Vienna Festival Chants 'Peace, Friendship'

The Communists spent well over $100 million this past summer in their global attempt to create, and win, a new social class of "Youth." The World Youth Festival did not succeed in this, however, for as a propaganda instrument it was blunted by the independent efforts of Western student groups, and in particular by American participants working within the Festival. But the Soviet did not fail with all of the 20,000 "youth" who arrived in Vienna for 10 days of rallies, cultural events, slogans, and seminars.

With this consciously created New Class the Russians are eager to identify, and there are pretentious possibilities in their hope for the fast-stepping of the youth vanguard ("At the Revolution, I will be there"). It is difficult to think of a western parallel for this collective identification, unless it would be the unplanned social cast of the "teenager", given group status by popular song, and whose wayward extremes think they are fulfilling a public image "Get your knife, Freddy").

The importance of this cold war objective to the Russians was clear: the offstage direction by A.N. Shelepin, chief of the U.S.S.R.'s security organization, the large financial stake, and the presence in Vienna of Khrushchev's son-in-law, the editor of Isvestia. The heavy Soviet news coverage indicated the full scope of their aim to further Communist claims before, during and after the Festival. While prior festivals were blatantly offensive, this one offered the drug of "Peace and Friendship."

To show that even the slogan omitted "Freedom," counter information and sentiments were pressed upon the delegates both within and outside of the Festival. Over Vienna small planes towed signs reading Remember Hungary and Remember Tibet, and the Austrians offered free rides to see the reality of the Hungarian border's barbed wire and watch-towers. With the cooperation of the Americans, students published a seven language newspaper to present accounts ignored in the Russian reports. All over Vienna bookstores displayed books impossible to obtain in satellite countries, and "Information Booths" sought to attract the wandering delegates. And there was the atmosphere of Vienna itself, its prosperity and its feeling of being an obviously free city.

Confusion and Credential Checks

Inside the Festival it was a different picture. The only active non-Communist group to venture within was the American, and what they found was an atmosphere chiefly filled with confusion and credential checks.

Sheer physical difficulties were present in the chief Festival accommodation area--the Vienna International Fair Grounds. A fifteen minute walk in a dusty, chaotic atmosphere separated points of importance. Besides the halls taken over for an organization center, the only buildings opened for use were two widely separated restaurants, the Soviet pavilion illuminated at the top by a Red Star, and exhibition halls turned into crude barracks with composition-wood dividers.

Through the night the dormitory lights burned, and from them dead bugs fell to the three-piece mattresses below. The women were in distant tents. Married couples could assure meeting in the confusion of the following day only by arranging a time and place in advance. The ultimate result was hardly the intellectual repartee in a Vienna winecellar for which Americans had hoped.

Nor were most of the delegates entirely what had been expected. It was anticipated, of course, that some would be wide-eyed and looking for fun. "There's no good," said one American from M.I.T., "in a PhD candidate talking politics with a 16 year-old banjo player."

But the fanatic nature of some of the Communist stalwarts was surprising, especially the Iraqi and Saudi Arabian party members. Their idea of fun was to gather in the Afro-Asian restaurant every night from 11 until 3 a.m., and bind themselves together in a frenzy of red wine and an orgy porgy of "peace and friendship".

When they finally discovered that the Hungarian pins they wore were actually the symbol of refugee freedom fighters, they moved about shaking down anyone who looked like he might have been passing them out. They liked to circle into groups of 100 or so, and sing party songs while the men swayed to the music. One night when the Yale Russian chorus staged a counter amusement, they paused long enough from their shredding of copies of Amerika to express disapproval of those intrigued by the Americans.

But some crucial groups, such as the Ceylonese and French West Africans, were truly uncommitted. There were satellite representatives ready to engage in reasonable discussion, despite a careful prior selection of delegates which seemed to divide most of the European delegations into three groups--athletes, performers, and party members. And some acted as hatchet men for the Russians, the hard core East Germans for example, who were given control of the seminar programs far in advance, and the more impromptu "goon squad" tasks of removing unfriendly posters.

This handy division of labor permitted the Russians to play the two faced Janus. Their prominent role at the Festival allowed them to take credit for the existing fragments of "peace and friendship", while behind the closed door others could stoke the furnaces of power politics.

The Communist organizers also did their best to seal off potentially receptive satellite groups by housing them all over Vienna. The Hungarians, for example, were isolated on barges in the Danube, and Festival guards checked all boarders. For these groups of delegates the Communists had a grab-bag of attractions.

A description of the Festival in limited space must partially involve the Communist technique of presenting issues in Vienna: oversimplification. One surprising aspect of this was the utilization of "Fascism." The Communists use the label of "Fascism" to condemn anything they oppose, and fascist techniques to foster what they favor. A fervent Arab communist would claim that anyone in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was a fascist, while a more educated Czech communist would admit the fascists were "less than 10 per cent," but reach the same conclusion by the subtle historical error of giving them credit "as the elite who engineered the counter-revolution." When it came to proposing, the Festival rallies looked like films of Hitler's youth meetings in the 1930's with the German for peace and friendship, "Freiden und Freudschaft," replacing the "Zieg Heils."

There were four mass rallies: an opening ceremony and parade in the Weiner Sports Stadium; an anti-colonialism meeting which was largely unsuccessful because of a poor choice of location and impending rain; an expertly handled parade on Vienna's Ring ending in a "solidarity" rally in a public park, featuring singer Paul Robeson; and the closing ceremony by the Vienna Rathaus, which was basically an international talent show.

The opening ceremony in the huge Sports Stadium indicates the arrational tones of the rallies. An expectant hush was broken by the Czechoslovakian motorcycle brigade, complete with flags, as it raced about the outer track, followed by briefly clad athletes and the Parade of Nations. The accompaniment was an excited running description from the loudspeakers, the periodic release of colorful balloon clusters, bombs bursting and dropping "peace and friendship" signs in every language, and finally the freeing of thousands of white "peace doves." The Austrians sardonically reported that the Soviet skyrockets finished off the doves.

The Communist propoganda at the first meeting was subtle but apparent. The Soviet entry was timed to coincide with the height of the peace chants, and they used the most prominent parade gimmick, a large sweeping frame ending in a golden sputnik. In contrast, the only association with American science was not peace, but the Japanese signboards of "No More Hiroshimas."

The Festival, however, was not a series of rallies--only the four were staged in ten days. The total impression of the Festival was diffuse, ranging over the entire breadth of Vienna, and, for the average impressionable delegate, an orgy of cultural events dominated by the Russians (e.g. the Leningrad Ballet) and the Communist Chinese (e.g. the Peking Circus). Dozens of such events were running each day in all available auditoriums in Vienna, and in the evenings Eastern and African folk performers appeared in neighborhood parks across Vienna.

The other major activity was the seminar program on trade and political interests, held in every building offering multi-lingual translation facilities. Since the Communists had for the first time come from behind the Iron Curtain to stage a Festival, it is surprising that they would spoil the effect so badly by repressive techniques in these meetings. Some, such as the seminar on underveloped countries, traced a pre-planned picture with heavy-handed accuracy wavering only when the shouting down of contrary viewpoints neared violence.

BACKGROUND

World Youth Festival: An allegedly representative meeting held every two years since 1947, this summer for the first time outside the Soviet controlled countries. Financed by the U.S.S.R., it was managed by Communist front organizations--the World Federation of Democratic Youth, and the International Union of Students. Some 20,000 "youth," officially including many over 30 years old, attended from over 100 nations.

The Independent Service for Information on the Vienna Youth Festival: A small group of Americans, centerer in Cambridge, who publicized the Communist nature of the Festival and prepared informative pamphlets for use there. The Service was responsible for encouraging the attendance inside the Festival of some 150 non-Communist Americans, and coordinated much of the press and student activity inside the Festival. Financed by the private contributions of prominent citizens, the Service has the support of national leaders such as Senator Humphrey. Gloria Steinam and Leonard Bebchick were co-chairmen, and Paul E. Sigmund of the Harvard Government Department, and Senior Tutor of Quincy House, provided overall guidance.

"New York-Chicago Split": Non-Communist Americans signed up with both of the U.S. Festival groups, and the publicized "split" became an easy way of simplifying a number of facts: that party faithfuls like Paul Robeson, Jr., were New Yorkers who were cooperating with the Festival organizers, and that it was a large number of the Chicago group whose right to attend was challenged on fabricated technical grounds.

It was by violence that the Communist organizers made their gravest publicity error. You may recall, for instance, the American girl who was struck by a Communist guard when she was trying to add Department of Agricultural reports to the "people's literature" at an agricultural meeting.

Yet even when the seminar argumentation was not totally censored, the Communists did no better. It was in this area, and in the opportunity for personal contact, that the Americans working within the Festival achieved their best effects.

The great majority of the some 350 Americans at the Festival were non-Communist. Of these about 150 participated directly through the contacts and encouragement of of the Independent Service (see Box); the remainder included 30 prematurely professional Communist party faith-

The author and his wife were among the American participants within the Festival. A former CRIMSON President and Rhodes scholar, Thompson was active in the seminar program. fuls and another 70, young and vacousminded, faithful to the people who got them there.

The motives of the non-Communist Americans in attending were a mixture of the opportunity to make meaningful contacts with uncommitted individuals, the hope of presenting a clear American viewpoint, and the curiosity to see first hand how the Soviets would run a show for 20,000. The objectives were twofold: to counter the Communist party line directed at festival participants, and to provide material opposed to the Communist's flood of propaganda both during and after the Festival.

In Moscow in 1957, George Abrams and Tony Quainton had read the U.N's Hungary Report in Red Square, attracting attentive crowds and threatening pans from Pravada.

This response encouraged prospective anti-Communist delegates. Moreover, the prospect of a free city as a forum for argument was attractive. The American methods for achieving the twin objective were fourfold: the efforts for free election with the U.S. delegation; personal contacts with other youth; outspoken participation in the seminars; and disruptions of Festival proceedings and otherwise.

What began as an attempt to freely elect a committee for the American group ended in a publicized demonstration of the Communists' method of insuring their idea of "peace". The anti-Communist participants sought to win the election as a matter of principle, and to prevent the small group of Communist Americans working with the Festival organizers from controling the the seminar tickets. Though the Communists never really did effectively control attendance at the seminars, their occasionally clever but mostly crude obstruction earned them an undemocratic brand at the Festival.

In retrospect it seems unbelievable that such an election took nearly four days to achieve. Part of the difficulty was physical--the widely separated quarters of the men and women, the Communists' refusal to provide a meeting place, the scheduling of intriguing cultural events all day, and more, subtly, the invitations to all-night parties. Communication of meeting times and places (even when those were finally settled) was nearly impossible, and the direct action of goon squads made it no easier. At West Station, for example, a teaching fellow in anthropology, Karl Heider, was roughed up for carrying an information sign.

To meet such opposition first hand is shocking, and yet it was brought even into the meetings. The Festival Chairman, French Communist Jean Garcia, shoved anti-Communist Malcolm Rivkin from the table Rivkin was standing on to bring the meeting under control. The Festival organizers also used a list of technical obstructions that would look as detailed as a railway timetable if printed.

The final election was less important than the message the efforts to bring it about provided to other Festival delegates, and to outside sources reached through television and press. In conclusion, the Communists freely use two contrasting techniques in negotiation to achieve their goal. On one side they will be so surly and unreasonable that the least unfreezing may look like a concession. As one negotiating member burbled after nearly a week of argument, "Garcia was so nice to us today. He even gave me a Chinese cigarette--it really was mild."

More dangerous is the other approach, a smiling cordiality. Belief that sensible compromise will result when two viewpoints clash carried over to meetings with the Communists. Forewarned, we are wary of the Communists as a whole, but there is a