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THIS DICKY-BIRD
FLEW FROM
MOSCOW
By a Special Correspondent
Watch in the next few weeks for this
dicky-bird —
You will spot it in trams, on leaflets planted
in your train seat, and on posters advertising an
"Australian Peace Congress."
The bird is migratory. It has
flown to Melbourne from Mos-
cow. In flight it has neither
shed nor changed its plumage.
It is a white dove, encircling
the world, above the inscrip-
tion "World Peace."
All over the non-Soviet world
the bird is nesting. It has even
appeared in Germany, where
Berliners dubbed it "The Trojan
Dove" (Trojanische Taube).
Sponsored By
Moscow
The Trojan Dove is the offi-
cial badge of a loose-knit inter-
national movement openly
sponsored by Moscow to dis-
courage and sabotage military
preparedness in potential enemy
nations. It was drawn by top
Communist artist Pablo Pic-
asso.
At a secret session in Buda-
gest in mid-November, the
Cominform issued orders to
world Communist parties to
regard as top priority party job
until further notice the back-
ing — not necessarily the organ-
ising — of the Trojan Dove
Movement. The Australian
Communist Party last week
issued the instruction to general
membership.
The Cominform order (this is
direct quotation from the offi-
cial English translation) says:
"The struggle for the or-
ganisation and uniting of
the forces of peace . . . must
at this time be the centre
of all the activity of the
Communist Parties.
"We must take particular
care to draw into the move-
ment . . . trade unions,
women's organisations, youth,
co-operative organisations,
sporting, cultural, educa-
tional, religious and other
bodies. . .
"We must make wide use
of new, effective forms of
mass struggle for peace, such
as . . . the organisation of
petitions and protests and
popular ballots. . . . '
"For the first time in man-
kind's history there has been
formed an organised peace
front and it is led by the
Soviet Union."
In carrying out the Comin-
form's orders, the Australian
Communist Party has not had
to organise anything. It has
"adopted" as its own the
ready-made "Australian Peace
Council."
Secretaries Are
Clergymen
Communists are backing the
Council's bid for a £5000 petty
cash fund. And Communist-
run unions, notably tramways,
seamen's, railways and carpen-
ters', are selling the dove badges,
distributing leaflets and getting
signatures on the Council's so-
called "peace ballot."
Union shop stewards do the
work.
From the Communist angle.
the Council is an ideal "front."
It is not headed by traitors,
fifth columnists or evaders of
military service. Its joint sec
retaries are two Melbourne
clergymen pacifists — neither a
Communist — with honorable
war records:
The Rev. Victor James, a mid-
dle-aged-plus Welsh Unitar-
ian who enlisted in England
in 1940 for combat duties and
saw service as far afield as
Hongkong;
The Rev. Frank J. Hartley, a
Methodist from Carnegie,
famed for his courage as a
padre in New Guinea.
To their April "Australian
Peace Congress in Melbourne's
Exhibition Building, the Aus-
tralian Peace Council has
invited Comrade Paul
Robeson, American Negro
singer: the fellow-travelling
"Red Dean" of Canterbury, Dr.
Hewlett Johnson: and fellow-
travelling Mme. Sun Yat-sen,
vice-president of Red China.
Youth Division's
'Curtain-raiser'
As a curtain-raiser to the
April "Congress," the "Youth
Division" of the Australian
Peace Congress, in conjunc-
tion with the Communist
Party's Eureka Youth
League, will celebrate next
Monday as "Colonial Youth
Day." This observance has
been ordained by the Commun-
ist World Federation of Demo-
cratic Youth to salute current
military efforts of revolution-
aries in colonial and former
colonial territories.
Lest this selective ap-
proach to peace dismays pur-
ist paclfists. Moscow lays
down in an article on "peace
congresses" in issue No, 8,
1949, of "Sovetskaya Litera-
tura' this square-off: "The
movement for national libera-
tion among these people con-
stitutes an essential element
of the general struggle of pro-
gressive mankind . . .
The Council is not likely to
run into any internal trouble
from purist pacifists in Austra-
lia. It steers clear of the Aus-
tralian Pacifist Movement, the
legitimists in the game. And
the Pacifist Movement does
not regard the Australian Peace
Council as genuine pacifists.
Unsupported By
Pacifists
Mr G. Anthony Bishop,
spokesman lor the old-estab-
lished Pacifist Movement, says:
"We do not support the Coun-
cil . . . Like the Council, we
advocate the complete disar-
mament of our own and the
western nations, but we also
equally advocate the complete
disarmament, of the USSR and
the eastern nations.
"Like the Council, we re-
nounce the use of violence
to support our existing social
order. Unlike the Council,
however, we also renounce
the use of violence to over-
throw our social order or to
support any other social
order.
"We pacifists believe all war
-aggressive, defensive, capltal-
ist or Communist— is evil.'
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