Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1949-10-16
The Knock and the Terror

me Knock and the Terror
1t is usually done in the dark, before
sun-up. They knock on the door. They
tramp in. And then they march off with
the man of the house
They do not say why They explain
nothing. They just leave the mother and
children standing there in speechless
terror, bleakly wondering when, If ever,
the husband and father will return from
the night that has swallowed him
This thing is one of the marks of total
ltarlanlsm. 1t has been developed into a
grisly art by the Soviet Union. 1t has
happened to literally tens of millions of
Russians, and it is being applied on a
constantly increasing scale in all the
satellite lands behind the Iron Curtain, the
latest to feel it being Czechoslovakia-the
Westernmost OF the Kremlin's tyrannized
provinces.
AS Tar as the CZechs are concerned, the
experience must seem particularly strange
and terrifying More so than any other
people trapped in the Red empire, their
traditions are deeply rooted In liberty,
More so than the Russians, or the Poles,
or the Hungarians, or the Bulgars, or
the Romanians their history is the history
OF Western-minded nation founded on
our kind Of social, political and economic
principles-the democratic principles that
subordinate the state to the individual.
forbid arbitrary police action, establish
courts to guarantee equal justice to all, and
In general protect men and women from
such things as the tyrant's nighttime
knock and the subsequent disappearance
into concentration camp or an unmarked
grave in some dismal potter's field.
But now the Czechs, like all the other
peoples caught in the pitiless grip Of Red
totalitarianism, do not have that kind of
protection any more. They just remember
1T as something that was theirs until their
Communist countrymen, after staging q
traitorous coup, wrested 1t from them and
bound them hand and foot to the Kremlin
So, within recent days, thousands OF them
doctors, lawyers, clergymen, teachers,
storekeepers and similar middle class In
dividuals-have heard the knock, opened
their doors to the secret police, and been
marched away. The charges against them
have not been stated, and what has
happened to them remains unrevealed
Their frightened relatives and neighbors
can only speculate. Apparently the whole
wicked business, like the drastic new
action against the church, is part Of a
far-reaching program of purge and sup
preston designed to demoralize the "bour-
geoisie" and shatter any possible oppos-
ton elements.
This terror, of course has long since
become a regular part of everyday life
behind the Iron Curtain. The Red total
itarians are merely getting around now
to do to the Czechs what they have already
done-and are still doing-everywhere else
in the world they dominate. The process
Is continuing one. 1t slows down or
stops for q while, and then suddenly it is
resumed again. It is indispensable to the
Soviet system. After all, in black and
total despotism OF this sort, there are
always FESTIVE and potentially rebellious
people to be dealt with in a black and
total way Otherwise the dictatorship, the
cruel little group that thrives on the
misery and fear of the down. trodden
would be in peril
There is not much that the free world
can do right now to eliminate this evil
We can inveigh against 1t and condemn
it morally in the United Nations, but that
is about ALL In time the wickedness of
the thing may be its own undoing, or when
todays tyrants die, ensuing events may
be convulsive enough to destroy it. Mean
while, however, although 1t sickens every
decent human being, the system will not
end, the secret police will keep on with
their nighttime knocking, and the weak
and the innocent will suffer torrents
Meanwhile, too, the Soviet Union will
continue to earn the reputation of being
one of the worst and most merciless
tyrannies in the history of the world.