Skidmore News SPECIAL Volume Thirty-eight SKIDMORE COLLEGE, SARATOGA SPRINGS, N. Y., MARCH 5, 1963 EXTRA 2 NEWS ANNOUNCES NSA-CGA CONFERENCE FRENCH COMMUNIST PARTY By Henry C. Galant Professor of Government and Chairman of the Department The French Communist Party has maintained surprising electoral strength and overall unity since its formation in 1920. In the three elections held under the Fourth Republic in 1946. 1951 and 1956 the Communists consistently won between five and five and one-half million votes, roughly 25 percent of the total. Under the Fifth Republic the Communists have been able to win approximately 19-22 percent of the votes cast in the elections of 1958 and 1962. A dramatic element is the marked decline of Communist parliamentary representation from 142 in 1958 to 10 after the 1958 elections and to 41 today. This is the result of a shift from the previous system of proportional representation to the present single-member system with two ballots. The French Communist Party is very orthodox and is considered one of the most Stalinist of the Western Communist parties. It is even to the right of the Yugoslav and Polish parties. This results from, or results in, the continuation of the aging and unimaginative Stalinist leadership of such men as Thorez and Duclos. This loyalty to Russian ideological leadership has forced the party to adopt very supple and adaptable tactics which range from a policy of isolation and “class war” to “popular front” alliances with socialist as well as non-Marxist parties. (Continued on page two) COMMUNIST THREAT By Robert F. Smith Associate Professor of Government Little comfort can be taken from the fact that Communism as a philosophical system has not withstood the test of objective critical analyses. History demonstrates clearly that the “truth” of ideas and their capacity to influence the minds of men need not coincide. The strength of Communist ideas today stem from two sources: their promises are of such breadth and simplicity as to ensure their appeal to all men in some fashion, and liberal democrats have failed to articulate a consistent and effective defense of Democracy as a counter to Communism. Ironically, the “utopian” spirit or expectations which have enhanced man’s receptivity to Communist ideas are a product of the same philosophical principles which underlie liberal democracy. Communism and Democracy spring from the same roots, and both base their appeals on desires common to all men. Communism, like liberal democracy, promises life, liberty, and happiness to man; it justifies the satisfaction of man’s basic desires on “moral” grounds; it provides man with a vision of undefined but infinite progress; and it assures man of his radical independence by postulating man as the ultimate author of his own fate. It is this “democratic” character, i.e., the promises made to all men, that gives Communism its greatest appeal. (Continued on page two) COMMUNISM AND UNDERDEVELOPED COUNTRIES By Daniel Balmuth Assistant Professor of History The appeal of Communism to the underdeveloped countries is very great. Soviet Russia can offer to these countries, first of all, the benefits of her own experience in industrialization. The Soviets claim that they pulled Russia out of the mire of a pre-industrial economy into the paradise of a flourishing industrial economy. Of course, they conceal the fact that Russia had made substantial industrial progress before the Bolshevik Revolution and they exaggerate the extent of their industrialization now. Nevertheless, it is possible for the leaders of undeveloped countries to feel that the Russian example can be of use to them. Secondly, the Soviets make much of the fact that this industrialization was a product of their own efforts; this assertion of independence undoubtedly appeals to the underdeveloped countries because foreign aid can only help those countries that are willing to help themselves. (Continued on page two) HISTORY OF COMMUNISM IN THE U.S. By Allen Kifer Assistant Professor of History The Communist challenge to the United States is a challenge from without. Whatever internal challenge or threat may have existed in our history seems now to be very much a thing of the past. The Communist party in the United States has been since its foundation a part of an international Communist movement, and has, for the most part taken its “party line,” its principles, policies and methods, from cues supplied by the leaders of that movement in the home of the first successful Communist revolution, the Soviet Union. It has been an alien movement on American soil and as such has had great difficulty taking root in this environment. The average American workingman has never been susceptible to the appeal of proletarian revolution; the average American Negro could not be reached by-Stalin’s policy calling for the establishment of a separate national state for his race in the Black Belt of the South. These, and too many other kinds of Americans, have too closely identified themselves with that anathema of Marxist doctrine, the middle-class. Early American Communists were convinced that world revolution was just around the corner, that Western Europe and the United States would follow the lead of the collapsed Czarist regime in Russia. When that collapse did not immediately materialize they settled themselves to wait patiently for the inevitable. Some of them are still waiting. Harassed through the early 1920s by the enforcement of federal and state sedition laws and deportation of thousands of their members, a hard party core held on until the depression years of the 1930s when again they saw indications of the imminent realization of their dream. In those years, and the war years that followed, American Communists, under the leadership of Earl Browder, prospered. They gained footholds in labor unions, in civil liberties associations, in veterans’ organizations and in the academic and artistic worlds. These footholds proved temporary, however. Americans who had felt a kinship with a successful socialist experiment and with a heroic ally in the world struggle against fascism, were faced, in the post-war world, with a progressively threatening Soviet foreign policy and disappointment at (Continued on page two) HARRISON E. SALISBURY Harrison E. Salisbury, noted journalist and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, will open the NSA Conference, “The Communist Challenge to the United States,” on Friday evening, March 8, with the keynote address entitled, “The Sino-Soviet Dispute and Its Implications to the United States.” A graduate of the University of Minnesota where he received his B.A., in his quarter century as a newspaperman, Mr. Salisbury has been a reporter, bureau manager, and foreign news editor of the United Press, for which he traveled more than 25,000 miles within the borders of the Soviet Union. From 1949 to 1954, he was the New York Times correspondent in the Soviet Union. In 1954 he made a 12,000 mile trip through the Soviet North and Siberia. Subsequently Mr. Salisbury wrote a series of 14 articles for the Times, “Russia Reviewed,” which he later expanded into a book, American in Russia, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1955. As a result of the reports in his book, Mr. Salisbury was barred from Russia for five years by the Soviet authorities. Not until 1959 was he allowed to return. Winner of additional awards for foreign correspondence, Mr. Salisbury is recognized as one of the world’s foremost, and objective authorities on Soviet affairs. Harrison E. Salisbury [photograph] EDWARD E. PALMER Dr. Edward E. Palmer is from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Local Affairs, Syracuse University. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science and Public Administration from Syracuse. From 1960-1962 he was Director of the Salzburg Seminar in American Studies in Salzburg, Austria, and from 1958-1960 Director of the Citizenship Program of the Maxwell School of Citizenship. Among his many publications are monographs, booklets, articles, reviews and several books. Some of his books are: The Communist Problem in America, The New St. Lawrence Frontier, and Problems in Democratic Citizenship. A noted and highly respected expert, Dr. Palmer will be a panelist on Saturday morning, and on Saturday afternoon he will talk in the Recreation Center on the domestic problem of Communism in the United States. CHARLES STASTNY Charles Stastny, presently studying for his Ph.D. at Harvard University, will return to Skidmore College for the NSA Conference as a panelist on Saturday, March 8. Mr. Stastny will participate in both the morning and afternoon panel discussions, the first on communism in underdeveloped countries and the second, the domestic problem of communism. Mr. Stastny received his B.A. from the University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, where he graduated magna cum laude and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He received his M.A. from Harvard University and studied at the Russian Research Center, Harvard University, 1958-1959. For two years,1960-1962, Mr. Stastny was an Instructor in the Department of Government at Skidmore. Mr. Stastny’s particular fields of specialization include International Relations, Nationalism and Regional Specialization in Eastern European Studies. In addition to his forthcoming participation in the conference, Mr. Stastny has aided a great deal in its organization. WHITNEY T. PERKINS Dr. Whitney T. Perkins, Associate Professor of Political Science at Brown University, will be the guest speaker for the banquet on Saturday evening, March 9. Dr. Perkins will discuss the United States and Soviet Union conflict in context with the United Nations. Dr. Perkins received his B.A. from Tufts College and his Ph.D. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Massachusetts. In 1950-1951 he was a Fulbright Scholar. Prior to his position at Brown University, Dr. Perkins taught at Tufts College, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Denver. An authority on International Relations, International Law, and American Foreign Policy, Dr. Perkins’ most recent book is The Denial of Empire, The United States and Its Dependencies. Whitney T. Perkins [photograph] LEONARD ROWE Dr. Leonard Rowe, Visiting Associate Professor of Political Science at Brown University, will be a panelist for the conference on Saturday, March 8. Born in Poland and educated in the United States, Dr. Rowe received his B.A. in 1951, his M.A. in 1952, and his Ph.D. in 1957, all from the University of California (Berkeley). While studying at the University of California (Berkeley) he was a research assistant, a teaching assistant, and a special assistant to the President. From 1955 to 1959, Dr. Rowe was head of the Political Science and Public Administration Extension at the University of California. Also he was a lecturer in American government and politics, 1956-1959. As an Associate Professor at the Russian Research Center, Harvard University, Dr. Rowe did Post-doctoral study and research of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, 1960-1962. During that time he was a Ford Foundation Scholar, Foreign Area Training Program and spent two months traveling (Continued on page two)