ARMED CAMPS
QUESTIONS OF EAST AND WEST, by G. E. Hudson; Odhams Press, through Whitcombe and Tombs, 18/9. M ISTAKES made by the Western democracies and stumbling blocks liable. to be encountered in the future form the main theme of this collection of 18 essays. It begins, suitably enough, with a comparison between Lord Castlereagh’s diplomacy at the Congress of Vienna with that of Mr. Churchill and President Roosevelt at the Yalta Conference, somewhat to the latter’s disadvantage. Roughly speaking, the book is divided into European and Asiatic sections, each under various headings. Speculation about the truth of the Red Army purge in 1937, and the real cause of Maxim Gorky’s death leads on to an arraignment of what Mr. Hudson calls the Allied nations’ complicity in Nazi aggression-to wit, the Munich settlement, and the secret agreement for the partition of Poland attached to the Ger-man-Soviet non-aggression pact of 1939. , In passing over to Asia Mr. Hudson has much to say about conditions which render that continent so fertile a seed bed for Communism. "The main factor of crisis in Asia is not so much the poverty of the masses-which is nothing new-as the social and cultural disintegration that has been going on, for two generations now, under Western impact." The existing doubt and confusion play into the hands of the Communist who claims with sublime confidence that (continued -on next page)
BOOKS (continued from previous page) through his creed alone can all problems be solved. There are also political factors which operate in favour of Communism. China, for instance, has suffered humiliation for more than a century at the hands of Western nations. Her alliance with Russia is popular, therefore, not only on ideological grounds, but also because it enables her to defy the nations who imposed their will upon her with such little regard for her national pride. Most of these essays have already been printed in various reviews. All of them bear upon the circumstances which have led to the present disastrous division of the world into armed camps; and all of them may be read with advantage by anyone who is interested in trying to separate fact from fiction in contempor-
ary history.
R. M.
Burdon
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 780, 2 July 1954, Page 13
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370ARMED CAMPS New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 780, 2 July 1954, Page 13
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