Mr. Fierlinger
The visit to London of Mr. Zdenek Fierlinaer, the Speaker of the Czechoslovak Parliament, has at least shown that cool calculations about de- mocracy's shortness of memory are not algal; sound. His part in the Communist putsch of 194i has been adequately dealt with elsewhere; In: I think it's worth while recalling his part in th scuppering of his own party, the Social Demo' erats. In his book in the Service of the Czecho- slovak Republic he fully describes how he was Working for the Communists while still ostensibly a good Social Democrat. He writes of secret dis- cussions held in Russia in 1942 and 1943, at which he accepted the Communist ideology and Programme, and agreed to work for `a fusion of the two parties' on that basis. How he carried out this assignment until Social Democracy was thoroughly stamped out and its leaders gaoled is another lesson to us not to ignore the existence or underestimate the danger of crypto-Com- monists. They always mean business, nasty business. I feel that someone who turned over those who trusted him to Stalin's inquisitors is in some ways even less agreeable than that last Soviet-bloc character to get a really bad welcome here—the horrible Serov. We can't choose our neighbours, and we must get on with them as hest we can, and politely to be sure, but there's no harm in knowing what manner of men they
are
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