Editorial. ..

Satellite Introduces Calamity-Howling

HERE is no danger in the Satel lite itself. It is simply a small metal sphere, hurtling across i evening sky at 18,000 miles per ir, watched goggle-eyed by lusands in Eastern Australia, t could contain a bomb, or some ng; but anything from the ;ellite, or the Satellite itself, nld be completely burned in fric i with the earth’s atmosphere, if tried to return to earth, t was in launching the thing .t the Russians displayed genius .t has rocked the Western world. may not ignore their achieve nt in building and launching a ket which carried the sphere for ertain defined distance at a cer i speed, and in calculating the jectory, so that it would be freed m the rocket at the exact time 1 angle which would enable it to :le into Its endless orbit around earth. cientists who can do that should able to design a rocket that will ry an intercontinental missile to r designated place within many usands of miles.

QT that does not justify this world-wide calamity-howling by people who express >ounded admiration for Russia, st that we provide millions thwith for the concentrated ining of scientists, and argue t the decadent West has been stripped by “the men of to tow”. ny country which, through a iless dictatorship, spends count millions upon rockets and [nic research, while leaving the 5s of its people poorly fed, ier-housed and under-privileged, do what Russia has done. There io comparison between the living ditions of the people of the er atomic-research countries >A and British Commonwealth), . the people of Russia; yet the rded professors and the starry i newspaper commentators are lauding the Reds, and sneering the Westerners. he Russians may have been first i the stratosphere—but that s not mean that the Westerners, y are trying to maintain the icture of their civilisation inst the Muscovite threat, have got a few tricks still up their ve. or the moment, however, the stern European Powers are very sia-conscious. And, naturally, 7 are watching the sparring be en Russia and the United States i lively interest—and some ical amusement. We may not ;et that, in international affairs,

our well-beloved Americans are bumblers of the first water.

FOR most of the Cold War years, Britain and France were very close to America. With Moscow Communism menacing the whole world, we seemed to have no future except in close association with the manufacturers of the nuclear fission bombs.

It is all different now.

Britain and France, being older and wiser than the Eisenhowers, moved into Suez a year ago— supplying the only possible answer to the Middle East problem created by Nasser’s seizure of the Canal.

USA promptly kicked them out again, and introduced “the Eisen hower Doctrine in the Middle East”.

Since then, Britain and France have been on the sidelines; and Moscow has had the better of the bitter diplomatic struggle which since has gone on.

Communist Influence has been extended enormously. There seems to be no effective answer to the Russians’ claim that they now have superiority in nuclear weapons, as well as satellite devices. Washing ton, with visible evidence of defla tion, has accepted Moscow’s cocky demand that they two shall get to gether to consider international control of Satellite (or inter stellar) activity.

What next? The pessimists among us are in full cry. Communists of the more blatant types are again thrusting themselves to the front in public affairs. One silly move in the Middle East (which is packed with nationalist fanatics) could precipitate World War 111.

BUT it is not a one-sided picture.

If all is well with the Russian satellite in the evening sky, all is not well with the Soviet’s policital satellites, behind the Iron Curtain.

Despite merciless indoctrination, new generations of men and women are appearing in Hungary, Czecho slovakia, Poland and the Balkan and Baltic States, to demand some freedom in arranging their own lives —some escape from the colour less and monotonous strait jackets of Communism. British thinkers always have believed that some such development will supply the ultimate answer to the bastard socialist creed that Stalin and his gang created out of Marxism.

The struggle in Russia is no longer a fight for an ideology. It is a fight by unscrupulous political gangsters for perquisites and privi leges. You may see exactly the

same sort of thing going on in the Australian, British and American trade unions that have been domin ated by Red gangsters.

This is written on October 7. For four days, the Warsaw police have been fighting against thousands of anti-Red Polish demonstrators.

There is restlessness in Roumania, Lithuania, East Germany.

KRUSCHEV still quacks loudly from the Kremlin; but where are all the others, recently sup plying his chorus?

Molotov, Shepilov and Malenkov are politically dead and buried in Siberia. Bulganin seems to have been put to bed in some distant hospital. Mikoyan the Armenian still hovers around—some say that the Army chiefs are keeping him handy, to supplant Kruschev.

For Kruschev’s hold upon the Muscovite dictatorship is shaky.

There now is no doubt that, in the turmoil which followed the denun ciation of Stalin, the Army took charge. Three or four top generals are in command—it looks as if the real boss is Koniev.

Zhukov —Eisenhower’s pal—prob ably is more prominent, and Krus chev appears to take instructions from him; but the ultimate power is in the hands of Generals Koniev, Sokolovsky and Antonov. Kruschev is their puppet.

Well-informed British commenta tors say that the Russian Army chiefs could not care less about Communism —all that matters to them is that Russia shall remain paramount and triumohant. Their main headache is in the east—but not beyond the Pacific (where Ike is not liked as much as he was a

Our cartoonist, Will Gill, is currently in hospital recovering from pneumonia. We expect that he will be back with us again next month.

year ago). Russia’s bogeyman is in China.

China has the world’s biggest re servoir of people—6oo millions.

China is changing faster than any country on earth. Industrialisation is proceeding rapidly.

Imagine what might be done by a nation of 600 million people, equipped by factories on the Euro pean or American scale. Russia’s bosses keep on imagining it—and they do not like what they think they see. They do not like to read frequent announcements by the Chinese leaders that China, and not Russia, is destined to lead the world into a new form of social organisation.

One Russian has said that, while they would prefer to fight America and “the capitalist world”, they fear that it is their destiny to fight the Chinese. Or maybe the Germans.