Evening star., 1952-01-05
The East German Plan

AS a kind Of propaganda offset to the pro-
posal adopted by the overwhelming majority OF
the United Nations General Assembly, the Krem-
Inns puppet regime of Communist East Germany
has now come forward with spruced-up plan
of its own for "free, general, equal, direct and
secret alderman elections"
On its face, the plan looks fairly reasonable
Under it, as prelude to unifying the partitioned
country, representatives of East and West Ger
many would hold conference to fix date and
agree on legal conditions for holding a vote in
all zones to elect national assembly The vote
itself would be preceded by three months OF
political campaigning, and the first parliamen-
tary session would be staged in Berlin not later
than 80 days after the counting of the ballots.
In setting forth this plan, the East German
Reds have embroidered it with what seem to be
pretty good guarantees. One provision, for ex-
ample, would lift present restrictions on inter-
zonal traffic to permit the various candidates
to enjoy "unhindered" travel throughout Ger
many during the campaign period Further,
during the same period, in every part of the
country, "all parties, mass organizations and
unions" would be free to hold open political
meetings without hindrance or molestation, and
the votes would be counted in public.
Thus, as far as language is concerned, the
East German plan seems rather attractive But
as the Communists have repeatedly demon
strated in the past-such as in. their free and
unfettered" elections in Poland CzechosIovakia
and other satellite lands-their language is one
thing and their actions another. Their honeyed
words, in short, have been too often belied by
their ugly deeds to be accepted as guarantees,
and for that reason it is hardly conceivable that
the West German Federal Republic at Bonn will
accept their proposal for a countrywide unfit
cation vote
This is the more true because the East Ger
mans, In presenting their plan, have once again
declared that they will have nothing to do
with the United Nations proposal for an impair
tial survey by a special f1ve-nation commission
to determine whether existing conditions make
possible genuinely free and secret elections As
created by the General Assembly, the projected
commissioner which Communist Poland has
refused to serve-would travel through all parts
of Germany including the Soviet zone. Then, if
the findings were favorable, country wide vote
would be held under U. N supervision. But all
this has been rejected by the Reds.
Why the rejection? Why has the Kremlin's
East German regime made clear that it will not
permit the U. N. to inspect conditions in the
Soviet zone? The questions speak pretty much
for themselves as commentary on the nature
of the guarantees offered by the Communists.
If the latter were really willing to hold free and
unfettered elections, why should they be so
adamantly opposed to procedure offering impair
tial international observation and supervision?
Given the circumstances, about the only
conclusion to be drawn isathat the East German
plan has not been advanced in good faith and
thatfits Kremlin- inspired authors want no elec-
tions but elections that they can rig to insure a
Red victory. If that is not their objective, let
them prove it by accepting the U. N. proposal.