Freedom First

Summary

Freedom First No. 111 (August 1961) is a monthly periodical from the Forum of Free Enterprise circle, edited by D. F. Karaka. The issue is dominated by Cold War anxieties: a lead essay on the Berlin Crisis argues that the Western allies must hold a firm, even bellicose, line against Khrushchev’s threat to sign a unilateral peace treaty with East Germany, and a second feature reproduces a Nigerian student’s first-hand account of Soviet indoctrination and subversion training aimed at Africa. Domestic politics appears through a report on Communist Party infiltration of the Indian National Congress via mass ‘conversions’ of communist cadres, and an economic commentary assesses the toll of a decade of Indian planning on ordinary living standards, deficit financing, and the resource needs of the Third Plan. Shorter items cover the 1961 Maharashtra floods (including the Panshet dam breach that devastated Poona), the France-Tunisia Bizerta crisis, India-Pakistan tensions over Kashmir, a British trade-union court case exposing Communist ballot-rigging, and a review of Takdir Alisjahbana’s book on Indonesia’s cultural and economic development. The issue closes with a page of unattributed quotations (‘With Many Voices’) from Kennedy, Khrushchev, Chinese Foreign Minister Chen Yi, and others on the Berlin and Sino-Soviet questions.

Essays

Berlin Crisis And Western Stand

By by Adam Adil

In ‘Berlin Crisis And Western Stand,’ Adam Adil argues that Khrushchev’s renewed threat to sign a separate peace treaty with East Germany — converting West Berlin into a demilitarised ‘free city’ — is legally, morally, and politically indefensible, and that the Western allies must meet it with firm resolve rather than concession. The essay reviews the West’s patient handling of repeated Soviet brinkmanship since 1958, cites Senator Barry Goldwater’s call for the West to go on the offensive against communist expansion, and catalogues Soviet military strength (navy tonnage, submarines, ICBMs, bomber fleets) to argue that while the West retains overall nuclear superiority, it must also build up conventional forces given the Soviet edge in troop numbers in Eastern Europe. It closes by urging the West to court opinion in Asia and Africa by more actively championing decolonisation and engaging ordinary people rather than only elites.

• Khrushchev has repeated, since November 1958, his threat to sign a unilateral peace treaty with East Germany, converting West Berlin into a ‘free city.’
• The essay holds the Western legal and moral position on Berlin as sound, given Big Four wartime agreements on Germany.
• Senator Barry Goldwater is cited arguing the West must take the offensive against communism rather than merely hold territory.
• A detailed tally of Soviet naval, submarine, missile, and bomber strength is presented to argue Western nuclear superiority remains intact but conventional-force parity is lacking.
• The West is urged to publicise its record of decolonisation and engage workers and peasants directly in Asia and Africa to counter communist propaganda.
• By the essay’s account, Khrushchev’s tone had already softened slightly by the time of writing, suggesting Western firmness was having an effect.

Notes (Floods and Dams; France and Tunisia; Crude Propaganda; A Lesson to Trade Unionists)

‘Moscow Plans Subversion In Africa’ reproduces disclosures by Nigerian student Anthony G. Okotcha, brother-in-law of Nigeria’s Governor-General Dr. Azikiwe, who was recruited by Soviet agents and sent with his wife to Moscow’s Friendship University to study international law. Okotcha describes an intensive ideological indoctrination programme, paramilitary ‘self-defence’ training in sabotage and assassination techniques, and a bizarre course in ‘occult science’ teaching African students to exploit witch-doctor superstition for political ends. Sent back to London and then to Nigeria to reorganise disguised communist front movements (the Nigerian Youth Congress and a left-wing Trade Union Congress), Okotcha was shown a Soviet blueprint for seizing power in Nigeria that included assassination, terrorism, and the physical elimination of prominent non-communist nationalist leaders. Shaken by the plan’s ruthlessness, he broke with Moscow and resolved to publicise what he had learned.

• Anthony Okotcha, a Nigerian law student and brother-in-law of Governor-General Azikiwe, was recruited to Moscow’s Friendship University, which prized his family connection for potential government infiltration.
• Training included Marxist-Leninist indoctrination, paramilitary instruction in sabotage/assassination, and an ‘occult science’ course teaching manipulation of African superstition for political ends.
• Okotcha was sent back to Nigeria to reorganise two disguised communist fronts: the Nigerian Youth Congress and a left-wing Trade Union Congress.
• He was shown a Soviet blueprint for seizing power in Nigeria involving assassination, terrorism, suspension of Parliament, and Russian troop intervention.
• The blueprint named specific Nigerian leaders (Chief Okotie Ebo, Mr. Macwine, T. O. S. Benson) as targets for ‘physical elimination’ because they were too popular to discredit politically.
• Okotcha broke with the plan and returned to Nigeria vowing to expose and fight Soviet subversion.

Moscow Plans Subversion In Africa (Disclosures of an African Student)

V.B.K.’s review of Takdir Alisjahbana’s ‘Indonesia In The Modern World’ (Congress for Cultural Freedom, New Delhi) praises the author — an Indonesian scholar and former Constituent Assembly member now teaching in the United States — for a searching, unusually self-critical diagnosis of Indonesian nationalism and cultural development. The review highlights Alisjahbana’s central worry: whether Indonesia can convert an anti-colonial nationalism rooted in ‘destructive hatred’ into a constructive force for building a modern, humane society, and his insistence that changing people’s attitudes toward life and work, not merely importing seeds and tractors, is the true prerequisite for economic development. The reviewer draws an explicit parallel to India’s own difficulties with agricultural extension schemes that failed for want of attitudinal change in villages.

• Alisjahbana is an Indonesian scholar, former professor at the National University of Djakarta and Constituent Assembly member, now based in the United States.
• The book collects essays on Indonesian culture, language, and its integration into the modern world; the reviewer finds it uneven in places but penetrating overall.
• Alisjahbana questions whether Indonesian nationalism, born of anti-colonial hatred, can be redirected into a constructive 20th-century humanist project.
• His central thesis: economic development schemes fail without a prior change in people’s attitude to life, not merely the introduction of new tools or techniques.
• The reviewer (V.B.K.) draws a direct parallel to India’s own failed village agricultural improvement schemes.

Review: Indonesia In The Modern World (by Takdir Alisjahbana, Congress for Cultural Freedom, New Delhi, Rs. 4/-)

By V.B.K.

In ‘Plans And The Common Man,’ M. Devadas Kini reviews two research studies on Indian economic planning and argues that a decade of Five-Year Plans has, at best, left the common man no better off and at worst eroded his living standards through inflation and rising taxation. Kini criticises the Soviet-modelled emphasis on capital-goods industries at the expense of consumption goods, which he links directly to price rises, and highlights findings that India’s combined incidence of income and dividend taxes (about 56 per cent) is far higher than in West Germany or Japan, discouraging both domestic and foreign investment. He surveys the scale of deficit financing (26 per cent of second-plan outlay) and the looming resource burden of the Third Plan, including debt-service obligations, and concludes that the government has failed to give individual initiative enough incentive, while diminishing returns from taxation and an inadequate agricultural tax base leave few good options for raising further resources.

• A decade of Indian planning has, per the essay, made no positive difference or actively worsened the common man’s cost of living through inflation and taxation.
• The second Five-Year Plan followed a Soviet-style ‘unbalanced growth’ strategy favouring capital goods, which Kini blames for consumer price increases.
• Combined income and dividend tax incidence in India (about 56%) is cited as far higher than in West Germany (45%) or Japan (39%), deterring foreign investment.
• Deficit financing reached 26% of second-plan outlay; the Third Plan faces a projected net capital-account outflow of roughly Rs. 500 crores plus Rs. 2100 crores for machinery and equipment.
• The essay argues taxation has reached a point of diminishing returns and that the agricultural sector’s tax contribution remains disproportionately small relative to its share of national income.
• Kini contends government-led industrialisation is less effective than government building infrastructure, education, and legal frameworks while private initiative drives industrialisation itself.

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