined means clearly that the others Miss Blackmoore mentions, "the party rankand-file, the non-party collaborators, the neutralists, pacifists, nationalists and other mass elements," will be brought into line...
...He asserts that this cannot be applied to the whole of Germany...
...Then add 18 years...
...If the people of Red China were allowed to choose their government instead of having it brutally forced upon them, then their great numbers would be truly represented...
...First, and most serious, is Epstein's conclusion that I impute "incorrigibly anti-democratic views to all German opponents of American policies...
...John Gimbel...
...Frederick E. Lowell MEDICAL CARE Thanks for printing "Wilbur J. Cohen's fine article "Kennedy's Program for the Aged" (NL, May 8...
...Always in the thick of battle, its losses have been tremendous...
...Washington, D. C. Detroit John Panzner 'OPERATION ABOLITION' The acquittal of Robert Meisenbach has again focused public attention on the many questions and considerable confusion still surrounding the student "riot" during the House Un-American Activities Committee· hearings in San Francisco in May 1960...
...A Communist's formation is not just a mumbo-jumbo ritual practice intended to make a fanatic out of him...
...But the vast majority were footloose young men (not criminals, by the way) who came to manhood in Germany that provided little after the war...
...These old industrial workers do not want charity...
...I was 25 at the time, eight years after the war's end, and most of the Legionnaires were still younger by several years...
...Their very position as liberal democrats is what forced them into the criticisms they made of American policies, precisely because those policies placed them on the horns of dilemma...
...It might be a good idea for them to write the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, House Office Building...
...You cannot view the training of a Communist cadre apart from the material with which he trains...
...they want health insurance based on the Social Security act...
...Bolshevization of the party accompanies a rare complete switch of the party line...
...But maybe free elections are just another barbarous American custom...
...The bills backed by the President, S 909 and HR 4222 are good, but I think the S 65, sponsored by Senator Patrick McNamara (D.-Mich...
...I knew that I would be criticized for selecting Marburg, but I probably would have been criticized for selecting any other community, although perhaps for different reasons...
...Lenin says, "with the vanguard alone, victory is possible...
...French recruiting among this group was notorious during the Occupation...
...the Kennedybacked bills before the House and Senate provides only for hospitalization insurance...
...This pamphlet, which has been widely praised for its clear and factual presentation of the events surrounding the San Francisco hearings, may be obtained from Americans for Democratic Action, 41 Sutter Street, San Francisco, for 15 cents copy...
...Has he never heard of free elections...
...If there is a hero at all in the book, it is Hermann Bauer, the editor of the Marburger Presse...
...Nevertheless, it does not erase the fact that such a revolution was probably needed in Marburg—which Epstein and I agree was reactionary before 1933...
...is better...
...Far more habitforming is the day-to-day penetration of mass organizations and the setting up of popular fronts...
...After all his organizational experience—the wealth of lifetime—Lenin entitled his last work, "Better Fewer, But Better...
...Second, the conclusion that I accepted "such doctrinaire policies as denazification, decentralization and civil service reform as effective instruments for democratization of Germany" slights one of the themes that I thought ran through the entire book...
...Arcata, Calif...
...Sadly, common sense forces me to disagree with both...
...As one advances to the cadre class the training in leadership advances from a subservient to a tactical level...
...Los Angeles J. P. Conneally FOREIGN LEGION In their articles on "The Debacle in Algeria" (NL, May 8), George W. Herald and Sal Tas appear to disagree on the makeup of the French Foreign Legion's paratroop units...
...Epstein says that I thought the Occupation failed in Marburg because it did not achieve a complete social revolution...
...That about half the Legionnaires are German there is no question...
...This is again a problem arising from my selection, and I admit it...
...The value of a Communist depends on his ability to control people for the ends of the party...
...Someone, preferably a well-informed African, should set this man's thinking straight...
...I thought I had made it sufficiently clear that Bauer, and people like him, were definitely liberal democrats...
...Communism is not so much a "theory, as a guide to action...
...Pursue similar logic with the SS...
...If the Red Chinese Government had not committed its many crimes, including genocide, it would have been eligible for membership and the United States would not have opposed it...
...In my opinion, this is essentially correct...
...Has Chukwura ever read the United Nations Charter...
...But they are the best we can expect and would at least break the ice...
Vol. 44 • May 1961 • No. 21
