THE MASS D'. , F2NTIONS in c'entrai Africa are a godsend for
C'ommunist propagandists, who can use them to divert attention from even more grue- some events in their own countries. I was intrigued to learn that when Mr. Khrushchev was visiting East Germany a group of students asked him to look into the case of the members of the 'National Communist Students Union' of the Dresden Technical College, twelve of whom were arrested in February. They are said to have 'undermined the Socialist achievements of the German Democratic Republic,' which sounds an even more serious offence than that of the Jena students who were tried last year for having advocated the reunification of Germany through free elections. As the 23 students of Jena University received sentences of up to 15 years' imprisonment for distributing their leaflets, the future looks black for the Dresden under- graduates. The more so, since the number of political trials and the terms of imprisonment are steadily increasing; in January there were 46 political trials in East Germany, at which 87 people received sentences totalling ,187 years of penal servitude and 384 years of imprisonment. Unrest is increasing among youth behind the Iron Curtain. UP recently reported exclusively from Budapest that a secret trial of 25 boys was proceeding behind locked doors. This report pro- duced an illuminating comment from the Hun- garian Government spokesman, Laszlo Gyaros. Although the trial was behind locked doors, he
said, it was not secret. 'That it was not secret is demonstrated by the fact that the correspondent of the American UP Agency has learned about it. Nobody, of course, could suppose such a re- sponsible American agency of engaging in the collection of secret information.'
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