News In Review: De Gaulle in Moscow

Speaking in Salford on June 12 Labour M.P. Frank Allaun complained that the 1965 Rent Act had “gone sour on us.” In other words it wasn’t working as expected. This, of course, is nothing unusual for Acts to reform capitalism, especially in the field of housing. The evidence that has accumulated for over a century points to only one conclusion: there is no solution to the housing problem within capitalism. Lack of adequate housing is just one of the many problems that capitalism causes for workers. Since capitalism is the cause it is futile to pass Acts to find some solution within capitalism. There is no such solution. Such Acts are doomed to failure from the start as they try to do the impossible.

Socialists have always said that reform measures can’t be taken at their face value as they don’t always work as intended or they give rise to new problems. Labour’s Rent Act is an interesting confirmation of this. Although this Act was not intended to cut rents, those who voted Labour can be excused for thinking so. After all, had not Labour fought the 1957 Tory Rent Act tooth and nail in Parliament? Had they not pledged themselves time and time again to repeal it? Since the obvious result of the Tory Rent Act was to lead to rent increases ‘‘repeal’’ could justifiably be taken to mean “cut rents.” In fact, the aim of Labour’s Act was to fix a “fair” rent—what the rent would be if supply and demand were equal, a formula bound to justify increasing controlled rents. Rent Officers and Rent Assessment Committees were appointed to work out these “fair” rents.

Now Sir Sydney Littlewood, the president of the Greater London Rent Assessment Panel, turns round and tells his Labour critics that they “did not understand the Act they had passed,” saying that they had the mistaken idea that the object of the Rent Act was to curb rents. The object was, he said, to find a fair rent.

No wonder Frank Allaun is annoyed. But those who have been cruelly deceived by Labour have much greater reason to be. They’ve been taken for a ride by Labour once again.

Some time ago Harold Wilson startled the world, stilled a revolt in his Party and got a lot of Publicity, by suggesting a Peace Mission from the Commonwealth Prime Ministers to settle the war in Vietnam.

A lot of people thought this was a dazzingly good idea.

But what happened?

The mission never went to Vietnam— it never, in fact, went anywhere.

Its members never met between themselves, let alone met the belligerents of Vietnam.

Some of the members of the Mission —for example, Nkrumah—are no longer Commonwealth Prime Ministers.

In other words, Wilson’s dazzling idea was an historic flop.

Meanwhile, the war goes on.

There will be no prizes for the next futile, vote-cadging suggestion.

Few things have more searingly exposed the futility and absurdity of Labour’s so-called left wing than their “revolt” over the government’s policies on prices and incomes and Vietnam.

In all the fuss over the revolt, it seemed to escape notice that, not for the first time, the rebels were rather late.

The Prices and Incomes Bill was first introduced during the lifetime of the last government; the version which caused Frank Cousins to resign his Ministry is actually milder than the previous one.

On Vietnam, the Wilson government always made clear their support for American actions, including the bombing of the North.

In other words, the present government are simply carrying on the policies of the last. But in between there was the general election; that was the time for the rebels to make their disagreements known.

They might even have resigned from the Labour Party and fought on an independent platform. But they had probably all studied the fate of the Radical Alliance in Hull North.

So what did they do?

Well here are extracts from the election addresses of two of the Vietnam rebels:

No word of dissension disturbed the orthodoxy of these addresses. Hugh Jenkins was hanging so firmly on to Wilson’s coat tails that he embellished his address with a picture of the Leader, pipe and avuncular expression and all.

There was plenty to protest about last March but the rebels held their tongues. And their seats.

Statesmen do not visit each other to exchange expressions of mutual respect.

So why did De Gaulle go to Russia?

French policy is now based upon acceptance of the fact that the days of independent glory, when France was a world power, are past. They ended in the mud on the Aisne and in the graveyards of Verdun.

For a long time, France took her new place in the world as a paid-up member of the American gang—a complaisant signatory of the NATO Pact, of the EEC and so on.

De Gaulle signified the first important change in this. Under him, French policy has been to solidify Europe into an area independent of both Russia and the United States, but dominated by France.

Hence the opposition to British membership of the Common Market. Hence De Gaulle’s famous visit to West Germany—and now his trip to Russia.

This last expedition probably followed from the French withdrawal from NATO, of which West Germany is still a member. Germany may yet become a nuclear power, may yet revive her expansionist ambitions.

For about a century Russia has been France’s counterweight against German expansion; this fact has not been changed by two World Wars and a lot of bloodshed.

One of the significant things about De Gaulle’s visit, however, was the way in which the Russians reminded him, delicately, that they are more than a European power.

Russian interests and influence now extend all over the world—and they will fight for them world-wide if they are threatened.

So De Gaulle had to face another reality. After the usual cloak of meaningless communique had been thrown over the visit he came home, and the disputes and intrigues of capitalism’s world conflict continue.

In Vietnam the American bombers spread their wings wider and more lethally as the weeks go by. This is escalation, an ugly word the use of which is almost obligatory when anyone is talking about the war there.

Vietnam is not the first war to have escalated. The First World War developed with a terrible speed, on an almost predetermined course, into something so bitter and destructive that it changed the world for good.

The Second World War escalated— and in a way if is still escalating—from simple high explosive bombs, and High Commands solemnly declaring their intentions of protecting civilian populations, to the fireballs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The pro-Government Karachi newspaper Dawn reported that the Soviet Union has offered to sell arms to Pakistan on the same terms as she already sells to India.