Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1945-07-15
Many False Labels Y
Conceal Dictutors
Tests Suggested to Determine
Freedom of Political Regimes
By Joseph H. Baird.

in recent dispatches to The Evening
Star by one of its staff correspondents,
Newbold Noyes, jr., suggests a micro
cosm in which the growth of all other
totalitarian states Is copied faithfully.
Mr. Noyes tells us that Belgrade today
is extraordinarily quiet" but that he
saw little evidence of Joy" The city
reminds him, he writes, of movie of
which the sound track has gone dead"
Pictures of Tito are everywhere. Radios
on the public square blare out the off,
cial version of international news.
School children, carefully rehearsed ap-
plaud political parades.
| Block by block, house by house, we
learn from Mr.. Moves dispatches, polit-
ical groups loyal to Marshal Tito are
being organized. Citizens are asked to
attend meetings and if they ignore the
request they find themselves "candi-
dates for the attention of OSNA, the
governments secret police organization.
When Mr.. Moves discussed these
attributes of dictatorship with Yugo-
slav officials, he was told that "a rallying
| point was needed and that Tito was
the rallying point" Marshal Tito, the
writer points out, has promised the
| Yugoslav people freedom of speech and
of the press-but there are no signs of
| it now
1 have quoted Mr.. Noyes at some
length in order to justify and make
clear the eventual point Of this column.
Because Yugoslavia today is in
formative and uncrystalized stage, 1t
offers beautiful laboratory example of
the development of totalitarianism
everywhere.
The history of the past three decades
has shown that totalitarian govern
ments, regardless of their labels, always
grow out of the soil of political disorder,
economic distress and national frustra-
ton. Whether, according to the diplo-
matte winds OF the moment, we regard
them as friends or enemies, their nature
and development have followed the
| same pattern.
Historically, they are akin to the abso-
lutte monarchies which lasted until the
industrial revolution The common peo-
back" led the masses against the privi-
legged classes, opened their granaries,
received the plaudits of the public, and
| then intrenched themselves in the posi-
ton of luxury from which they had
driven the former occupant.
Always, however, these "saviors of the
masses" faced the psychological problem
| Of -
with the proletariat after installing
| themselves in the luxurious setting from
which they had ousted the enemy. The
Roman technique is known to historians
as bread and circuses." Today the
problem of the newly arrived dictator is
more complicated than in the days of
the Caesars.
The dictatorship of the proletariat,"
the people are told, must exist until the
revolution has been secured against re-
dictionary forces. To accomplish this,
| certain techniques employed by the
"royalists" themselves must be used.
Freedom of speech and of the press, the
right OF trial by jury. the security OF
persons in their homes-these are abol-
| 1ollCO ally Tic IICW SldtC
has been made safe" for the people.
The political party which governs one
of the worlds great totalitarian states
today has theory known as "dialectic
materialism" Reduced to everyday
terms, this phrase may be boiled down
! to the old axiom that "the end justifies
| the means" Suppression of individual
liberty, recognized as socially objection
able, is justified on the grounds that it
is necessary as a protection of the peo-
pies state until the day when it is safe
| against its class enemies.
| The end of this interim" period, how
ever, never seems to arrive. Always the
exigencies of the moment offer an ex-
cuse for the prevailing dictatorship.
The ideas set out here do not pertain
exclusively to Soviet Russia. However,
| the political policies of the men who
| have ruled that country from the Krem-
| lin during the last 81 years offer an ex-
ample During the first decade and a
| half after the Bolshevik revolution,
those in power justified censorship on
the grounds that the capitalistic world
was allied against them in POLITICAL
economic conspiracy.
| After Russia joined the League of
Nations and signed alliances with France
and Czechoslovakia, the previous argu-
ment obviously was futile. There ensued
then temporary suspension of official
censorship, although correspondents
knew that If they were consistently
unfriendly" they were likely to be ex-
PEELED. This honeymoon" between the
Narkomindel and the foreign press
lasted only a short while, and then
censorship was justified by the German
attack of June, 1941.
Dictatorships in every land follow
pattern, whether they originate, like
Frances Spain, from the right, or Stall
| ms Russia, from the left. The power
in control will not admit political oppo-
sition or criticism in the press.
Never during modern history has po-
| litical thinking been as confused as 1t
is today. After the defeat of Germany
and its satellite states, democracy" has
become popular. Every newborn govern
ment will try to profit by that trade
name. In judging these new regimes, the
American reader well may ask a few
| questions: Do the people of the country
in question have secret ballot? Is there
freedom of speech and of the press? Does
the government in power have the ex-
| pressed support of the. people?
| TT the arer finds the orSu,or IN theSa