Ext 6116/46(S) 'Secret Weekly Political Intelligence Summaries, nos 356-416, August 1946-November 1947' [‎18r] (35/978)

7
external pressure, destroyed its already
formulated agreement with the U.S.S.R.”
It should be noted that whereas other
statements made by Zhdanov might pass
muster as half truths, this is completely
misleading.
0^n the final section, Zhdanov dealt with
the Cominform itself. The Comintern had
played its part when Communist parties
in various countries were not in great
strength. It had done its task by training
leaders of the workers’ movement and by
creating conditions for the transformation
of young Communist parties into mass
workers’ parties. Its dissolution had put
an end to the slanders that Communist
parties in various countries were not
acting in the interests of their own people,
but on orders from abroad. With their
great increase in strength since the war,
the Communist parties were developing
within a national framework, but there
were certain tasks and interests common
to the various parties. Lack of association
between them was “ incorrect, harmful
and essentially unnatural." Since the
majority of the Socialist parties, particu
larly in Great Britain and France, were
acting on orders from the U.S.A., the Com
munists had the task of concerting action
for opposing the American plan for the
enslavement of Europe. It must not, how
ever, be forgotten that the peoples of the
world did not want war and that the main
danger for the working class lay in under
estimating its forces. Just as a free hand
was given to Hitlerite aggression at
Munich, so appeasement of the U.S.A. and
its imperialist camp would make it even
more insolent and aggressive.
Before the French Municipal Elections,
Soviet commentators blundered badly in
predicting a decisive rebuff for de Gaulle.
After the event, the line taken was that
the French Communist Party had com
pletely maintained its position ‘ ‘ despite
the concentration against it of all the
forces of reaction from the financial clique
to the right-wing leaders of the Socialist
Party .... The much-advertised victory
of de Gaulle is nothing but a re-grouping
of reactionary forces in order at any cost to
shake the positionof the Communist Party."
Tass (Rio de Janeiro) reported assaults
on the Soviet Embassy officials alleged to
be encouraged by the Brazilian authorities.
Moscow’s immediate come-back was to issue
instructions to the appropriate Soviet
authorities to keep the former Brazilian
Ambassador and his staff in Moscow undei
supervision (so as to ensure their safety in
Gew of the indignation said to have been
aroused among the Soviet public by reports
of ‘ k hooliganism ' against the Soviet
Embassy in Brazil) and to permit them to
leave Moscow only when the safety and safe
departure of members of the Soviet
Embassy from Brazil had been assured.
Trud furthermore expatriated on a new
wave of arrests in Chile directed against
the Chilean workers, while arrests in both
Chile and Brazil of Communist supporters
were reported in Moskovsky Bolshevik.
Pravda’s special correspondent, in his
‘ ‘ From the Court ’ ’ account, outlined the
atrocities committed by the Sachsenhausen
war criminals, concluding, with equal
insolence and disingenuousness, “ Why do
all German war criminals long for the
Western zones and why does German-
Hungarian Erwin choose to flee to the
American Zone ? He knew he would be in
security there. There followed refer
ences to the easy life of Fascists at
Adelheide Camp and a rhetorical question
as to whether this was not insulting to the
memory of the Sachsenhausen victims. A
leading article on the trial in Izvestiya
interpreted it as showing to the world the
fate from which the heroic Soviet people
saved civilisation and demonstrating that
only the Soviet Union is welding together
all genuinely democratic forces to fight
against a rebirth of Fascism.
The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of
the U.S.S.R. has appointed M, Alexander
Semyonovich Panyushkin Ambassador
Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the
U.S.S.R. to the United States of America
and has relieved M. Nikolai Vassilevich
Novikov of his duties as U.S.S.R. Ambas
sador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary
to the U.S.A. M. Panyushkin is a
graduate of the Leningrad Cavalry School
and originally served as a Red Army
Divisional Commander. He was appoin
ted Ambassador to China in September
1939. In November 1944 he was awarded
the Order of Lenin for outstanding ser
vices to the Soviet State and returned to
Moscow owing to bad health in the same
vear. He was relieved of his duties as
Ambassador in China in April 1945;
nothing is known of his subsequent activi
ties until his appointment to the U.S.A.
Zhdanov, who continues to direct opera
tions in the ideological campaign which he
launched in autumn, 1946, recently turned
his attention to the philosophical front.
The first number of the new periodical
Questions of Philosophy (August, 1947)
consisted entirely of a report of the discus
sion which took place in the Central Com
mittee of the Communist Party between