Two Faces West

Communism's World Peace Council last week put on two opposing propaganda shows at the same time.

The Missing Portraits. In Moscow it was the businessman's turn--previous conferences having starred intellectuals, youth, scientists, writers and musicians. Last week to Russia's capital came some 400 businessmen from all over the world. -"No politics" was the promise: just hard-headed talk among traders anxious to turn a quick ruble, or franc, or pound--or dollar. Even tie familiar giant portraits of Stalin were missing.

One or two obscure American businessmen (the State Department had discouraged attendance) were allowed to declare themselves in favor of private capitalism. A British delegation, respectably headed by Lord Boyd-Orr, listened with interest as one of its members, Left-Wing M.P. Samuel Sydney Silverman, announced that there were enough business orders from Russia and Red China to wipe out the Lancashire textile slump. Then Mikhail V. Nesterov, head of Russia's Chamber of Commerce, oozing cooperation and coexistence, offered to double or triple Russia's imports. He offered to buy British textiles, spices and herring, French electrical equipment and ships, Dutch tin, Belgian rayon, German, Italian and Japanese products. In return Russia would sell grains, coal, manganese and timber.

The Joker. Moreover--and this sent Britons cabling home for instructions--Russia would accept payment for her wares in local currency and spend the money in the country of origin. Peking Banker Nan Han-chen, the chief Chinese delegate, was equally specific about Chinese wants. Said one Briton: "These people [the Chinese] didn't come here to shoot off hot air, but to do business." Down in the fine print was the joker: the West must end its embargo against the Soviet bloc, and especially against Red China.

The economic conference showed that the Russians and the Chinese may be feeling the pinch of the West's embargo. But it was also designed to drive a wedge between the U.S. and the free nations of Europe, who badly need to build up their export markets.*Stalin himself showed his best smiling face to the West (see BUSINESS). At week's end he had a long chat with India's departing Ambassador, Sir Sarvepalli Radharkrishnan, and convinced him that everybody should get together peacefully around a table.

The Other Friends. Yet in Oslo, the Communist World Peace Council was busy trying to prove that the nations with which Russia yearns to coexist are a bunch of bloodthirsty plague spreaders. Even though the sessions were attended by the standard Red cheerleaders, the show proved something of a flop. At a three-hour press conference, France's Joliot-Curie, who once had some stature as an honest scientist, showed "documentary" films of germ warfare from Korea and China. When reporters asked such questions as "How many killed?" the answer was: "Secret information."

Russia's Ilya Ehrenburg, detecting a disbelieving smile on the face of Per Monsen, an anti-Communist Norwegian editor, popped up and heatedly likened the alleged U.S. germ warfare to Nazi exterminations, then listed friends he had lost in Nazi camps. Monsen rose quietly, said he learned about Nazi camps from several years spent in them and that he had also lost friends, "not only in Nazi camps but in camps of different origin." Ehrenburg sat down.

*Under the 1951 Battle Act, any country selling strategic goods to the Soviet bloc loses all its U.S. economic or military aid.

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