dy Marjorie Holt
Pat Jordan's article (loth Uctober) emphasises what is in my opinion one of the greatest difficulties to be overcome by progressive movenents in this country. This fear of "Communism" has been Geliberately fostered by the attitude of the Government, so that it, along with the word "Trotskyist", can be flung at anyone who criticises Labour Party policy. How cosy it must be for the Labour Party to huddle up to their failures and their Party Line, while Frank Allaun has to point out that in all probability a motion (as important as calling for defence cuts) might be passed by the Parliamentary Labour Party, and then nothing would be done, We have now reached the Olympian heights where all the Labour Party machinery can be churned into action, only to be brought to a grinding halt by the Civil Service. This would be hilarious if it weren't so pitiful and dangerous, It is this fostered fear of Communism which keeps the peace movements apart (the issue of Vietnam is continually bedevilled by, "Whose atrocities do you prefer? The Left or the Right? Why, the Right, of course"), "I am very much afraid that if the North wins in Vietnam there will be terrible reprisals", said Peter Cadogan to me recently (speaking critically of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign). I envy him the ability to put his head down at night with only this Vietnamese problem on his mind, Personally, my fears are present-day American murder and devastation, and the possibility that Johnson might go completely out of his tiny mind and drop an "H" bomb. But every man to his taste.... Of one thing you can be sure: if you really care about Genocide in Vietnam and elsewhere, the raising of the standards of lower paid workers, adequate provision for the dispossessed, the solution of racial problems, the proper functioning of trades unions, then you will be regarded as a "Communist", because democracy in the form of the Labour Government no longer recognises its own hall marks,
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