Freedom First

Summary

This is the complete issue No. 62 of Freedom First (July 1957), a monthly journal published by the Democratic Research Service (Bombay) for the Indian Committee for Cultural Freedom, edited by V. B. Karnik. The issue is anti-communist in orientation throughout: it dissects Mao Tse-tung’s “Hundred Flowers” speech as a tactical feint rather than genuine liberalisation, reproduces a message on the fourth anniversary of the 1953 East German workers’ revolt, carries an editorial “Notes” section on the Algerian war and the UN report on the Soviet suppression of the Hungarian Revolution, examines communist-influenced educational policy in newly Communist-governed Kerala, sets out a general philosophical defence of individual and political freedom, and closes with the extended Anissimov-Silone correspondence on Soviet literature and de-Stalinization (reprinted from Tempo Presente/Les Lettres Nouvelles) plus organisational news of the Congress for Cultural Freedom network. Contributors include V. B. Karnik, Adam Adil, M. A. Venkata Rao, J. H. Oldenbroek (International Confederation of Free Trade Unions), Ignazio Silone and Ivan Anissimov.

Essays

Mao’s Flowers And Weeds

By V. B. Karnik

V. B. Karnik analyses Mao Tse-tung’s February 1957 secret speech to the Chinese Supreme State Council (published four months later by the New China News Agency), which distinguishes “non-antagonistic contradictions” among the people from “antagonistic contradictions” with class enemies, and which floats the slogan “let a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend.” Karnik argues the speech has weakened Moscow’s monopoly on communist authority and has been welcomed in the West as a sign of liberalisation, but contends this optimism is misplaced: the Chinese Communist Party alone decides which criticism counts as a “fragrant flower” versus a “poisonous weed,” and Mao himself admitted his security forces had liquidated 800,000 people between 1949 and 1954 (with other estimates far higher). Karnik concludes the speech is best read as a symptom of internal strain and possibly a shift in method rather than any real move towards freedom or democracy.

• Mao Tse-tung’s secret February 1957 speech to the Supreme State Council was published (in edited form, with admitted ‘certain additions’ and deletions) by the New China News Agency after a four-month delay.
• The speech distinguishes ‘non-antagonistic contradictions’ among the people from ‘antagonistic contradictions’ with ‘enemies of the people,’ the latter subject to ruthless suppression.
• Mao’s ‘hundred flowers’ slogan for tolerating debate is undercut by six political criteria the Party uses to separate acceptable (‘fragrant flowers’) from unacceptable (‘poisonous weeds’) speech and writing.
• Mao admitted his Security Forces liquidated 800,000 people from 1949-1954; other estimates range to ten or fifteen million.
• The speech has weakened Moscow’s sole authority over international communism by establishing Peking as a rival centre of doctrine.
• Karnik reads Mao’s talk of ‘political freedom and democratic rights’ as freedom only ‘with leadership’ and democracy only ‘under centralised guidance,’ i.e., not real freedom or democracy at all.
• The essay situates the speech against the backdrop of the Khrushchev secret speech on Stalin and the Polish and Hungarian upheavals of 1956.

Notes (Algerian Deadlock / Report On Hungary / Moscow Youth Festival)

An unsigned three-part editorial ‘Notes’ section. ‘Algerian Deadlock’ condemns the paralysis of French policy after 34 months of military campaign in Algeria, arguing the refusal to grant independence, combined with 1.2 million French colons insisting on their superiority, has driven the country toward economic and moral crisis, and calls for outside mediation by the US and Tunisia. ‘Report On Hungary’ praises the UN Investigating Committee’s report for establishing that the USSR conducted ‘massive armed intervention’ in Hungary without invitation from the Hungarian government, exposing the hollowness of the Warsaw Pact’s legal pretensions, and calls on the UN to act against continued Soviet suppression of Eastern Europe. ‘Moscow Youth Festival’ criticizes the Government of India’s decision to restrict delegate numbers to the Sixth World Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow, framing the festival as Soviet propaganda designed to seduce foreign youth, citing internal Soviet press coverage coaching young Russians on how to present the USSR favourably to foreign visitors.

• France’s 34-month military campaign in Algeria has failed either militarily or politically, costing over a million pounds a day and radicalising both Algerian nationalists and French colons.
• The editorial calls for outside intervention by powers like the US and Tunisia to break the Algerian deadlock.
• The UN Investigating Committee on Hungary is praised for concluding that Soviet intervention in Hungary was unrequested by the Kadar government and constituted ‘massive armed intervention’ under the USSR’s own definition of aggression.
• The Committee’s report notes no looting occurred during the Hungarian uprising despite destroyed shop windows, a point cited as testament to Hungarian discipline and character.
• The Government of India limited delegates (to about eighty) attending the 1957 Moscow World Youth Festival, ostensibly for foreign-exchange reasons though the editorial suspects other motives.
• Soviet youth were reportedly coached by the press (Moskovsky Komsomolets) on how to present the USSR favourably and avoid envy of Western visitors’ possessions.

Anniversary Of East German Revolt

Adam Adil surveys the philosophy of freedom from antiquity to the present, arguing that political freedom is the most important dimension of freedom in general and that the freedom of the individual is the foundation of all progressive political thought. He traces the idea through Plato, Aristotle, Locke, Mill, Voltaire, Laski, and poets such as Dante, Wordsworth, Byron, Tagore and Iqbal, contrasts Locke’s empirical and Rousseau’s abstract approaches to the social contract, and surveys the English, American and French Revolutions as milestones in the expansion of political liberty, before noting that nineteenth-century social theorists came to see popular sovereignty and rule of law alone as insufficient to secure real individual freedom absent economic freedom too.

• Adil frames freedom as man’s highest aspiration and links it to Nehru’s remark in Discovery of India that ‘because of that much may be forgiven to man, and it is impossible to lose hope for him.’
• Political freedom is presented as the most important dimension of general freedom, with the individual’s freedom as its fundamental basis.
• Fascism and ‘totalitarian communism’ are cast as historical negations of freedom that nonetheless must eventually pass.
• Locke and Rousseau are contrasted as, respectively, empirical/practical and abstract/logical theorists preparing the philosophical ground for the English, American and French Revolutions.
• The essay surveys the 1789 French Revolution’s impact across Europe and cites Wordsworth’s ‘Bliss was it in that dawn to live’ as an expression of contemporary optimism.
• By the 19th century, thinkers recognised that popular sovereignty, representative government and rule of law alone were insufficient to secure individuals’ real freedom, prompting demands (via the 1848 revolutions and Chartism) that political liberty include economic freedom.

Philosophy Of Freedom

By Adam Adil

The continuation of Adam Adil’s ‘Philosophy Of Freedom’ (from page 5) on page 12 argues that political freedom must be joined with economic freedom — ‘freedom from want’ and ‘freedom from exploitation’ — but insists economic freedom is not a necessary precondition of political freedom, and that communist regimes which claim to prioritise economic freedom in fact deny political freedom altogether while failing to secure real economic freedom either. Adil warns against making economic freedom the ‘condition’ of political freedom, since this logic has historically been used to suppress political liberty, quoting Hugh Gaitskell’s rejection of that doctrine as ‘nonsense — and dangerous nonsense at that.’ The essay closes by warning against the ‘tyranny of the majority’ and endorsing Mill’s view that a democratic society must always allow a political minority the right to grow into a majority.

• Political freedom should be concomitant with economic freedom (‘freedom from want’ and ‘freedom from exploitation’), but communist regimes that claim to prioritise the latter in practice secure neither.
• Economic freedom is argued NOT to be a necessary condition of political freedom; treating it as such has historically enabled suppression of political liberty in the name of economic freedom.
• Hugh Gaitskell, leader of the British Labour Party, is quoted rejecting the claim that economic freedom is a necessary condition of political freedom as ‘nonsense — and dangerous nonsense at that.’
• The essay warns against the ‘tyranny of the majority’ denying the ‘grace of living’ to political or economic minorities.
• Mill (and ‘Renon’ — likely Renan) are cited as having stressed this ‘grace of living’ as essential to freedom, with the argument that a healthy democracy must let political minorities have the right to grow into majorities.

The Impossible Dialogue

This piece reproduces the full text of a message from J. H. Oldenbroek, Secretary-General of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, addressed to workers in the Soviet Zone of Germany on the fourth anniversary of the 17 June 1953 East German workers’ revolt. Oldenbroek recounts how differential pay scales, arbitrary privileges and a pervasive spying system were used by East German communist authorities to divide workers, but that the strategy backfired when workers rose in unanimous revolt across 274 cities and towns, demanding free elections, abolition of the imposed government, and German reunification, a revolt eventually crushed by Soviet tanks but which Oldenbroek says could not kill the spirit of freedom. He calls on East German workers to reject any fraternisation with the state-controlled ‘Free German Trade Union Federation’ and pledges the solidarity of the ICFTU’s 55 million members.

• The message marks the fourth anniversary (17 June 1957) of the East German workers’ revolt of 1953, which involved strikes and demonstrations in 274 cities and towns.
• Soviet martial law imposed after the uprising resulted in 1,067 workers being sentenced to a combined 6,321 years in prison.
• East German authorities used differential pay scales, arbitrary privileges and a comprehensive spying system to divide workers before the revolt.
• Workers’ demands escalated from modest economic grievances to explicitly political demands: abolition of the imposed government, free elections, and reunification of the Federal Republic.
• Oldenbroek urges continued rejection of any fraternising with the Soviet Zone’s official ‘Free German Trade Union Federation’ and pledges solidarity from the ICFTU’s 55 million members worldwide.

Educational Policies In Kerala

By MA Venkata Rao

M. A. Venkata Rao critiques the new educational proposals of the Communist-led Kerala state government, focusing on textbook nationalisation, control of syllabi, and withdrawal of state grants to denominational schools. He argues that nationalising textbook production violates the principle of educational autonomy—the right of teachers, writers and publishers to determine curriculum content through their expertise—and warns that state control over textbooks in a Communist-governed state risks rewriting history and social values along Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist lines, citing the danger of disparaging figures like Shivaji and Rana Pratap Singh as ‘communal.’ He also examines the constitutional dispute over Article 30 (minority rights to run educational institutions and receive state aid) and criticises a proposed Kerala University Bill that would nominally grant university autonomy while placing constituent colleges under government (and hence Communist Party) control, concluding this represents a serious threat to genuine education and democratic self-government.

• The Kerala state government (a communist government) proposed nationalising textbook production, controlling syllabi, and withdrawing state grants to denominational schools run by religious organisations like the Catholic Church.
• Venkata Rao argues textbook nationalisation violates educational autonomy: writers, teachers and publishers, by virtue of their expertise, should determine curriculum and reading materials, not state bureaucracy.
• He warns of a specific danger under Communist rule: rewriting history/textbooks along Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist lines and disparaging national historical figures (e.g. Shivaji, Rana Pratap Singh) as ‘communal’ or violent.
• The essay analyses the constitutional dispute over Article 30, contrasting the American model of strict separation (no state aid to any denominational school) with what he calls the Mauryan/Asokan tradition of impartial state aid to all recognised religious groups, which he argues is the model embodied in India’s Constitution.
• The proposed Kerala University Bill is criticised for granting nominal university autonomy while transferring the Travancore University’s constituent colleges (and their staff) to direct government control, with the Pro-Vice-Chancellor role held by the Minister of Education, undermining genuine self-government of education.

C.C.F. News / I.C.C.F. News / D.R.S. News

This piece reprints the concluding exchange (from Les Lettres Nouvelles) of a six-month correspondence between Ivan Anissimov, Soviet literary historian and editorial board member of Inostranaia Litoratura, and Ignazio Silone, Italian writer and chairman of a 1956 Zurich meeting of Eastern and Western literary reviews. Silone had submitted a questionnaire to Anissimov probing whether Soviet literary directives had changed post-Stalin, whether the ‘thaw’ extended to publishing independent-left Western writers, and how Soviet writers had reacted to reform movements in Hungary, Poland and Yugoslavia; Anissimov’s guarded replies defended Soviet literature and dismissed the Hungarian Revolution as a ‘counter-revolution.’ A second round of increasingly hostile letters follows: Anissimov accuses Silone of slandering the USSR and betraying his own past as an anti-fascist; Silone responds with a stinging, ironic letter (‘I beg your pardon’) pressing Anissimov on the unexplained deaths and disappearances of Soviet writers (including Maxim Gorky), the closure of Moscow’s Jewish Theatre, and the banning of Yiddish publications, and declares the dialogue impossible so long as Soviet censorship persists. The section closes with brief news items: a Congress for Cultural Freedom conference at St. Antony’s College, Oxford (attended by scholars including Raymond Aron, Isaiah Berlin, A. D. Gorwala, and Minoo Masani), the publication of a White Book on the Hungarian Revolution edited by Melvin J. Lasky, an ICCF lecture by Prof. D. R. Gadgil in Poona, and a Democratic Research Service discussion on ‘Tactics of United Front’ in Bombay attended by V. B. Karnik, Adam Adil, and M. R. Masani among others.

• The correspondence originated at a Zurich meeting of Eastern and Western literary review editors chaired by Ignazio Silone, followed by a formal questionnaire exchange between Silone and Ivan Anissimov meant for simultaneous publication in Tempo Presente and Les Lettres Nouvelles.
• Anissimov defended Soviet socialist realism and dismissed the Hungarian Revolution as a ‘counter-revolution’ aided by reactionaries, while Silone challenged him with a list of Russian and Jewish communist writers murdered under Stalin.
• In their second round of letters, Anissimov accused Silone of ‘violently anti-socialist and anti-Marxist’ slander; Silone’s reply presses Anissimov on the unresolved death of Maxim Gorky, disappeared writers, and the closure of Moscow’s Jewish Theatre and Yiddish publishing.
• Silone declares ‘a dialogue between us is impossible and would have no meaning’ as long as Soviet censorship prevents Anissimov from answering freely.
• News notes cover: a CCF conference at St. Antony’s College, Oxford (24-29 June 1957) on Soviet society since the Twentieth Party Congress, with participants including Raymond Aron, Isaiah Berlin, Merle Fainsod, A. D. Gorwala and Minoo Masani; publication of The Hungarian Revolution white book edited by Melvin J. Lasky with an introduction by Hugh Seton-Watson; a Poona ICCF lecture by Prof. D. R. Gadgil; and a Bombay DRS discussion on ‘Tactics of United Front’ chaired by V. B. Karnik.

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