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Salient: Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 25. No. 12. 1962

Communists Reply to "Accusations" Security Police Now—Gestapo Next?

Communists Reply to "Accusations" Security Police Now—Gestapo Next?

Brigadier Gilbert's article in Salient, like his speech to the R.S.A. Conference, is in the best traditions of McCarthyism The same technique, the same phrases, the same arrogant assumptions.

"As a New Zealander I regard Communism as evil and subversive," says the Brigadier in Salient. Ipso facto, if you don't regard Communism as evil and subversive, you are not a New Zealander

In the U.S.A. there is a Senate Committee for investigating "Un-American Activities". Under this body a witch hunt is pursued not only against Communists but against any who do not satisfactorily conform to the Committee's ideas.

Statement by the Wellington District Committee, Communist party of New Zealand, in reply to Brigadier Gilbert (Salient, Issue XI).

Here we have (as yet) no "un-New Zealand Committee" but its place is being filled by a department of State, the Security Police, responsible to the Prime Minister and headed by Brigadier Gilbert. From his statements it seems that the Brigadier's aim is to combine his post as head of Security with that of official ideologist of anti-Communism.

How does he regard Communists? He writes in Salient:—

"A New Zealand Communist by conscious act when he joins the Party abandons his loyalty to God and country and gives allegiance to an atheistic and materialistic movement operated in the interests of and directed by a foreign power."

Familiar Denunciation

How familiar this sort of denunciation sounds to anyone knowing anything of the history of social progress! In earlier days when they preached socialism the leaders of the Labour Party were also branded as foreign agents.

As it happens, the Communist Party of New Zealand makes no condition requiring anyone joining its ranks to abandon belief in God. And what does the Brigadier mean by "loyalty to country"? In this connection we would remind the Brigadier that two-thirds of the male members of the Communist Party served in New Zealand's armed forces in the Second World War. But does he mean loyalty to the interests of the people of New Zealand? Then, Brigadier, permit us to say that we Communists yield to no one in loyalty, for we place the interests of the mass of the people of New Zealand first! It is precisely because of this that we advocate the ending of a social system which places first the interests of a few—the owners of capital, of the means of production.

Directive Myths

The overwhelming majority of New Zealanders are wage worker small farmers and businessmen, who do not enrich themselves by exploiting others' labour. Those who do—the owners of capital, and particularly the big monopolies, are in a small minority. But their economic power gives them control of the machinery of state which they use in order to maintain their sacred right of exploitation, and it is essentially for this task that the Brigadier and his Security Police are employed. When one considers that the decisive sections of New Zealand's economic resources are owned by foreign monopolies, it is indeed also pertinent to ask—just who is under foreign control? It is notable that when Dean Rusk cracks the whip, Mr Holyoake jumps, as in the matter of sending troops to Thailand during the Laos crisis. And when public pressure is mounting for increased trade with the socialist bloc and against U.S. nuclear tests in the Pacific, hey presto! the Security Police oblige with a spy scare. The 'directives" to New Zealand Communists "from none other than Lenin and Stalin themselves" of which the Brigadier speaks, are as mythical as the power of U.S. big business over the New Zealand Government is real; and the paraphernalia of McCarthyism, Security Police and all concomitant of that power.

Thus, when the Brigadier voices warnings about "Communist front representations" he borrows both favourite term and a favourite method of intimidation from Senator McCarthy. The object of this labelling is two-fold, as has been shown in the U.S.A. Firstly, it provides a legal basis for persecution of those who support the objectives of these organisations. Secondly and consequently, it thereby intimidates people from joining them, or even mentioning support for their aims. For then one becomes suspect, and the law of the suspect has no end—I am suspect, thou art suspect, he is suspect. If one struggles for higher wages, better conditions of work; if one supports the need for strong trade unions the right to homes, to economic security and a peaceful future—one is suspect; because, you see, these things are all advocated by Communists. The consequences for the suspect may well be the loss of his job through Security pressure on his employer. At a later stage, perhaps worse.

Brigadier—Take Note

In our opinion, Brigadier, instead of people being warned about the menace of Communism they should be warned about the menace of a Security Police which is vastly more inimical to their interests.

For the Brigadier's information, the Party does not function "on a clandestine and conspiratorial basis" as he asserts. Our programme "New Zealand's Road to Socialism" is a public document. Our candidates participate in Parliamentary and Local Body elections. In our literature and public meetings we state our views openly and unequivocally. And if our membership lists are not open to the scrutiny of the Security Police that is hardly surprising in view of the real purposes and aims of that organisation.

Up to recently, governments in this country have tried to keep the existence of a secret police—not to mention its operations—out of the public eye and with good reason. The role played by the infamous Gestapo, first in Germany and then in Occupied Europe, showed the people what could result from secret police operating under the banner of anti-Communism. So it was good politics not to publicise Security.

Why then the Brigadier's present public utterances? The Government is seeking to divert the people's attention from the economic, political and military abyss into which it is dragging New Zealand at the tail of U.S. cold war policy. What more natural than that the anti-Communist card should be played by one of its specialists in anti-Communism, linked up with a spy scare? It is a trusted device for diverting attention. But for University Student Worker or Farmer, it is also a dangerous which leads on the road of McCarthyism and Fascism.