'FRONT' ORGANIZATIONS IN FEVER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-00915R000500380002-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 21, 1998
• Sequence Number: 2
• Content Type: REPORT

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"FRONT" ORGANIZATIONS IN FEVER
The various international "front" organizations controlled by
Communists have been badly shaken by Russia's onslaught on Hungary.
Their Soviet masters have tried to get the "fronts" to concentrate
exclusively on Egypt, but have failed. The whole elaborate structure
patiently built up in Stalin's time now seems endangered. If it gives
way, a huge gap will be torn in Moscow's propaganda network.
The principle on which the "fronts" were constructed was that
(a) ultimate control must .always remain safely in Communist hands,
but (b) gullible non-Communists must be drawn in in sufficient num-
bers to mask the organizations' real nature. These principles apply
to the World Federations of Democratic Youth, Trade Unions,
Scientific Workers' and Teachers' Unions (WFDY, WFTU, WFSW
and FISE), to corresponding bodies for students (IUS), lawyers (IADL),
journalists (IOJ), broadcasters (OIR), and women (WIDE), and to the
World Peace Council. Some were built up from scratch, others by
winning control of international bodies which were not originally
Communist instruments, but the end-product was the same. Each
organization could be relied on to give Moscow's. current line the
blessing of an apparently world-wide, multi-party body. Each also
served to enable Communists to avoid ostracism and to work toward
national "popular fronts" in countries where conditions were favorable.
Even before Hungary, the "fronts" were in some trouble.
Khrushchev's February revelations about Soviet terror had much the
same effect on them as on national Communist parties. There were
discords at meetings of the World Peace Council in April and of the
lawyers' association in May. The Communist press was so embar-
rassed that it played these meetings down instead of up. At the end
of August, the IUS (students) congress in Prague became almost
uncontrollable; ironically, one reason was the Communist-led
executive's attempt to conciliate West European feeling, which angered
nationalist Asian and African delegates.
These storms might easily have been weathered, given time.
But the Hungarian rising gave no time. When it broke out, all those
"fronts" that could turn a blind eye did so, retreating into an unaccustomed
silence while they waited to be given a new "line". The WFTU, however,
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dared ncL remain completely silent in face of an outbreak in which
trade unionists played a leading part. On October 28th, four days
after Soviet tanks first fired on demonstrating Hungarian workers,
the WFTU secretary-general, Louis Saillant, sent from Prague a
message deploring "the fascist putsch of which you are the victims"
and assuring the Hungarian workers that "you can always count on
our understanding and steadfast support. " He also sent the Security
Council a message assuring it that the Hungarian workers "will them-
selves be able to frustrate the plans of reaction, " and implicitly
supporting the Nagy government. These statements looked silly only
a few days later, when the Red Army had ousted Nagy. The WFTU
bureau then forgathered. in Prague and tried to concentrate on Egypt.
Two of the other "fronts," however, could not dodge the issue
so easily. They were:
1. The World Federation of Democratic Youth, which had
the bad luck to be based in Budapest, and
2. The World Peace Council, whose controllers realized that
to do nothing at all about Hungary would be suicidal for a
body nominally concerned with peace.
FURIOUS POLES
A. --The WFDY, additionally, embarrassed by the fact that
November 10th was its "World Youth Day, " did its best to lie low
and say nothing, but did not succeed. An open split in its own
executive was revealed. A draft resolution urging member organiza-
tions to bring aid to Hungary, and supporting "Hungarian youth in
its struggle, " was pressed. by British and Polish members. Every
other member of the executive opposed it. The Poles were furious.
A Warsaw broadcast commented:
"What did the WFDY, whose headquarters are in
Budapest, do in those tragic days? The federation played
no part whatever. It turned its back on youth... , This
shows how remote from life and corroded by past mistakes
are the federation and its leadership. "
On December 6th, several weeks later, the WFDY secretariat- -not
the :executive--at last managed to get out a wooly statement. It admitted
that "among youth and its organizations there are different appraisals" of
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the Hungarian "tragedy, "' and piously hoped that Russia and Hungary
would be able to agree about the withdrawal of the Red Army, with
due regard to the interests of Hungary's independence and world peace.
B. --The WPC won a breathing-space by convening a session of
its bureau in Stockholm and then switching to a later date and a meeting
in Helsinki because Sweden refused visas to some delegates (which the
WPC had probably known would happen). When the bureau did meet,
on November 18th, its chairman, Professor Joliot-Curie, was absent
(he was said to be ill). It decided to meet in camera. On November
23rd it produced a statement admitting that "opposing views have made
it impossible to formulate an agreed verdict" on the "painful events
in Hungary. " It managed to agree that these events were caused by
the cold war, the "policy of military blocks, '" and the "mistakes of
previous governments. "' Like the WFDY, it expressed hopes for a
Red Army withdrawal by agreement (in contrast to its simultaneous
demandthat British and French forces in Egypt "must be withdrawn
at once and unconditionally").
CHINESE VERSUS ITALIANS
An acute internal crisis underlay these carefully measured
words. Behind closed doors, the WPC bureau--which is a small,
hand-picked group--had been locked in what one delegate called
",stormy debates lasting 24 hours. "' The split took this shape:
1. The Nenni Socialists from Italy refused to accept even
the final watered-down statement. Signor Lombardi,
their leading delegate, spoke frankly about the rift
at Helsinki when he returned to Italy.
2. Even the Italian Communists joined their Nenni Socialist
colleagues in demanding, unsuccessfully, that the Red
Army's intervention must be condemned.
3. The Chinese, and some of the French delegates, took
the most rigid line of all in. suppprt of the Red Army.
They insisted that its two onslaughts were purely "the
internal affair of Hungary. "' They even outdid
4. The, Russians, who at least used more conciliatory
language, while refusing to yield on the main issues.
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5. The Poles took the line that the obvious division of opposition
made it useless to engage in "theoretical controversies. " Their
leader, Mr. Iwaszkiewicz, said on returning to Warsaw that
the Polish delegation tried to get agreement on something "which
would help the Hungarians as much as possible. " They secured
the inclusion of a phrase about the WPC's desire for "the full
exercise of Hungarian sovereignty," and rebuked the Chinese
and others for calling Nagy's supporters "fascists."
6. A lone Hungarian delegate, Pastor Janos, took the same
line as the Poles.
Hungary has brought to a head a growing malaise in the "world
peace" movement that Stalin founded. At the previous WPC bureau
session, held in Paris this summer, some delegates had already pro-
posed that the various national "peace committees" should be "made
independent of the WPC" (in theory, of course, they have always been
wholly independent; the new move confirms the falsity of the theory).
Now the pressure for independence is even stronger, in Poland as well
as in Italy and other western countries. Iwaszkiewicz, broadcasting
from Warsaw after his return from Helsinki, spoke of the national com-
mittees "seeking their own roads, with a view to rapprochement with
potential allies of the peace movement. "
The dilemma now for Moscow (and Peking) is that the national.
branches of the "peace" movement and the other "fronts" must either
(a) be allowed to deviate to the extent of actually criticising Communist
policies, or (b) lose all their value because they are universally regarded
as mere ventriloquist's dolls. Almost certainly the "fronts" will. be told
to bend rather than break. But they may yet have to bend so far that
they will break after all.
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