CZECHOSLOVAKIA

HL Deb 26 August 1968 vol 296 cc514-672

2.39 p.m.

LORD SHACKLETON rose to move, That this House takes note of the Czechoslovakian situation. The noble Lord said: My Lords, in rising to move the Motion standing in my name I should like to say something about why it is worded in this form, since I know that some noble Lords have expressed regret that it appeared to be in such neutral terms. I agree with that. It would be very unfortunate indeed if the impression were given that this Motion implied in any way that we took a neutral attitude. Indeed, I am quite sure that there is unanimity in the House in our condemnation—to use the words of my noble friend Lord Caradon at the Security Council—of this evil invasion of Czechoslovakia.

The purpose of calling Parliament together was not to enable us—or, for that matter, another place, where they are debating this subject on the Adjournment Motion—just to pass a resolution. The time for that has gone by, and the attitude of the Government and the British people has been made crystal clear. The purpose is to enable the Government to describe the situation as it now exists and to enable them, and indeed the country and the world at large, to have the benefit of the opinions and advice of Members of both Houses of Parliament. I am particularly grateful as I am sure are all other noble Lords, that so many noble Lords with experience in foreign affairs are present. We particularly welcome the noble Earl, Lord Avon, to whom this must be a sad occasion, with a historical repetitive quality about it. We shall look forward with great interest to hearing what these noble Lords say, for it is by our voices that we shall be able to make our position clear.

A tragedy has befallen Europe, and indeed the whole world. It is a severe blow to the hope that after so many years of cold war and sterile confrontation between East and West some way was being found to develop a new measure of co-operation and understanding between nations. I do not need to describe in any detail the events of the last few days. I do not believe that ever in human history have events been so fully portrayed, nor has there ever been a time when the people of the free world have been so completely informed as to what was going on. The Press, and especially the radio and television services, have done a fantastic job. I think that in particular we should pay tribute to the courage of the Czech cameramen, who contrived not only to record the actual events but to get their films out of Czechoslovakia—and the pictures of a people facing tanks with nothing but their bare hands have been deeply moving.

It may be helpful if I briefly recapitulate the events that led up to the Russian action. The 50th Anniversary of the foundation of the modern Czechoslovak State is in October. The age-old love of the Czechs and Slovaks for democracy and freedom found sovereign expression in 1918, and they enjoyed this for 20 years, until Nazi Germany invaded their land. When, therefore, in January of this year, Alexander Dubcek took over from Novotny as First Secretary of the Party, the world gradually became aware that the Czechoslovak people had at last a leadership which might be working towards fulfilling their desire for a more humane and a more democratic system—a Communist system still, but one from which some of the harsher aspects might be removed.

Dubcek himself had previously been First Secretary of the Slovak Party, and he was as much a Communist Party man as anyone could be. He and his colleagues made it clear from the start that their policy was to be a Marxist-Leninist policy. In foreign affairs they emphasised repeatedly their alliance with the Soviet Union and the other (so-called) Socialist States as the cornerstone of their foreign policy. They emphasised again and again that Czechoslovakia would continue to play a full part in the Warsaw Pact. But it was also clear from the start that Communism in the Czechoslovakia of 1968 was to be Communism with a certain difference. The first thing to strike the attention of the world was the transformation which came over the Press, the radio and television. Freedom of information existed for the first time in twenty years.

But Dubcek and his colleagues insisted that the Communist Party would preserve its leading role and authorities in Czechoslovakia. This remained a vital part of their continued Marxist-Leninist philosophy. They took the view, however, and were prepared to say in public, that the Party could maintain its leading role only if it could show itself capable of a more humane type of leadership than what it called the discredited bureaucratic police methods of the past. They believed that in that event, unless there was a change, Czechoslovakia would only sink deeper and deeper into economic and spiritual decay.

It was clear from the very early days that the Russian leadership and that of some of their allies were outraged by what was happening in Czechoslovakia. I shall not rehearse all the moves in the brutal and cynical game the Russians played in their attempts to push the Czechslovak leaders off the course that they had chosen. Dubcek and his colleagues remained calm and firm. They replied to every Soviet demand that they fully recognised the interest of the Soviet Union in what was happening in Czechoslovakia. They recognised that Czechoslovakia was essential to the defence of the Soviet Union. They repeatedly asserted their loyalty to the Warsaw Pact—and this was an essential difference between Czechoslovakia in 1968 and Hungary in 1956.

But although Dubcek had repeatedly reasserted his loyalty to the Warsaw Pact, the Russians saw something more dangerous in the various statements of the Czechs. The Czech Communist Party wished to achieve a policy which enjoyed genuine popular support but did not have to be enforced by coercion. The action programme, which they published, spoke of the history of suppression of popular democratic freedom, violation of law and the misuse of power—all of which, the statement said, undermine the initiative of the people and have severe and undeserved consequenees for many citizens, Communists and non-Communists alike. The Central Committee of the Front, at its meeting on June 15, 1968, stressed that Socialist State power must not be a monopoly of any Party or Parties, but must be accessible to all citizens. Furthermore, a much more important role was foreseen for the National Assembly in the nation's affairs. But at the same time the Party continued to insist that there would be no opposition Parties, that the Parties would all he within the Front, and that any non-Communist participation in political life would be in co-operation with the Party. Then, too, there were judicial reforms. There was the action programme statement, that: we must guarantee in precise legal form the constitutional right of movement, particularly travel, of our citizens abroad.

But perhaps the most threatening of all these reforms, from the standpoint of the Russians—although it seems incredible to us—was the abolition of censorship. For the great majority of us, who have always visualised Communism as a monolithic movement subservient to Moscow, this was pretty revolutionary. It was the threat to the whole Communist system in Eastern Europe that the Russians thought they saw. They were confronted with the dilemma that faces all tyrants when once they begin to loosen the chains. More especially, it seems to me, they saw the threat in East Germany, held most tightly, and perhaps only, because of the brutal strength of Ulbricht's dictatorship. They saw again—and perhaps one can understand this—the spectre of a Germany no longer, so far as East Germany was concerned, under complete Russian Communist control. We cannot know what particular considerations decided the Russians to move. But whatever excuses the Kremlin can make, whatever compulsions they may have felt, none can excuse the invasion of an independent and friendly country.

My Lords, the Russians used every device of pressure and persuasion, by propaganda and by the deployment of forces on ostensible manoeuvres in and around Czechoslovakia. But still the Czechoslovak leadership insisted that they must run their own internal affairs. They insisted, too, that Czechoslovakia must be treated as a Sovereign State within the Eastern Alliance. At last, at the Cierna and Bratislava meetings, it seemed that a solution had been reached. The Bratislava communique included explicit reaffirmation of the principles of equal rights, sovereignty, national independence and territorial integrity. My Lords, within days, these principles were torn to shreds.

We all know what happened during the night of August 20/21. Soviet troops, assisted by contingents from four of their allies, invaded Czechoslovakia. Within hours, as was to be expected, the Russians held not only Prague but all other points of strategic importance. It was on the early morning of August 21 that the Russians informed Her Majesty's Government and some other Governments of what they were doing. The explanations they gave then were totally unconvincing, and subsequent events have destroyed their credibility. entirely.

They said, for example, that the Czechoslovak Government had appealed to Russia and her allies for armed assistance. We all know that this is not so. They said that their troops would withdraw from Czechoslovakia as soon as they were called upon to do so by the legitimate Czechoslovak authorities. They have not done so, in spite of appeals repeatedly made by every legitimate voice of Czechoslovak authority: by the Head of State, the Head of Government, the National Assembly, and the Czechoslovak Communist Party. They said that their actions were not directed against any European State and in no way infringed the interests of any State. They have invaded the European State of Czechoslovakia. They said that they were motivated by a concern for peace and by anxiety at the growth of tension in Europe. They have shown their concern and their anxiety in a very strange way. They said that their action should not harm Soviet British relations, to which they continued to attach great importance. In other words they suggested that we should remain indifferent to their aggression. My Lords, the Government and people of this country have, I think, already given their answer to that suggestion.

The immediate reaction of Her Majesty's Government was to condemn the action of the Soviet Government and their allies in invading Czechoslovakia as a flagrant violation of the United Nations Charter and of all accepted standards of international behaviour. We described it as being in sharp conflict with the often repeated statements by the Soviet Government about non-interference with the sovereign rights of independent States. In this I believe that Her Majesty's Government were rightly interpreting the view of this House, of this Parliament and of this country.

We also made clear our profound sympathy for the peoples of Czechoslovakia. This is not the first time, as your Lordships know only too well, that Czechoslovakia has been attacked and overrun. Czechoslovakia symbolises the small independent nation who has done no harm to anyone, who threatens no-one, and whose rights have repeatedly been violated by her more powerful neighbours. Here again I know that Her Majesty's Government speak for all political Parties and for our people as a whole. The Foreign Secretary has conveyed this sympathy personally to the Czechoslovak Chargé d'Affaires here in London on behalf of Her Majesty's Government and on behalf of the overwhelming majority, indeed, I would say the whole of our people. In fact we know, from the spontaneous reaction of many public and private bodies and individuals, that this did express the feelings of the nation.

There is, incidentally, one immediate practical step which has already been taken by the Home Secretary. He has agreed that no Czechoslovak national at present visiting this country will be required at this critical juncture to return to Czechoslovakia if he is unwilling to do so, and any such visitors as are in doubt about their position should get in touch with the Home Office or their nearest police station, when all the appropriate advice and assistance will be given.

Our feelings in this country were shared not only by our allies in Europe and in North America but by the overwhelming majority of the nations of the world. It has been a very striking experience to see how many uncommitted nations have recognised that here was not an East—West problem, not a cold war situation, not a confrontation between the Warsaw Pact and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, but a question of fundamental principle of interest to all who cherish freedom, sovereignty, self-determination, and everything else for which the United Nations and its Charter stands. Few indeed were the Governments that failed to declare their opposition to what the Soviet Government and four of its allies had done. It is striking to see the opinions stated by many former Commonwealth countries in Africa—Zambia, Kenya, Uganda, and others—in their condemnation of the action taken by the Soviet Union.

I would commend to those of your Lordships who have not yet had a chance to study it the White Paper presented to Parliament to-day on events at the United Nations. It contains among other things the eloquent words of our colleague, Lord Caradon. I do not think I can do better, in expressing the views of the Government and this House, than to quote what he said on the very first occasion when the matter was proposed to be inscribed on the agenda of the United Nations Security Council. He said: It is indeed a tragedy that has occurred. A tragedy for Czechoslovakia. A tragedy for Europe and a tragedy for the whole world. The first reaction was clearly one of shock, how shocking was the impact of naked force. And how shocking that a small and brave people should be so bullied and so betrayed. How shocking that so much careful planning to create confidence between East and West should be recklessly disregarded and pushed aside. Indeed I am amazed that so much should be destroyed by a single crude blow. Hopes of greater freedom in Czechoslovakia, hopes of better understanding between Eastern nations and Western nations of Europe. Hopes of closer international co-operation to take the place of the Cold War. Even the unity of Communist countries, all these were jeopardised. All these were threatened by the evil invasion.

My Lords, I shall not give a detailed account of what took place in New York since the facts are contained in the White Paper. Within a few hours of the invasion the United Kingdom, together with five other members of the Security Council, had joined in asking the President, the representative of Brazil, to call an immediate meeting to consider the situation. When the Council met, the Soviet delegate spoke at length in an attempt to prevent the Council from even considering the question. His arguments were totally unconvincing, and when this procedural question was at last put to the vote thirteen of the fifteen members of the Council voted in favour, and only the Soviet Union and Hungary voted against.

The first speaker in the debate which followed was the representative of Czechoslovakia, who had asked to participate in the Council's debate, and to whose dignity and courage my noble friend Lord Cara-don has referred. Acting, he said, on the instructions of his Foreign Minister he quoted a series of Czechoslovak Government statements proving that the Soviet claim to have acted on the invitation of the Czech Government was totally unjustified.

On August 22 the Council met again to consider a draft resolution of which the United Kingdom and six other members of the Council were co-sponsors. The text of the resolution is set out in the White Paper. After an all-night debate, during which much time was wasted by the Soviet representative, the resolution was put to the vote. There were 10 votes in favour and two against; one of which, of course, was the veto of the Soviet Union. The three members who abstained did so in one case for lack of final instructions, and in the other two cases because of reservations about some of the wording of the resolution, while making clear their support of the substance. A second resolution—also in the White Paper—was then tabled calling for a representative of the Secretary General to go immediately to Prague to seek the release and ensure the personal safety of the Czech leaders under detention.

At a further meeting of the Security Council on Saturday the Czech Foreign Minister himself, who had been fortunate enough to be outside the country at the time of the invasion, spoke for the first time. My Lords, it would be right to emphasise the conciliatory nature of his remarks. While making it perfectly clear that the invasion could not possibly be justified, and while demolishing one by one the various pretexts put forward in justification by the Soviet Union, he was careful to say nothing which could jeopardise the negotiations going on in Moscow. He spoke of the hopes of the Czech Goverment of successful outcome of the negotiations, and of the spirit of understanding, unify and close co-operation among Socialist countries. He said that it was on this basis that his Government demanded that the foreign troops—foreign even though, as he put it, they come from friendly countries—leave the country without delay so that the sovereignty of the country might be fully restored. He said: The solution lies solely with the Governments of the five countries which have occupied our country. I believe that the Security Council having discussed this problem could contribute to such a solution by taking a wise stand and helping to create a favourable atmosphere for an effective and expeditious solution of the situation. The Security Council will be continuing its debate this afternoon.

There is nothing in anything he said, or in anything the Czech leaders have said, that has suggested for one moment that they were operating in any way in concert or under the influence of Western Powers. Indeed, many of the remarks would be of a kind that we would not normally find particularly congenial from our standpoint. It is important to emphasise this in the light of the accusations that NATO may have played some part in this. I have already spoken of the Soviet allegations that NATO bore some responsibility for what was happening in Czechoslovakia. We read of NATO plots and caches of arms discovered in Czechoslovakia. My Lords, I am surprised that the Russian propaganda machine was not able to do rather better than this. Were they NATO tanks that encircled and then invaded Czechoslovakia? NATO did nothing that could provide any pretext whatsoever for Soviet alarm. Her Majesty's Government, like the Governments of their allies, were scrupulously careful to avoid any statement or action that could be interpreted as a provocation by the Soviet Union.

So much for the Soviet allegations about NATO. We must also take account of the effect on the Western Alliance of the Soviet invasion. This has provided a reminder that there has been no decrease in Russian military strength or, indeed, willingness to use it. It follows that the need is as great as ever for the West, within the framework of the Atlantic Alliance, to maintain its unity and common purpose in defence. Proposals that Britain should withdraw from NATO are now even more unrealistic than they were before. By undermining the political and military balance now existing in Europe, this would put at risk the security of the whole of Western Europe and lead to a further sharp increase in world tension.

I do not say that the new situation presented by the Soviet intervention increased the direct threat to NATO countries in Central Europe, and I sincerely trust that no such threat will materialise. If it did, we should all at once be involved in a much more serious situation even than that we face to-day. But the invasion of Czechoslovakia raises the level of the state of uncertainty and the consequent need for vigilance by the Alliance. This confirms that NATO Ministers were right to affirm publicly on several occasions that the overall military capability of NATO should not be reduced except as part of a pattern of mutual force reductions balanced in scope and timing. And it is only realistic to judge that the prospects of early mutual reductions are less than they were before the invasion of Czechoslovakia. I hope that this lesson will not be lost on any of our allies.

We shall keep closely in touch with our NATO allies about the defence aspects of the situation. But the member countries of NATO have been extremely careful, and I am sure they will continue to be careful, to do nothing which could exaggerate the tension in Eastern Europe or which could be considered as interference there. It is not the existence of NATO which has created the political issues in Europe. On the contrary, the alliance is the result of the unresolved political problems. Indeed, noble Lords will not have forgotten that NATO came into existence following the events in Czechoslovakia twenty years ago.

We shall continue also our political consultations with our NATO allies. In spite of the grave setback to the progress of détente which has occurred, we shall not lose sight of the contribution that NATO may be able to make in this field. A major function of the Alliance will continue to be to provide a forum for the co-ordination of policies directed towards progress in the search for a more stable relationship in Europe and an eventual solution of the underlying political issues between East and West. If we learn correctly the lessons of what has happened to Czechoslovakia, this should provide a valuable impetus in the movement towards unity in Western Europe, not only in the economic but also in the political and defence fields.

My Lords, I spoke at the beginning about the tragedy which has taken place in Czechoslovakia and about the blow that has been delivered to the hope we cherish of the creation of greater understanding between East and West. We have made considerable progress in recent years in overcoming the barriers that existed in Europe. A regular flow of visitors, both official visitors at all levels and private citizens, had begun to learn about the countries beyond what used to be called the Iron Curtain. When my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs spoke in a debate in another place recently about the role of NATO he laid stress on the contribution NATO was making to the work of all members of the alliance towards détente. There has been practical co-operation, too, in such bodies as the Economic Commission for Europe, and the Council of Europe. In disarmament, we have the great achievement of the Non-Proliferation Treaty; and hopes have been aroused of further progress towards other measures of disarmament. We had a long way to go before relations between the different countries of Europe could be considered normal and satisfactory, but there was considerable progress and we were determined to persevere.

As I have already said, when the Russians informed us of their action against Czechoslovakia they said they did not expect that their action would damage their relations with this country. This must be, and clearly is, a vain hope. At the same time, we must not throw away all the progress that has been made in improving relations between East and West. I say this not only because what has been achieved is of real value in itself, both to us and to the peoples of Eastern Europe, but also because the alternative, which is to cut through all the links which have been so laboriously created, would be a sterile policy. The fact is that the world to-day is not big enough to allow us to live in it as though the Russians or any other great nation did not exist. So long as the fundamental demands of the people of Czechoslovakia, which they have shown so bravely and vigorously in recent days, are being refused and stifled, we cannot ignore this and pass by on the other side of the road. At the same time, we must form our policy with an eye on what it may hope to achieve in the future.

The tale is not vet over. One had feared that, just as the Russians were able to over-run Czechoslovakia by military force, so they would be able to bring down a new Iron Curtain, concealing from the world what was happening there. So far, thanks to the courage and resourcefulness of the people, this has not happened. All of us wait with anxiety the latest news of happenings both in Czechoslovakia and Moscow. I fear that I have nothing further to add in the way of information on what has already been reported, nor, I think, would it be useful for me to speculate on the likely outcome. I agree with the Times leader this morning, when it says that the world hardly knows which part of the Soviet action is more appalling, the crime or the blunder.

I have no doubt that your Lordships will to-day reinforce the firm words already spoken by the Government. For, while we keep our heads, we must make clear that we cannot be indifferent to events in Czechoslovakia. There is still an opportunity for the men in the Kremlin to rescue themselves and the world from the appalling consequences of their actions and the dangers that spring from them, and our heartfelt sympathy goes out to those brave and steadfast people of Czechoslovakia. They had embarked on an experiment of trying to combine what seemed to us to be two incompatibles—Communism and freedom. It is clear now that the Russian leaders, conscious as they must be of latent urges for freedom among their own people, were not prepared to face up to it, and one of the most striking consequences of the Russian action is the complete fragmentation of world Communism, no longer a monolithic organisation. By their actions the Russians, notwithstanding the dangers they face, including the risks in Asia in the long run, have destroyed their position as the fount and origin of Communist doctrine throughout much of the world. They may not even have preserved their East European system. All this carries danger for the world. The Russians have devoted a great deal of hard work to the preparation and maintenance of understanding with Communist countries and there is to be a Communist conference in Moscow later this year. If that conference is held at all, it is hard to see how it can any longer have any real significance.

There is little more that I can say at this stage. We await the news with anxiety. There are already reports of the possibility that agreement may be made for the withdrawal of Soviet troops. I cannot confirm that, but there is one thing that I think we should all note—that is, that once again there has been reinforced and demonstrated before our eyes the passionate urge in all men for freedom. We talk a great deal about freedom in this country and take it very much for granted. But the determination of the Czechs, the risks ordinary people are taking, the obstinate refusal to return from a path which opened up avenues of liberty, show once again that whatever restraints civilisation may impose on people, there are certain basic freedoms without which man cannot live and without which lie is not prepared to live. I beg to move.

Moved, That this House takes note of the Czechoslovakian situation.—(Lord Shackleton.)

3.14 p.m.

EARL JELLICOE

My Lords, I have seen it suggested that it was unnecessary for Parliament to be summoned back to debate this convulsion in Central Europe. I should like to make it clear without further ado that I do not agree with this opinion and from the attendance in your Lordships' House this afternoon it is clear that your Lordships do not agree with it. I should like to say how very glad I am that my noble friends Lord Avon and Lord Harlech will soon be speaking from this place.

The day after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia the Czechoslovak National Assembly issued a forthright statement. It included the words: We categorically demand the immediate withdrawal of the troops of the five countries of the Warsaw Treaty and full respect for the State Sovereignty of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. We appeal to the Parliaments of all countries and to world opinion to support our legal demands. My Lords, it is sometimes said that our Parliamentary institutions are decaying. I can think of nothing more decadent for us than for us to have blithely continued to pursue our normal August avocations and turn a deaf ear to this cri de cæur issued under the shadow of Soviet bayonets and perhaps within the sound of Soviet guns, from our fellow Parliamentarians in Czechoslovakia.

I have also seen it suggested that we in this country need have little real concern for a quarrel within the Communist camp affecting this faraway country in Central Europe. From this opinion I again categorically dissent. Czechoslovakia was not so far away in 1938 as some supposed, and in this contracting world it is far far closer to-day. Moreover, ever since its inception under Masaryk and Benes, after the First World War, this State, with its peculiarly civilised and democratic values, has had for many of us in this country a particular affinity. True, it was sucked, in 1948, and against its will, into the Soviet embrace. It was not feasible then, it has not been feasible since, and it is not feasible or practicable now, physically, for us to redress this situation; and this I think we all acknowledge. But surely, my Lords, this does not mean that we are precluded from all involvement in the affairs of Central and Eastern Europe.

After all, Czechoslovakia is as much a part of Europe as is Britain, and it seems quite wrong for us, and contrary to all our best traditions, not to feel involved and caught up in the attempt of this small country to chart for itself, albeit within the Soviet orbit, a somewhat more relaxed and freer destiny, and one more consonant with its own liberal and civilised traditions than the straitjacket which Moscow seeks to impose upon it. I am glad that, judging by what I have read in the Press and seen on television, this involvement is very much felt in this country. I, for one, would not wish it otherwise. I am glad, therefore, that the Government have given us this opportunity of expressing the sympathy and the admiration which we feel for the Czech people.

I suppose that the first major public event which profoundly touched me was the Munich Agreement in 1938. And when I read last Wednesday morning the appalling news that the Warsaw Pact Powers had invaded their small neighbour, I felt, thirty years later, the same sort of impotent pain and rage that, as a young man, I had felt then. Many of your Lordships, I am sure, must have felt as I did. Many, too, must have felt, as I did, that there was something particularly incongruous, and indeed obscene, about the presence of the East German contingent among the invaders.

I suppose that this is the best reported invasion of all time. We have seen, as the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, suggested, the armoured columns entering Prague and Bratislava. We have seen the cool but contemptuous onlookers. We have seen the students on sit-down strike before the Russian tanks. We have seen the political graffiti enscribed upon them. We have seen that contemptuous kick in the tank and the stolid, bemused faces of the tank crews as they ignored, or strove to answer, those unanswerable questions put to them by those whose land they have invaded. Most of us have witnessed —as has a vast world audience—all this; and, as the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, again said, we have done this largely as a result of the sheer ingenuity and guts of the Czech reporters and camera men. But we have seen and noted more. We have seen the skill by which the Czechs have managed to keep their internal radio transmissions going. Not least, we have witnessed with admiration, whatever our political affiliations may be, the extraordinary steadiness—steadiness virtually under fire—of Czechoslovakia's political leadership.

My Lords, the picture before the events of this week—the dramatic flight of President Svoboda to Moscow, and the even more dramatic news that Mr, Dubcek had been admitted to the talks—was dark indeed. It is still very cloudy. If it lightens, as we all hope it will, then the credit for this must go to the Czechoslovak people themselves, for their steadiness, courage and ingenuity, and for the way in which their present, more enlightened, leaders, Communist though they be, have reflected their feelings and their desire for greater freedom.

It is easy to express in words one's admiration for the Czechoslovak people in their present ordeal. It is more difficult to find the deeds to match those words. Hence, I believe, the frustration which so many of us have felt these past few days. However, I believe that there are ways in which we can give some practical expression to our feelings. I was very glad to note what the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, said about the Government's decision about permitting those Czechoslovaks who so wish to stay on here. I understand that there are in addition many hundreds of young Czechoslovak students here at present. Can the Government tell us anything about the plans which they may he sponsoring, or the organisation which they may have in mind, for the reception and the further education, if this requirement is needed, of those who in present circumstances will wish to remain here?

Secondly, there is the provision of that important article, truth. I think that these last few days have undermined as never before the importance of the spoken word across radio and of the instant picture across the television screen. We must assume that if the Muscovite gag is to be progressively applied, the peoples of Czechoslovakia will be denied access to the truth on their own radio and television transmissions. I trust, therefore, that the Government will now, and urgently, examine how the External Services of the B.B.C. can fill this gap, if there is a gap—and I believe that there may well be—by stepping up their services to Czechoslovakia and Eastern Europe as a whole, and provide the means for them to do so. The B.B.C. have a deservedly high reputation in Eastern Europe, and this is one real and practical service which we may be able to render to the Czechoslovaks.

Thirdly, my Lords, I hope that we shall, if need be, bend all our efforts in the United Nations and elsewhere to ensure the safety and freedom of the Czechoslovak leaders. I say "if need be", though I hope that the need may not arise. However, I understand (and this is confirmed by a glance at Annex D of the Government's White Paper) that there is a motion before the Security Council suggesting the establishment of a United Nations presence in Czechoslovakia with this end in view. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, will be able to inform us what the present state of this motion is.

It is sad that we should be faced with the third Czech tragedy in our lifetime. But, as has already been said, this is more than a Czech tragedy: it is, in a peculiar sense, a Russian and Soviet tragedy as well. It is right, of course, that we should take this opportunity to express our sympathy for the peoples of Czechoslovakia. It is right, by the same token, that we should in our speeches this afternoon, if not in our Motion, condemn this wanton action of the Soviet rulers and their satellite accomplices, and urge upon them, before it is too late, a change of course.

Their action has been a grave setback to all who, like me, had been encouraged to look for a progressive, albeit erratic, evolution in the manners of the Soviet regimé, both internally and externally. Since the death of Stalin we have witnessed a significant liberalisation of the regimé itself, some loosening of the reins in Eastern Europe, and some signs that the Soviet leaders were moving, albeit in fits and starts, towards a more relaxed view of the outside world. Many of us have believed that a repetition in any form of Hungary 1956 was off the cards. Now we have had Czechoslovakia, 1968. True, we have not had—and God forbid that we should have!—the Budapest bloodbath. But in a significant way this crude Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia is even more unjustified. It lacks the justification, for what it was worth, that was trotted out in the case of Nagy, that he had opted for neutrality. Dubcek had made it plain, time and time again, that under his leadership, rightly or wrongly, Czechoslovakia would remain a loyal ally to the Soviet Union and its steadfast partner in the Warsaw Pact.

I personally had thought it possible, but improbable, that the Soviet Union would invade Czechoslovakia. I thought it even more improbable, I must confess, after the Cierna and Bratislava conferences By doing so, and by their timing, the Soviet leaders have compounded the odium which their action was bound to attract. By doing so, they have made it plain, unfortunately, that in the last resort they care but little for their reputation at the bar of world opinion. Equally, they have made it clear beyond doubt that in the last analysis it is on force, on brute force, that they rely.

I listened with keen interest to the lucid analysis of the Soviet action by the noble Lord the Leader of the House, and I agree with the view that the action is as much a blunder as it is a crime. But much, of course, is veiled from us My own reading is close to his: that the dominant motive was fear of infection from the liberal Czech experiment—infection, first, in the satellites, and above all in Ulbricht's Germany, spreading back perhaps to the Soviet citadel itself. I should think too, that there is some evidence of divided counsels on the Soviet side—in the contrast between the very ragged political preparation of this operation and the efficiency of Soviet military surgery; in the failure, unusual by Soviet standards, and inefficient even by Nazi ones, to install a ready-made puppet Government; in the botched timing, and in the subsequent shifts and squirms of Soviet policy. We can derive such cold comfort as we may from the fall-out from this botched, blundering and brutal policy. But unless more enlightened views are to prevail within the Soviet hierarchy, it looks to me as if, internally, the Soviet Union may be set for another period of freeze, and as if, externally, we may be confronted with a very blinkered set of Soviet leaders.

My Lords, there is a limit, in my belief, to what we can do here to influence events. But there is something. There is plenty of evidence that large elements of influential opinion, both within the Soviet Union and in the satellites, is unenthusiastic about Moscow's latest ad venture. It is too pessimistic to assume that world opinion can make no impression on these people. That is why we have been right, and why the Government have been right, to denounce, and must not tire in denouncing, in the United Nations, in Parliament, wherever we can, this aggression against Czechoslovakia.

What impact such expressions of the world's disgust may make on those who count, no one can of course begin to estimate. If, as I hope, there may have been some slight shift in the Kremlin's policy in the last few days, the main credit for it must go where it particularly belongs—to the courage and steadiness of the Czechoslovaks themselves. But we should not ignore the factor of public support which their cause has attracted. For this reason, I am glad that Her Majesty's Government, through our delegation, took a leading part in bringing the motion of condemnation before the Security Council. I should be glad to know what further action is contemplated in the Security Council, and I should also like to know the views of Her Majesty's Government about laying this matter before the General Assembly under the Uniting for Peace resolution.

Are there other ways, other than by words, in which we can make, in the interests of our own self-respect and for the benefit of those Soviet and satellite leaders who may be more sensitive to world opinion, our disgust plain? The withdrawal of our Missions in the capitals of the occupying Powers has been suggested. I personally believe that this would be a great mistake. Diplomats are needed when the going is rough more than when the sea is smooth. Again, the possibility of economic sanctions has been canvassed. Certainly a case for such action can be made under the United Nations' Charter. Not only has there been a clear breach of the provisions of the Charter; palpably a threat to peace exists. But, my Lords, we must weigh our natural instincts to do what we can to demonstrate our valid indignation at the Soviet Government's behaviour against other compelling considerations. We must perforce recognise that the Soviet economy is virtually self-supporting. Sanctions, even if universally applied, could not be effective. Sanctions, moreover, would be unenforceable without grave risk of some incident which could well escalate the crisis still further. And sanctions applied against the satellites would merely serve to drive them further into the Soviet embrace. Finally—and I believe that this is the clinching argument against the policy of economic sanctions—it runs counter to our long-term hope that in time, through growing contacts of all sorts and on all planes with the outside world, the individual Soviet citizen, thence Soviet society and ultimately the regime itself, may be transformed and mellowed.

In this context, the curtailment of cultural exchanges and contacts has also been proposed. From the days when I was in the Foreign Office and dealt with Soviet affairs, I have always felt that the policy of free and open contact, of letting as much fresh air as possible into the stuffy atmosphere of the Soviet Union, was the right one. I still believe in principle that this is the case. However, this is an area where I suggest the Government must now watch the position very closely indeed. I personally would favour a restrictive attitude towards these exchanges while the Red Army maintains its grip on Czechoslovakia, and while this abomination goes on there are some exchanges which in my view would be totally inappropriate. For example, if the Red Army remains in occupation of Czechoslovakia we should certainly not dream of welcoming the Red Army choir here next month. It is extraordinarily difficult to draw a line here. The distinction which I would suggest to the Government at present is that between visits of groups or individuals who are obviously closely connected with the Soviet State apparatus and more individual visits of writers and scientists and so on. But in all this there is a strong element of the subjective, an area of personal judgment, and many of us, I suggest, can manifest our private feelings by abstaining to go to those events where we find it an embarrassment to do so in present circumstances.

There is a further tragedy and another casualty arising from this Soviet action, and that is the damage which it has done to the whole structure of international security. That structure depends above all on confidence, on some accuracy in one's readings of the other's intentions, and accordingly some predictability in those intentions. That whole fragile structure has been rudely and savagely shaken by this tragic Soviet blunder, for, my Lords, if you bully and deceive and then invade a neighbour and an ally, what can those who are not your allies expect? What conclusions can they draw? We should not at this stage be bleakly pessimistic. The situation is still far too fluid for black and white predictions. However, a reversion to the most sterile period of the cold war is certainly not "off the cards"; and a reversion to such a cold war is in no one's interest.

Let us face this issue quite squarely. We have probably, I fear, a long hot autumn ahead of us and one that will call for calm and patience as well as firmness. The decision, however, whether to arrest this potentially vicious spiral of increasing tension depends, among other things, on three conditions, and all three conditions, I believe, lie within the control of the men in the Kremlin. The first condition is the avoidance of repression in Czechoslovakia. There must be no installation of a Nazi-style protectorate in Czechoslovakia. We do not, of course, know what is now happening in Moscow; what pressure is being put on the Czechoslovak leadership. But there is still time, as the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, has said, for the negotiation of an honourable settlement involving the evacuation of Czechoslovakia by Soviet and satellite forces, the release of the Czechoslovak leaders, and the reinstallation of those leaders, without whom Czechoslovakia may well become virtually ungovernable. If this chance is not seized, and if repression follows it—a repression from which it will be impossible to insulate Czechoslovakia from the outside world —then, my Lords, I believe this can lead only to a return to the cold war.

Secondly, there must be no extension of the area of tension to the South and South-East in Europe. There are already disturbing rumours of troop concentrations on or near the Roumanian and Yugoslav frontiers, and we have seen the action which has recently been taken by the Yugoslav Government. I would hope that the noble Lord may be able to give us some reassurance about these reports when he winds up. Thirdly, there must be no Soviet attempt, through the application of force, to upset the basic East-West strategic balance. At present I have no reason to believe that the foolish panic measures which the Soviet leadership have taken in Czechoslovakia are necessarily the prelude to renewed pressures against Western positions in Berlin or elsewhere, but some signs and portents—the naval build-up in the Mediterranean, the probing in the Persian Gulf, and others—are disquieting.

As I have said, whether or not we return to a bleaker period in world history depends in large measure on the wisdom which the Soviet leaders now show. This does not mean that we should sit idly by while they decide their future policies. It may be frustrating for us to recognise that there is so little directly that we can do to assist Czechoslovakia, but in the area where we cannot influence events directly there are morals to be drawn and work to be done in the light of the Soviet actions of the last few weeks. These events have only served once again to throw into relief what we should all know but tend to forget; that NATO is not just a bore or an anachronism, but an absolutely vital element in our security. The German Chancellor has. I understand, called for a meeting of the NATO Council at the Heads of State or Foreign Minister level. I hope that the Government can confirm that they support this initiative.

In any event, my Lords, in the light of recent developments there is urgent need for a calm and objective review of the availability and readiness of the NATO armed forces; above all, their conventional forces. The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia has once again demonstrated, if demonstration was needed, the requirement for adequate conventional forces in situ, on the spot. It has also demonstrated, I suggest, that some of our assumptions about Soviet intentions, and about the amount of warning which we may receive about those intentions, require to be questioned. By the same token, I should like to give notice to the Government that there are certain matters in the defence field which naturally weigh on one's mind in the light of these events to which we shall wish to revert when Parliament reconvenes in the autumn. We shall wish to probe whether our armed forces, in view of the possibility of a simultaneous crisis in Europe and outside Europe, have not been run down now to dangerously bare margins. We shall also wish to probe the insurance made by the Government against the unexpected. We have just met with the unexpected, and we shall wish to probe their plans for our reserve forces.

Finally—and I put this forward as a personal suggestion—I wonder whether the shock effects of the Soviet action should not now cause us to re-examine, together with our European partners in NATO but within the general orbit of the Atlantic Alliance as a whole, the structure and organisation of our joint defensive effort in Europe. It is my belief that both Rome and Bonn—I cannot speak for Paris—would welcome some such initiative from Her Majesty's Government at the present time.

I only wish to say this in conclusion: there are 36 speakers to follow me. All will speak—and rightly so—with their individual accent and their individual emphasis, and this is not, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, made clear by the whole tenor of his speech, in any way a Party occasion. Therefore I trust that this debate will reflect a united and a national view. A view expressing condemnation of a bad and foolish Soviet action, of hope that even at this late hour that action will be redressed by the Soviet leaders themselves, and of sympathy and encouragement to the peoples of Czechoslovakia in their present ordeal.

3.42 p.m.

LORD BYERS

My Lords, I should like to endorse the pleas made by the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, and the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, in their speeches this afternoon. Like a number of other noble Lords I have returned from abroad to attend this debate. I have done so to be able publicly to express, on behalf of my colleagues, and indeed of Liberals everywhere, our horror and deep shock at the brutal and cynical violation of Czechoslovakia. No one yet knows what the final outcome will be—and pray God that it will not be as bad as most of us feared at the beginning of last week! But we join with all those who have expressed their sympathy for the Czech people, and especially we want to say how much we admire the courage and integrity of their leaders and, in particular, of Mr. Dubcek and Mr. Svoboda.

There are so many things in the events of the past week which have angered us all and which justify the universal condemnation with which the Russian actions have been received. Above all there is the nauseating similarity between Russia to-day, Russia in 1956, Russia in 1948, and between the Russian leaders and the Nazis under Hitler in 1939. Nothing seems to have been learned. Even the same hypocritical formulae and phrases are brought out and used time and time again. It is pathetic, yet it is terrifying.

The rape of Czechoslovakia in March, 1939, was described by The Times as, "a crude and brutal act of oppression and suppression." The Times asked then: What German outside the Nazi Party believes that Germany has been strengthened by this staggering rejection of the most insistent teachings of history and of the most elementary promptings of political intelligence? We can well ask the Russian leaders the same question to-day. Just as the provinces of Czechoslovakia were declared "protectorates" for their own good by Hitler, so we have the Russians claiming, with transparent falsity, that, Czech Party and Government leaders have asked the Soviet Union and other allied States to render the fraternal Czechoslovak people urgent assistance, including assistance with armed forces". Whom did they expect to believe these flagrant lies? Not even the Chinese were taken in. How can anyone believe them when this is the well-known stock-in-trade of totalitarianism?

In 1948 the establishment of the Communist dictatorship in Czechoslovakia, the single-Party rule, the extinction of Parliamentary democracy, were all accompanied by the same trappings and were described at the time by Herbert Morrison as "horribly similar to the Hitler technique". In Hungary, in 1956, the same formulae were used. In announcing the end of liberty in Hungary, the Russian communiqué stated: This morning the forces of reactionary conspiracy against the Hungarian people were crushed. The "reactionary" forces were the ones which wanted the removal of Russian troops from Hungary and the holding of free elections on a multi-Party basis. The similarity is sick-making.

Many of us, as the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, said, have been doing what we can to promote an easing of tension between the East and the West, but this shattering of confidence constitutes, to my mind, an absolute setback. It is impossible to build up any enthusiasm for close co-operation when we get this sort of cynical violation of morality. There must, at the very least, be a period of icy coldness in our relations with Russia in the immediate future. We must do all we can to help to keep the world condemnation of Russia mobilised so long as a single Russian soldier remains on Czech soil. We must surely use every device to try to get through to the Russian people themselves the horror we all feel. It is because I believe that it is to the Russian people to whom we wish to bring the message home that I think we must make our decision on boycotts, and on the breaking of cultural and other ties, with some care. We must judge each case on its merits.

I am quite sure, for instance, that the Foreign Secretary's cancellation of his visit to Eastern Europe was absolutely right. I think that a great deal of good has been clone by breaking off relationships in the past week. Cancelling football matches, breaking off trade union visits, and so on, are all absolutely right, and are possibly the best way quickly of bringing our message home to the people of the Warsaw Pact countries. But in the longer run we must look forward to being able to resume cultural, sporting and other ties, because that is the way we shall eventually be able to conquer this situation.

In this connection, I well remember the opening day of the Olympic Games in Melbourne in November, 1956, only a very short time after the Hungarian uprising. The most moving and effective thing about the whole of the opening ceremony was the relative silence with which the Russian team was received and the ecstatic ovation which was accorded to the Hungarian contingent. It was one of the most moving experiences of my life, and I am glad to say it was shared by the noble Lord the Leader of the Conservative Party in this House, Lord Carrington, who was at that time our High Commissioner.

My Lords, all I wish to say, in conclusion, is that we should immediately condemn, and condemn loudly, the action that has been taken by Russia in Czechoslovakia. Let us hope that we shall get something like a reasonable result from the talks in Moscow. It may be a slender hope, but let us go on hoping. And in the meantime let us echo, once again, our tremendous admiration for the gallant Czech nation and its courageous leaders in their search for freedom.

3.49 p.m.

LORD ROBERTSON OF OAKRIDGE

My Lords, this is a great occasion. It is a time when the House of Commons, your Lordships and the country want to hear from their political leaders, the Ministers of the Crown, and the heads of the great opposition Parties; and it is right that they should speak for their country and not just for their Parties. Smaller fry like myself may perhaps be tolerated for a few moments if they have something to say which comes from their own knowledge or their own experience, and I venture to address your Lordships in the light of my experience of five years of constant, close negotiation with the Russians in Germany. It was not quite my first contact with them, because as a very junior member of the United Kingdom delegation to the Disarmament Conference of the League of Nations I served under the leadership, among others, of the noble Earl, Lord Avon, and the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury.

When I arrived in Germany in the summer of 1945 the campaign—and that is the right word—of rapine and rape by Soviet troops in the Soviet Zone and in Perlin was in full swing. It was not just the occasional misbehaviour of the victorious and licentious soldiery; it was deliberately encouraged and organised by their masters. We had plenty of evidence of that. Some of those lads who marched into Czechoslovakia from Eastern Germany a week ago have mothers who were brutally raped by the Russian troops in those days. They do not know it, of course. They are too young; maybe they were not born. But it is a fact.

After that followed months and years of wearisome negotiations about the future of Germany, and I had to listen day after day while the Soviet members insisted on conditions and terms which would have reduced Germany to indefinite beggary and serfdom. Incidentally, they helped themselves to large reparations in kind out of their own Zone and out of Berlin, a thing which had been expressly forbidden by the Potsdam Treaty which they had signed; and they made further demands of millions of pounds worth of reparations from elsewhere in Germany. That, thank goodness! they did not receive. As to the attitude towards war criminals, our own policy was a stern and a hard one, but theirs was inhuman. If your Lordships do not believe that, just cast your thoughts to the prison at Spandau at this moment, where that poor miserable half wit Rudolf Hess, is still lingering where he has been incarcerated for the last 23 years.

As the years went by, we were eventually compelled to recognise that we could no longer co-operate with the steely brutality of the Soviet representatives, and so we decided to take our own measures. This led to the blockade of Berlin. I shall not forget until I die the look on the face of Marshal Sokolovsky when I said to him: "Is it really your intention to starve 2½ million Germans into submission or death?" The look on his face plainly told me that that was exactly his intention, and that he looked forward to executing it.

I have been back to Germany since those days. I went back there in particular as the guest of my former colleague in Germany, Lucius Clay. That was at the time when they had just been building that hideous wall which is a living monument to Soviet brutality. We should not have allowed that wall to go up. We could and we should have stopped it. However, it went up.

What did my time in Germany teach me? It taught me that the class of men who were ruling Russia then—and it is the same class of men who are ruling Russia to-day—were implacable brutes, that they are completely untrustworthy and abominably cruel. I can say these things. A Minister cannot say them. That is well understood. But I think it is right that someone should say them at this time, because too many people in this country have allowed themselves to build up illusions in their minds about these Russians, just as there were men and women here in England who built up illusions for themselves thirty years ago over Hitler.

What should we do in the present situation? The first thing we should do is to clear our minds of these illusions, to look in the face the stark facts about the Russians. "Détente" is a nice French word. We have heard it several times this afternoon. But if "détente" means an invitation that we should be a doormat for the Soviet jackboot, I am not in favour of it. Having said that, I should like to make it plain that I have always been strongly averse to making gestures or uttering threats that we have not the resources or the will to fulfil. It is quite foolish and it is extremely dangerous. I include in that not only the making of what I might call military noises, but also noises about economic sanctions which are likely to hurt us far more than they will hurt the Russians. As to a cultural boycott, I think the case has been well put by the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe. Every matter should be looked at on its merits. I, for one, will not take a ticket to see the Red Army dancers. But this is something that wants looking at carefully. In regard to severing diplomatic relations, I have always been taught that a good General maintains contact with the enemy at all times and under any provocation, and I am not in favour of severing diplomatic relations.

Is there, then, nothing that we can do, nothing that we should do? Yes, my Lords, there is. It is the first duty of our Government at this time (I choose my words carefully) to look to our own defences. The Russians have encouraged Herr Ulbricht to march his men into Czechoslovakia. What an obscene thing to do! That was a good adjective. It is something that they can do again. It is the kind of obscenity they can practise again. The day may not be far off when Herr Ulbricht will be encouraged to go into Berlin and into Western Germany. This will be an attack on our own security. It will be a direct threat to this land of ours, from Land's End to John o' Groat's via Salford.

I am not saying these things to reproach the Government for what they have done and what they have not done. I am not interested in doing that. Neither am I interested in encouraging the Opposition to make Party capital out of this situation. But I am imploring the Government to take a look at our defences, which means of course the allied defences. I hope that they will consult with our allies and certanly with their own military advisers, and that they will take that advice seriously and act upon it.

There it is. I have said what I had it in mind to say. Is it just the blatherings of an old General? At all events, perhaps your Lordships will believe that this old General has some knowledge of these Russians, and of their dirty games.

4.0 p.m.

THE EARL OF AVON

My Lords, I must first thank the Leader of the House for the masterly account he gave us of recent tragic events. Perhaps I may also thank him for his kind personal remarks in relation to myself, and for rekindling the memories many of us in this House, including the noble Lord who has just spoken, have of the events of thirty years ago. Whatever are our feelings about those days, and these, every noble Lord will, I am sure, wish to join in a tribute to the Czechoslovak people for their endurance of their ordeal and for the courage, the ingenuity and the restraint which they have shown throughout these days. if any one thing in this business is more extraordinary than another it is, to me, that the Kremlin, by what must have been a majority decision (I cannot believe it was unanimous), encouraged thereto, I have no doubt at all, by the dictator of East Germany, should have chosen Czechoslovakia, of all countries, for this action.

We remember, many of us, that throughout the history of Czechoslovakia as a nation it has been the most loyal and, one might call it, determined ally of Soviet Russia from the very beginning. I remember, for instance, that when, at Geneva in the early 'thirties, Monsieur Barthou was canvassing the entry of the Soviet Union into the League of Nations, rightly, as I then thought, his chief supporter and protagonist throughout all that activity was Monsieur Benes and the Little Entente, whose policy together then was to attempt to meet the threat they saw coming from Germany by their alliance with France and the alliance they wished to see with Soviet Russia. Then again, after the war, Benes, who had believed during the war in the treaty he had made with Russia, was soon to be sadly undeceived. There were the death —as I shall always believe, the murder—of Masaryk, and the years that followed. But in spite of that; in spite of the maladministration, and in spite of the economic strains and stresses to which Czechoslovakia was put, the loyalty of the country and the loyalty of the new leaders, as of the old ones, was to the Warsaw Pact and to friendship with Russia.

After what has happened what must be the feelings in those countries in the satellite groups, who have not the same friendly traditions going back over the years with Soviet Russia? If this is how an ally can be treated, an ally throughout the war, what, many must be thinking, will be the fate of those who are not? My Lords, it seems to me whatever the outcome of these days—and of course we still hope for better news than reaches us just now—it is surely certain that the stresses and the strains in Europe and beyond will be much graver after this than they have been at any time since the closure of the Second World War. That, I believe, is the reality that we ought to face.

Before I say anything about what I think we should do (I do not want to detain your Lordships long), I should like to make a reference to what may be called the "Russian case" because that case, of course, in so far as it rests on security problems, is not a new case—that is to say, Eastern Europe's fear of the power of Central Europe is nothing new. It is something that has been with us for the best part of a century. It was there before the war, in the time of Czarist Russia and the Central Powers; and it has brought the West and the East often together against the fear of Central Europe's intentions. And so far as that is the problem—and Russia suffered the consequences of it in her own territory throughout the war—it is something that is intelligible to this country. Had that been what was obsessing the Russian mind, there was a method of dealing with it. It would have been perfectly possible for the Russian powers to say, "We do not like such-and-such developments in Western Europe; we see such-and-such movements and concentrations of troops, and we should like to discuss this". Then those matters which were disliked could have been discussed between the Warsaw Powers and the NATO Powers direct.

In fact, if I am right (and the Government can correct me if I am wrong), at their very last meetings the NATO Powers suggested joint meetings between the Warsaw Powers and the NATO Powers to discuss how they might reduce their forces and thereby reduce tension either side of the Iron Curtain. That was the course that I think Russia should have taken, if there was a word of sincerity in all the present jargon about security being at stake. So we come back to the fact that that was not the real reason. The real reason was that the East German Government—and it is always East Germany that Russia worries about—believes in the hard line, and that only the hard line will succeed. The Kremlin leaders having been convinced that that was the truth, that those were the horrors they had to contemplate, these actions followed. That, as I believe, was the course of events.

If that is so, I come to the only other question I want to touch on for a few moments this afternoon: what should we do in these conditions? It is obvious that NATO, collectively, must take a long, full, hard look at its defensive arrangements. It cannot rest satisfied, in present conditions, by leaving to chance anything that can be obviated by adequate preparations. To say that is not to be in the least alarmist, but it is to be cautionary; and it is the very least that will have to be done. Some of us—and I admit that I am one—had hoped that it would be possible to reduce forces on either side of the Iron Curtain and make other moves to reduce tension, as in normal circumstances we should like to do. One day, I think Europe will have to come back to projects of that kind; but not, I suggest, unless and until Russian troops are withdrawn from Czechoslovakia and any captives are released and allowed to live their lives again. Until that happens there can be no utility at all, in my view, in any diplomatic discussions about what is to happen on this side or the other side of the Iron Curtain.

But that, my Lords, is not quite all. That is what NATO should do. The question is what we should do. As I understand it from reading the Defence White Papers (although I have not done so with the attention that no doubt one should) my recollection is that they are based on certain assumptions as to what the attitude of Soviet Russia might be expected to be in Europe. For the purposes of our discussions this afternoon I make it plain that I am not in the least criticising the Government for the assumptions they have made; but what I would say is that those assumptions should be looked at afresh and in their entirety, because they may be found—I very much fear they will be found—not to apply in present conditions.

For instance, it was an assumption of the Government, and of many of us, that we should see a gradual relaxation of tensions; that the Russians would become more and more willing to have discussions at various levels, so that the Warsaw and NATO Power discussions, which we have wanted since 1955 in one form or another, would probably take place. Now, of course, those assumptions cannot be upheld. On the contrary, I very much fear that it will be necessary for the Government to take defensive measures which were not contemplated a few weeks ago. If they have to do it (of course, I can speak only as a private individual), I would say that they deserve the utmost support in doing so. And I would add that if they do not do so then I think they will be taking a very heavy responsibility on their shoulders. I feel sure the Government will agree with that, because one cannot contemplate whatever the final decisions in these Moscow discussions, that the European situation will return to exactly what it was a week or two ago.

I have just one or two further brief comments to make. There is another aspect of this scene which troubles me. Peace has been kept for the last 30 years, more or less, by the atomic deterrent of the two super-Powers, and I should think there are reasonable grounds for hoping that that can continue to be effective for a while. But of course it is not wholly effective, because other actions, so long as they do not bring about an actual confrontation between the two super-Powers, can take place which are violations of treaties, or even actual war. If the two super-Powers are not engaged, for one reason or another, that can happen. It can also happen if one is engaged and the other does not want to be engaged.

That brings me to what I think is a very troubled aspect of this scene. There is bound to be more tension as a result of what is happening between the Communist Powers, which I think is not necessarily a gain for everybody. If there is conflict between them and tension between them, that only leads to more unsettlement, makes trade more difficult, and creates stresses throughout the world. So what should our course be there? What I should like to see happen, apart from the NATO meeting, which I presume will be called, and apart from the review of our own defences which I have no doubt the Government will undertake, is the major Powers in the Free World—not merely in Europe—getting together and trying to work out together the plans, military, diplomatic and economic. which they will try to follow to meet the present and threatening situations.

I should like them to do that (it is difficult to describe in a few sentences) rather in the spirit in which the Labour Government of Mr. Attlee and Mr. Bevin at that time approached the limited European problem of NATO. I should like that spirit adopted towards the world scene. Obviously, we cannot do that alone, but I should like us and the other leading Powers to concert together to see whether we cannot work out such a plan. A very important part of it, of course, will be the economic, and a very important part will be the role of the uncommitted nations. They would not be plans just for ourselves alone, although they would be plans to protect our way of life. They would also be plans to try to arrange that, in trade and commerce and life, some of the uncommitted nations have a bigger share than perhaps they have now.

All these things may be difficult, but they are not impossible. I urge upon the Government that this is the moment for a new approach; that the uncommitted nations and many others will be looking for a haven as a result of what they have seen happen; and that the free nations can, if they will, through their unity and their joint efforts, provide such security and provide such a haven. In short, my Lords, I think the Communist world has made a sad mess of its affairs for the moment. Tragic as that mess is, it is also an opportunity for the free nations to show how they can lead and where they would have the world go.

LORD BROCKWAY

My Lords, before the noble Earl sits down, may I just ask him this question? Is he aware that the tape is now recording a message from Moscow that there has been agreement for the withdrawal of the Soviet forces from Czechoslovakia within two months on three conditions? The first condition—

LORD SHACKLETON

My Lords, if I may interrupt the noble Lord, I think a number of noble Lords are, in fact, aware of what is on the tape. It has not been confirmed, and I suggest that we might wait until it is confirmed.

4.14 p.m.

THE LORD BISHOP OF SOUTHWARK

My Lords, it is a curious coincidence that to-day, August 26, is the anniversary of the invasion of this country by the Romans in the year 55 B.C. Since that date there have been other invasions—those by the Danes and the Normans. But that was long ago, and for hundreds of years we have had no enemy armies on our soil. As a country we have been free to run our affairs in our own way. It is because we have been so fortunate that we feel deeply for a nation which has been violated twice within a generation; and these feelings are intensified and aggravated by the realisation that there is so little that we can do to help. At least, so it seems at present. But something more than words of sympathy may be necessary.

In 1945 most of us had lived through two invasions of Europe by the Germans, and at the end of that war we said, "Enough. Never again". But it has happened, and to me the most squalid fact in this episode is the reappearance of the German military uniform and the German jackboot on Czechoslovakian soil. It has been said in the Press and on the radio that Mr. Kosygin and Mr. Brezhnev did not themselves favour armed intervention, but that the dice was cast by Herr Ulbricht. Be that as it may, it is a terrible thing that for the third time in a matter of years a part of the German nation should be allowed to assist in jeopardising the peace of Europe, and all freedom-loving countries would be well advised to be on their guard. It is to me astonishing that it is the Soviet Union, of all countries, which says it fears German military resurgence, which is encouraging the Germans to invade a peace-loving country.

There is little point in adding to the denunciations of the Russian leaders. I should have thought that everything that can be said has been said—their wickedness and their folly. If one had to single out one event to illustrate both the wickedness and the folly it would be the nauseating welcome given to the President of Czechoslovakia at Moscow Airport—a Judas kiss and thirty pieces of silver. This sickening incident, witnessed throughout the world by millions of viewers, must have destroyed whatever illusions may have remained of the Kremlin utopia. That is something which we ought to take into consideration for the future, for, strange as it may seem to many of us, owing to propaganda and education and upbringing, to thousands and thousands of young people Moscow nevertheless stood for a way of life which was supposed to be founded on justice and brotherhood. Surely, in view of what the youth of all countries have seen on television during the past days, that illusion has been shattered for ever.

But even that incident, disgraceful though it is, is not without encouragement, because it was meant, I think, primarily for home consumption. It was intended to convince the waverers in Russia itself and in the Communist countries. Here we must make a sharp distinction between the Soviet leaders and the Russian people, or at least some of them. Like many of your Lordships, I have Russian friends—intelligent, kindly and liberal-minded—and my thoughts go out very much at this moment to some of those heroic Christians I know in the Soviet Union and in the other Communist countries who have dared so much, who have suffered so much, and who are still suffering so much. Let us not forget that they are our brothers, and let us make a distinction between them and their leaders. I am not suggesting for one moment that they are anything but patriots, or that they want our system rather than their system. No, they are patriotic enough. It is simply that these liberal-minded, cultured, intelligent men question the régime that has imprisoned them for years and they long to be free; free not to get rid of Socialism (we have seen that in Czechoslovakia), free not to plot against their own country, but the very reverse—free to think their own thoughts, free to be themselves. That is what they want.

I am sure that these people must detest as much as we do what is being done in their name. So let us say to them: "We do not condemn you. On the contrary, we realise that you have to live under conditions that are, mercifully, unknown to us here in Great Britain. As good patriots, though, do what you can to restore the reputation of your country and work for the day when Russia and her allies shall be free." If at times we are sceptical and think there is no chance, let us take heart from what we have seen on television of the people of Czechoslovakia, because for years we have thought of Czechoslovakia as a Police State. I remember so well being there in 1953, and I would never have believed that the young people I met on that occasion might he the fathers of those who demonstrated last week and, indeed, probably took part in the demonstrations themselves.

I remember spending five hours with these young people at the airport in the mist and being shown pictures of Mr. Churchill, as he then was, and being assured that this great warmonger had added to his cruelties by murdering the 'Leader of the Opposition, the late Lord Attlee—and nothing I could say would convince them of the untruth of that statement, as I was a Western imperialist warmonger and a bourgeois priest! Those people, brought up tinder that sort of propaganda, really believed the sort of things they were saying to me that day. I am sure your Lordships will be interested to hear that I was told at that time that the then Foreign Secretary, Lord Avon, was living on an income of £100,000 per year in Conway Castle. I pointed out that Conway Castle had been a ruin for 500 years, perhaps more, but even that was dismissed as the mere idle gossip of the Western Press. Yet it is these people, brought up under the regime of that time, who have been so brilliant in their fight for freedom in the past week. That, of course, is a fact of life that the politicians in the Kremlin seem incapable of learning. With what can only be described as a jungle mentality they think that provided they can occupy a city with brute force, provided they can empty churches of their worshippers, as they did yesterday, they will compel men's will. That is where they are wrong. They may compel men's bodies, but not their wills.

I remember so well that in 1941—I think it must have been then—the late Sir Stafford Cripps was returning from Moscow, where he was Ambassador, to his constituency in Bristol, and he was asked by somebody in the audience about political prisoners. I remember that he astonished us by saying that the number ran into millions. In a hopeless voice somebody said: "But, Sir Stafford, do you think there is any hope that this regime will ever come to an end?" Sir Stafford said: "Well, it all depends on whether or not in the last resort you believe in the triumph of the human spirit". That, I am sure, is the one thing which must give us heart to-day. A country which can give rise to a Jan Hus and, some hundreds of years later, to an Alexander Dubcek, is a country which shows that it believes in the supremacy of the human spirit, come what may.

4.26 p.m.

LORD SILKIN

My Lords, one of the most remarkable things about what has happened in the last few clays is the extraordinary degree of unanimity which has been expressed throughout the world, the horror which has been felt by all sections and types of communities, whether they are prima facie sympathetic to the Communist régime or not—the Communist Parties of France, Italy and so on throughout the world. It is not of course surprising that this same expression of opinion should be stated in this House this afternoon: we all feel horror at what has taken place. But I have been asking myself why this has happened. The noble Earl, Lord Avon has asked the same question.

In The Times of last Thursday, Sir William Havter, the former United Kingdom Ambassador in Moscow, who was Ambassador in 1956 when there was the invasion of Hungary, also asked the same question. He asked: Why do the Russians do these terrible things? Do they care nothing for world opinion? Of course they do—they care very much. And he says so. He refers to all the trouble they take to ingratiate themselves with world opinion, and he goes on: …and then they commit a crime which makes it impossible for even their most servile foreign sympathisers to defend them. Yet they are not lunatics.… There must be some very powerfully compelling motive that forces these heavy bureaucrats to behave in a way which seems at first sight to be as senseless as it is criminal. The rest of the article is not very clear about the conclusions that Sir William Hayter has reached.

The noble Earl, Lord Avon, also tried to give an answer to these questions. He referred, I thought rather lightly, to the fear that the Russians have about Central Europe. I thought he was not attaching sufficient importance to it. After all, the Russians have been invaded twice by Germans in the last half-century, and during these invasions they have suffered as almost no other country has suffered throughout history. Incidentally, they have been rescued by the "Imperialist, capitalist lackeys"—by Great Britain and America, and, in the first world war, by France. But for them they might still have been under German domination. But have they no right to give a thought to these two great events in their history, the two invasions that have taken place by Germany? In my view this is the dominating factor in the action of the Soviet Union.

I am trying to look at the matter objectively, and certainly I hope no one will think that I am condoning what has taken place. Even if the Russian fears are justified, as I think they may be, that is no excuse for the invasion of Czechoslovakia, and I would not wish it to be suggested for a moment that it is. But let us look at the position as it might appear to them. Here is Czechoslovakia, which is gradually loosening its ties with the Soviet Union. Whatever may be said, the fact that they still stand by the Warsaw Pact and are still allies of the Soviet Union, the action they are taking—this loosening of the dictatorship and of permitting freedom to travel, the removal of censorship and so on—must all have some effect in loosening their ties with the Soviet Union.

Then we hear of discussions that have been taking place for financial assistance to the Czechoslovaks by the Western Powers, including Germany. How sore the Soviet Union must feel at the possibility of the Western Powers, and particularly Germany, coming to the help of Czechoslovakia… After all, at the moment the Czechoslovakian economy is very closely tied to that of the Soviet Union, and anything which would release them from that tie, or which could ease it, must be something that the Soviet Union would strongly resent.

We also hear of the proposed talks between East and West Germany. I do not know what that can mean, but the very fact that they are beginning to talk must mean some relief of tension between these two countries and, as the Soviet Union might see it, the possibility in the not too far distant future of reunification. After all, there are divisions of opinion in East Germany. I am quite convinced that the East Germans themselves are not happy in their relationship with the Soviet Union. I believe that the majority of them would far rather be reunified with Western Germany than be associated with the Soviet Union; and if that became at all a possibility, we should once more see a reunified Germany: strong, powerful—the most powerful nation in Europe, better armed than any other—and that, as the Soviet Union see it, with United States support. The United States have been giving Germany considerable encouragement in their rearmament.

So I think we shall be foolish to close our eyes to the fact that the Soviet Union are in fear, in great fear, of the same thing happening again, and of their suffering a third invasion on a big scale. It will not happen to-morrow; it will not happen next year, and probably I shall not see it in my lifetime. But it is something which a nation must look ahead to and take steps to prevent. I think that in their folly—and this was a piece of folly—they decided that one way of calling a possible halt to this was by the invasion of Czechoslovakia. They must have misjudged what would happen; they did not expect to find the whole world against them. They must have calculated that at least those countries which were sympathetic to Communism, and those big movements in countries like Italy and France which were communistic, would support their action. I think that was a great miscalculation. I think it is important, therefore, that we should have diagnosed the situation and tried to fathom what is in the minds of the Soviet Union. I hope your Lordships will not think it impertinent of me to disagree with the noble Earl in this diagnosis—or, rather, perhaps, to put more emphasis than he did on this particular aspect.

What ought we to do? One thing I am quite sure about is that we should not take any of the actions which have been urged upon us, such as diplomatic or economic action, or even action affecting cultural activities. In my view, it is essential that we should remain as close together as possible. By all means let us make it clear beyond all doubt that we deplore their action, and certainly do not condone it. Nevertheless, I beg that we shall not lake any action which will dissociate us or make us more remote from the Soviet Union. Certainly I agree, as the noble Earl and the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, said, that we should look at our defences again and make quite sure that we can stand up to any possible attack upon us or upon any of our allies. By all means do this.

But I believe that in the last resort the greatest hope will come from letting the Soviet Union realise that there is this danger, even if it is ill-founded; and if in fact Germany has no designs against the Soviet Union, there should be no difficulty in making that abundantly clear to the Soviet Union through discussion. But so long as Poland, for instance, is in possession of large areas of former German territory, and so long as others are in possession of debatable territory, like the Sudetenland, it will be difficult to convince the Soviet Union that these intentions, given the opportunity, will not be fought for once more. I think that if only we could get together and discuss with the Soviet Union, with Germany, some kind of pact, some kind of reassurance which it might be possible to give them, there might be some hope for the future. If it is not possible to do this, then I am afraid that sooner or later the world is in for a very bad time. I cannot believe that the Soviet Union (who, after all, are sensible people: they are not stupid; they are not fools; they do understand what lies before them) would be unresponsive to an attempt to make the world safe again and unwilling to accept reassurance so far as it is reasonably possible.

I am afraid that beyond that kind of suggestion there is nothing that we as a nation can do. Obviously, we will work with the United Nations and give them every possible support—and I am very glad indeed that we took one of the initiatives in bringing this matter before the Security Council. I hope that the news on the tape, which has been foreshadowed, is right; but we must wait and see.

4.39 p.m.

LORD HARLECH

My Lords, it is no doubt right that Parliament should meet and place on record its condemnation of and contempt for the actions of the Soviet Union and its allies last week. From virtually every other country and from every segment of the political spectrum in those countries there has flowed a torrent of invective against the military occupation and the attempted coercion of Czechoslovakia. Treachery, barbarity, perfidy, trickery, rape and countless other epithets have been hurled against the Soviet Union, its leaders and its miserable henchmen. All are applicable and all are justified. This universal abhorrence has been expressed already with great eloquence by the leaders of all Parties in this House this afternoon, and I do not intend to try to find new words with which to describe this criminal act. Our attitude, together with that of all civilised men and women, is abundantly clear, and the guilty Governments, together with their peoples, can be in no doubt whatever about it.

The question we have to ask ourselves is what, in the circumstances, should our reactions be? Is there anything we could or should do? Are we really as helpless in this crisis as has been generally assumed? Personally, I do not believe that we are so helpless, for this is a struggle being fought out not so ninth in military terms or in tangible physical terms as in intellectual terms. It is a struggle concerning the mind and the spirit of man, and it may well be that the attempt by the Russians to inject the element of military force into such a struggle will prove to be one of the most monumental blunders of the century. I am therefore convinced that the reaction of this country, and that of the numerous other countries who are appalled by the events of the last week, can have some effect on the course of this crisis.

However, my Lords, before deciding what we should do, it is obviously necessary to come to a correct assessment of what has been happening, not just in Czechoslovakia in recent months, but throughout Eastern Europe, and indeed in the Soviet Union. This is an immense subject and it is difficult to be brief without being superficial, but I shall make the attempt. Put in its simplest terms, there has been a growing conflict between the unquenchable human desire for a measure of personal freedom or individuality and the kind of society which has been developed in the Soviet Union, and after the war riveted upon the peoples of Eastern Europe. It is not so much a question of Communism as of totalitarianism. Some may argue that Communism always will lead to totalitarianism; others that it is possible to devise a form of Communist society which is democratic and allows the individual a sufficient measure of freedom. The latter is evidently the view of Mr. Dubcek and his colleagues; and although one may have doubts about whether such a system will be successful, that is not the point presently at issue. For what there can be no doubt about is that the Czech leaders, with the support of the great mass of their people, have an absolute and undeniable right to make this experiment if they so wish.

It has become abundantly clear that after twenty years of Russian-type Communist society, most intelligent people in Czechoslovakia, including many influential members of the Communist Party, had become convinced that such a system not only was inefficient and uneconomic, but was failing to satisfy the profoundest aspirations of ordinary men and women. It is impossible to read the moving accounts of the new spirit abroad in Czechoslovakia since the upheavals of January without being conscious of the feeling of rebirth, of new joy in living, of the ecstasy that comes from a renewal of freedom of expression after decades of censorship and repression. We know that similar feelings were welling up in Hungary before 1956, and there were parallel manifestations in Poland at the time of Gomulka's return. It is quite inconceivable that this intellectual and political ferment which has made itself visible in a number of East European countries, and now in a most stark and courageous manner in Czechoslovakia, can be confined within any national boundaries.

Human desires, human instincts and the human spirit are not different in Poland or Hungary from what they are in Czechoslovakia. We may be certain that they are not different in the Soviet Union itself. There must be countless Soviet citizens, and if Czechoslovakia is a guide there must also be many influential figures in the Communist Party itself, who have sensed the need for a drastic overhaul of the whole of their system of society as they move into an era of more affluence and better education. I believe that Mr. Khrushchev sensed it to some extent when he broke away so sharply and dramatically from the Stalinist past. That was the first and imperative step away from extreme totalitarianism, but it has not and will not prove enough in the face of the pressures welling up from below.

The ever more defiant attitude of writers, artists, poets and intellectuals in the Soviet Union is no more than a reflection of the general dissatisfaction with what they regard as an old-fashioned and out-dated system. There will have to be changes, and the contemplation of these changes deeply disturb the old Party hacks in each one of the five countries which have perpetrated this outrage on their erstwhile friends, the Czechs, just in the same way as Khrushchev's reforms outraged Molotov and the old guard a decade and a half ago. This, surely, is the fundamental reason for the wild, rash actions of last week. They are the actions of men who felt weak and insecure and not those of men playing from strength, confident of their cause and of popular support for it. No doubt the despised and universally hated Ulbricht was the weakest link in the chain, although the previously demonstrated attitude of the Polish and Hungarian peoples to their Governments must also have been of grave concern to the Soviet leaders.

At all events, the moment came when this bunch of frightened men, having lost the intellectual argument, reached for their guns and tried to reverse an inevitable historic trend by the use of military power. It is like the boorish behaviour of a man who is losing a game of cards and kicks over the table in a rage. I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, that the major fear here was a fear of Germany—not on this occasion. The major fear was a fear of increased liberalism.

If this is what in broad outline has been happening, what attitude should we adopt and what should we do? I am sure that we must bear in mind that it is likely that there are highly placed men in the Soviet upper echelons who were opposed to the action taken and were extremely apprehensive about the outcome. How do we strengthen their hand and the hands of like-minded people in the other four countries? How do we at the same time give, in some tangible form, an indication of our admiration and support for the Czech people in their hour of trial? They deserve this at least. We cannot just sit around like desiccated calculating machines, estimating the practical advantages and disadvantages involved. Strong human emotions have been unleashed by this barbarous act, and I cannot think that it would be right to carry on as usual with the nations that have perpetrated this hideous crime.

I would certainly not sever diplomatic relations, because this country has maintained a sensible and invaluable tradition that representatives are exchanged not as a mark of approval of one country for another but because such action leads to the more efficient despatch of business between the countries concerned. I agree with my noble friend that sanctions would be both inappropriate and ineffective on this occasion; but as for cultural exchanges I really think that they must cease for the time being. No one has been a more fervent supporter than I in recent years of increased contacts of every kind between East and West, but I think that the brutal and uncivilised actions of Russia and her allies have made the situation quite impossible. I do not think it seemly to fete visiting artists from these countries, and receive their performances with rapturous applause, when the Russian Government is ordering its troops to threaten, and in some cases to shoot, unarmed Czech women and children.

Quite simply, I think we owe it to the Czechs to make this minimal gesture. But, apart from that, I think that by it we shall be strengthening the hands of those in the five countries concerned who were opposed to the invasion, and feared the consequences that would follow throughout the world. It may be a comparatively small matter, but if the British Government, and all like-minded Governments, pursued a policy of ostracism with regard to the five aggressors I believe that this could have some impact upon the internal struggle going on between the more liberal and the more totalitarian leaders within the Soviet bloc.

A simple test is surely this: do we want reports to go home from visiting Soviet groups that the activities of the Soviet Government had had virtually no effect upon the success of their tour, or that the people and the Government here were so incensed by the Russian actions that they had been asked to leave? I think that the ostracism should extend to all diplomatic representatives of these five Powers. They need not be invited, and ought not to be welcomed at any social event under the present conditions.

It may be argued—indeed, it is argued —that it will be difficult to restart these exchanges, which in themselves are to be welcomed, but it is my contention that what we are witnessing in Eastern Europe is not the end of a brave but futile experiment in liberalism, and the opening of another dreary chapter in the story of the cold war, but the beginning of a new era in which the trend pioneered in Czechoslovakia will spread, perhaps haltingly and with set backs at first, but inevitably and inexorably in the end. All we can do is to show our encouragement and support for these tendencies and our detestation and contempt for the reactionary forces of totalitarianism.

Of course we must not cease to search for a détente. No other policy makes sense in this shrinking world, overflowing with nuclear weapons and overburdened with armaments. But we shall not help the cause of détente if we give the impression that we are as happy to treat with gangsters as with civilised men. We are not. I do not believe we shall for much longer have to deal with gangsters. Ulbricht's days are surely rum-bored, and it is inconceivable that so gross and massive a blunder will leave the Soviet leadership unchanged. Khrushchev could not survive his massive miscalculations over Cuba, and it is certain that the more enlightened members of the Communist Party in Russia will have learnt many lessons from this disastrous crisis of their own making.

I recognise that the forces of reaction may yet triumph for the moment. We may be in for a grim autumn. Harsh terms may be imposed upon the Czechs which they feel bound to accept. If so, we are in for a very unpleasant period, with frightened, beleaguered, and therefore dangerous, men at the helm in the Kremlin. In such circumstances, it will be necessary to revitalise the military side of NATO and look to our defences. since the threat to Berlin will most certainly increase. It is, I think, gloomily significant that President Tito, a fellow Communist, is already taking steps to strengthen his military forces.

For myself, I doubt whether the outcome of this crisis is sufficiently clear for us to take any major decisions yet, although it would be prudent to prepare for them. However, as your Lordships will have gathered, I remain basically optimistic, and if the unofficial reports which have been coming over on the tape were to be confirmed, perhaps I should have more justification for my optimism than I had earlier in the day. Whatever temporary horrors and setbacks we may now have to witness, and whatever sacrifices may be demanded of the brave Czechs, I am sure that there is a historic tide running within Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union which cannot be held hack with tanks and the apparatus of the Police State. It is not, of course, a struggle between capitalism and Communism—whatever those terms are now supposed to mean—and we must be careful never to give the impression that it is anything so simple and so naive as this. It is a struggle between totalitarianism coupled with a desire for foreign domination, on the one hand, and, on the other, the desire of millions of people for a greater degree of personal freedom and national independence.

The heroic actions of the Czech people have illuminated the real issues with a blinding clarity. They are not threatening to transfer their allegiance to the West; they are not even demanding neutrality. They are simply proclaiming their absolute right to conduct their affairs in their own way. Their calm courage has commanded the admiration of the entire civilised world. It must also have had a most profound effect upon the peoples still harnessed to the reactionary policies of Moscow—and not least upon the hapless young Soviet soldiers daily treated with contempt and derision by the men and women who had allegedy invited them into Czechoslovakia.

Nothing in Eastern Europe can ever be the same again. The Czech struggle will not have been in vain. They have lighted a beacon which will kindle the hopes of millions. Whatever the outcome of the Moscow negotiations, their passionate desire for a freer, more humane more compassionate society cannot be denied much longer.

4.57 p.m.

THE EARL OF PERTH

My Lords, you will have come here to-day for two reasons: first, to show your respect and sympathy for the gallant Czechs and their resistance to Russian action. The remarkably large attendance of your Lordships' House to-day shows proof of this. The second reason is to debate what we can do. Many of your Lordships have discussed what the Government can do. Those who know far better than I do on such matters have urged the need to look at our defences, to look at NATO defences, on which we all know the ultimate freedom, not only of ourselves but of the whole world, depends. I do not intend to touch more on Government, but I do think we should consider further what the individual can do.

I believe this is one of the rare cases where the heart should overrule reason in any actions that we may take. I understand how the Lord Provost of Glasgow offended against what may be diplomatic proceedings when he called the Polish Consul before him and said, "Would you warn your Government we very much doubt that we will continue to have the exhibition planned for Glasgow."

LORD BOOTHBY

My Lords, they have cancelled it.

THE EARL OF PERTH

My Lords, I am told by Lord Boothby that they have cancelled it. That is splendid. At the same time, I regret that the City Fathers of Edinburgh decided that they should continue with the civic reception, and a supper, for the Russian State Orchestra which is performing at the Edinburgh Festival. They argued that the Government had advised caution on such matters, and that it was hardly for them to take action of this kind. "After all", they said, "The orchestra is really not to blame for what has happened in Russia. Art and music-lovers are things without international barriers." As the noble Lord. Lord Harlech, has just said, what would be the report that these people give when they go back to Russia from the enthusiastic applause that they got from the vast audiences who listen to them? It would be: "Oh well, they cannot be serious; the people of Britain cannot really care if this is the sort of reaction—the applause they give at such a moment." Perhaps I should add, as a footnote, that out of 69 City councillors only four attended the civic reception.

Your Lordships may have read the report in the papers to-day of how some Czechs managed to prevent the setting up of some jamming machinery by getting the Russian train into a siding, so that the Russians had to come with their helicopters to rescue it. That was an act of great bravery on the part of the people responsible. This may well be the reason why at this moment jamming is not taking place in Czechoslovakia. But at the moment of the actual invasion, the B.B.C. chose to broadcast the first concert of the Russian State Orchestra in this country. I wonder what must have been the feelings of those Czechs who could still listen to the B.B.C., for which they have such enormous respect, when they heard this orchestra and the applause which it aroused. Although I know that the B.B.C. is independent. I beg the Government to use their influence to stop such happenings, and in that way, as the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, said, to show our feelings.

One more example of heart ruling reason. The Celtic football team have sent a message to the European Football Federation saying that they do not want to play against the Hungarian team. Even more remarkable, for those who follow football, is that the Rangers have fully supported them. Governments have to act cautiously, but I beg the Government to listen to the suggestions made by the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, and to give to those who are involved guidance in calling off exhibitions, trade fairs, concerts and the like. Above all, I beg that the B.B.C. should be careful.

All I have said so far is on the negative side. What can we do positively to help the Czechs? It is very little. We have heard what is to be done for the students and refugees. But even while Russian troops are still in Czechoslovakia, we should consciously plan for the future development of our trade with that country, to try to show that when the time comes we shall be prepared to help them, and that our tourists will be able to spend their £50 in Czechoslovakia again when the occasion allows. Let us try by all the means in our power to show our respect and sympathy for those whose only crime is that they want intellectual freedom.

5.5 p.m.

LORD RITCHIE-CALDER

My Lords, this is a momentous occasion and I am pleased that both Houses of Parliament have shown that they are capable of standing up to be counted it such numbers on an issue of this magnitude. While we must denounce the military intervention in Czechoslovakia and support the brave Czech people in what they are doing, we must be aware that the situation through which we are now passing calls for the utmost possible tact and understanding. What is happening has been called brutal, outrageous and obscene by speakers this afternoon, and I too would apply every one of these adjectives to this action. The Soviet Union have made one of the three great blunders of our time. But it must be a traumatic experience for the Soviet Government to find themselves in a situation in which they have been shockingly misinformed about world reaction, about the situation they were going to encounter in Czechoslovakia and about the response of the Communist Parties throughout the world. At this moment, I counsel caution. I feel that we shall have to get them off the hook in some way, and what we do is a matter for serious consideration. With all respect to the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, and the noble Earl, Lord Perth, I would ask your Lordships not to start slamming doors; this would be a ridiculous, a stupid, a fatal, thing to do.

What in fact has caused the present situation in Eastern Europe? Is it a spontaneous and indigenous growth of thinking? No. It has happened because over the last ten years, by the warming up of the cold war, we have been able to re-establish mutual communications. It is this communication with others that is producing the urge and determination of people to assert their rights and demand their liberty. Those of us who have had dealings with people in the scientific and cultural circles of Eastern Europe know that there is no question about this. At the Pugwash Conference, a meeting I have called the "ecumenical conference of science" one meets Russian scientists and knows their response, not in a conflict of ideologies but in the exchange of simple common sense. If we are going to slam the door against this kind of communication we shall make the biggest mistake in our generation.

I do not care what individuals do. I do not care what the Lord Provost of Glasgow or Celtic does or what people do about going to the Russian State Orchestra; but I do beg anyone who is in an official or para-official position most sincerely not to resign at this moment from any organisations that may be involved, because this is the moment when the people in such capacities can do their best work. I suggest sincerely that, when we have tried the due processes of the United Nations, my right honourable friend the Prime Minister should try again to exercise what I know is his personal influence within the U.S.S.R. This is a case in which individuals can do much to influence events. One more point on the United Nations: I hope that we shall not take recourse to the device of involving the General Assembly in a "Uniting for Peace" resolution in order to get round the Veto in the Security Council. That would be an artifice too plain to have any influence at all.

My Lords, events in Czechoslovakia over the past few weeks have shown us what happens when a new generation of thinking comes through. I say this because, as a Director of Plans of Political Warfare during the war, I had a good deal to do with Czech resistance, and at one stage of the war Czech resistance was emphatically the most effective resistance movement in Europe, until the Heydrich assassination. Then the Germans peeled off the resistance as if they were peeling off the layers of an onion, and that was the end of effective resistance. Indeed, one felt afterwards that it was the end of a resistance movement which had existed since the days of Jan Hus. Some of us felt after the war, when there was this acquiescence to conformity in Czechoslovakia, that the elements of resistance had been destroyed. But we see what it means, and why it was effective during the war, when we see what they are doing to-day, in a new generation, in the way of resistance. In fact, I used to say during the war that I could get a reply from the resistance movement in Czechoslovakia, even under German occupation, more quickly than I could get a reply from our Embassy in Washington. Here we see again the ingenuity which the Czechs can exercise in effective resistance; and that is most encouraging in this situation, even with the risks and hazards, with a new young generation of Czechs.

I would reinforce what I have said about not slamming doors. I would ask your Lordships to remember that in the last ten years the Czech movement, which was definitely repressed in an ideological and political sense, has been coming through loud and clear in everything except—until now—just outright resistance. Their cultural movement and their cinema leads the world in imagination. Their art and literature, everything in the cultural world, has been over the last ten years growing vigorously. Some of your Lordships who were at Expo '67 will know this. There, even with a privilege ticket and a four hour wait, I could not get into the Czech building. There is this tremendous resurgence, this ebullience, if you like, of the human spirit in Czechoslovakia. In fact, an old Czech friend of mine from the resistance days. who had been put away for a long time. degraded and so on, met me at an international conference a few weeks ago and said: "We Czechs have proved aim laughter can burst even leather breeches". This is what was done.

The most important thing that has happened, and, indeed, in an elemental way the basis of what we see happening to-day, is the re-thinking which has come through in Czechoslovakia, mainly from the scientists. The leaders of this movement in Czechoslovakia have been largely the National Academy of Science—thinking through, even under Novotny, the reconstruction of the economy and, above all, doing something which we are not doing in this country, and which is not being done in America or anywhere else: that is, to learn how to come to terms with the technological revolution; how they can bring automation and so on under control; how they can democratise technocracy. They have done it. The thinking, which has been done by Ota Sik, is not only an example of Czechoslovakia or Eastern Europe coming to terms with Communism or the democratisation of Communism, but a lesson to all of us who have to deal with the forces of change in the technological world. Here we see, in that sense, one of the most powerful elements in the changes which have taken place in Czechoslovakia. I repeat most sincerely the request that those of your Lordships who may be contemplating slamming the door which the Czechs by their own efforts are trying desperately hard to keep open should not do so.

5.14 p.m.

VISCOUNT ECCLES

My Lords, much of what I had intended to say has already been said by my noble friends Lord Avon and Lord Harlech, and I can be quite brief. I entirely support my noble friend Lord Avon in saying that we should look at our defences with our allies. This is because we still have to deal with the Government that is in power in Russia. We do not know for how long these men will be there, or whether the action which they have just taken might lead them to still further panic measures. I should have thought that we should all be agreed that prudence demands that we should look to our defences.

Then there is the other side of the question, which was so well put by my noble friend Lord Harlech, which is: What do we do about the change in opinion inside the Communist bloc? This makes an enormous difference between the situation as it is to-day and, say, the situation in 1956 when the Hungarians were so brutally put down. Many of them died then, but I think not in vain. They started something, and the Czechs to-day remember this. In the last ten years we have seen throughout the world an enormous increase in the power of public opinion over Governments.

Let us not look at Russia for a moment, but consider how even the heaviest armaments are now not much good in the hands of the most powerful Governments if public opinion does not support the use of those armaments. We had a lesson at Suez (we need not go back over that) when France and Britain were unable to carry on their war with Egypt because public opinion was not with them. Some years later a suffient amount of public opinion was with a much smaller country, Israel, and they quickly wiped out Nasser's army. Look at the war in Vietnam. There you have a country which spends by far the largest sum in the Western world on armaments, but is unable to finish the war. Why is this? It is because in the South the people are too lukewarm, and in the North they are too hot. The Americans have not enough public opinion behind them; it is against them. Why should it he different with the tanks that have gone into Prague? I do not think it is different. The pictures that we have seen and the reports that have been coming out from that country show that armaments are out of date unle is you have a great crusade behind you, with the whole of your nation united; and that, I believe, will be less and less likely.

Why has this change in public opinion taken place? Well, my Lords, I think we all know that it is because of rising standards of life, which have given power to far more people to live their own lives. They want to move about; they go to see cultural exhibitions; they read more books, and so on. And the mass communication system of wireless and television is so powerful now that frontiers are no good. The censor is taking a back seat. On top of this, the number of personal contacts between the people of the Communist bloc and those outside has steadily increased.

I remember about ten years ago, when Her Majesty's Government were negotiating a treaty of commerce with Mr. Khrushchev's Government, how one evening during the negotiations Mr. Khrushchev was in good humour. He had that day made a speech in which he had said to the Russian people: "We have now sufficient armaments to defend ourselves against anybody. I can assure you that our country can never be overrun by anybody". I congratulated him. I thought he would be very pleased with what he had said. But not at all. He said: "Now they will want consumer goods, because once I tell them that their defences are adequate they are bound to want other things, and when that happens I cannot tell what the future will be in this country". He was an expansive man and very agreeable, and I am sure he foresaw what he was doing. That is one of the reasons why in the end he had to go. Are we to have sanctions—I mean private sanctions or public sanctions? I am sure that that would be a mistake, because the landslide in opinion is beginning inside the Communist world, and we could do nothing more helpful to the Communist Government than to give them the excuse of saying, "The whole world is against us. Now you must rally! Now you must put away your liberal ideas. We are once again under a state of siege, or semi-siege". This is exactly what they would like to happen. Sanctions would help them much more than they could conceivably hurt them.

Then what about private contacts and cultural exchanges? I know only about two spheres of contacts with the Communists. One is the textile trade and the other is the museum world. Things are quite different from what they were ten years ago. We all have friends both in the textile trade and in the museum world—real friends among the textile manufacturers behind the Iron Curtain, especially I must say in Czechoslovakia, and of course in the museum world throughout the whole of the Communist countries. Are we to throw all those over? I hope not. But I do not think we can go on as we have been going on. What should be the difference in our attitude when we are selling fibres to Russia by the million pound weight or when we are organising an exhibition for which we are borrowing something from one of the Soviet museums, and so on? What should be our attitude?

I think personally that the private individual must now take his politics seriously; that is to say, when we have these contacts we must not go neutral, not rule out all conversation to do with Czechoslovakia, anything to do with the way things have been mishandled by the Russian Government. But in sorrow, not in anger, we have to become missionaries. I am quite confident that the Russians, in particular those whom I know, are ready for this. Therefore, I hope, my Lords, that we strengthen our defences. We can give much more encouragement to the Czech people than perhaps we know, because public opinion is so much more powerful than it used to be. And as private persons we must behave like missionaries and not just make a profit out of the Russian trade, but make propaganda as well.

5.23 p.m.

LORD MACLEOD OF FUINARY

My Lords, I feel it my duty to speak from the point of view of religion. When a financier addresses this House we expect enlightenment on fiscal policy. When a scientist speaks, we eagerly await new insights in his especial subject. But, a little oddly, when a parson rises, am I right in thinking that a majority indulge the secret hope that he will steer clear of strong religion? Yet we are still a religious country. This House is daily opened with Christian prayer, and I believe that only in terms of Christian faith revived can we really get deep about the issue before us.

Two short alleviations. First, I am not going to be sectarian. I speak about the ultimates. Your Lordships will remember St. Augustine's great words: That which is called the Christian Religion existed among the ancients and never did not exist: from the beginning of the human race. until Christ came in the flesh: at which time the true religion (which already existed) began to be called Christianity". I speak in the widest and the deepest sense. The second alleviation is this. I may speak strongly about the United States of America. We often write it down in our notes as "U.S."—meaning "United States"; but U.S. also spells "us". Well, I think of us as well when I say "United States"; I think of the West together. I believe that if we can see it we are living at a great moment of truth. I believe, There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune". And we are at such a tide. The nature of that fortune, and the cost of that fortune, I reserve for my conclusion.

I am less likely to be misunderstood, and more likely to be brief, if I can make two comments on the present scene as I see it. Point one. There have been some odd uses, especially in the Press, of the word "morality" in this tragedy that brings us together. Folk are horrified at the "morality" of Russia in forcibly entering a Communist State, or the Warsaw Pact countries. But their horror is always in terms of what Communists would call "bourgeois morality", such as sovereign rights of nations and human rights of persons. But this is not classic Communism. Marx, interpreted by Lenin, rewrote completely the concept of morality. For classical Communism, that alone is moral which furthers the workers' revolution. This is the essence of morality. Immorality, for them, is any act that impedes the progress of dialectic materialism towards that great day when law will wither away and there will be no further need for anyone to dictate. For instance, in Russia a man may make a mess of personal morality. He may perhaps hold up a bank. This is serious and he deserves a prison sentence. But let a man deviate from the State's interpretation of progress of the next stage towards the great day—such is a crime worthy of death. Now this, I submit, is no debating point.

What we see happening in Europe at this hour is bound to happen in classic Communism. In the minds of the Russian hierarchy, at this hour their invasion is highly moral. The complexity obviously deepens when we remember that Czechoslovakia is also a Communist country. They have not deviated, so they claim; it is the rigidity of Russia that has deviated. Thus, the problem, internal to all Communist States, is the correct interpretation of their "Bible", of where they stand. Here is the chaos. And, from our point of view, from the point of view of truth as we see it, here is the hope. Karl Marx did not foresee this. He is positively revolving in his grave as he looks at Russia/China, Czechoslovakia/Hungary, Yugoslavia/Poland. The intended Communist monolith increasingly looks much more like a Tower of Babel. Here is at least, as has already been pointed out, the longterm hope.

But my second point is that we cannot afford to crow. Indeed, if we claim that our morality concerning the sovereign right of nations and the human rights of persons stems from a Christian thesis, we stand more deeply condemned. Would anyone seriously argue that our economic imperialisms do not invade the sovereign rights of nations? Look back, say, sixty years at Congo, remembering Belgium; at Algeria, remembering France; at China, remembering Britain and others. Or, more contemporaneously, we can think of Formosa. A few years back we were horrified at the possibility of Russia taking over Cuba—Cuba, lying 150 miles from the States, with its puppet Government. Why, then, our equanimity when United States of America took over Formosa?—Formosa lying 150 miles from China; or at the build-up in South Vietnam, with its puppet Government, to prevent Communism from seeping clown into South-East Asia? One wonders what the temperature among us would be if, escalating gradually, 500,000 Chinese were now, say, in Mexico, and were holding South Mexico against North Mexico to prevent capitalism from seeping down into South America. Or, what do your Lordships suppose they are saying in the Dominican Republic, as they read of the moral indignation of the United States of America as allied tanks roll through the streets of brave Prague? I merely say that we cannot afford to crow.

It goes so much deeper than that. What about our economic control of South-East Asia countries? I mean the control by the United States—us. In 1954 America passed a commendable Act to get their surplus agriculture to the underdeveloped countries. But were we just benevolent? This is how one of the drafters of that Bill described it at the, time: In its simplest form this is how I see these food ships would work. A country with riots coming up could be controlled by letting our wheat ships sit outside the port like a carrot on a stick. A leader whom we considered dangerous would lose support of the masses because everyone would know we were not going to unload the wheat if he became top man. A United States magazine at the time carried a revealing though rather naïve headline—"Feeding the world's hungry millions…How it will mean billions for U.S. business".

Or, again, U.N.C.T.A.D. at its first conference—that is the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, with underdeveloped countries as voting members. Would you not count this a hopeful resolution for the peace of the world? Economic relations between countries (including trade relations) shall be based on the principle of sovereign equality of states, self-determination of peoples and non-interference in the internal affairs of countries". Hopeful? Yes—but the United States voted against that resolution. Or, again: Every country has the sovereign right freely to trade with other countries and freely to dispose of its natural resources in the interests of the economic development and wellbeing of its own people'. Hopeful? Only fair—yes. But the United States voted against that resolution.

Enough: I am not trying to be gratuitously nasty. I am merely giving chapter and verse as to why we cannot afford to crow. On the "Christian morality" side of the fence—if we are to have world peace (and peace is indivisible), we must confess as well as accuse. We must say "guilty" as well as "fie, fie!" The Communist monolith has become a Tower of Babel. There lies hope. But our Christian morality has equally become a tumult of contending humanist noises. We must get back to a principle: some, seriously accepted North Star. This is what we are failing to pass on to our youth; and hence their extravagances.

Another has said, "If a man does not stand for something, he will fall for anything". We must stand for, and really believe in, a new source of power. Here we come to the moment of truth to which I referred at the start. For the crashing problem of our age is, "Where does power now lie?" Where does power now lie at all? It was Gandhi who said, "If there is injustice about, it is better to fight than to do nothing". Well, there is injustice about, but how do we fight? In 1914, a big nation walked into a little nation, so we fought the big nation. In 1939 the same nation walked into little Poland, so we fought again. Now, in 1968, a big nation walks into Czechoslovakia, and no one suggests fighting. Why? We all know why: because if we did, it might escalate in a week. Within a fortnight there would be 10 million dead, and there would be no Czechoslovakia. As Martin Luther King said, The nature of the modern problem is simple; it is either non-violence or nonexistence". Or as Einstein said, way back in 1945, None of the politicians understands the ultimate effect on politics of nuclear power. Roosevelt doesn't understand; Stalin doesn't; Winston Churchill doesn't. Only one politician begins to understand, and that is Gandhi". This is the challenge of our time. "The world has become a unity", cried Romain Rolland "and for this high destiny mankind is not yet fit". To get a clue we have to go back to Darwin. Bernard Shaw once said: The greatest delusion of the Englishman is that he has read The Origin of Species". If more had done so we should not hear such poppycock being talked as we do about "the survival of the fittest". Far too many people think that the survival of the fittest is the survival of the beefiest. But Darwin's teaching was the opposite of that. It was in fact a paradox. In plant life and in animal life that form alone survives that is capable of coming level with its environment. Down goes the dinosaur; up come ever more sensitive forms. In brief, what is true in the animal and vegetable kingdom must now begin to be applied in our sociological situation. The only nations which will survive in the new environment will be the nations which seriously come level with a co-operative world.

A small ship called the "Pueblo" sailed into the territorial waters of the smallest nation in the world—North Korea—and was captured, and the mightiest nation the world has ever known did nothing. The insect nation said "Boo!" to the dinosaur, and the dinosaur said nought. North Korea still holds craft and crew. This is the terrifying novelty of our time. Yet there are still people who say "We have lost Aden and Singapore and Malay—Ichabod, Ichabod, our glory is departed". Ichabod my foot! Our glory is at hand if only we rightly read the signs of the times. The fittest to survive are no longer the mighty, but are those who will co-operate with the new environment. If we do not, we have "had it".

You remember Toynbee's insight. Four thousand years ago China was the economic centre of the world. Then came the inexorable ground swell towards the West, and Assyria took over; then Greece; then the glory that was Greece became the grandeur that was Rome. After the dark ages, the star of the Holy Roman Empire was in the ascendant. Came the Portuguese Empire, the Spanish, the French, the Dutch that flowered in the 18th century. Then Britain became the economic centre of the world power in the 19th century. The inexorable ground swell went on. This century belong to the United States, but already the writing is on the wall. They are losing their nerve. They doubt their destiny. Their morality, private and public, withers. Twenty-eight per cent. of the American soldiers in Vietnam have venereal disease.

So what looms up for the 21st century? China, of course. The ground swell has moved full circle. Yes; in twenty years the population of China is estimated to be double what Russia and America will be together. I say that if we do not grasp the nature of the new environment we have "had it", anyway —unless we embrace (not investigate) the new power, the power of non-violence, and embrace true world co-operation at last. We had better be quick. Already even nuclear power (for those few who still put their trust in it) is slipping from our hands. Read the last number of the medical journal, the Lancet; note the speed with which biological power is taking over. In two decades the threat of chemical warfare will demolish nuclear power—cheap stuff for universal procurement. Universally acknowledged as obscene. In two decades, shall we say, Roumania and Yugoslavia will be able to decimate the population of Moscow without benefit of tanks—and do it on the cheap at that—unless we all at once banish chemical and biological warfare. At the moment we are engaged in furthering the obscenity.

The old power structures—even the latest—have turned in on themselves. In the ultimate, said Martin Luther King, it is non-violence or non-existence: there will be no existence unless there is nonviolence, yet still it is true that it is better to fight injustice than to do nothing. What then of the new fight? The power of non-violence has nothing to do with passivity; it is not withdrawal; it is not pusillanimity. What are the great names of contemporary Christian history? Kagawa in Japan, Luthuli in Africa, Danilo Dolci in Italy, Niemoller in Germany, Martin Luther King in America—every one of them totally committed to non-violence, yet every one of them up to the neck in politics, every one of them in prison at one time or another for being involved. Not one of them passive or pietistic.

This is something for which civilisation must now begin to stand, if we are not to fall for everything. The foolishness of God that is wiser than men, the weakness of God that is stronger than men, must now be applied at the periphery and not just at the personal. Pacifism, eccentric in the Church's witness since the first centuries, has become centric again. What is now eccentric is the supposition that the Church can have anything to do with modern war from now on.

But what (some noble Lords are asking) has this to do with the present crisis? For the State in the short run it has little to do with it; in the short run in this situation we can but patch without losing our heads and seek true moral relations with our neighbours until the world has a faith again. In the long run, this has to do with unimaginable riches at the disposal of the world. For the Church there is never any long run. There is no way to peace. Peace is the way. For the Church, obedience must be immediate or she is not the Church. It may well be that we are entering one of those times when the Church must pull out from the State. It may well be that the Church must suffer persecution, as she did at the last Reformation, so that in the end she may serve the larger good of the State again. What she must not tolerate is the obscenity, the gross impropriety of the now.

Let me close with a true story of what happened in India in living memory. A missionary served in a primitive tribal area. Each year on the first day of March the tribe marched through the forest to a certain point and there lingered until midnight struck. Then they went down into the groves to practise their obscenities. One year, with great courage, a missionary accompanied them through the forest till the lull before midnight, and during the lull he got on a log and preached the love of God. For a moment there was a deadly silence. Would the youth of the tribe lynch him then and there for getting in the way of their ceremonies while they allowed him to have his Easter? But no; Grace intervened. When they went down into the grove for the obscenities he returned alone to the Mission House.

The next year he did it again, with lessened tension. He did it for ten years, and then he died a natural death. When the first of March came round on the year after he died the head of the tribe came to the Mission Station and asked that another missionary be appointed to do this preaching because it had become part of the show. At the moment the Church is a part of the show, part of the obscene world. But only the Church has the answer now—the way of the Cross. The power of non-violence to be practised again at the periphery and not just among persons. If we are to rise to it, ecclesiastically and nationally, we have a baptism to be baptised with. And how shall we be straightened till it be accomplished?

5.43 p.m.

VISCOUNT WATKINSON

My Lords, like many other noble Lords I dropped everything to come to support the Government to-day. I think one should perhaps say that at this time, because we in this House are in some difficulty. We read the tape but we do not know really whether or not what it says is right. I should like to say that I think the Government's action is absolutely right. I think the condemnation of the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, who opened our debate, is absolutely relevant, even if the courage and bravery of the Czechs has brought something out of disaster. So I think we are right to be here, and I think are absolutely right to say what has been said by many noble Lords. What kind of a watershed policy this may be I think it is perhaps difficult to say with exactitude at this moment, but one thing is absolutely plain; namely, that the Russian leaders certainly have not lost their belief in force as the ultimate instrument of policy. Of this we have had as clear a demonstration as anyone could seek.

I think I can understand how difficult and disappointing it must have been for the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, and his colleagues in the Government to be told by the Soviet Ambassador, in terms which after all no intelligent man would be expected to believe, that this action had been decided upon. If, as my noble friend Lord Harlech and others have indicated, this use of force springs from fear, I think it is even more menacing a proposition for all of us. If the Russians felt that they had no option but to invade Czechoslovakia because they could not stand the possible risks and results of the Czechoslovak version of Communism spreading into other countries, then they are indeed at the moment men who might be driven into dangerous courses. So I do not myself regard the situation as one that is other than extremely menacing to all that we hold dear. I think it has many ominous implications, and I still hold that view even if, after all, the bravery and courage of the Czechs has rescued something from disaster.

Sadly one has to say that in the ten years when I was a Minister, and in the years since, I do not think the character of the Russian leadership has changed much. The processes of moderation work extremely slowly. One hopes they are working. One must do all that is possible to seek to speed them up. But I think we should be wise to assume, in the light of current events, that the progress made has been disappointingly slow to those of us who had hoped to see a break in the cold war and a real warming up in the relationships between the Communists and ourselves.

I would hope that the Government—no doubt they have already done this—have already had the normal informal NATO consultations that obviously can be arranged at short notice. I think the Government should be quite clear where the alliance stands and, what is perhaps more important, I think the alliance should be quite clear in its external statements as to where it stands, and what particular position it holds to-day. Despite the French semi-defection, I believe that the alliance is as strong as it has ever been; and perhaps it would not be a bad thing to say that at this time.

Turning to the Czechs, they deserve all the backing that we can give them. We should be foolish to imply that this could be other than a moral backing; but even this may do some good. What support we can give, and however we can give it, we should give it. I do not want to pursue this issue; noble Lords have explored it fully already. What I want to do for just a few moments is to follow the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, to some extent, and take a look at the longer term, having had our warning that there is no easy course in regard to a genuine rapprochement, anyway with present Russian leaders, and the clearest possible demonstration that, driven either by fear or by determination to impose their will on others, they will resort to force.

Perhaps as an ex-Minister of Defence, one should add a footnote. I do not think one can make much criticism of the military occupation of Czechoslovakia. One can make a great deal of criticism of the utter folly of the political way in which it was managed, but I am afraid there is little criticism to be made of the speed, the skill and the deployment of the forces which resulted in the occupation of that country in a very short time indeed. Let us hope that we do not return to the full vigour of the cold war. But from now—and I am not seeking to make a Party point of this—we must be a little more prepared for drastic action of a military nature that is carefully calculated to be of a kind likely to be tolerated without recourse to all-out nuclear war.

This is not something that the Government have to make great statements about, but it is certainly something that we hope the Government will be earnestly considering, and one must say again that if such action were to be mounted it would hardly be likely to be in areas where the NATO Alliance is at its strongest. It would be much more likely to be in areas of doubt, in areas where perhaps British retrenchment may be opening new opportunities for intervention in the Eastern Mediterranean, if you like, or in the Persian Gulf. So we must hope that the Government and their advisers will now consider this whole complex of defence policy in the light of present circumstances, and that they will examine it both inside and outside NATO because, as I have said in this House before and no doubt will say again, the NATO Alliance is most vulnerable on its flanks. It is unlikely to be pierced in its centre; to pierce it in its centre is all out nuclear war, and to envelop it on its flank may be a much easier operation to the eyes of the Russians bent on some action to defend their way of life, as they see it.

This does not mean we should sever all connections with the Russians, and I strongly support those noble Lords who say that we should keep open all the doors we can. I think the Government might seek to draw some difference between relations with the Government and relations with the Russian people. I hope that exchanges with the Russian people and other than direct Government agencies will continue to be fostered as perhaps our best way of helping the Czechs in their way of life, but certainly the Russian Army Choir, for example, could hardly be welcomed in this country so long as their forces are occupying Czechoslovakia.

To come back to the sphere of defence for a moment, I think that to be prudent we should say to the Government to-day—not, as my noble friend Lord Jellicoe said, that we wish to pursue it to-day; this can be looked at in the normal course of debate when we come back—that surely they now have time to look again at our alliances in NATO, to look at the dangerous areas where British retrenchment (I am not going into whether it is necessary or not) may leave areas of a power vacuum. One hopes that this review will go on in the next few weeks so that the Government an; ready for any new situation that may come upon us. I think the more ready we are seen to be to face such a situation, the less likely it is to happen. I have a fear myself that the present leadership of the old Communist bloc, who probably know now they are outmoded, that they are men who are surrounded by younger intellectuals and scientists who are looking at them as people who are no longer with the true stream of Communist advance, might be driven to a point where they would meditate almost any madness before falling to their own people. This is something we should bear in mind, and something that perhaps Czechoslovakia has given us a warning about.

As to our own position, I do not fear competition of our way of life with the Russians. In the long term it is they who have to bend to the wind of change and not us; but in the meantime we must do our duty and see that our country plays its full part in its alliances, plays its proper part in the world. I do not think this affects our creditor position; I think our creditors are much more likely to back us if they think we are doing our full job in the world than if they think we are always on the retreat or trying to save a penny here and a penny there. All I would ask at this time is that, first, we should support the Government, as I certainly do, in their condemnation of the present situation; secondly, that we should ask the Government not to make great statements but, with their advisers, to reexamine the whole sphere of defence within and without the NATO Alliance to make sure that those who take a slightly gloomy view of this situation will not be caught unawares if the present Russian leadership, having perhaps suffered a humiliating reverse in Czechoslovakia, looks around for somewhere else in which once more to glorify themselves.

5.56 p.m.

LORD GLADWYN

My Lords, if the latest news is to be believed there is now a chance, I suppose, that some kind of agreement may be arrived at between the Russians and the Czechs whereby the Soviet Army evacuates Czechoslovakia after a certain time, subject to certain conditions. Whether we shall eventually welcome such an agreement will depend on the conditions; and they will be obviously tough, so we must keep our fingers crossed. In the meantime there is no reason why we should not have a sort of inquest on what is really an international crime.

I will not say much about that because it has been so eloquently denounced by so many of my colleagues here. What I can say is that, in my view, it is even worse than Munich. It is certainly worse than the coup de Prague in 1948, which, after all, did not involve the introduction of foreign troops and depended largely on local Stalinists, of whom there were many more in Czechoslovakia then than there are now. It is worse even than Korea where, after all, the aggression was by a little State which was not a member of the United Nations. I think, indeed, that it is obviously worse than any of those instances because this time the aggression, that is to say the application of brute force has been perpetrated in direct violation of the Charter by a Permanent Member of the Security Council of the United Nations against a small ally which was actually professing her loyalty to her own Treaty obligations. You cannot have a more scandalous international action than that.

However, my Lords, there is not much use in our simply holding up our hands in horror at the Russian action, however indefensible. Here I must say that I agree with something that the noble Lord, Lord Macleod of Fuinary, said. None of us is completely without blame. Nations are rightly called "Cold monsters", and they can only be controlled gradually by the acceptance of some form of law. I believe there is still such a thing as an international conscience, and our hope must be that it will gradually prevail.

I think, therefore, that in our inquest on this terrible blunder, this sort of aberration, we should do well this afternoon to concentrate principally on three aspects. First of all, clearly, there is the question of what we should do. The second broad aspect is what will be the likely results of the aggression if it should continue. The third aspect is why did it happen at all. The first point has already been very adequately dealt with by many noble Lords, including my own noble Leader, and I do not propose to go into that. However, I propose to make a few remarks on the likely results, as I see them.

Even if their blunder is somehow patched up, the first result surely is that the Russians have finally lost the leadership of international Communism. Apart from their four partners in crime, and I believe also Cuba, there is hardly any national Communist Party which has done anything but condemn the aggression. Some nations may not do so. For instance, India and Pakistan have not outrightly done so. They have abstained. But these abstentions are by nations for national interests which you can understand, even if you do not approve. What is certain is that every nation in the third world, in the whole undeveloped world, and no more so than in the Middle East, Egypt and Iraq—all these nations will be wondering if it really is now desirable to come into any very close contact with the powerful bear.

If it were not that China now seems to be sinking into a sort of anarchy and mass hysteria, I suppose the Chinese might take up the torch of the old international world Communist movement. But, happily for us, the mere fact that there are millions of screaming Red Guards, beside whom the old Hitler Jugend seems comparatively sane and virtuous, is not likely to promote the Chinese cause and Chinese leadership of international Communism throughout the world. The fact is that international Communism is now dead, and international capitalism is now dead also, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, said.

The fact is that we are all living in an age dominated by two industrialised super-Powers, each with associated smaller industrialised States. One of these groups, as we all know, is more advanced industrially than the other, if only because it is based on the principle of individual freedom. Here again I agree very much with what the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, said: that in the long run such principles will prevail. At the moment, however, confronting these two industrialised blocs, which between them comprise rather over a third of the population of the world, is the so-called third world of underdeveloped countries. While the one is getting richer, the other is getting poorer. That is the grim fact behind the present situation which has, unhappily, been reinforced by the aggression against Czechoslovakia.

So it follows that the prospects of a so-called détente, about which so much has been talked lately—and here I mean the prospects of a détente in the narrower sense that is to say, arriving gradually at some sort of European agreement on Germany—have disappeared, I am sorry to say, for a considerable time. I say that because it is now quite clear that Bonn cannot continue its policy of raprochement with the Soviet satellites, notably with the D.D.R. Efforts to do so are for the moment out. No doubt the Germans will try to continue their policy of trading, but in present circumstances they cannot hope to develop it to more than a certain point.

In the second place, it is quite clear that in the face of this shock to security in Europe, and indeed to the world, the Western nations, and notably the Western European nations, must take certain elementary additional precautions. Here I entirely agree with what the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, and the noble Viscount, Lord Watkinson, have said. It is no good saying that we can just carry on as we are. The enormous efficiency of the military overrunning of Czechoslovakia, with the transport of two 30-ton tanks in each Antonov converted bomber arid the dumping of Soviet detachments all over the country within about twelve hours, is absolutely staggering when one thinks of the organisation needed. It is, after all, conceivable that if we let down our defences the same sort of thing might happen to Hamburg, Frankfurt or Munich, which are almost equally close to the frontier. It might conceivably be that they would take such a chance in Denmark or Northern Norway. We must, therefore, take some precautions against the possibility of their being able to do elsewhere as they did in Czechoslovakia.

In this sense the détente has always been somewhat of an illusion. Why do I think so? It is because I believe the Russians are not yet really ready for it. It was an illusion to think that they were. I am sure it will happen eventually, but only when the Soviet regime has evolved and, more especially, when it is prepared to contemplate a united Western Europe, of which the West Germans will be part. I do not want to develop that now, but that has been my consistent theory.

The prospects of a détente in a wider sense are, of course, a different thing. A détente in a wider sense means Soviet-American co-operation, of which a notable example recently has been the nonproliferation treaty. All that has obviously been adversely affected; but the prospects of a détente here are not necessarily out. The Americans are desperately keen on maintaining this kind of contact if they possibly can, and I think they probably will. From this point of view, it is obvious that the balance of terror, to which so many noble Lords have referred, without specifically using that term, will continue until such time as a very effective anti-ballistic missile is evolved, or, as the noble Lord, Lord Macleod of Fuinary, suggested, small States are able to send rockets with microbiological weapons over Moscow or any other capital, which is certainly a long time ahead. So I think the balance of terror will prevail for a very considerable period of time. Of course, from the point of view of prevention of war, the balance of terror in the mad world in which we live is more significant than any legal or contractual obligation.

In the light of all this, I think one can reach one conclusion, and that is that a major casualty, if not the major casualty, apart from the unfortunate Czechs, has been the policy of the present ruler of France, General de Gaulle, and, to a lesser extent, I am afraid, the policy of Chancellor Keisinger. I say this because, in the first place, it must be evident where the pursuit of a completely nationalist policy may lead. In the second place, France cannot possibly by herself act as a sort of "middleman". In fact, it has been shown that the whole idea of fixing up some deal between the French and the Russians, as predicted in General de Gaulle's memoirs, and very often in his subsequent speeches, is quite illusory. If anything is fixed up between the two blocs about Germany it must be as the result of negotiations in which the British and Americans also take part. De Gaulle may be the man of the day before yesterday; he may be the man of the day after tomorrow; but he is certainly not the man of to-day.

Here I should like to make one point about what has been made recently about the conference at Yalta. It has been suggested in France ever since the aggression took place, and French television has been constantly repeating it ever since, that the reason for this outrage is that Europe was divided into two parts at the conference at Yalta. I must say that that is an extraordinary view to hold. Nobody knows better than the noble Earl, Lord Avon (he can confirm this), that there was no question of handing over half of Europe to the Russians at Yalta. The Russians were just about to invade Europe in enormous force. They could not have been prevented from going into Europe. They were chasing the Nazis and they could not have been stopped until the war ended. That was a fact of life. Nor did anybody ever say, "Half of Europe is yours".

All that happened at Yalta in that sense was that the noble Earl negotiated a document called the Declaration on Liberated Europe, which I had the honour of helping him to draft to some extent. In that document—which I quite agree was not nearly so strong as it should have been, for the Russians would not agree to our original draft—they agreed that when they liberated territories they would hold free elections. What happened when they got into Roumania and Poland, and particularly Poland? They imprisoned all the leaders who were not their own stooges, and there was no question of free elections or anything like that. But at Yalta we did our best, and we got them to sign a document. Afterwards, when they had torn up the Declaration on Liberated Europe by their action in Poland and Roumania, we could have said, when the armies had met, "We are not going back to our zones. You have torn up one document and we are going to tear up the other". My impression was that Winston Churchill wanted that, but it was President Roosevelt who would not have it. It was nothing whatever to do with Yalta. Yalta did not hand over anything to anybody except in the Far East. and we took no part in that at all.

A minor casualty has been the Ostpolitik of the German Government, and that is a pity. ChancellorKiesinger was right in trying to pursue this new policy of getting in touch with the Central European States—and notably with the D.D.R. From this point of view the aggression was a tragedy. Rut there it is. All you can say is that the Chancellor was rather ingenuous in thinking that he could pursue this policy with the sole aid of France and the dubious and anti-American support of General de Gaulle.

So the result of all this, so far as we are concerned, ought to be, first, a closing of the Western ranks, and, secondly, progress, if possible, towards the formation of a genuine Western Europe, which I believe is the only hope for an eventual détente. As regards Western Europe and the closing of Western ranks, within the NATO Treaty, of course, here again I entirely agree with the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, who said that we ought to accept, and I am sure the Government will, the proposal of Chancellor Kiesinger that there should now be a high-level meeting of the NATO Council to consider generally what should be done. Whether that is a success or not depends on whether France will agree. Surely they will now—we can only hope so—even if it means changing their posture slightly. As regards the gradual formation of Western Europe, there again we can only hope the French will change their view. They may possibly do so now. Goodness knows! we should welcome it if the French did change their policy, even to some extent. No-one would welcome it more than this nation. Of that I am sure.

That is really all I want to say, my Lords. I do not want to detain your Lordships on why all this happened, except to say that the effect on East Germany of the proposed new Czech reforms was a very considerable, if not the main, reason for the hawks, the hardliners, getting the upper hand at the last minute in Moscow. What would have happened, and what might still happen, if there were some successful anti-Ulbricht movement near the frontier, shall we say, in Western Germany, and the East German frontier guards opened the frontier and invited their West Germany brothers to come in—what would happen do you think? It is rather a disquieting question, and not a disquieting question for the East Germans only.

The second reason, as I am sure has been said, was because of the effect of the Czechoslovak reforms in the Soviet Union itself, where the fundamentals of Stalinism are now being challenged. Here I should like to quote from a passage in Le Monde, which did not appear in the British Press, dated August 24—it was this translation of an article which appeared in Pravda. It is of very great interest because it shows that these great debates have been going on in the Soviet Union in the last year or two between the forward-looking people who are thinking in terms of a new development of Communism and those who go on with the hard line. There was a young academic, I believe, who said that what he thought was going to happen was a gradual convergence of the Soviet philosophy and the American philosophy: that the Americans were becoming more State-minded and the Russians were becoming more liberal, and eventually they would arrive at some kind of synthesis. Then he was denounced by a lot of people and eventually this article which officially ended this dispute appeared in Pravda: In the field of ideology no pacific coexistence between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat is possible, just as there can be no question of a 'class peace' between the two. Fanatics of bourgeois order' assume a pseudo-socialist guise and have recourse to all sorts of propaganda manoeuvres in order to break up the socialist community. But the peoples of the brother countries have not finally disposed of the capitalist régime in order to stand by with folded arms in the face of the oppression and exploitation of the masses. On the contrary, they have irrevocably bound their future to socialism and will not tolerate any derogation from this accomplished fact. If that means anything it means that we are right hack to the cold war and Stalinism. It is very regrettable, but I am afraid that is where we are at the moment.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Harlech: I am not quite so optimistic as he was about the progress being made in the next few years. But I thick that Lord Harlech's thesis is good, and that eventually the Soviet Union will be penetrated by some Western philosophy. However, I do not want to end this much too long speech on a note of despair. On the contrary, the mere fact that the Russians have had to have recourse to force in Czechoslovakia means that there is a very formidable element in the Soviet Union itself which could still at some time pursue policies not unlike those initiated by the Government of Mr. Dubcek. They used to say that you could do anything with bayonets except sit on them, and I think the same applies to tanks. Eventually, what are known as liberal ideas—in other words the essential idea of freedom—will still spread Eastwards from the West, with unpredictable but still good results. When it really spreads in the Soviet Union, then the so-called détente will come about.

It will take longer than any of us thought before—perhaps ten or twenty years. Who knows? But one day it will come about. If, in the meantime, as seems probable, the balance of terror prevents any major war, eventually we shall arrive at the long-desired goal; namely, the co-ordination of world policies on some agreed basis between Russia, America and a United Europe. The present agony of the Czechs—the probable return to rationing, to queues, to restricted production, general miseries and so on—may well last for a shorter period than we now think. Certainly it will if we, together with the French and the Germans, can now get together—and why should we not?—with the other democratic European States in a big way and construct a genuine, that is to say a supra-national, United Europe. Once this is done, the basis for a new deal with the East will have been laid, but not before.

6.19 p.m.

LORD BOOTHBY

My Lords, I hesitate to disagree, and I am pained to disagree in any way with my noble friend Lord Gladwyn, but in order to get this crisis in proper perspective we must take a cool look at the past as well as the future. I cannot agree with him that this is not, in part at least, an inheritance of Yalta. It was, of course, against the wishes of His Majesty's Government at the time. But that is how it turned out, because the establishment of so-called spheres of influence led in the end to a far bigger sell-out than Munich ever did.

LORD GLADWYN

Regarding the spheres of influence, so far as they occurred at all, the noble Lord may be right, but this was not done at Yalta.

LORD BOOTHBY

It started with Yalta. I am afraid I cannot withdraw that at all. It began at Yalta undoubtedly, where I am sure our negotiators, with the best will in the world, believed that Stalin was going to hold free elections in all these countries. But if they believed that they could believe almost anything. At Yalta we abandoned in fact if not in intention—and I entirely agree there was no intention there—the main political objectives for which we had gone to war. And this after the partition of Poland and the attack upon Finland in 1939, and the annexation of the Baltic States in 1940. Surely these events should have been a warning and a lesson.

My Lords, the method has not changed, and it is the method that matters, much more than any so-called settlement which may or may not have been imposed to-day in Moscow. It goes back to Czarist days, to the invasion of Hungary in 1849 and the bloody supression of the Polish revolutions of 1830 and 1863. It is the method of absolute despotism, sustained by ruthless oppression, cruelty and the intoxication of power. At Yalta, it looked—it was not intended, but it looked—as if sovereign nations were handed round like plums: as if, over the caviar, vodka and cigars they said, "All right, old boy, you can have Bulgaria and Roumania so long as you give us Greece".

THE EARL OF AVON

My Lords, I do not want to interrupt the noble Lord, but there really is not a word of truth in that statement.

LORD BOOTHBY

My Lords, I said it looked liked that: I did not say it happened. But the fact remains that Stalin agreed with alacrity to the Yalta agreement, without the slightest intention, as I am sure the noble Earl would agree, of ever allowing free elections anywhere, if he could possibly avoid it, in the countries within his zone of influence. Indeed, he proceeded to collect ten countries in Europe (which was not bad going) in about ten months, and we never heard of a free election in any one of them.

The process was of course facilitated —and, indeed, looking back in the past, I think this may have been a much graver event than Yalta—by the disastrous decision of the Supreme Command to halt the Western advance into Europe in 1945 and actually to withdraw forces from Czechoslovakia. We could have taken Prague, Berlin and Vienna. Montgomery could have taken Berlin, and the Americans could have taken Vienna and Prague; but we let the Russians take them all deliberately. This was an American decision, not ours—and we have reaped the consequences ever since. I go thus far with the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, when I say that it was the Americans who were the prime influences at the Yalta Conference. It was Roosevelt who was the prime influence there. He had to come up against constant resistance on the part of Churchill and of the noble Earl, Lord Avon, but by that time we no longer had the power. They had the power, and that is the real answer.

My Lords, it went on at San Francisco. I attended that Conference as a journalist and I remember when the order came to Jan Masaryk that he was to propose the inclusion of the puppet Lublin Government of Poland in the conference. I remember dining with him in San Francisco that night. We dined off aspirin and champagne. I besought him not to go back to Czechoslovakia, not to move this resolution, and he said: "I cannot abandon my country, whatever else I do. I would rather go back to my death"—and to his death he went back. I wrote at the time—your Lordships will forgive me quoting myself, but I am often fond of doing it: While we chatted, Molotov shored up the Eastern bloc ! He found the Western Democracies impotent and divided. In these circumstances, it was easy for him to run through their broken ranks and kick goal after goal. The method may have been a bit rough. But no small part of our subsequent and increasing irritation with the Soviet Union has been due to the instinctive resentment of a man who suffers from a paralysis of indecision watching someone else, who knows exactly what he wants, getting it. One final comment. The United States have completed the regional unity and organisation of the American Continent, and Stalin is bringing a similar process, on different and harsher lines, in Central and Eastern Europe to a rapid conclusion. If the Western Democracies in Europe do not get together fairly soon, the entire Continent may well be brought decisively within the Russian orbit!So far as Western Europe is concerned, the lead must—and should—be given by Great Britain without further delay. All this was written in May, 1945—over 23 years ago—and the pattern has persisted.

Since San Francisco we have had the blockade of Berlin, the bloody suppression of the revolts in East Germany and Hungary, and the Wall. In short, the rule of the tank and the jackboot—and we had better face up to that fact because this is only yet one more lesson, and this time there is not even the shadow of an excuse. The Czechs have given no provocation of any kind. On the contrary, they have scrupulously observed every demand of Communist and international legality.

Churchill was the first to see the light. He cannot escape some responsibility for Yalta, but with the noble Earl, Lord Avon, he strove most manfully, if in vain, to mitigate the consequences. I do not believe that Churchill and the noble Earl, Lord Avon, would ever have signed the Potsdam Agreement as it stood, which set the seal upon the Russian fait accompli. Churchill once said to me, rather sadly, after all this was over: "Statesmen are apt to be judged by historians not so much for the military victories achieved under their direction as for the political results which flowed from them. Judged by that standard, I am not sure that I shall be held to have done very well".

What, my Lords, should we do now? That question has re-echoed through the House this afternoon. We are all agreed that war is out of the question. If there ever was a time when we could have imposed our values and standards upon the Eastern European satellites, it has long since passed. What we would not do or could not do for Poland, Hungary or East Germany we cannot now do for Prague. The noble Lord who is to succeed me in speaking resigned most courageously over Poland, and my sympathies were all with him at the time. But even he would agree that there could be no case for a comparable resignation this time. Moreover, my Lords, in this thermo-nuclear age the only alternative in the long run to a détente between East and West is a holocaust in which the whole world will be destroyed. In my submission, therefore, although it may take decades to achieve such a détente, we should never for an instant stop trying. That is why I cannot agree with those noble Lords who have urged that we should cut off all trade and cultural relations. They are the only means of getting our ideas across the Iron Curtain, and they have been getting across quite reasonably in recent years. I think it was inevitable—and I am glad about it, as I had intended to go there—that the Polish Trade Exhibition in Glasgow should have been cancelled in deference to Scottish public opinion. That was quite right. But at the same time we should go carefully, I think very carefully, in these cultural and trade matters, and slam no doors; because this at the moment is the best way through, and it may be the only way through for quite a long time to come.

Nevertheless, my Lords—and I am nearing my end—there remains a vague impression of almost paralysed impotence on many occasions on the part of the Western Democracies, which takes one back to those awful 'thirties, of which the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, reminded us. I had the same feeling listening in Austria every hour on the wireless, at the hour, to what had happened. My mind went back to the days before Munich, to the days after Munich and to the days leading up to the war. I thought to myself: "This is where I came in. Here we are going through it all over again". You get this feeling of impotence and frustration, not only in Europe but in Biafra, which we are going to discuss to-morrow; and it may well induce the Kremlin—and this is what I am a little frightened of—to say, as Hitler said to his protesting Generals when he seized first the Sudetenland and then Czechoslovakia: You haven't seen the leaders of the Western Democracies. I have. We can get away with anything". If you ever get that into the minds of what have been described as "the gangsters of the Kremlin"—I prefer to describe them as the "hard-liners"—then the danger would be very great indeed. They must not think that we are as weak as Hitler thought Chamberlain and Daladin were. Otherwise, the danger of a third world war would be very real indeed.

This brings me to my last point, that of defence. Here I have some right to speak, because from 1933 until the outbreak of war I stood behind Churchill in the House of Commons on this issue—and I am on the record—during Motion after Motion begging the Government to increase the defences of this country, particularly our air defences, and all were turned down flat. There were only about a dozen of us.

My Lords, I remain convinced now, as I was then, that it was the continued military weakness of the Western democracies that was the primary cause of the actual outbreak of the Second World War. It was not in fact Munich. It was the fact that before Munich, long before Munich, we did not make a vehement effort to put the defences of this country in order and to show that we meant business, and to make ourselves strong enough, with the French, for Hitler to realise that if he attacked us he would be defeated: as he could have been, right up to 1939, if we had had adequate forces. Nobody should know this better than de Gaulle, and I hope that he will revise some of the opinions to which the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, drew attention. It seems to me that West Berlin is a touchstone. In August, 1948, when the tension over West Berlin was very great, Churchill said to me: I would have it out with them now. If we do not, war might come. I would say to them quite politely: 'The day we quit Berlin you will have to quit Moscow'". A simple statement, but there is a lot to be said for it to-day.

My Lords, I am not advocating provocative action, I am not advocating an arms race; still less massive additional expenditure on armaments. But at present we are, in my judgment, dangerously weak. NATO, which has recently been falling into great disarray, must be reactivated and made again into an efficient shield against any possible major attack on the West. And de Gaulle's nonsense about a united Continent extending to the Urals, under the leadership and influence of France, has fallen irretrievably about his ears.

Secondly, I think that the defence ceiling of £2,000 million can no longer be regarded as sacrosanct. Thirdly, I think that we should at once commence the construction of a fifth nuclear missile Polaris submarine. What is £50 million in comparison to the amount we spend annually in this country, and the danger which now confronts us? This would give our Polaris submarine fleet a real validity which, with only four, it does not have. Fourthly, we must take account of the Russian naval presence, which is increasing with every month that passes, in the Eastern Mediterranean, and down into the Red Sea and which to-morrow, possibly, will be in the Indian Ocean.

I wrote a letter to The Times. which was published last week, about the Persian Gulf, and I stand by every word of it. The Soviet probings, as they have been described in this debate by the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, are going on in the Persian Gulf. It seems to me that to announce now that we intend to remove the British military and naval presence altogether from the Persian Gulf in three years' time is an act bordering on insanity. It should be taken back at once. There we have our vital oil supplies. We can get to it easily by sea. The Arab States want us, Iran wants us. The Arab States have even gone so far as to say that they would make a contribution to their own defence and to keep free navigation in the Gulf. Nobody wants political trouble or war there, and the British presence could put a stop to it. I implore the Government to reconsider this decision on the Persian Gulf because I think it is potentially calamitous.

Lastly, I would say just this. I think that the whole business of our defences in the Far East requires re-examination. We cannot forget Australia and New Zealand entirely. I am not in favour of re-activatirng Singapore, but I think there is a great deal to be said for establishing a base in Western Australia to which we might make a contribution.

LORD GLADWYN

My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord one question? Does he really think that the rape of Czechoslovakia will induce the Arab States to make special agreements with the Soviet Union?

LORD BOOTHBY

No, my Lords, I do not think that at all. I am not talking about the Arabs. I am talking about the Russians. I am talking about the Russian presence in the Persian Gulf of which the noble Lord may not yet have heard, but about which he will hear quite soon if we are not careful. It is the Russians I am talking about, not the Arabs.

I think that these are basic and minimum requirements. It may be said—perhaps it will be said—that our balance of payments does not permit of it. My Lords, that is nonsense. We could put the balance of payments right, and should put it right, by putting a ceiling on imports; and why a Socialist Government, with its inevitable emphasis on economic dirigism, should flinch from this is a mystery to me. I do not understand it. When he speaks on this issue, the voice of the President of the Board of Trade is the voice of Richard Cobden—and he was out of date before he died nearly a hundred years ago. So there is modern Socialism for you!

The invasion of Czechoslovakia may have been a tactical victory for the hardliners in Moscow who still believe that nothing concrete can be achieved except by brute force, and who fear one thing more than anything else in the world—freedom. It is certainly a strategic defeat of the first magnitude, not only for the Soviet Union, but for international Communism under Russian control and direction. You only had to be on the Continent of Europe, in Paris and Austria, as I was last week while these events were going on, and see the reaction of the Communist Parties in these countries and in others to what happened in Prague, to realise the truth of that fact. This, I think, should bring us some comfort in the stern and testing days that lie ahead.

6.36 p.m.

LORD CONESFORD

My Lords, Her Majesty's Government, I am convinced, were quite right to summon Parliament to debate this great matter, and the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, the Leader of the House opened the debate in a very clear and admirable speech with which I shall certainly not quarrel. There may have been a passage or two with which I did not completely agree but on the whole it was the speech with which I most agree, with the possible exception of the speech of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Robertson of Oakridge.

My Lords, I propose to say something about Communism which I still believe to be extremely important. A great deal of my life, and the most important part of my political activities in both Houses, has been concerned with Communist aggression. Over 23 years ago I resigned from Mr. Churchill's war-time Government because I thought that the Yalta Agreement was intolerable. I still believe it to be one of the great blunders of history. I thought then that it was unprincipled and wrong, and I think so still.

I subsequently spoke about Communism in March, 1949, in the House of Commons, and on December 11, 1956, and March 13, 1958, in this House. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, has left the Chamber, because, needless to say, I find it necessary to say a word about his speech. I had no idea that the noble Lord was going to speak about Yalta, but I did take the precaution of bringing the Yalta Agreement with me. I read the letter of the noble Lord which appeared in The Times last Saturday. He said then, as he has spoken in the House to-day, a great deal about the part of the Yalta Agreement (it is Section V) dealing with the Declaration on liberated Europe. Of course, that was not the important section of the Yalta Agreement. The important section was the next part of the document, Section VI, labelled "Poland". It was the treatment of Poland that caused this Agreement to be one of the most disastrous in history.

My Lords, I speak with reluctance about this, and would not do so but for the mention of the Yalta Agreement by the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn. Perhaps I may just say this. I made no resignation speech in the House of Commons because I thought it would not be in the public interest. We were still at war, and if I had said then what I thought could be the consequences of this Agreement I might have been accused of putting ideas into the Russians' heads. But I did speak in my own constituency, a month later, on April 6, 1945. The record of what I then said was published in the Press, and is available. Perhaps I may just quote one short passage. I quoted what Mr. Churchill had said in another place, in the debate on the Yalta Agreement, on how we should judge it, and the criteria of freedom by which we should judge what had been done, and I then continued in these words: I find nothing in the Yalta Agreement, or in the facts, which provides any guarantee or likelihood of the Poles being allowed to enjoy such freedom. For the first time in history, as one member said, a country has had both its regime and its boundaries altered in the course of a war by three other nations, all in alliance with it, without that country being present. If that was necessary, surely the greatest care should have been taken to safeguard the interests of the absent ally. Then I went on to examine the wording of that part of the Agreement. Those interested in this matter may remember that an entirely bogus set of men were brought forward by the Russians who were first referred to as the Lublin Committee, in whom nobody in this country had the slightest belief. They were an alien importation—a creation of the Russian State. The Russians proceeded to recognise them as the provisional Government of Poland, and the Yalta Agreement on this subject proposed to recognise them as the basis, but hoped to add a few other Poles as well. Wording was used that gave some currency to the view, for which there was no foundation, that this Lublin Committee were democratic leaders of Poland.

With so many speakers yet to speak, I do not propose to speak on those subjects on which I find myself in complete agreement with Her Majesty's Government. As I have said, I find myself in substantial agreement with what was said by the Leader of the House in his opening speech, and I very much hope I shall have the same experience in listening to the concluding speech of Lord Chalfont, to which I look forward. The noble Lord the Leader of the House has invited us to give our honest views, and I shall mention some of those points on which I find myself in some difference with many of the speakers on both sides of the House. First of all, while I agree with everybody that what is being done is a great crime, it is not in the least clear that from the Russians' point of view it is a great blunder. That remains to be tested. The mere fact that it is a great crime does not make it from their point of view a great blunder. It is said that they have lost the support of Communist Parties all over the world. I expect that leaves them fairly cold. They treated those Parties with the well-deserved contempt with which most people treated them. They were— characteristically—supported by two Communist Parties, those of Cuba and those of North Vietnam. India, of course, could not find it possible to vote for the resolution that actually condemned Russia.

My Lords, what about surprise? Many noble Lords, and many commentators on the B.B.C. and I.T.V., and in the Press, have expressed great surprise that this is what the Russians did. I can only say I felt no surprise whatever. It is what I expected them to do. My noble Leader, Lord Jellicoe, said he thought it might happen, but thought on the whole that it would not. I confess I thought it would happen. The reason is that I have, over the years, made a fairly serious study of Communism. I say "Communism". Some people say that it is nothing to do with Communism; it is Russian imperialism. Well, Russian imperialism and Communism are inextricably intermingled. I quite agree that Russian imperialism existed before Communism. A great deal of what they are now doing is part of the traditions of their imperialism. But it is also part of the teaching of their Communist doctrine. I see no point to-day in trying to separate what is due to imperialism and what is due to Communism.

Of course there were probably divisions among the supreme leaders of Russia—there frequently have been. That does not mean that, once they have come to a decision, decisive action will not immediately be taken and carried through. There was a time indeed when the minority of the leaders in any such decision were probably executed after one of their celebrated mock trials in Moscow. More recently that has not been the custom. They do not execute the minority; the minority agrees to collaborate with the majority in whatever the atrocity may be on which a majority has agreed.

May I say how much I disagree with one of the noble Lords—or possibly more than one who attributed responsibility for what has happened to Ulbricht? I have no doubt that this villainous leader, imposed on East Germany by the Russians, advocated what has been done. But to suggest that he was in a position to coerce the Russians, unless they wanted to do what they have in fact done, is complete nonsense. Nobody who has had any experience of dealing with the Russians, or has followed these matters in any detail through the years, will have any doubt whatsoever that this was a deliberate act by the Russian rulers carrying out their deliberate and well thought out policy.

Surprise is not a virtue. We do not strengthen our claim to be considered seriously by the Russians when at each new atrocity we express complete surprise. It was some time between 1946 and 1950 when I remember asking the Minister who answered foreign affairs questions in another place a supplementary question: Why were His Majesty's then Government invariably surprised, and if they were, was it a good thing to say so? I remain of that opinion. It does not strengthen our standing in the world always to express surprise, whether we feel it or not.

There are two methods—as I have so frequently pointed out—of finding out what the Russians are after. It is no good pretending that we do not know. We can find out what they are after by reading the sacred books of their dogmatic religion. The most easy work of reference is the English edition, published in Moscow, of Stalin's Problems of Leninism, which I think, after all that has happened, still remains their bible. The second method, which leads to exactly the same conclusion, is to apply the simple rule of English Common Law: that men are presumed to intend the natural and probable consequences of their actions. And when we have seen that those consequences are the subjugation of one country after another, we can take it that that was also their aim.

My Lords, that brings me to my main point of difference from Her Majesty's Government—again not from the noble Lord the Leader of the House but from what was said by a Minister in Hyde Park yesterday. Dealing with something that had been suggested, Mr. Crossman said: That would be tantamount to a resumption— mark that word, my Lords— of the cold war. Later he said: We say to the Russians, 'We do not want to go back to the cold war and we believe that you do not want to either'. The cold war has never been abandoned by the Russians. They have pursued it relentlessly, without any let up, without any change of any kind. What is clear from what the Minister said in Hyde Park is that what had ceased was our contesting the cold war.

Why is it suggested that all the things they have written no longer have any importance? The reason is that Stalin is dead and that Khrushchev, who had been his greatest toady when he was alive, thought fit to denounce him after he was safely dead. On the strength of that the English public were encouraged to believe that some tremendous change had taken place in Russian aims. I pointed out, in the speech in another place to which I have referred, that there were three important facts about the cold war. The first was that it was war. The second was that it was by no means cold in the experience of its victims. The Greek parents whose children were carried into captivity in Communist countries did not find it very cold; nor did our planters who were slain in Malaya. But there was a third fact. Not only was it war and not cold, but on the whole we were then losing it.

Then, I am glad to say, NATO was created, and since then we have been losing it less rapidly. But I have still no confidence that we are winning. People are so confused about what they want of the cold war that they have not even decided whether it should be made colder or hotter. In the days when the expression "cold war" first came into use, though it was deplored, it was universally recognised as a better thing than a hot war. It was thought that a hot war was what we wanted to avoid at all costs, and a cold war, however undesirable, was better than that. But now people say that what we want to do is to thaw the cold war—in other words, to get nearer to a hot war. I think that a genuine peace is better than any kind of war, but in my view a cold war is better than either a hot war or surrender to Communism.

Let me give a concrete example of something we have done recently which I think accounts for the fact that we are not taken seriously by Soviet Russia. On May 26, 1942, this country entered into an Anglo-Soviet Treaty of Alliance which was to last for 20 years. Under Article 5 of that Treaty, the high contracting parties undertook that they, will act in accordance with the two principles of not seeking territorial aggrandisement for themselves and of non-interference in the internal affairs of other States. I listened in another place to Mr. Ernest Bevin giving example after example of interferences by the Russians in other countries, direct breaches of an express term of their treaty of alliance and friendship with this country. On September 15, 1948, Mr. Bevin said that this habit was as old as Marxist-Leninist theory itself, and he was quite right. The Russians broke this treaty from the beginning, and finally, while it was still in force, on May, 7, 1955, they repudiated and annulled it.

Would not your Lordships think it would be impossible for them to lead us up that garden path again? Not at all. When their hands were reeking with Hungarian blood, with every resolution of the United Nations on the subject of the Hungarian suppression not acted on but disregarded by the Russians, when their leaders visited this country and asked for another treaty of friendship and alliance, Her Majesty's Government started discussing it as though nothing had happened. Fortunately, that has, so far, come to nothing. And I doubt whether even Her Majesty's Government will start that bit of nonsense again.

There is one other point which I think is worth making. This is a crime because it is an invasion of another country nominally self-governing. It is a fact that the Government of the country attacked are all Communists, determined to maintain Communism as the only legal political creed. But that did not make the attack any worse. It is a very dangerous argument to suggest that it did—for this reason; that it implies that Soviet aggression might have some justification if non-Communists were to have any power. lf, however, the maintenance of Communism is a sacred cause in the Communist world, which must prevail over everything, then arguably the Russians are quite right. If the maintenance of Communism is a cause over-riding all others, then the Russians might well be justified in saying that they know that to admit any freedom will bring the unpopular Communist regime crashing to the ground. The Czechs may take a different view, but who is to say which is right? The only logical basis for objection to aggression is to object to aggression as such. The Government of Czechoslovakia would not be in a worse but in a better position if they had said that what they were after was real liberty. In these circumstances, your Lordships may have seen without any surprise—the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, will be able to confirm this—that the English newspaper used by Mr. Malik at the United Nations to support his argument was the Observer which had taken this line that I am criticising.

What next, my Lords? Of course, no intervention is proposed (I am not disputing this) to help Czechoslovakia. But have the Government made up their mind what action they are going to take, or propose, against what may be the immediate sequels—an attack on Berlin, an attack on Roumania or an attack on Yugoslavia? These are possibilities, and I hope that the Government are considering them. I am not going to say anything on cultural exchanges: there is an argument each way. As regards hospitality, also, I do not think that this is so much a matter for Government intervention as for individual people to decide what they shall do. I hope that Ministers will find it possible occasionally to say "No" to an invitation to a cocktail party by either the Russians or one of their satellites who have engaged in this horrible aggression.

May I refer to the extraordinary terminology that we still tolerate—and these things are often not even put in inverted commas. On the B.B.C. and in the Press, when the Communists invade a country they are still often described as "liberating" it. They are labelled "democratic" when they insist on a state of affairs where nobody may even stand for election unless he has been approved by the Communists in advance. And, oddly enough, they describe the worst of the Communist leaders, who have been got rid of, but who it is reported by the terms now enforced by Moscow are going to return, not as Communists, but as conservatives.

Finally, there is the most ridiculous of all the words of description—and I am not sure that the Leader of the House did not himself slip into this at one point. I will not make too much of it, for the reasons I have given, that I agree so much with what he said; but I think the noble Lord referred to what was taking place in Moscow to-day as "negotiations". Has that word ever before been used to describe such an actuality: kidnapped men taken away from their own country, which is occupied by the tanks of those to whom they are talking, not knowing whether they will ever escape from Moscow unless they agree with the Russians? After all, there are precedents for leaders who have been kidnapped not being returned. Yet this is described as "negotiation". Talking under duress is not generally called "negotiation" by English lawyers.

I should like to end, my Lords, with one quotation, which should be followed, I think, by what is sometimes described by humorous writers in the Press, "interval for nausea", and I quote the reaction of another distinguished man, U Thant. When this horrible and brutal invasion took place, U Thant did not suggest to the Russians that they should get out—oh, no!—but he did express the hope that they would use the utmost restraint in their relations with the Government and people of Czechoslovakia. An admirably chosen word— "restraint".

7.4 p.m.

BARONESS GAITSKELL

My Lords, I hope that the news from Czechoslovakia will be good and, if it is good, that it will endure. In any case, I am goirag to stick to what I had intended to say. After three years' experience at the United Nations, perhaps I should not have been surprised by the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia. But I was surprised, as well as shocked. Here I should like to make one comment on the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, and his great play on the word "surprise". He said that surprise was no virtue when one country made an act of aggression against another. Of course it is not a virtue when it is based on lack of information about the other country; but we are often surprised because we hope for better actions from a particular country. Even if that is not a virtue, at least I think it helps us along.

I am quite familiar with Russian cynicism on human rights. This has been very familiar to me in the last Session, as is their blatant exploitation of the Human Rights Committee as a propaganda machine, in which the Afro-Asian grievances just help to oil the works. Too often I have heard the Soviet delegate's voice swell with self-righteous indignation about British colonialism and American imperialism. The Soviet satellite countries repeat the arguments and echo their master's voice. The Western delegations have become rather immune to this long-playing record, but it never fails to touch a chord in the hearts of the Afro-Asian countries.

At the United Nations one has to study and judge colonialism, and I sometimes wished that I was an historian, because it seems to my untutored mind that there is more than one brand of colonialism, and that while the United Kingdom have been steadily de-colonising during the last twenty years, the Russians have been holding on to an empire. On one occasion I asked the Polish Minister to the U.N. what he considered had been the most significant achievement of that Organisation up to date. He said that it had been the speeding up of de-colonisation. This seems to be me to be true. But I became aware that there was one kind of colonialism about which there was a conspiracy of silence at the United Nations—the distinctive Soviet brand. After the invasion of Czechoslovakia, it is good-bye to this double standard, and I hope that the Afro-Asian countries will heed the red light. The Russian veto in the Security Council is understandable, but there are no orchids for the abstensions of Algeria, India and Pakistan. They are so obsessed with past colonialism that they might miss the bus on future colonialism.

Personally, I have never had any illusions about Communism. Here I should like to comment on the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, for whom I have a great respect. The noble Lord attacked the Russians with very strong words, speaking of the time when he was in Germany—with words that I should like to borrow to use against the Nazis. After all, the Russians were our Allies. It is true that a feeling of revenge is a very ugly emotion, and I often argue with the Russians in the Human Rights Committee when we discuss war crimes and plead that they might forgive and forget. But, all the same, I think that we should understand a little of their feelings, when we know that they lost 20 million dead in the last war. So I am sorry that the noble Lord was quite so partisan against them.

It is true, as I said, that I have never had illusions about Communism, but I have always believed that the system could change and that it was capable of change, as indeed it has changed in the last ten years in Russia itself. But, in the United Nations, once the Soviet delegate had spoken, every other Communist country would echo his words, and Czechoslovakia has been no exception. That is why Czechoslovakia's courageous stand to-day for independence and freedom is so heartening and so remarkable, and is the most exciting event in the world to-day, more significant than the fact that the Russians have taken a step backwards. Czechoslovakia is a Communist country whose present Government wishes to lead its people in freedom and independence. This universal political expression would have been absolutely unthinkable three years ago when I was first at the United Nations.

I should like to illustrate this by a very small personal incident at that time. I had been asked to meet a leading Czech politician at a lunch party. During the conversation he said to me, "Ah! You are a Member of the House of Lords. I know one of your colleagues, Fenner Brockway. He is a great anti-colonialist". "Anti-colonialist?", I replied. "Aren't we all to-day, Labour, Conservative, Liberal? "But this distinguished Czech politician insisted that there was something especially anti-colonialist about my noble friend. I rather resented the fact that my noble friend had cornered the market, so to speak, in anti-colonialism, especially as that morning the United Kingdom had been pelted with more than the usual number of Communist clichés and slogans. So I suggested to this distinguished Czech politician that I was not aware that Czechoslovakia had been within the Soviet sphere of influence before the war. I was made bitterly to regret this incautious remark. For the next few weeks our delegation was battered by the words "British colonialism" from every delegate of the Eastern European countries and from Russia.

People say that ideas can sometimes move mountains. What we must hope for is that ideas will now move the tanks in Prague and Bratislava. We must only react to these disturbing world events with as little fear and as little hysteria as the Czechoslovak people themselves have done. We should not get hysterical about our military defences. I really deplore the way we keep on saying how miserably weak we are, both in military defences and even in economic defences. The piling up of more and more armaments is the sure way to world destruction. In fact, by increasing the armaments race we should be delaying the spread of democracy, as we know it, in these countries; we should not be advancing it for one moment.

My Lords, the words "peaceful coexistence" are not very fashionable today, but it seems to me that they are as relevant and crucial as they have ever been. This applies in every part of the world where there is tension or conflict: in Vietnam, in the Middle East, and in Czechoslovakia. The progress in human rights goes forwards and backwards, but, like the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, I am optimistic, and I feel that without being optimistic, really there is no hope anywhere.

7.15 p.m.

LORD CACCIA

My Lords, at a time like this I, like many others in your Lordships' House, came here to-day with the object of demonstrating solidarity behind the Government of the day. With respect, may I say how glad I was that they have made this so easy for us all by what they have said and by what they have done so far. It was right, if I may say so, to have Parliament recalled. Right that Russian action should be condemned and in the terms used by the Leader of the House. Right that the Foreign Secretary should have cancelled his visits to Eastern Europe. Right to refrain from economic sanctions, if for one occasion I may use these words without being contentious. Right not to withdraw our Ambassadors, and over cultural contacts, and I should also have thought again right to suggest that these should be regarded each on its own merits. Perhaps one other test might be applied, and that both in public and in private matters: to ask ourselves how would this be regarded by the Czechs? I think for the Russian Army troupes at this moment to receive great applause and a great welcome would be singularly inappropriate. And equally I take the point made by the noble Viscount. Lord Eccles, when he said that in our private communications with the Russians it would be monstrous if we did not make it quite clear to them exactly what we thought of the actions of their Government.

Perhaps it would be prudent to leave things there for the moment. The Government, after all, have far wider sources of information, and they have responsibilities, and anyone who has been a Permanent Secretary at the Foreign Office realises what that must mean. At the same time, without wishing in any way to embarrass them, it is perhaps proper also to respond to the encouragement given by the Leader of the House, who said that the House had been recalled not only for the Government to inform Parliament, but also to give an opportunity for each to contribute according to his experience, and her experience, and to put a number of points for consideration and answer, if appropriate.

In a sentence, then, out of these ills, can we draw any profit? First, of course, comes intelligence before action. On that no doubt we should reassess Russian intentions and, with respect, I should have thought that the Government need not be at all ashamed of doing this and saying so. A détente is of course the ultimate aim of this Government, and, as I understood it, of all Parties. If the present régime in Russia seemed to show some sign of taking some steps on this path, both Parties since Stalin have been right, I submit, to probe for what was possible. But now we should reassess their intentions and motives and draw any necessary consequences.

Like others, I start with NATO; that is of the essence. But should our concern be restricted to Western Europe alone? So long as we continue to show firmness over Berlin, and the United States and the deterrent are known to be engaged, I should, like the noble Viscount, Lord Watkinson, doubt myself whether the Russians will wish to crack their heads against the toughest obstacle that we have so far built. But what about the Russian Mediterranean Fleet? And that barely masked threat in the Middle East? Should we not reconsider this before it is too late, and make it clear that our policy is not to move out of the Middle East just in order to let the Russians in? Is this not an area where we should consult with our allies again rather than being forced to tell them out of our economic requirements what we are going to do, when and where? These would he positive acts, and I realise that much would depend on the attitude of our allies. But that does not excuse us from all initiative, nor, of course, do I expect that the Government should think so.

In the same vein, now that General De Gaulle's European policy has been shaken to its foundations, is it not time to see whether we can yet make something more out of free Europe than the E.E.C. and associates on the one side and EFTA and company on the other? If full membership is still not "on" must we be absolutists and stick to the line "all or nothing"? All I would ask here is for readiness to reconsider.

On an even broader front should we not see, as the noble Earl, Lord Avon, has suggested, whether the Western World as a whole cannot review its aims, political and military, trade and aid? This is not raising EFTA versus E.E.C. or anything of that character. It is a recognition of the many dangers and needs in front of us. Dangers, that is, of protectionist tendencies arising in France, perhaps here as a result of considerations of our balance of payments, and perhaps in the United States; needs of the underdeveloped countries, and the compulsive importance of maximising the strength and prosperity of the West in the face of the latest exhibition of power.

There is one last point I should like to make. We should not forget Austria, where for months and years I negotiated with the Russians in circumstances not dissimilar from those described so eloquently by the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Oakridge, in connection with Germany. In that case we said effectively, with the Americans, "No summit until there has been specific performance by the Russians on some head—not just promises". We insisted on many occasions, and instanced an Austrian treaty. We got it. So now in dealing with the Russians and their troops in Czechoslovakia could we not take something of the same line?

Of course if the tape is right, the Russians may be on the way out; but the tape also says that they will be going when "constitutional Government is consolidated" and that is followed by an exclamation mark. Whether or not that exclamation mark appeared on the tape by mistake, it was singularly appropriate. Therefore, I would suggest that we should look very carefully, as I am sure the Government will, at the small print and keep our powder dry. We got freedom for Austria, let us try to do it once more, and persevere.

7.24 p.m.

LORD HASTINGS

My Lords, I need make only a brief speech because most of what I wished to say has been said much better by my noble friend Lord Harlech. Nevertheless, I feel I cannot remain silent but must add my voice to the general protest and condemnation of this vile and cowardly action. This is an assault on human freedom. I am not interested in whether it is one Communist State against another; it is an assault on the whole basis of the freedom of one sovereign people to live their own life without interference from another. It is an assault on the human spirit. This is something which affects us all and which we cannot ignore.

I seized upon a phrase used by my noble friend Lord Jellicoe, who said that he suffered from a feeling of impotent pain and rage. Indeed this is a day for anger, as was pointed out by a leading Sunday newspaper yesterday, yet the protests being made in your Lordships' House have been in measured and statesmanlike terms. The only angry speech we have had was in fact from the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, and, although I cannot agree with all his remarks, I am glad he made that speech because we should be angry and we should make our anger plain and known to the Soviet leaders in a tangible fashion.

This brings me to my feet to support my noble colleagues on the Front Bench who have asked for deeds to back up our words. Words in this present situation are relevant, and I hope they will be made very relevant in the United Nations, not only in the Security Council but also in the General Assembly, about which we should like to hear more; but I am sure we can add deeds to those words. This debate has divided itself into two fairly clear sections. One has dealt with the Communist dogma and policy, and its effect on our defences, and I hope that this aspect will be treated with great seriousness by the Government, and that at the end of this debate they will be able to tell us that they are prepared at least to consider and review very carefully our defence policy, because it is something which, despite the economic condition of our country, cannot possibly be ignored.

However, I am on my feet this evening to back up that second part of the debate, which has dealt with the way in which we can make our protest crystal clear and even more effective to the Soviet leaders. I am convinced that the noble Lord, Lord Byers, was right when he said that there must be a period of icy coldness. We can, and must, make it perfectly clear to the Russians, to the Russian leaders and to the Russian people, that we cannot tolerate any dealings with them until they have fulfilled whatever agreement they may reach with the Czechoslovak leaders. I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Caccia, pointed out that ambiguous phrase on the tape about withdrawing after the restoration of constitutional government—whatever that may mean. I am sure that we should not have any formal contacts with the Russians, apart from the necessary and limited diplomatic ones, until they fulfil that agreement, withdraw their troops and leave the Czechoslovakian people with their own Government in peace.

I disagree with those noble Lords who believe that cultural relations should be left to the conscience of the private individual. At this moment there is a State Orchestra playing in this country, and I believe that it is due to play again next week. In my view, that tour should be cancelled forthwith. In the field of artistic and cultural life I am no Phillistine. I happen to take a particular interest in one of those aspects of art which appeal particularly to the Russians—I refer to ballet, of which I have some knowledge and, indeed, with which I have some connection going back over 35 years. Yet in no circumstances would I condone the arrival in this country of those marvellous ballet companies from Moscow and Leningrad, much as I admire them. It would be an obscenity. This was said in one of the Sunday papers yesterday. I feel that the Government should make it possible for people who have entered into contracts of this nature to cancel them forthwith, and I hope that this will be done. Of course in the long term we must continue our cultural contacts, but we cannot go on now as though nothing had happened.

In that connection I wish to make an emphatic protest, because my own feeling is that this evening, although the condemnation is clear, it has not been made in such forceful terms as I should like to have it made. That is why I appeal to the Government. I believe that the people of this nation really want the Soviet leaders, and the Soviet people, to realise that this is something quite beyond the pale in human practice and that we cannot have any dealings with them until they do as the Czechoslovaks wish them to do.

7.30 p.m.

LORD WELLS-PESTELL

My Lords, the events leading up to the present situation, the crisis which we are discussing to-day and what we ourselves should do in the future have been more than adequately dealt with by your Lordships who have already spoken, and therefore I do not want to dwell on those three aspects that have engaged our attention this afternoon and this evening. I want to content myself with making two points. First, I want to express and register my horror and disgust at the action of the Soviet Union, and to say that in my view it deserves the strongest possible condemnation. I believe that it has come as more than a shock to many people in this country, because I firmly believe that no country has done more than our own to try to understand the Soviet Union.

Like several other Members of your Lordships' House I have spent some time in the Soviet Union. We have all been conscious of her struggles, the oppression of her people under a succession of Czars, the events leading up to what I would say was a necessary revolution in 1917 and her suffering and devastation at the hands of the Nazis. We in this country have applauded her progress; we have tried to recognise her wants and needs, to appreciate her fears and anxieties and to understand her thoughts and feelings. Yet her unprovoked invasion of Czechoslovakia is deeply disturbing, particularly to all those who have thought that we were able to detect, as I thought I was able to detect when I was in the Soviet Union, some signs of liberalisation in her political way of life.

The second point I want to make has been made for me by the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, whose speech I would underline, and cross every "t" and dot every "i". Having said that, I, too, should like to subscribe to a number of points made by the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, and the noble Lord, Lord Harlech. My noble Leader in his speech said that when discussing our dealing with the situation we cannot behave as though Russia did not exist in the world. I think that is roughly what he said, and I would agree. But I would also say that we must not behave in such a way as to give to the Soviet Union the impression that she can do as she pleases.

Much has been said, quite rightly, by way of condemnation of her action. But let us be quite frank about it: strong and brave words are easily uttered, as they have been in your Lordships' House to-day and in Trafalgar Square yesterday. Brave words can be both cheap and empty of meaning if they are not backed with a determination to do something tangible forthwith to show that we mean precisely what we say. We cannot in our private lives, nor can we in our national life, be all things to all men all the time. There comes a time when we must have the courage to do what we consider to be right in a particular set of circumstances.

With the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, I deplore the fact that we have not shown more anger over the action of the Soviet Union. It may well be that most noble Lords in your Lordships' House are more mature than I am, but I think the emotion of anger at the right time is the right thing. Last Saturday The Times, in an article, said: The Government have decided that for the present no action should be taken to curtail cultural contacts or to impose any form of sanctions against the Warsaw Pact countries involved in the invasion of Czechoslovakia. I do not know what authority The Times had for saying that, but I hope that my noble friend the Minister, when he comes to reply, will perhaps be able to indicate what we are prepared to do along the lines suggested by certain noble Lords, in particular the noble Lord, Lord Hastings.

Emil Zatopek, a Czech, and one of the greatest athletes of all time, speaking from Prague only a few days ago, called on other nations to get the Soviet Union and the other Warsaw Pact countries responsible for the invasion banned from the Olympic Games. Is this unrealistic? I should have thought it was a perfectly proper thing to do. The Lord Provost of Glasgow has made it abundantly clear to the Polish Consul that the exhibition the Poles are proposing to have in the Kelvin Hall, Glasgow, will not be welcome.

It is also reported that that small country, Belgium, which has herself experienced a number of invasions, has indicated that until further notice she will not participate in economic, cultural or technical contacts with the five Warsaw Pact countries which invaded Czechoslovakia. Surely to goodness, if a country as small as Belgium can take such a courageous line, we too ought to examine whether we can allow those cultural activities which are going on in this country at the present time, comprising concerts by the U.S.S.R. State Orchestra and television concerts, and so on. which will stem from them. I think we have to ask ourselves whether this is the time to permit performances like this to continue. I realise that music and politics may not be related. But in a matter of this kind when as I believe we are so frustrated and so impotent because we can do nothing more than show our concern in words, we ought to seize on anything that we can to protest in a tangible way. If it means putting an end to certain aspects of relationships on a cultural level with the countries concerned, I think it is our duty to do so.

7.39 p.m.

VISCOUNT MONCKTON OF BRENCHLEY

My Lords, I rise tonight for the first time with a speech written out—something I have never been able to do before. But I think that when the emotions are strong one has to be careful about what one says too openly. I agree so much with the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, who has just spoken that I will not cover the same ground as he has done. But like the noble Lord. Lord Robertson, I have had contacts with the Russians on a military level, some of them only the year before last, when General of the Army Koshavoy came to West Germany to be entertained by the British Forces in Germany; and it was apparent then, as soon as one got to know the Russian military, how ruthless and how powerful they are.

Going back a little further, I had the privilege of being the military adviser to the noble Earl, Lord Avon, at the Conference on Indo-China and the Conference on Korea in 1954. On arrival there in civilian clothes I was not known as a Foreign Office person, and I was asked out to dinner by one of the Russians who I discovered was a major in the Security N.K.V.D. I asked whether I should go, and was told that I should. The first thing he said to me was: "Why are the British interested in what happens in Vietnam?" I said: "We are interested in justice" and the old adage "Fiat justitia",—"Let justice be done though the heavens fall"—still applies. He said, "This I cannot understand. We, the Russians, have no interest in the future or the fate of Indo-China. All we are worried about is the future rearming of Western Germany." This was their line then, and I believe that to a degree it is still their line to-day; and this is perhaps their one and only excuse for what they have done—and not a very good one.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, I have been surprised on two points in your Lordships' debate. First, there has been immense surprise and shock at what the Russians have done, and secondly there has been a gross overestimate of the power and potential of the Russian Nazi empire. I personally had little doubt that when the first Russian colonial manoeuvres around Czechoslovakia took place some weeks ago, the invasion was on. To have thought otherwise would have been to misread the whole philosophy of the old guard in Moscow and, above all, not to recognise the strength in Moscow circles of that Nazi carrion crow, Ulbricht of Soviet East Germany.

Last October, in a talk to the R.U.S.I., I said, "I think there are far too many people in this country who think that things are very much easier with the Soviets". I am afraid that this feeling still exists now throughout the West, and it was as grave a misappreciation as the Russians have made when they backed the Arabs in the attempted destruction of Israel. The invasion of Czechoslovakia is the second error the Russians have made. Miscalculations of this magnitude are not made with any degree of safety in a world of arms and nuclear weapons. It is almost inconceivable that a great Power should make these two enormous miscalculations, but that it has done is not surprising if one looks at the power of the military in the Kremlin. It is not the same as the relationship between the political control in the West over its military forces. It is a totally different relationship, of fear and trust counteracting with the political and military hierarchy in Moscow. If Russia can misjudge events so grossly in Europe and the Middle East, it is not hard to envisage that even more dangerous mistakes could be made. It is for this reason that we in the West should look to our own defences, and I will deal with this matter a little later.

We now face a period where a complete lack of trust must exist between Russia and the West. We can no longer believe a word that she or her colonial States say. We must make it clear that in coming to this conclusion we do so only on the basis of the policies of the ruling classes in Russia and her colonies. We have no quarrel with the Russian people, still less with those of Poland and Hungary, but that until either their policies are changed or the Governments are overthrown we cannot deal with them on any basis of trust.

This time we must think and act for the long term. We must not let time dull our memories. We know that in the next few days things will get worse for the Czechs. Free radio stations will be found and destroyed. Underground leaders writers and artists and youth leaders will be arrested, tortured and imprisoned. More churches will be closed, more factories taken over, until life for the ordinary man becomes impossible. Agreements may be reached to-night, and I would suggest to your Lordships that they have been reached by the old classical Russian method. The President, an ageing man, a famous soldier, General Svoboda, has been kept in one room; the Leader and First Secretary of the Communist Party, Dubcek, has been kept in another, and never the two have met. Neither knows what the other has been forced to agree. Both are tiring; one has been a prisoner, the other given the kiss of Judas by the Russian leaders as he arrived. It is not inconceivable that they will be forced to sign some agreement which they would not have done if they had been whole and mentally sane.

THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (LORD CHALFONT)

My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord? As what he has just said about the treatment of Czech leaders in Moscow is clearly going to have a great impact, especially in Prague, I wonder whether he would say he is quite sure that his information about, for example, the separation and isolation of these two men is based on absolute fact; whether it is in fact confirmable intelligence.

VISCOUNT MONCKTON OF BRENCHLEY

My Lords, I said I suggested this. There is certainly no fact whatever; but it is in the classical Russian Nazi tradition. We cannot forget the pictures of Russian soldiers pulling down pictures of General Svoboda when at that same time that same man was being received in Moscow. We cannot forget the moving plea from the young Czech student. We must not forget that youth inside and outside the Communist world are against the Russian actions.

My Lords, The Times to-day said: A stupid and rather frightened bully can be really dangerous. The activities of the Russian defence forces have been both stupid and dangerous. What dangers lie ahead for Roumania and Yugoslavia, and after that who knows whether Austria, and even West Germany, will not come next on the list? It is time now that we took some action. Russia respects force and power. She always probes weakness and fishes in troubled waters. She did this in the Middle East, and she will do it also in the Far East. We can easily overestimate the strength and power of the Soviet bloc. Her troops are not all that well trained. They have been a long time since their wonderful defence of their own country. Their administration is appalling, and I think one has seen some examples of that from the Czech reports from Prague itself.

To say, as Mr. Crossman did on the radio two days ago, that he could see no connection between this crisis and our own defence policies would be laughable if it were not so serious. The Foreign Secretary has rightly said that we have strengthened our commitment to NATO, but what really matters, in my opinion, is that the men on the ground have in fact been reduced by the withdrawal of one Brigade Group. I have said before in your Lordships' House that the withdrawal of this Brigade Group was understandable and was probably right, so long as it remained under the command of the Commander-in-Chief, Northern Army Group, and so long as it could be returned at any time, crisis or not, without fear of acccusations of escalation or excuses of that sort. I wonder now whether this Brigade has been returned or whether there are plans so to do. We had the best tanks in Europe in Rhine Army, but there is a need for replacement of our ground nuclear capability, and above all for tactical reconnaissance aircraft in Germany.

I do not think we can wait until the Session starts before some of these suggestions are adopted and actions are taken. The Government have recently rightly increased the capability of the air force in the Mediterranean, and particularly in Malta, but the Royal Navy must also be increased out there; and, above all, the two Army battalions must be retained to maintain a firm base for them.

As the Russian interference will not be confined to Europe, so must our defences deal with other parts beyond Europe. We must surely help our Commonwealth friends in Malaysia and Singapore. I do not think large forces are needed, even a Brigade Group, would do. The same principle applies: the man on the ground prevents the war; the promise of one does nothing whatever to help. Instead of giving £3 million for the new Russian base in South Yemen, surely we could spend that money better on some of our defence forces, or at least on the Reserve Army. Surely now we cannot consider making cuts in the Services. Already the Army has been cut so severely that it is almost beyond self-regeneration, and if your Lordships look in the Printed Paper Office at this moment you will see that the last recruiting figures all too amply illustrate General Sir John Hackett's warning to us last year about how much we ought to be looking to our defence and backing NATO. It is still not too late if we and the NATO countries, together with France, strengthen our determination and forces.

Short of military action, what can be done now? Mr. Brown's speech, which included the words, "We are with you in the fight", means less than nothing if trade talks and sweet reasonableness continue with Russia and her colonies. In the diplomatic field we should at least reduce the size of the Russian Embassy and those of the other four countries to the size that we have in their countries. Are they not in some cases grossly over strength? I think this point wants looking at. Certainly, we should close their trade missions. All of us know from reading the papers that these missions have been often in the past, and are probably now, centres of espionage activities. Surely this is a field which we could look at. We should also refuse invitations to social functions both in this country and in the Russian empire. In all these actions we should, of course, make it clear that they will stop when the Soviet Nazi forces have been removed from Czechoslovakia or when the youth of Russia overthrows the present Government.

We should take note of what the last speaker said. Colonel Zatopek appealed for Russia to be excluded from the Olympic Games. Surely we should listen to that voice of freedom, who is now on the run for his own safety. If South Africa has been excluded, how much more should these countries be excluded? I think we should congratulate Gordon Pirie for saying this clearly in the debate with Mr. Duncan of the British Olympic Committee. The latter said that the Russian Olympic Committee had done nothing wrong, and that is quite true. We know that in this case nobody in this field has done anything wrong. But at the moment it is the only way by which we can show what we really feel about what has been going on. Congratulations are also due to the Celtic Football Club who have done what they think right. If the Government feel unable to follow this line, perhaps those individuals and individual clubs should act on their own. They will know that they have the support of the vast majority of British people.

There is one last thing that we should consider doing if things get more serious; that is, to recognise those committees which the Russians look on with great disfavour and fear and which represent the various freedom groups; that is to say, those committees representing the old Baltic States about which most of us have entirely forgotten, which have freedom groups both in this country and all over the West, as well as those groups representing the Ukraine and many other groups representing Russia itself. I hope very much that demonstrations will go on. I have one piece of advice for potential demonstrators: I think they must be peaceful to be successful; I think they must be quiet to be successful. I suggest an organised relay of demonstrators, few in number, around every Mission, every Consulate, every Embassy of the Soviet empire over here. There should be no words, no shouts, no banners, but when any of those people appear from inside those buildings there should be given the salute which at present they deserve; that is, the Nazi salute. Let us always call them what we think they are at the moment, until the day when we can once more be friends. I am afraid that that day is some way off, but we should always prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

7.54 p.m.

LORD PARGITER

My Lords, when I heard the news of the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Russians, my mind went hack to a period which I thought had been a closed book for thirty years. At that time I happened to be the mayor of the Borough of Southall. There is nothing very particular about that, but I remember the anger and dismay and frustration that we felt then. There was the same sort of feeling that we have now, except that on that occasion it was accompanied by a feeling of betrayal; that we had bought our precarious peace at the expense of the Czechoslovak people.

The reaction of people was very interesting, in my own borough, at any rate. People came to me and asked, "What can we do?" All we could think of doing was to provide money to help the displaced Czechs who had been turned out of the Sudetenland in a distressed condition. The response in the form of conscience money was quite amazing. I had written to mayors and chairmen of local authorities in the country, asking them to do something of the same kind, and within twenty-four hours the response was so great that I was asking the Lord Mayor of London to make it a national appeal which, after a couple of days' hesitation on the part of the Prime Minister, was approved.

We know 'what happened at that time. We felt that to some extent we had salved our conscience. But this time, of course, our conscience is not involved. It is not even involved as much as it might have been involved with regard to Hungary. It was, of course, propaganda from the West, particularly the Voice of America, which encouraged revolution against the existing Government, legal or whatever it was, yet when they looked for help from the West it was not forthcoming. The Czechs are realists. They know that they can expect no help from the West in their present struggle. But they have, nevertheless, undertaken the struggle of their own volition, and that is to some extent understandable.

Many of us thought that the clock was being turned back by the events of 1948, but if we look at them in perspective it can be seen that they might well have been expected. They had not forgotten what the West had done in 1938. Russia was their liberator, and it was natural that they should turn to Russia. It was also fairly natural that they should turn to a Russian system of government, particularly as they had to discredit the existing Government. Therefore, they had that unenlightened period. I do not think that period was altogether unenlightened. I went to Czechoslovakia during the 'fifties. I found a good deal of private discussion going on among the people. I met a number of the former resistance people and there was no question about their bravery or their desire to express themselves. Equally, I was acquainted, as some of your Lordships were probably acquainted and as were many Members of another place, with the present Czech Foreign Minister, Dr. Hajek. For many years he was the Ambassador here and did much to restore relations between this country and Czechoslovakia, and to get a proper understanding between us. I was particularly pleased, therefore, to see that he had become the Foreign Minister in the liberalised Government, and that he spoke out so well on behalf of his people at the United Nations, well knowing the possible personal risk that he was running in so doing.

Perhaps, also, I learned from him something of Czech culture. He is a Professor of History and he taught me much of how the Czech culture had existed under various occupations for hundreds of years—under the Hapsburgs and so on—how they have maintained their national outlook, and how, sooner or later, it was inevitable that it would appear again. That has happened now and even if it is submerged again as a result of the present state of affairs I feel quite certain that the spirit will reestablish itself. I believe that it will re-establish itself more firmly, because perhaps at the present time rather more than previously there has been one other significant change in Czechoslovakia itself. The Slovak people were to some extent regarded as the poor relations of the Czechs—not quite on the same scale. This period has brought the Czechs and the Slovaks much more into brotherhood and consultation, and made them much more one nation than I believe they have been before. So good may even come out of the present unfortunate circumstances.

But behind all this is the feeling of disappointment which one has with regard to Russia itself. Many of us accepted at the time of the Russian revolution, as in all periods of great change, that it would be followed by ruthlessness and bloodshed. This happens with great changes in civilisations. But what has usually happened in the past is that when the period of change is over one gets a liberalisation, a little easing off of the power of the revolutionaries. That is what all of us have been hoping was going to happen in Russia, but, of course, there are factors in Russia which make us somewhat pessimistic about the position.

When one considers where Russia started from after the revolution, and considers that she has become one of the two major Powers of the world, one realises what a great accomplishment there has been. But one must remember what it has cost Russia, and the extent to which her resources have been poured into a military machine and into prestige struggles which have a military basis, and that this continues at the present time. It must also be realised that liberal thought goes with liberal policies, and also with public wellbeing. The Russians are in the position at the moment that they cannot afford liberalism because they cannot afford the standard of living to which their people are really entitled. Therefore, we still have repression, and one can only hope that we may look to that country to devote a far greater proportion of their resources to the wellbeing of their people and less to military commitments. We recognise that this depends not only on Russia but on other factors as well. But it is rather important that we should recognise this and accept that for quite a considerable time—though many of us would hope that the process of liberalism would be taking effect—it is unlikely to happen for some time to come.

There is also another factor to be borne in mind. There is no doubt about the feeling that there still remains in Russia the dread of a revised military Germany; and perhaps affairs in Czechoslovakia are not so much connected with Czechoslovakia itself as with the possibility of the spread of infection from Czechoslovakia to East Germany. After all, East Germany and East Berlin represent the pawn which Russia holds in European affairs, and a pawn that they have no intention of letting go in present conditions or, so far as we can see, in the foreseeable future.

These are the factors that we have to bear in mind and understand—that while nothing can excuse what the Russians have done one likes to try to understand why they have done it. However wrong it may be, I feel that they may possibly come to some conclusions which may give the Czechoslovaks the opportunity of proceeding with a more liberal policy, but I am quite certain that the Russians will take care that it is not exportable to East Germany. These are the facts we have to live with. I would say that I hope the Czechs will continue their fight for freedom. I would hope that we would give them all the moral support we can. We can give them no practical support. They know it: they are well aware that we can do nothing practical. We could not do it in 1938 when we betrayed them, so we certainly cannot do it now. But at any rate let us hope that the torch of freedom which the Czechs have carried throughout the centuries of oppression—it is still there, though it may be dimmed—will burn brightly again in the future.

8.5 p.m.

LORD GRANTCHESTER

My Lords, I wish that the resolution submitted to this House had been differently worded. Even the Communist Party contrived to express itself with greater sympathy, deploring what had happened. But the very pointlessness of the resolution provides an object lesson to us. Whilst so many go about the world in fear and frustration, surely the most distasteful statement heard both here and in the United Stales has been that in this tragedy that has overtaken Czechoslovakia we are quite helpless.

My Lords, the Government may be helpless. Anyway, when Governments take up a quarrel the result is likely to be devastating, for Governments have been allowed to accumulate the massive instruments of modern power. The United States also are helpless in this case. They carry the real responsibility, jointly with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, from the time of the Yalta Agreements, by which the world was divided into two spheres of influence, separated by a line through the middle of Europe. Both the United States aid the U.S.S.R. are still seeking agreements which are likely to prolong, and even extend, this division. I hope the President of the United Slates will think again before he enters into any further discussions on these proposed agreements. In passing, think there is no doubt that the distinguished historian, Arthur Conte, endorses the view which the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, took in the matter of the Yalta Agreements. The United Nations is helpless, for action by this organisation is dependent, and was intended from its origin to be dependent, upon agreement between the Great Powers.

I suggest that what we have to do is to work out a new pattern of resistance. While Governments stand by, helpless. individuals can act; for we are not all helpless. We must not let ourselves be confused, at this time, by too wide or too many objectives. Although there are some subtle kinds of pressure more difficult to detect, let us concentrate on two of the worst manifestations of power—the use of military forces and the use of secret police above the public law to bully, so that men and women are afraid to talk freely together.

This is no new idea; it has inspired man throughout the centuries. But new methods of presentation and approach are needed in a super-materialistic world which takes little or no account of the individual anywhere or of any freedom which he may have to express himself, in a society which to-day sacrifices the identity of a person to a technology which has been concentrated primarily on his destruction. These societies now stand helpless when one of their number sets its machinery in motion. The urgent need in all the world is surely a determination to restore the balance in favour of the dignity of the individual against coercion, against being overwhelmed rather than convinced.

My Lords, I think that in these matters we must speak to ourselves as well as to others. We must not regard any country as immune against the loss of freedom. One step must be to realise that it is dangerous to entrust all the modern instruments of power to any Government, and most of all to the Governments of large countries. Smaller units are usually less dangerous to others than large units. If necessary, we should choose and urge secession out of big units until this basic need of the human mind is protected by rigid safeguards. It this involves slower economic growth or progress, let us remember that to be able to breathe more happily comes first, and we must resolve not to surrender this ideal to any Government or institution for material gain.

The most important step, I think, is to learn the lessons the Danes taught the world when Hitler invaded their country. The Czechs seem to have done so, and we admire their determination and courage. It was the helpless Danes who scored a great moral victory over their invaders which not only discomforted and demoralised Hitler's troops but saved the Jews in Denmark from the horrors they suffered elsewhere. No doubt they faced the possibility of extermination, and so may the Czechs. While our Government stand helpless, is it too much to expect all the people in this country to show by their attitude their detestation of what is happening until it is stopped?

May I also express the hope that Her Majesty's Government will take more notice than they have been doing of the views of our friends in the Far East, remembering that influence depends in the long run on wisdom rather than upon military commitment; remembering also that too great a deference to American policies has undermined our influence in the West, and could destroy what influence we still retain in the Far East? So is it too much to expect the United States in future to discuss their policies more widely and frankly before they pursue them, particularly in the Far East? Part of the evident helplessness of our Government in recent years has been due to our loss of independent thinking—and I emphasise "thinking", for to think aright is the foundation for right action and respected influence.

So, my Lords, can we at least agree to show in every possible way on every possible occasion the disgust we feel at what has happened in Czechoslovakia, and also that we disapprove of those who collaborate with the supporters of such action? The important thing about contacts, official or private, it seems to me, is that they should know what we feel and that our action should be designed to have the maximum effect.

8.13 p.m.

LORD HANKEY

My Lords, I warmly agree with a very great deal of what has been said to-day in condemnation of the Soviet action in Czechoslovakia. I shall try not to repeat what has been said, but I should like to say a few words in this debate, because for years I dealt with the problems of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the Foreign Office and Diplomatic Service, and in several of the Eastern European countries; and rather particularly because I was a member of the Parliamentary delegation which visited the Soviet Union in May. My remarks to-day are of course made entirely on my own responsibility, and do not involve that of our able leader, Mr. F. T. Willey, or that of any other member of the delegation.

We were received with the utmost kindness and hospitality in the U.S.S.R. We were encouraged to ask as many questions as we liked, wherever we went, and so far as I could judge we received pretty frank answers. In twelve days we saw Moscow, Irkutsk and Bratsk, in Central Siberia, Baku in Azerbaijan and Leningrad on the Baltic, with a final most interesting visit to the Kremlin. I think we were all greatly impressed with the immense economic development and with the scientific and material progress of the areas we visited. I have written my impressions in detail in the New Scientist of June 13, and will not repeat them here because they would not be germane to this debate. But I should like to add this. Compared with Stalin's time 19 years ago, when I last visited Moscow, there seems to be a far greater willingness among the population to talk to visiting foreigners; and it seems evident that there is now room for reasonable differences of opinion among members of the Government, local authorities and Party, because one often heard both sides of a question discussed and explained in a way which used not to happen before.

On the other hand our hosts, who impressed me by their toughness and determination—in some cases I might perhaps have said ruthless determination—made it plain that the fundamental doctrines of Marxism-Leninism are still the basis of their thought. They are still afraid of an attempt by so-called aggressive imperialist circles abroad, more particularly in West Germany and the United States, to cause trouble in the Communist world, and even to carry such a policy to the point where it might cause a serious risk of another war. To those of us who know the present Western Germany and the United States, such fears appear so fantastic as to merit little importance. They could in no circumstances justify the disgraceful rape of Czechoslovakia.

But, my Lords, we have in this country learnt, to our cost, in the last half century how vital it is to study the beliefs of others, and how dangerous it is to underestimate them. I feel justified in mentioning this fear, expressed in high quarters in the U.S.S.R. to our Parliamentary delegation, because it might seem to have transpired as the result of events in Czechoslovakia that the resistance to the Soviet occupation there may have been led by some sort of underground movement prepared and started by the Russians themselves, in case there should one day be a German occupation. Could there be a more extraordinary development, if that is true?

Reverting to the U.S.S.R. and its allies, many of us have hoped that as time passed their secret police systems would get less oppressive and their Governments milder. We have hoped that increasingly this would make possible a dialogue with the Soviet Government and with the peoples of the Soviet Union, and with the Governments arid peoples of Eastern Europe, in which common sense might be heard and, in the end, prevail. After all, the more powerful and successful these States become, the more they have to lose from a war, and the more they have to gain by arranging sensible diplomatic solutions of current problems. We have already seen the beginnings of this encouraging trend.

But, my Lords, I am bound to say that the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the U.S.S.R. and her Communist allies, coming after the agreement of Cierna and Tisou, has been a tremendous shock to those who harboured even that degree of tempered optimism. How often are the precedents set in Hungary in 1956, and now in Czechoslovakia in 1968, to be repeated? What importance, if any, does the Soviet Union attach to its United Nations obligations? And if it treats its friends and allies thus, what may it not do to other nations? Let us not forget that under current Marxist-Leninist doctrines a war of liberation is not to be considered a war of aggression. This was actually said to us in the Soviet Union. But how far is this doctrine to be carried? Could it run outside the Communist world also? One is entitled to wonder. I warmly agree with what has been said to-clay about the need to look to the state of our own defences, both in Western Europe, including Berlin, and on the more distant wings of NATO.

But coming back to the purely practical side of the Czechoslovak affair, what sure hope is there that common sense will prevail if the Soviet and East German and other leaders make such incredible blunders? Fancy the Russians, who have complained of the Munich Agreement just as much as the Czechs, associating the East German and Polish troops with their invasion, as well as troops from Hungary, a country which has for centuries been at enmity with the surrounding Slavonic populations! And yet the Russians seem to have had no prepared political plan, or certainly no practically effective political plan, even if they had a military one.

My Lords, did the Soviet leaders, perhaps, act on an impulse, all of a sudden, knowing that the military plan existed? Did they, in the distant isolation of Moscow, underestimate, or decide to disregard, the reactions of the Czechoslovak people? My Lords, what a commentary on "democratic centralism" and how much this reinforces our own need to be well prepared! The timing of the Russian move seems clear. The Russians apparently felt that they must act before the Czechs and Slovaks elected new central committees and eliminated some of the old Stalinist hard liners. But why did they not think of this before making the agreement at Cierna and Tisou, where they were anyhow trying to influence the course of Czechoslovak internal policy?

This brings me to the purely internal side. I remember being asked by the noble Earl, Lord Avon, who was then Foreign Secretary, when I was British Minister in Hungary in 1952, what life was really like in Budapest. It was at a time of extensive deportations; of innumerable arrests and of great repression by the A.V.O. or Secret Police. Truth, mercy and justice were literally abolished—a truly terrible state of affairs. I replied, "Either there will have to be years of much better government or one day the streets will run with blood." He was greatly shocked, but I assured him that I meant literally what I said. It came true in 1956, three and a half years after Stalin's death, and long after I had left Hungary.

The Soviet peoples, including the Russians, detested Stalin's secret-police methods as much as everyone else did. In particular, the growing mass of intellectuals and scientists demand and absolutely require freedom of thought. One of the problems of the Communist world to-day is how the Communist Governments can be sure of remaining in power unless they are triumphantly and obviously successful, politically, economically and socially, which many of them are not; or else unless they retain a secret-police machine which can maintain internal order in all circumstances. The less success they have, it seems, the more repression there must be. The Soviet Union has in fact been remarkably successful, and the security machine is much less evident there than it used to be. Even so, my Lords, it is only too apparent, when one is in the Soviet Union, that the authorities are much more interested in telling people what they are to think, than what they can buy. Mr. Dubcek, for his part, was about to reform the internal security authorities, but the Russians clearly thought this was an unreasonable risk to take. But what a disappointing and shocking commentary their drastic action is on the machinery and policies of the Soviet bloc!

My Lords, it is not clear where all this is leading. Stalin once said that revolutions happen only when the people are unwilling to go on being ruled in the old way and when their rulers are unable to govern in the old way. Are they perhaps getting to that position in parts of the Communist world? And, if so, is there any risk that Moscow may one day say that their troubles are being fomented from the West? That would be a very easy and convenient excuse, and they have in fact used that argument on this occasion.

We cannot be sure of the answers to these fundamental questions to-day; nor can we crystal-gaze with any safety. Recent events should be deeply worrying to those who think that we can always rely on good will or common sense in the world we live in, or that we can relax our defences. For in the Czechoslovak affair the Soviet leaders have shown themselves capable of incredible blunders; of a brutal disregard for the rights and feelings of other people, even of their allies; and of doing all this in order to stem the course of progress towards greater freedom and probably towards greater prosperity.

Let us not forget that Europe is, by comparison with the Soviet Union, weak and divided, and is by itself very inadequately supplied for defence either nuclear or conventional. Remember that the NATO Treaty is to be reviewed next year. I do not know whether General de Gaulle, who has also committed some quite remarkable mistakes in his time, still thinks that Europe is secure—for instance, because the new China has created a new situation. If he does, I hope that he will have an agonising reappraisal of his policy at once. In no circumstances should we do anything to give colour to the idea that NATO is aggressive. but it does seem obvious that a divided Europe and a divided Atlantic 'Community may mean less security for us all and perhaps invite mistakes which endanger world peace.

8.26 p.m.

LORD AILWYN

My Lords, I shall be very short. I wish to express, as so many other noble Lords have from all quarters of the House, my strongest condemnation of Russia's perfidy, and to register my abhorrence of what has taken place and my misery at the fate which has overcome that gallant little country of Czechoslovakia. Just thirty years ago my wife and I found ourselves, for a few hours, in that lovely capital city of Prague where we mingled with the people. At that time Lord Runcirnan had his Mission there and was striving with all his might to find some solution to the menacing situation existing at that time between the Sudeten Germans and the Czechoslovakians. We spent over an hour in the ante-room or hall of the hotel where, behind the communicating door, sat Lord Runciman and his Mission. We spoke with several of the Czechs sitting there with us and later with people in the street. They all recognised an English couple in their midst and repeatedly appealed to us, saying, "You will not forsake us; you will stand by us; you will not allow Hitler to march in".

I remember vividly our taxi driver and the intensity of his feelings. I remember the grip of his hand when I got out of the vehicle, and his parting words, "We know that Britain will never desert us". Three weeks later, my Lords, I was attending a three-day debate in your Lordships' House on the Munich Agreement and the subsequent invasion and dismemberment of Czechoslovakia. I will not dwell on the devastating anguish and feeling of shame I experienced at the betrayal, as I saw it, of our friends in Prague. But because I am, alas! the sole survivor of the five noble Lords who spoke in your Lordships' House against that Agreement and its miserable, shameful sequel, I have felt impelled to say these few words to your Lordships this evening.

The detestable crime and Soviet treachery we are discussing to-day brings us back once more into that horrible atmosphere of Quislings, collaborators (hateful and vile words) which we had hoped had gone for ever. Once more we watch the agony of this small nation. Lord Stanhope, who was Leader of your Lordships' House in 1938, when winding up that three-day debate, in paying tribute to the Czechoslovakians, used these words: The dignity, courage and self-control shown by the people and leaders of that little country. My Lords, we can at least re-echo those sentiments to-day. Thirty years ago it was Benes. To-day it is Svoboda and Dubcek. Then there was a League of Nations—which failed. To-day there is a United Nations. Is it going to fail, too? Then it was the Germans; to-day it is the Russians. I pray that those stout-hearted people of Czechoslovakia may be given strength and endurance in this further martyrdom they have been called upon to face. The rape of Czechoslovakia in 1968 will surely be remembered for all time as one of the blackest crimes in history.

8.32 p.m.

LORD BROCKWAY

My Lords, I am quite sure Members of this House, in all quarters, will welcome the contribution which has just been made by the noble Lord, Lord Ailwyn. He was one of the five Members of this House who protested against the Munich agreement. I was not even then a Member of another place, but how well I remember that occasion! I was concerned in bringing refugees from Czechoslovakia to this country. They arrived just on Christmas Eve. We placed them in a hotel in Kensington. That night the hotel caught fire, and three of those who escaped from Czechoslovakia from under the Nazi heel died in that accident. Although the noble Lord was much more concerned than I was then, I want to assure him that many of us also felt very deeply the tragedy of the Munich agreement.

There has been one missing voice in this debate. It is a voice which, over the years, was raised in another place and, since his membership of the House, in this place. He always spoke for the authority of the United Nations; he was always looking forward to the ultimate solution of world government; always expressing the eternal deeps of the human spirit. I am referring to Lord Rowley. He is seriously ill only a few hundred yards from where we are speaking to-night, and I am sure all your Lordships would like to express gratitude for what he has contributed to life, and would like to express our good wishes to him, in his present serious illness, for the return of his health. He had the great father who contributed much to the Party to which those of us on these Benches belong, who contributed as a pioneer to the conception of collective responsibility in foreign affairs, and his son has carried on those traditions. I hope that these words, which I am sure express the feelings of the whole House, may reach him in his bed in Westminster Hospital.

Turning to the subject of our debate, there has been absolute unanimity in this House. We have the distinction from another place of having the one Communist Member of the two Chambers that make up Parliament. I expect him, as a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, to endorse the denunciations which his Party has made of Russia's action in this crisis. I think most of us look on what has happened with both sorrow and anger. We look at it with sorrow because of our sense of feelings towards the peoples of Soviet Russia. We look at it with sorrow because, since the death of Stalin, Soviet Russia has contributed to the peace of the world. We have had the change of policy which has led to a détente in the conflicts of the cold war.

I can speak from personal knowledge when I say that Soviet Russia has sought to contribute towards peace in Vietnam, as well as its contribution to disarmament in the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Those of us who have met Soviet leaders, who are aware of the contribution which they have made in these recent years to peace in the world, find it very difficulty to believe to-night that there is unanimity in the Kremlin regarding the policy which has been pursued in Czechoslovakia. I should think it very likely indeed that there are leading members of the Kremlin who may have differed. Because of our association with the Russian people, because of our recognition of the contribution which Soviet Russia has made in these past three or four years to the cause of peace, our first reaction is one of sorrow. But it is also one of anger. None of us who believe in the right of peoples—and particularly small peoples—to work out their own destiny can feel other than anger when a great military Power invades their country and by that power seeks to destroy what they themselves are aiming to create. In that denunciation of what Soviet Russia has done, not only all Members of this House—and I am sure of another place—but the vast majority of the people are united and emphatic.

Nevertheless, in the contribution which I am making to-night, I shall take a different line from most noble Lords who have spoken. I regard the reforms which have happened in Czechoslovakia as of historic significance. I believe that they mark the coming to a peak of the conflict between totalitarian Communism and the possibility of advancing to a Socialist society where there are personal freedoms—the freedoms of thought and expression—and democratic liberties. Most of us on these Benches are democratic Socialists—that is to say, we believe in a society which has a Socialist economic structure but which also recognises liberties of thought and expression and which in democracy reflects the desires of the people. Many of us who are democratic Socialists in that sense have seen that there are two channels of advance to the kind of society that we want.

On the one side, there is the capitalist politically democratic countries of the West. While I say "democratic"—because all of us tremendously appreciate the freedoms of thought and expression which allow us to speak with freedom and to elect our Governments—nevertheless even in the countries of the West there are limitations on those liberties, particularly because of the control by a few magnates of the Press by which the majority of people not only receive information but are influenced in their opinions. Yet, much freedom. I visited America. When I applied for my visa, I said I wanted to go out there to oppose the war in Vietnam. They not only provided me with a visa but also, as a Member of this House, they provided it free. This is magnificent, this liberty. Those of us who are democratic Socialists believe in this kind of liberty to the depths of our being. Yet, on the other hand, one has to recognise that if we are thinking of an advance to a democratic Socialist society, neither the Labour Government nor the Governments in which there have been strong social democratic representations have advanced far towards the economic structure of our beliefs or to a Socialist society.

The alternative has been that Communist countries, which have economic Socialist structures but have repudiated the ideas of liberty in which we believe, will be modified towards liberalisation. I welcomed the fact that in the last few years there were signs of that in Soviet Russia. I welcomed the fact four or five years ago when I visited Poland and saw the liberalisation which was taking place among its people. We have now to recognise that there has been some reversal of that tendency, and we all regret it,

Then suddenly there comes the change in Czechoslovakia, retaining its Socialist economic structure but introducing freedom of thought and speech, introducing elements of democracy. I regard this as an historic event, because it means that there has been a break-through in Czechoslovakia towards the democratic Socialism in which we believe. I believe that in history the name of Dubcek, who has been the leader in this change, will stand in the whole field of Socialist development alongside those of Marx, Lenin, Rosa Luxembourg, Karl Kautsky and of our own Harold Laski and R. H. Tawney, not so much as a theorist, but as the man who has made the great advance from a Communist society which was totalitarian and suppressed liberty towards a democratic Socialism which reflected liberty.

BARONESS GAITSKELL

My Lords, may I interrupt my noble friend? Is he really seeking to associate the particular kind of democratic Socialism in which the Labour Party believes with the economic Socialism of Czechoslovakia or of any other Eastern European country?

LORD BROCKWAY

Yes, very largely.

BARONESS GAITSKELL

Well, I should like to repudiate that.

LORD BROCKWAY

Very largely indeed. Those of us who are democratic Socialists and were brought up in this Socialist movement for seventy years stand for a Socialist structure in which the whole economy shall pass to the people and shall he used for the benefit of the people. Basically that is the Socialist structure which there is in Communist countries. There is a great deal to be criticised in their structures—for instance, the absence of industrial democracy—but this is also a feature of public ownership under democratic Socialisms. I am arguing to-night that what is happening in Czechoslovakia is a synthesis of the idea of economic Social- ism and of the personal liberties for which we stand.

If that is a correct analysis of the present position, what is to be our approach to it? I believe we have to be very careful. If I may say so, l think the spokesmen of the Opposition and the spokesmen of those who are against Socialism should be particularly careful.

The Soviet Russian justification for their intervention has been that within the new liberties in Czechoslovakia capitalist forces were operating for the overthrow of its Socialist system. They also argued that there was a great danger of military attack, particularly through Western Germany. I want to say to the representatives of the Opposition that they should be very careful how they speak in the present situation. If they speak in terms of overthrowing Communism and Socialism, they will only add force to the case that Soviet Russia has made for her intervention. The one ground on which we have to criticise what she has done—and no-one can emphasise this more than those who believe in democratic Socialism—is on the ground that Soviet Russia has callously crushed the right of a people themselves to decide their own form of society

LORD SHACKLETON

If I may interrupt the noble Lord, his remarks imply that there was some sort of threat from the West against Czechoslovakia. I certainly have not heard any Member of this House suggest that the West played any part whatsoever in regard to the Communist process in Czechoslovakia.

LORD BROCKWAY

May I ask my noble friend to read carefully in Hansard to-morrow what I have said. What I said was that the Soviet Russian alleged justification for their intervention in Czechoslovakia was that capitalist forces were using the new liberties to try to overthrow the Socialism and Communism, and that they have also argued that through Western Germany there was the likelihood of military intervention. I do not believe either. I do not think, when my noble friend reads what I have said in Hansard, he will find any indication that I have said I do.

LORD SHACKLETON

If I may interrupt my noble friend again, he did not say whether he believed it or not. He just threw it into the debate. I am glad that he has now clarified the position.

LORD BROCKWAY

That is very kind of my noble friend. I should have thought from the whole tone of my remarks and my denunciation of Soviet Russia that this would have been implicit. If it was not, I am grateful to my noble friend for giving me this opportunity to make it clear. What I was trying to say—and I put this point very sincerely to the Opposition—is that we have to be very careful in this situation that we are not denouncing Soviet Russia on the ground that there is Communism in Czechoslovakia or on the ground that there is Socialism in Czechoslovakia. Our denunciation must be on the ground that it is the intervention of a great military Power against a smaller people who wish to work out their own salvation.

I proceed from that to another reason why we must be particularly cautious. We cannot be self-righteous. It is only twelve years ago since the Suez adventure. Since then the United States has been responsible for the Bay of Pigs attack on Cuba, for the intervention in the Dominican Republic, and now for the appalling war in Vietnam. While none of those events has quite the same calculated attributes which the Russian attack on Czechoslovakia has, they are the same in principle. What was done at the Bay of Pigs intervention, at the intervention in St. Dominica, and now the American aggression in Vietnam, and what was clone by this country in Suez, is exactly the same in principle as the attack by the Russians in Czechoslovakia. Because of that we must be very careful indeed that we are not too self-righteous in our attitude towards what Russia has done.

I had intended to say other things, but I will omit them because of the time. However, I want to conclude by paying my tribute to the Czechoslovakian people. I think there are two facts which have arisen out of this crisis which should be welcome and should give us cause for hope for the future of humanity. The first is the effect of world opinion. It is quite clear that it has had its effect on Soviet Russia. One does not yet know whether the terms of the agreement announced in Moscow are to be confirmed, but they do include the withdrawal of forces from Czechoslovakia. I have no doubt at all that it was the effect of world opinion which contributed to that change, because Soviet Russia cannot live outside the community of nations.

The other fact is the wonderful nonviolent resistance which has been given by the Czechoslovakian people to the occupation by Soviet arms. We must all have been absolutely thrilled at the sight on our television screens of those young Czech students sitting under the very muzzles of the guns of the tanks, waiting for those tanks to crush them. We must all have been thrilled by the reports which we have received, despite the decision of the Russians to shoot upon those who broke the curfew, of the youth who sat round the Wenceslas statue for 24 hours and defied them. We must all have been deeply impressed by that story of the paralysed man who lost his legs in the war against Germany, who propelled his wheel-chair in front of the Russian tanks, and when saved by his Czech compatriots, said: "I lost my legs against the Nazis. Why should I not lose my life against the new Nazis?"

This makes what has happened historic: the power of world opinion above the power of military might, the power of an unarmed people to resist even one of the greatest military Powers on earth. That is a lasting contribution which will go beyond the present time.

9.1 p.m.

THE EARL OF ARRAN

My Lords, some years ago I had a conversation with the former Russian Ambassador to London. Mrs. Soldatov. As was to be expected, we disagreed about almost everything until we came to Germany, and there at last we found something in common. I said that I was alarmed at the thought of a strong and united Germany. "That, Lord Arran," said the Ambassador vehemently, "is something we shall never allow." I believe, as I think Lord Silkin did, that it is this obsessional fear which is the fundamental cause of the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia—the cause, but not of course an excuse, for there can be no excuse for this horrible thing.

It is a curious fact, one that I think has not been mentioned so far in this debate, that both the countries invaded by the Russians since the war have had frontiers with Germany or Austria. It is another curious fact that those countries which have no frontiers with Germany and fall within, as it were, the Soviet sphere of influence, and yet have not conformed to Soviet ideology, have so far been left severely alone. I speak, of course, of Finland, of Roumania, and of Yugoslavia, though Yugoslavia does in fact have a common frontier with Austria. The Yugoslays' defection must have been a bitter thing coming as it did at the height of the cold war. Yet the Russians did nothing about it.

My Lords, I believe that so long as this fear of Germany persists in the Soviet mind, and they have cause to fear, so long there will be no peace in Europe. And let us not forget—though I think it has been forgotten in this debate—that this fear has been intensified by the recent successes of the neo-Nazis in the German elections. I share these fears, and I have said so in this House more than once. It is to me (though this may sound heresy) the most comforting feature of the whole of the post-war situation, and largely due to the Russians, that Germany remains divided and, as it were, emasculated. You will not get any British Government of any colour officially to admit this. After all, we are pledged to free elections throughout Germany. But I believe that if you were privately to ask most serious British statesmen, with their knowledge of Europe, for their views, they would agree that the longer Germany is in two parts the safer will be the peace of the world.

I think we must be realistic about this matter, as well as horrified. Any attempt to deliberalise Czechoslovakia must arouse our indignation, and a reign of terror of course our abomination. But if, for example, the Russians were to insist on putting troops on Czechoslovakia's frontier with Germany, then I think, while abhorring such a measure, such a gesture, we should regard it as a defence measure based on genuine anxiety and not aimed at future aggression. This of course does not mean that we should not strengthen our NATO forces and our own forces in particular. Of course we must. You cannot have a mass of potentially hostile troops facing a relatively undefended frontier.

But, my Lords, all in all, though I may still be proved wrong, I do not regard this as the acute crisis that it has been made out to be. I cannot and will not feel as I felt about Munich, in 1938, and in August, 1939. I believe that this time we are dealing, not with cold-blooded aggressors but with frightened folk—frightened, if you like, as my noble cousin, Lord Harlech, said, for fear of liberalisation, but far more frightened by practical physical risks. To me, my Lords, the real danger to world peace lies in the future, as in the past, in the hands of another Power and not with Soviet Russia.

9.6 p.m.

LORD AUCKLAND

My Lords, thirty years ago when Germany raided and invaded Czechoslovakia, I, like a number of noble Lords, was still at school. But I have at least faint memories of those days, and when I watched on the television screen the pictures of the Soviet tanks rolling into Prague it was in some ways rather like a bad dream. But of course this was a reality. I should like to join with those who have paid tribute to the television cameramen, particularly from Austria, who obtained such magnificent and impressive pictures so that viewers in this country of all ages, and particularly the young, could see just what aggression really was. If one looks at the history of Czechoslovakia, particularly in the past fifty years, one sees the awful tragedies in 1942 of the rape of Lidice under the German occupation; prior to that, in the months immediately before the last war that country was under German occupation, and now it is under Russian domination.

I have never been to Czechoslovakia, but I spent three years in the Army in Austria immediately after the last war. It was not very far from the Czechoslovakian border, and I came into contact—and other noble Lords who have had more service than I have had will similarly have come into contact—with Russian troops. I remember that the barracks we took over had previously been occupied by Russian troops, and the state of those barracks and what we heard from the civilians in the village where we were stationed bore out the fact that the Russian soldiers were a bestial lot. I do not say that every Russian soldier is, or was, bestial, but there was certainly that almost universal cry from the Austrian civilian population at that time. Some even went so far as to say that they would rather be under Nazi domination than under Russian domination, but this must obviously be regarded as a matter of degree.

If one looks at a map one sees the obvious danger which Austria must be in at the present time—and I am allowing for the somewhat confusing reports on the tape which we are receiving as to the present situation there. As yet we obviously cannot assess what it all means, but possibly in a short time we shall get a clearer picture; and of course we all hope that it will be a brighter picture than we have had in the past few days. I should also like to pay a tribute to the officials of the Czech Embassy in London, who have given interviews on television and elsewhere, for the dignified way in which they have answered questions under what must have been an awful strain. I think it is only right that this tribute should be paid.

It has been stated that there is nothing really positive that we, as a nation or a Parliament, can do for the Czech people. In regard to those—particularly the young students and others—who are showing such magnificent defiance in the streets of Prague, this may be so, but I believe there is quite a lot that we can do in the short and medium term. I am thinking particularly in terms of trade because I, like many other noble Lords, do not think that trade sanctions—or indeed any sanctions—against any country really work against those who are the guilty parties, and I believe that by and large that must include Russia. At the same time, I believe that there is a good deal we can do in the medium term, at any rate regarding trade with Czechoslovakia. Next month there is scheduled to be a trade fair in Brno, and presumably if the situation is as it is now this will have to be cancelled. I hope that in future trade fairs in countries such as Czechoslovakia we can show an increased interest, if necessary at the expense of the Russians and their more militaristic satellites.

Similarly in the field of culture. I well remember the last visit to this country of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. I went to one of their concerts, and a finer body of musicians it would be difficult to imagine. I hope that perhaps we may see these fine people in this country again before too long a time has elapsed. I believe it is in this field that we can do a great deal to help this gallant country. I would hope, too, that perhaps the Government might consider what the British National Export Council can do, because as a businessman I think that in trade we can do a great deal to uplift the morale of this country which has been so cruelly struck down. I was talking yesterday to a business acquaintance who had returned from Prague only a month ago having been to a congress there. He told me that even then there were signs of trouble brewing up, but that the people were all most confused and did not know what to do about it.

I think the feeling of this House, and I am sure of another place, is clear; that is, that the message has gone out to these great people, these gallant people, these most colourful people, as is instanced by their music and all their culture, that we certainly offer them our prayers. I hope that at least in some of the ways that I and other noble Lords have instanced, as soon as we possibly can we shall offer them positive help in the way of trade and of importing some of their fine cultural activities.

9.15 p.m.

THE EARL OF LYTTON

My Lords, like the rest of your Lordships, I have come at some little inconvenience to support Her Majesty's Government in their decision to condemn the crime which we have been considering. Before I had arrived I wondered whether I should have any qualifications in connection with that condemnation; but having heard the noble Lord the Leader of the House, I should like to record my support without the least qualification of any kind. It seemed to me that his opening speech was akin to the early part of a judicial judgment from a judge, assessing the evidence which he knew had been before us and assuming that we were in agreement with him in his conclusion, yet expounding it all and then leaving us free to consider to what extent this was not only a crime but a blunder.

I endorse the condemnation of a violation of Charter after Charter enshrining the principle of self-determination which is the prime political right of us all, large and small. I do not know whether it happens to be also a violation of international criminal law. It is sufficient that it violates the United Nations Charter; it is contrary to the Charter of Addis Ababa; it is far removed from the Atlantic Charter; it is contrary to every sort of resolution passed again and again by the Conference of the Nonaligned Nations, who, one notes, have never intimated that violations were perpetrated by the Soviet Union.

Therefore we come to the second point, in which the noble Lord the Leader of the House pointed to the possibility and the degree of blunder which, so far as I am concerned, seems to be a prime factor in the whole issue: that this is indeed more of a blunder even than a crime; and with the Russians so adept at spotting mistakes when they play the game of chess I cannot believe that they never discovered at once all the implications. Therefore, I should like to enumerate five. First of all, it has exposed the revolt against imperialism which is world-wide, and which has been concealed and smothered in the Soviet empire, although we knew about it.

I was interested in, and thoroughly in support of, the remarks made by the noble Baroness, Lady Gaitskell, in that connection, which brought to the notice of everybody, including those who had turned a blind eye to it, that there are captive nations, not only Czechoslovakia, the Baltic States and others, who live debarred of their freedom under the Soviet régime. The murmurings of freedom are spreading among all these, and the action of the Soviet Union has, owing to the valour of the Czechs, been displayed to the whole world, and that is most advantageous. This impulse of anti-imperialism, I am sure, as I think I understood the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, to say, is very strong. I am not quite sure whether it cannot be repressed. After all, we have Bohemia addicted to freedom, and yet, from the Thirty years War to the First World War, 300 years in the catacombs of political subjugation. I do not know. I do not think prophets can ever name a date when things will happen.

Secondly, it exposes the fragmentation of world Communism. I am not sure whether I understood the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, correctly in enumerating this as one of the evils of the situation. I think I must have misunderstood. I welcome this fragmentation of world Communism. While Communism is in essence an economic theory I think it is handicapped enormously by being politically controlled from one capital alone. I do not know if I am right, but I feel disposed to congratulate the British Communist Party on the line they have taken in this case. Twenty years ago I cannot think that that line would have been taken. I think it is a matter for congratulation.

LORD SHACKLETON

My Lords, if I may interrupt, I merely noted the fact as a matter of enormous historic significance. I did not say that I regretted it.

THE EARL OF LYTTON

My Lords, I was absolutely certain that the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, was not wedded to the non-fragmentation of world Communism, but I did mention the point, and I thank him very much for having corrected me.

The third point where the Soviet Union will soon realise its error, its blunder, is that it exposes its image to what I call "occupation troops phobia", of which I have had quite a lot of experience in a lesser capacity than the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, in Austria. At the end of the war the victorious Russians, the Red Army, had an unparalleled position of honour and glory in everyone's esteem. When they sent over the Dynamo football team to this country to play (I think it was at Wembley or some other centre like that), the reception accorded to the Soviet Ambassador when he arrived was corn-parable to that traditionally accorded to our own Sovereign, such was the great esteem with which those who had liberated Europe from Nazi domination were greeted at that time.

They came into Austria. On the political level they were reasonably prudent; they selected a Government which was quite reasonable, and after a quite unnecessary delay we recognised the same Government, and ultimately, when there were free elections, the same sort of Government was elected in free elections—elections which were admitted by everybody to be free, whether in the Soviet Zone, in the British Zone, the French Zone, or the American Zone. However, the Russian troops had by that time made themselves unpopular. Of course, after battle they raped and they looted. I am sure that all armies, including our own, on the morning after battle are liable to rape and loot, and I do not think it is fair to condemn them on what happens after battle. And if cases are produced of the Soviet Army I can produce (although I should not like to do so) evidence of the British Army. I do not think that counts for very much, but they were not liked. By degrees, anybody near the Red Army became less and less Communist. When the elections were held the maximum vote was 10 per cent. in the British area, and it was negligible in the area next door to the Red Army.

I do not wish to suggest that the Red Army is alone in this. My father lived in Paris for many years, and I do not think anybody disliked the Germans more violently than he did. Yet, after the American liberation forces had been in Paris for some time, he said, "The Parisians detest the Americans far more than they ever loathed the Germans." It is one of the fates of occupation forces that they generate these feelings, and if the Russians have any sense they will know that the Red Army coming in not as conquerors but as subjugators are bound to be detested. Such action is loathed by the Red Army themselves. I do not speak Russian and I have never been able to get on terms with people. But I try to get in touch with people who do these things, and I understand that the average Red Army man is a nice sociable, chatty fellow who likes to talk about his home. Such Russians as I have talked to talk about their homes and their longing to get back, and they dislike being hated. They cannot bear it. So this is the situation to which the Soviet Union is exposing itself. Had the coup come off quickly they would have got away with it, but as it has been resisted this is the third penalty to which they will expose themselves.

Fourthly, their action unsettles the whole of Europe, because we all live in the orbit of the Super-Power, the Soviet Union, with a capacity to destroy this country if it so wishes, whether the United States is on our side or not, in the course of half-an-hour or perhaps a few hours. Whether we like it or not, we must recognise that as one of the facts of life, and it is our inescapable desire that this great power should be exercised humanely and not with arrogance. Therefore, they must be aware that the disgust with which we regard them is something which impairs the tolerance with which we accept residence within the orbit of the Soviet power.

Fifthly, it puts temptation in the way of what I might call Nebuchadnezzar, who in history is some kind of symbol of the enemy of us all who, so far as I am able to judge of these matters, has moved his tent from Moscow to Peking. There, within five to ten years, is a potential enemy much more dangerous than the Soviet Union, capable of accepting as casualties the entire population of the Soviet Union and emerging stronger than any other nation left in the world. It is a very considerable danger of which the Soviet Union must be painfully aware, and its action has not produced any greater fraternisation with Peking but further denunciations. Therefore, I am certain that the Soviet Union to-day is aware of this factor, along with the others, which indicates that a great blunder has been made.

In view of the possibility, which I see as a very strong one, that a blunder has been made from which the Soviet Union would like presently to withdraw (and I say this quite independent of anything that comes on the tape, and also quite independent of whether it happens now, next month, in two months, six months or a year) I think that the task before us as diplomats is to refrain for the moment from the least rattling of the sabre.

I was again impressed by the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Gaitskell. I think again of the vortex of rearmament and the end of the hopes of mankind, because that sort of thing can not only end the world we know but result in its awful destruction by nuclear war. I think we should be patient and wait to see what happens. There should not be the smallest tinkle or rattle of the sabre or the scabbard at the present stage. There will be time enough if we have to do it, but at the moment if there is a 40 per cent. chance that they may withdraw and go, let us not threaten it. Let us not say anything about gunboats to the Gulf or hawks to Hanoi, or whatever it may be. This may be irrelevant, and particularly so if the Russians do withdraw, because, as I see it, we are not divided in this world between political saints and political sinners. We are all sinners: and those who have transgressed and withdrawn and reformed are often more reliable than they were before. I do not see that we should do anything now which makes the smallest provocation. I think we should take it calmly and stand fast.

There is a final thing which the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, and others, invited us to do, and that is to express our sympathy with Czechoslovakia. Of course they have had a chequered career, not only from the First World War and from 1918 onwards, but long before that. If we take Bohemia as a major partner in that particular association, a thousand years ago, their leader was a man dedicated to freedom. He was assassinated by his brother—a crime instigated by his mother—and was later canonised as a saint and martyr. I wonder, if any of us think of having recourse to prayer in this country, whether his feast, which falls on September 28, might not be regarded as a day of national prayer for the whole nation which is enduring this trial so nobly. The person I am speaking of is, of course, somebody well known to our children but more at Christmas time than in September: Good King Wenceslas.

9.33 p.m.

LORD BETHELL

My Lords, I should not like my guns to be spiked by the reports coming through that the Czechoslovakians and the Russians have reached agreement in Moscow. News has been coming through on the tape and has been watched by us with great interest. It seems to indicate that if Soviet troops withdraw there will be a reimposition of censorship in Czechoslovakia. It may be that the Czechoslovak Government will have to agree to this as a necessary alternative to a new colonialist regime lest their fight under near-Stalinist tyranny were construed as an act of resistance, the result of which would inevitably be that their country would be in ruins. This is why, even if the Soviet troops withdraw from Czechoslovakia in the next few days. I shall remain a pessimist for some little time.

In my recent two visits to Czechoslovakia, I was told by everyone I spoke to that the one issue on which no Czechoslovak would compromise was that of censorship. They see the removal of censorship—at least the Czechoslovaks that I spoke to—as the key not only to freedom of speech and expression, but also as the key to increased prosperity for themselves and for greater equality and for an end to the tyranny of the bureaucrats. The point is, will the censorship continue, and how will the Czechoslovak Government be able to enforce it? They have promised their people that there will be no censorship. If they now promise the Soviet Union that there will be censorship I can see there will be a crunch somewhere.

An agreement in Moscow will probably leave open for the time being the question of to what extent the new Czechoslovakia is going to be oppressed by the secret police, by the S.T.B., which only recently was rumoured to be 200,000 strong. They are powerful men who will dislike losing their privileged position, and I wonder whether we can be complacent about an agreement in Czechoslovakia when presumably these men will not be disposed of but will remain active, and perhaps even in their jobs. This is why I suggest to the Government that they consider certain contingency planning in case, even if the Soviet troops withdraw, there should be a return to aggression against Czechoslovakia. In this I am strengthened by the memory of 1956, when, your Lordships will remember, Soviet troops withdrew late in October from Hungary and only a few days later, when the world and the Hungarian people were lulled into a sense of false security, returned and crushed Hungary.

Many of your Lordships have said that they knew that this invasion would take place; that they knew the Soviet mind, the Communist mind, and that this was bound to happen. Others have said that they were surprised and would never have believed that the Soviet Union a country which seemed to be improving its image in recent years—would take such an immoral action. But I think your Lordships must take into consideration the fact that the evidence goes to show that until last Monday not even the Soviet leaders themselves knew what they were going to do about Czechoslovakia. Before the recent meeting of the five Warsaw Pact Powers in Warsaw there was, we are told, a decision not to invade Czechoslovakia. After Warsaw the decision was reversed, and we are told that when the Russian leaders came to Cierna, they were in the position of having changed their minds and having resolved to use force. They changed their minds again at Cierna; and then, as we have seen to our cost, they changed their minds again after that and decided to invade. Now, to-day, it seems that perhaps they are changing their minds again.

They told their troops to go in; they did not tell them to mow down the population. They made a half-hearted decision, and it may be that they are vacillating so much that they will reach some compromise decision that no one in the leadership really wants. But I think this puts a special chance in the way of us in this country. The phrase we have heard too often, I think, in recent days is the moan that there is nothing we can do. We have been throwing up our hands in horror complaining about this dreadful thing we have seen on our television screens, and moaning that there is nothing we can do. But I think there may be some things we can do, and I am going to suggest one or two of them that the Government may consider and, if necessary, put into operation.

Those of your Lordships who have spoken this afternoon in favour of some sort of sanctions against the Soviet Union have tended rather to reject trade sanctions and to be in favour of cultural sanctions. I would go exactly the other way about. I can see no point at all in boycotting groups of scientists, architects, writers or musicians who come to this country, the majority of whom are men of good will and our friends. I do not mean that they are our political friends, whether they are Socialists or Communists or anti-Socialist or anti-Communist. But the people who are in the cultural world in the Soviet Union and in the Warsaw Pact countries, as is well known, are men who believe in roughly the same liberties that we believe in. To boycott them is to boycott our friends. If doors have to be slammed, surely they should not be slammed on those people.

When we come to trade, I think that there are opportunities. The Soviet leaders are not so invulnerable as they once were. Under Stalin the Soviet people were crushed as they had been under Czarism. It was unthinkable that Soviet public opinion should influence their leadership in any particular way. But now the situation has changed. Even though Soviet public opinion does not influence their leaders as public opinion does in this country, it influences them to some extent, and the Soviet leaders find themselves forced to satisfy demands for increases in the standard of living. I have found the Russians more interested in the question of the standard of living than any other issue, whether it be freedom for writers or freedom of speech any of these more ethereal ideological matters.

The average Russian wants to live better. I remember driving my car round Moscow, and wherever I parked it—it was only a small Morris Mini Minor—great crowds would gather to look at the engine and stare at it in wonder. They would tell me at the same time how a factory had been set up by the Italians to build them cars, and how in two or three years' time they hoped that they would be able to have cars, as they knew that people in the West had them. I wonder, my Lords, what would happen if the Soviet leaders thought there was a danger of the Italians putting a stop to the factory at Togliatti; or the French putting a stop to the Renault/Moskvich factory; or of the British refusing to give the Soviet Union machine tools and spare parts for cars; or refusing to give them chemical goods; or refusing to complete the factory at Mogilyov being equipped by Polyspinners. I feel sure that this would have a great effect on the Soviet leaders. It is true that the Russian economy is self-supporting. They can support themselves without our help, but I do not think that they can give themselves the sort of luxuries for which the Russian people are now clamouring. To provide this sort of thing they need Western equipment and know-how and we are in a stronger position, perhaps, than we realise.

Last Friday night I heard an appeal on Radio Free Prague asking trade unionists to boycott all Soviet means of transport. I know that British trade union leaders have done quite a lot already in this crisis. They have spared no pains to tell the Soviet leaders what they feel about the action of those leaders. They have stopped a Soviet delegation from coming to the Centenary Congress in Blackpool. But I wonder whether British trade unionists might think twice before continuing to service the means of transport of the country which has invaded Czechoslovakia. I am thinking particularly of such ships as are designed entirely to provide the Soviet Union with foreign currency by taking passengers on cruises round the South Seas and which really do no good to any one except to the Soviet Union.

Another contingency plan that I would suggest would involve the B.B.C. I was surprised to learn to-day that the B.B.C. has done very little in the way of stepping up its broadcasts to Eastern Europe. We broadcast four hours a day to the Soviet Union, and in the past week we have not increased this time. Our broadcasts to Czechoslovakia have been increased by three-quarters of an hour per day. Some of your Lordships may feel that this is not enough, and some of you may also feel that the B.B.C. should be better equipped to deal with this sort of emergency. In recent years there has been a run-down on the B.B.C.'s external services; the money that is given to the external services is begrudged because there is no palpable financial return on the money provided. We cannot, of course, estimate what good the B.B.C. external service broadcasts do to our reputation, but I would suggest that it is considerably larger than some of us may imagine.

These measures, which I know are more extreme than other noble Lords have suggested this evening, are not merely biting off one's nose to spite one's face. They are not shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. There are other stables and there are other horses which may bolt. Czechoslovakia may seem a long way away. Neville Chamberlain said thirty years ago that it was a far-off country of which we knew little. In fact the Czechoslovak border is only 500 miles from where we are sitting now —about the same distance as the northern tip of Scotland. I personally am worried that the invasion which we have just witnessed may not stop there, especially if, in the next few years, the United States of America become disillusioned with the role they have assumed since the last war of a world peacekeeping Power. They may withdraw and leave us to the tender mercies of the largest European Power. An example of this is a small incident in which this country has been directly involved in the Czechoslovak crisis, in which a Czechoslovak girl was seemingly spirited out of this country, with the implication that she did not leave this country legally, and no one, least of all our police, seems to know where she is. The only people who seem to know where she is is the Soviet Embassy, who have announced that she is in Moscow. I find the sort of situation in which something like this can happen very disturbing, and I look forward to the Home Office inquiry, which I know is going on, providing us with an explanation as to what in fact happened.

This crisis has shocked almost every man, woman and child in this country. I think there is still a hope that it may be turned, and a threat to us may become a threat to those who threaten us. The leadership in Moscow is very divided on this issue and I have hopes that, given support, those elements which desire peace and some form of liberty may triumph. It could be that the Czechoslovak adventure may be the last desperate throw of dogmatic neo-Stalinist Communism.

9.49 p.m.

LORD ST. JUST

My Lords, we are drawing near the end of the battle, and I shall not be long. I have no intention of saying anything of importance concerning Czechoslovakia itself, but over the years that I have sat in this House—and they are a good many years now—I have learnt one golden rule, and that is never to speak on anything on which you do not know your ground securely before your start. I am going to speak not about Czechoslovakia but about the Russians. I may say that I am far from being a Communist—I should not be sitting in these Benches if I were. The reason why I am going to speak on this subject is that through my parents, who were great friends of the Russian ballet master, Diaghilev, I was brought up from an early age knowing Russians, and this developed into knowing more and more Russians, both White and Communist. I should like to make it perfectly plain that what I am about to say does not excuse the ghastly crime of what the Russians have done to Czechoslovakia now.

In a foreign affairs debate in your Lordships' House some years ago, when Sir Alec Douglas-Home (as he is now known) was still with us, I made a speech about what I know of the Russian character and about how we could start to approach the people of Russia as a whole. I think that we shall agree that one of the ways would be through the arts. Earlier in the debate to-day my noble friend Lord Harlech brought up an important point when he said that one of the shattering ways in which we could boycott the Russians was through the arts. This is something that is very dear to the Russian soul. After all, they were the founders of the ballet. They are keen on music. I believe that what the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, said later in the debate was right that it would be far better for the public to be allowed to make up their own minds about attending Russian performances, and one hopes that most people will stay away. But I am certain that this line of action, rather than sanctions or anything else, would have a deep effect in showing the Russians that what they have done in the present circumstances is not approved by the British people.

I think it makes little difference to the mentality of the Russians whether they are White or Red. The main characteristics of their make-up are very much the same. I think that one would put down, first, the deep intensity of their emotional attitude towards any subject. Secondly, I would put very high their suspicion of all things and of all people. This is deep in the Russian character. Thirdly, their natural sense of intrigue is something common to every Russian and this is why in politics they have such incredible success. Fourthly, there is no doubt that the Russians have a sense of humour, if it is on their own plane. Fifthly (though this I suppose is a debatable point), I still believe that the Russians have a deep religious conviction.

Let us never forget that the Russians are Asiatics in personality and temperament, and no European mind will ever completely understand the Russian process of thought. I spent six months at the end of my Army career in Berlin working between the Military Government and the Press. I attended commandatura meetings of all four Powers every single week, and I had the shattering experience at the end of every commandatura meeting of trying to get out a communiqué that could be issued to the world Press. Believe me, my Lords, if we changed one word, the Russians were on the telephone and would not be seen for the next hour, because they had to get in touch with somebody in the hierarchy to see that it was all right.

The other thing I remember very clearly was that on one occasion the Russian representative was a General Korsikov, a man of immense charm. He arrived with a very impish look on his face and I said to my American opposite number. "We are in for something to-day". And this had been at the top of the agenda for months. We had been asking to send a military mission to Potsdam, which was the Russian supreme military Power. This had been turned down time and time again. At this meeting, at the end of the conference, suddenly General Korsikov turned round and said: By the way, the military mission can go to Potsdam, but it must go in 48 hours." This caused a certain amount of consternation, because all the colonels concerned had been sent down to the British Zone.

My Lords, I wish to end by saying that I think that, so far as we have seen in the present situation, the Russians are probably having second thoughts. I personally feel that the satellite Communist countries, such as Eastern Germany, have had a very strong sway on the Russians. As I said in the foreign affairs debate when speaking on this matter, I believe that Communism in these satellite countries is in a far stronger and more virulent form than it is in Russia itself. I am convinced that great pressure has been put on the Russian Government by the satellites concerning the present situation in Czechoslovakia. All we can hope for is that the Russians. with their more liberal thought, when it comes through—and we hope that it may—will now overcome their fear and suspicion and allow some form of free Czechoslovakia to exist.

LORD WINDLESHAM

My Lords, in this long emergency debate we have heard many powerful, authoritative and sometimes moving speeches. If I may, I should also like to congratulate the noble Lord who has just sat down on the unruffled way in which he continued his speech during the unexpected interruption. All that is needed from me at this late hour, before we hear the Government's reply, is a brief summary of some of the main themes as they have developed in the course of the debate. It seems to me that there are four main headings. First of all, there was the imperative need, immediately stated by the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, when he opened for the Government, and by my noble friend Lord Jellicoe from this side of the House, to record formally and in the setting of Parliament, our absolute and unqualified condemnation of the Russian action in invading Czechoslovakia. No words of condemnation in this debate have been too strong to deplore what by any standards must rank as a calculated international crime of historic proportions.

In the United Nations, as the Leader of the House reminded us, 10 countries approved a Security Council resolution demanding that the Council should condemn outright the invasion of Czechoslovakia, and that the occupying troops should withdraw at once without reprisals. In the course of the debate the official representative of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic said that the occupation of his country by foreign armed forces was completely illegal, and that all the acts of the foreign occupation forces were illegal. Nevertheless, the Soviet Union used its veto in the Security Council to stop any action by the United Nations. It was the 105th time that the Russian veto had been used over the past 23 years. In her speech this afternoon, the noble Baroness, Lady Gaitskell, drawing on her experience as a United Nations delegate, told us that she believes the Russian action will have done them no good at the United Nations, and that the uncommitted countries may (in her words) "say good-bye to the double standards of the past".

BARONESS GAITSKELL

My Lords, may I just clarify that? It was that I personally think it will be "Goodbye" to the double standards. I am not so sure about the uncommitted nations.

LORD WINDLESHAM

We would all want to join the noble Baroness in that hope. It is particularly sad and unfortunate that the timing of the veto comes when many people, well disposed towards the United Nations in different parts of the world, are reappraisiig the role of the U.N. as an institution on which so much hope and effort has been centred. And yet here we are once again: the Security Council being prevented from making any positive response to a tragic and dangerous event that has shaken world confidence. In his speech earlier in the debate the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie-Calder, alvised against attempting to secure action through the General Assembly under the Uniting for Peace procedure. On this point, and also on the draft resolution contained in Annex D of the White Paper, which was referred to by my noble friend Lord Jellicoe, I should like to ask the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, to tell us, when he comes to reply, whether he has any further information on developments at the U.N. since the publication of the White Paper.

The third theme of the debate has been the effect of the invasion of Czechoslovakia on Russia and her allies, if "allies" is any longer the appropriate word. The noble Earl, Lord Avon, remarked today, "If this is how a loyal and determined ally is treated by the Kremlin, what about those of us who are not?" My Lords, after this how can the smaller nations of Eastern Europe join forces with a super-Power like Russia and yet hope at the same time to retain their autonomy and their independence? They depend on the Soviets for much of their raw materials. They depend on Russia for many manufactured goods. Russia is the main market for their own industrial output. Moreover, Russia is, and will remain, the cornerstone of the international Communist system, of which Czechoslovakia was a loyal member.

The crucial factor, it seems to me, was that in Czechoslovakia the demands for greater economic freedom were matched by a responsive and bold political leadership which was ready to experiment. This experimentation took place within the framework of a Communist society, although in many ways a new model of Communist society which seemed to be evolving. There was consideration of material incentives. There was an increasing emphasis on the quality of manufactured goods, in contrast with the old rigid adherence to quantitative targets for production. New attitudes towards investment, towards pricing even, were beginning to appear. To talk of a market, although a strictly controlled market, was not too unrealistic.

What has the Russian response been to all this? Even though increasing liberalisation in Czechoslovakia had been looked on with hope in many parts of Eastern Europe, and, as we have heard in the debate to-day, also in Russia itself, the reaction of the Russian political leaders was sudden, inflexible, fearful, and now it seems totally misjudged. By occupying Czechoslovakia with nearly half-a-million men they revealed the weakness of the entire Soviet system. The noble Lord, Lord Harlech, in, if I may say so without presumption, a brilliant and moving speech this afternoon, spoke eloquently on this point. The Russians have shown that their system is so vulnerable that it cannot, and will not, allow free speech. It cannot and will not allow the discussion of alternative forms of Socialist enterprise; and it is so brittle and inflexible that it dare not permit any experiment at all. Like any other intensely autocratic and totalitarian regime which is faced with demands for a change, it has interpreted such demands as a challenge to its own authority. As a result the Russian leaders have resorted to military power to enforce their will. These are the actions of men who are weak and insecure, not men who are confident in themselves. As Lord Harlech remarked, it is the reaction of a man who sees he is losing a game of cards and kicks over the table.

The fourth and final theme running through the debate has been the response of Britain, Western Europe, and the Western Alliance as a whole. Militarily, British reactions must be very carefully judged. It is easy to over-react, and it would be fatal to do nothing. The noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, followed by the noble Earl, Lord Avon, and the noble Lords, Lord Robertson of Oakridge, Lord Watkinson, Lord Boothby, Lord Caccia and others, all stressed the need to re-examine, urgently and privately, NATO force levels and the present and future state of the British armed forces. The poor recruiting results recently have put the achievement of an Army of 152,000 men in the early 1970's in some doubt. The question of reserve forces must also surely come up again for reconsideration. In the course of the debate we have heard several speakers on British defence commitments overseas, particularly in the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf, and we look forward to Lord Chalfont's reply on those points.

The possibility of sanctions has been mentioned by many noble Lords in the course of the debate. I share the view that trade sanctions would be ineffective and would do nothing to mitigate the closed aspect of Communist economies in Eastern Europe, which Czechoslovakia has demonstrated can be opened up. To show that there is a better life, and higher living standards, and more efficient ways of managing an economy, remains a worthwhile objective.

I want to end, as I think we must on the occasion of this emergency debate, with the tragic plight of Czechoslovakia itself. Let us not forget that Czechoslovakia is the Westernmost of the Communist States of East Europe, and one that has close historical and cultural ties with the West. It is not so many years since it was possible to take a tram from Bratislava into Vienna to go to the Opera and return again the same evening. The tramlines are still there, running between the two cities.

Before and immediately after the last War Czechoslovakia was an industrially advanced nation. The fact that it has not developed at the same rate as, for example, Austria, was one of the underlying causes of the dissatisfaction that built up to the demand for a changed economic system. These economic pressures, coinciding with the aspirations of young people who are now twenty years of age—themselves children of the revolution which brought the Communists to power in 1948—and the forces of Slovak nationalism symbolised in the person of Mr. Dubcek, the first Slovak to hold supreme office in Prague—coalesced with political policies which led to the Russian invasion. It is a chain of events with a coherent historical and rational order about it. Until, that is, all reasonable and normal developments were suddenly shattered by the Russian aggression.

With the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, I do not believe that this process of national development in Czechoslovakia or Eastern Europe is at an end. I do not believe that it will be extinguished by a single military operation launched and directed from Moscow. Even though the legal Government of Czechoslovakia has been intimidated by the Russians and the country occupied by half a million troops, when the history of these troubled times comes to be written it will not be the Russian invasion but the reforms of Dubcek, and the economic forces which lay behind them, which will he regarded as of wider significance and more enduring consequence. Let us at the end of the debate keep in mind the courageous words of Mr. Dubcek as he was driven away from his office in Prague last week. As he got into a Soviet armoured car he passed out a note on which were written the words: Keep firm: the sun will rise again.

10.11 p.m.

LORD CHALFONT

My Lords, this debate has taken place in the shadow of an act of such cynical and brutal violence that it is hard to find its like in the whole turbulent history of Europe. Those of us whose lives have twice in this century been ravaged by great wars, and many times more shaken by assaults on freedom and democracy, are no strangers to these shocks, the shocks of barbarism.

Here, of course, I must reflect and echo the tributes that have been paid in your Lordships' House today to the restraint and the steadfastness of the Czechs and the Slovaks. As many noble Lords have said, we have seen the newsreel pictures; we have read the Press reports; we have seen examples of great courage—unbelievable courage; we have seen examples of the humour of an occupied people. We have seen signposts put up in the streets of Prague soon after the occupation giving the Soviet troops precise instructions about the route to Moscow. Seven hundred years of history have given these people, the people of Czechoslovakia, a great courage, a great dignity and the bearing of men and women who are not easily to be terrorised into slavery.

There is nothing new about what has happened in Czechoslovakia. This kind of aggression has been going on since the Conquistadores of Pizarro raped the civilisation of the Incas in Peru; and long before that, too. But there is something about this latest exercise in naked power politics that has the unique combination of brutality and cynicism and contempt for the most rudimentary principles of civilised behavour.

My Lords, let us be absolutely clear exactly what has happened. It is as simple as this. On August 20 the Soviet Union, one of the most powerful nations on earth, used its vast and irresistible military strength in an attempt to snuff out the political life of Czechoslovakia. For reasons of convenience, it included in its invading forces a few token units from those of its so-called allies who were prepared to lend their names to this sordid act of betrayal. But it is the Government of the Soviet Union that must bear the principal responsibility for what has happened. I must say here that if my noble friend Lord Brockway thinks that the United States or this country have done anything that can be compared with this shocking act of international banditry, then I can only beg profoundly to disagree with him.

In the course of this debate, which has been notable for a number of things, but especially, I think, for the sense of contempt and outrage that has vibrated through every speech that has been made, the condemnation of this country for this naked aggression has been clear and unequivocable: and it only remains for me, replying for the Government to the debate, to endorse without reservation these feelings of revulsion. As the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, has asked us to do, we shall denounce this, and we shall continue to denounce it until this crime is expiated.

My Lords, may I say here that I think we should indeed be unwise to take too much note of the unconfirmed reports that are coming over the tapes this evening. There are reports that Russian troops are to leave on certain conditions; there are reports that the conditions may include closer control of the press in Czechoslovakia; there are rumours that the Czechoslovak leaders are to resume their posts; there are reports that the roads around and into Czechoslovakia have been closed. But I must tell your Lordships that the latest report we have from Radio Free Prague describes the Czechoslovak Government as saying that any reports that an end to the Moscow talks are imminent are premature. I beg your Lordships not to look upon these reports as confirmed, because they are not. Even when we have the communiqué from these talks I suggest that we shall need to study it with very great care. If it is true to say that one should fear the Greeks when they are bearing gifts, it is even more true to say that one should fear the Russians when they are drafting communiqués.

When the Soviet Ambassador called on me at 1.30 in the morning last Wednesday and asked me to convey a personal message from his Government to the Prime Minister, I felt a sense of shock and disbelief at what he told me. I must confess that, whatever may be the feelings of other noble Lords, I was shocked and unbelieving; I could not believe, in spite of all the warnings we had had, that the Soviet Union could bring itself to carry out this immoral act. I was shocked; and that shock was deepened by the cynicism with which this straightforward act of aggression was being rationalised. We were being asked to believe that the act was in some way a necessary one. This is not, of course, an unfamiliar gambit in the language of oppression. William Pitt said in another place a long time ago that, Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom; it is the argument of tyrants and the creed of slaves, and his words are as true today as they were 200 years ago.

The Soviet Government claim that they intervened at the request of the Government of Czechoslovakia has already been comprehensively demolished. My noble friend the Leader of the House referred to it tonight, and it was indeed demolished, if it needed any further demolition, in the brave speech of the Czechoslovak delegate at the United Nations. The fabrication of the outside threat has been exposed for the hypocrisy that it always was, and it is difficult to imagine a greater intellectual perversion than the final suggestion that the internal changes in Czechoslovakia were in fact a danger to that country itself. The truth of this matter is that the invasion of Czechoslovakia was not a matter of necessity; it was an act of fear. Here I agree, as I agreed with most of what he said, with the remarks on this subject made by the noble Lord, Lord Harlech. Fear is the corrosive poison of a closed society. Totalitarian régimes, like those of the Soviet Union, depend for their power upon fear and not upon consent; and they, in turn, fear the growth of liberal ideas in the minds of men.

Of course there were other factors to take into account here. I have no doubt that the Soviet Union was bearing in its mind the effect of the Czechoslovak liberalisation movement in East Germany, in Poland, and possibly even in metropolitan Russia. I think, too, we must admit that there were military factors at work here. The fear that any alleged weakness in Czechoslovakia might lay open a sector of the Soviet frontier to military attack from some quarter or another. We must also admit that there is something in the argument that the Soviet Union has an obsessive and corroding fear of the Federal Republic of Germany. Whether we believe that fear to be justified or not—and I must say quite plainly that I do not believe it to be justified—we must admit that it exists. But I believe that in the end it was not fear of West Germany, or fear of military attack, that motivated the Soviet Union eventually to take this extraordinary decision. It was the simple fear of the growth of ideas in the minds of men, because it is this that is the greatest danger to the Communist mind, the greatest danger to a régime like that of the Soviet Union; not the arms or the threats of other countries.

It is not that the Czechoslovak leaders had threatened to desert the Communist camp. They had not threatened to do that. They had not threatened to abandon the Warsaw Pact or to become a neutral country. They did nothing so dramatic as that. All they did was to try to apply to the existing Marxist-Leninist system what many of us would regard as a modest enough experiment in humanity and democracy. Yet even this modest attempt at liberalisation was apparently enough to convince the Soviet Union that its control of Eastern Europe. and even its security, was at risk.

My Lords, what are we to think of a political system so frightened of change and ideas that it wields its vast military strength to snuff out the first faint spark of democracy that appears near its frontiers, and is so deficient in self-confidence that it attacks friendly people who have committed no greater crime than that they have dared to think for themselves? The people of Czechoslovakia sought to have a more liberal society. A liberal society, as President Kennedy once said, is a free society and it is at the same time, and for that reason, a strong society. Its strength is drawn from the will of free people committed to great ends. It is moral strength that the Soviet Union fears, and surely there can be no greater sign of its own moral bankruptcy than that.

We must now accept that for the Russians the way of Communism is as inflexible, as reactionary and as doomed as was the way of the Pharaohs. We must accept, however sadly, that their standards of international morality have not apparently changed materially since the death of Stalin. Their standards are different from ours and it has become hard, for me at any rate, to see how they can ever be reconciled. We believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose. They are prepared to deny that dignity to frustrate that purpose. We believe in human liberty as the source of national action. They are quick to crush any national action that leads to liberty. We believe in the human heart as the source of national compassion. They leave us uncertain that they have any national compassion. or that they care much for the human heart. No such system as that can prosper for long; nor can we willingly lend it our comfort or support.

What can we do to express our loathing for this act and this attitude? The United Nations, I believe, as my noble friend the Leader of the House has said, is the right place to carry out whatever action is needed in the political sphere. I regret that I have no further information that I can give about proceedings in the United Nations other than that contained in the White Paper which is available for your Lordships to read. There have been no further developments here. But in reply to the specific questions that have been put to me, about whether the issue should eventually be taken to the General Assembly in an emergency session, I think that is a question which will obviously have to be considered very carefully. I should not want at this stage to pre-empt any decisions. We must first see whether there is strong support for such a move in New York at the United Nations. But I believe that both sides of your Lordships' House would agree with me that unless the General Assembly can achieve something effective, and not just embark on another long and sterile debate, an emergency session could be bad for the Czechoslovakians themselves and bad for the United Nations. I shall of course very carefully bear in mind, and I know that my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary will bear in mind, what has been said here and in another place on this point. But I think it would be wrong to take any firm position upon it now.

Perhaps I might at this stage mention very briefly the various remarks that have been made about NATO and its possible reactions; and perhaps I might comment specifically on the suggestion made by the German Chancellor, Chancellor Kiesinger, that a NATO Summit Meeting might be held to consider the effect on the Alliance of events in Czechoslovakia. I was asked to make some comment about this in my winding-up speech. At this stage I can only say that my understanding is that this was not intended by Chancellor Kiesinger to be a formal proposal. He was speaking in reply to a question in a radio interview. We of course share his view that the Atlantic Alliance, which is the bedrock of our security, remains essential. We share his view that recent developments underline the need for European unity. This was mentioned during the course of the debate in this House this afternoon.

We are already in close consultation with our Allies about all these matters; and one of our first actions on Wednesday, when we received the communication from the Soviet Government, was to arrange for the United Kingdom's permanent representative in NATO, who was away at the time, to return to his post in Brussels. We have been in contact with NATO constantly ever since, and we shall of course consider very carefully any proposals that might be made in the course of these consultations. But at this moment I must say that for my part I would not see any great value in trying to arrange a NATO Summit Meeting at this stage.

This leads me to the general question of the defence policy of this country, and how it might be affected by these events. I am not, I fear, going to spend much time on this particular aspect of the problem, but we have been asked to give assurances that the assumptions upon which our defence policy is based will be reviewed. Of course they will be reviewed. The assumptions upon which our defence policy is based are constantly reviewed and reassessed. I do not think that the danger of Soviet aggression has in fact increased since the Czechoslovak crisis. This is an immediate assessment. Indeed, it is arguable that in the immediate future the capacity of the Soviet Union to carry out any act of aggression in Europe has decreased. They are going to have enough on their plate for some time, to keep their own empire together, without engaging in any overt acts in Europe. But I say this only as an immediate comment on the events of the past few days.

Of course, there may be changes in Moscow. No one knows yet whether the result of this adventure will be a shift of power inside the Kremlin; and, if so, no one knows yet which way that shift will go. It may be that any change of power that takes place in Moscow will indeed cause us to look again, and look very hard, at the assumption that the threat from the Soviet Union to the continent of Europe has diminished. But I should really like to beg again for a sense of purpose without panic in looking at this matter of defence policy. We are, as I say, in constant consultation with NATO. One of the things we are continually reviewing is the nature of the Russian threat; and I should like to repeat here this evening what the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, said earlier on in the debate. It is too early yet, in the face of the events of the last few days, to take decisions about our defence policy, about NATO strategy or about force levels; and it is certainly, I should have thought, not only too early, but inadvisable to take any kind of action in the military field which might create the sort of provocation which would do exactly that harm to the people of Czechoslovakia which we and they are so earnestly seeking to avoid.

My Lords, the only other small defence matter that I want to touch on is again in answer to a question which I was asked in the debate, and that is about the troop movements on the Yugoslav and Roumanian borders. We are of course aware of these reports. It is not clear whether they are related solely to the situation in Czechoslovakia, but I am aware, of course, as I think most of your Lordships are, that the Roumanian and Yugoslav authorities have announced certain measures indicating that they themselves are alert to these movements. The Soviet Government have, in fact, denied troop movements in relation to Roumania, but I am sure that they are in no doubt of the very serious consequences that would spring from any widening of the area of dispute.

May I spend just a few seconds on the question of the safety and freedom of the Czechoslovak leaders. I think it very important at this stage that we do not create any alarm or despondency or crisis about the Czechoslovak leaders who are alleged to be in Moscow at this moment. When the Government learned that certain of the Czechoslovak leaders were not in a position to exercise their free functions, and when it became evident that they had been detained, we made our concern very clear indeed in the United Nations. Lord Caradon expressed publicly in the Security Council the importance that we attached to their safety. We have since co-sponsored, with seven other members of the Council, a resolution calling for a representative of the Secretary-General to go to Prague to seek the release and ensure the personal safety of the leaders under detention. In view of the participation of some of the Czech leaders in the Moscow talks since then, no vote on that resolution has yet been taken in the Security Council, and I suggest to your Lordships that it would seem desirable to await information on the result of these talks before deciding whether any further action in this respect is or is not going to be necessary.

My Lords, I have much sympathy, I must confess, with those who suggest that more positive action might be taken to right the grievous wrong that has been done to Czechoslovakia. I believe I speak for everyone in this House when I say that our compassion for the people of that small country is matched only by our contempt for those who are trampling on their very modest dreams of freedom. It is difficult to counsel realism in the heat of this kind of passion. As Edmund Burke once said, the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. But if we are honest, we must admit that any kind of military response now would do little to heal the wounds of Czechoslovakia, and would carry with it the gravest risks to the world. I think that there is no one in your Lordships' House who would disagree with that.

If we are ever to expect the Soviet Union to listen to the voice of reason and to conduct its international affairs in the light of justice and according to the rule of law, we must resist the temptation to descend to the level at which violence and threats of violence are answered in kind. Armed force has never yet solved a problem in the history of the world and it will not solve this one. Is there anything that we can do? I believe that there is. Essentially, as most speakers in this debate have said, it is to mobilise the opinion of the world in a sustained and overwhelming cry of condemnation. The Soviet Union cannot be allowed to get away with the breathtaking claim that this is an internal matter to be settled within the Communist empire. A crime is no less a crime because it is committed in what some great Power may choose to regard as its sphere of influence.

We have to ensure, my Lords, that the eyes of the whole world see plainly the crime that is being committed against the people of Czechoslovakia, and that until it is expiated it is not forgotten wherever men and women care about freedom. The only freedom which deserves the name, as John Stuart Mill said, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs or impede their efforts to obtain it. This, my Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, has said, is what has been attacked the freedom of a sovereign people to conduct its own affairs. It is no less than an assault upon the human spirit. It is, as my noble friend Lord Shackleton has said and as I have repeated once this evening—through the United Nations that we must make our principal effort to channel the anger of free nations and free peoples against the Soviet Union. Because this, whatever else it may be, is a crisis of the United Nations. A small country has been attacked without warning by a military giant, and it is in the United Nations that the small nations can speak and make their voices heard.

The steps we are taking have been outlined by my noble friend and in the White Paper, and I will not take up time by going over them again. I should only like to underline one point. I have said that the Czechoslovak crisis is a matter for the United Nations and that it cannot be regarded as a brawl in the Communist backyard. I should also like to say that in my view it is equally important that we should not regard it as a conflict between alliances. This is not a quarrel between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. The Soviet Union have already made a contemptible effort to suggest that it is, with their ludicrous fantasies of Western plots and caches of NATO arms in Czechoslovakia. If it were not so tragic, it would be ridiculous to contemplate the spectacle of a super-Power deploying the ponderous apparatus of its military strength because a few machine guns have been conveniently discovered under a country bridge in Czechoslovakia.

There is not, and there never has been, an outside threat to Czechoslovakia. When the Russian troops and tanks began to show their strength in May, when they refused to leave after the so-called Warsaw Pact exercises ended, and when they finally left, sullenly and with menace, and then returned, less than three weeks later, to defile the streets of Prague—while all this happened, not one single soldier of NATO has moved. The only threat to Czechoslovakia has been, and still is, from those who call themselves, with a brand of "double talk" that even George Orwell must have envied, their allies.

It was fear that led the Soviet Union into this latest exercise in power politics, and we must not follow them into that fear. We need not, because fear of change and progress is alien to the peoples of free societies. Of course we must not drop our guard, but, equally, we must not be led by a sense of outrage and frustration into the barren wasteland of the cold war. Here I must take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, who, it seemed to me, got rather mixed up in his thermo-dynamics in his analysis of hot and cold war. I think this may illustrate some of the danger of the semantic approach to international politics. The issue is not whether there is a hot war or a cold war but of our relations with the Soviet Union. It is my view, and I think it is widely shared, that those relations have improved over the past few years. This, I think, is what is at stake and not a simple matter of the temperature of the cold war at any given time.

Perhaps I may now come to the matter which I think has occupied most of the attention of noble Lords in this debate—that is, the influence of cultural contacts and diplomatic contacts, and the possibility of sanctions against the Soviet Union. As the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, has said, we cannot contemplate that our day-to-day relationship with the invading countries should continue as if nothing had happened. It is inconceivable that while the troops of the Soviet Union and her Allies hold the Czechoslovak people in their grip we should continue to treat these invading countries as people deserving of our trust, our confidence and our friendship. But here again I think that we must be calm and we must be constructive.

I believe that it would be quite wrong at this time to suggest that things can go on unchanged. I believe that it would be quite wrong to encourage, for example, British performers and artistes, who, as the House knows, usually visit Communist countries under the auspices of the British Council. to perform in these countries at the present time. I think that that should be stopped. Fortunately, there are very few outstanding visits. Visits by Soviet and other East European performers to this country are, however, a very different matter, because. as noble Lords will know, these are usually organised privately by impresarios with the State organisations concerned, and normally the British Government have no connection with them at all. But we are examining closely at the moment what visits are impending. We shall take what action is right and proper.

I would ask the House not to press me to go further on individual cases at this stage, although I think I might go so far as to say that I, too, believe that it would show a very curious sense of propriety if at this moment we were to encourage the choir of the Red Army to come and perform in the Albert Hall, or anywhere else in this country. Your Lordships will be interested to know that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State has already told the Soviet Ambassador that the Anglo-Soviet Historical Exhibition, which was due to be opened in Moscow on September 19 by a British Minister, is being cancelled. As the House may know, the Exhibition was to be the return for a similar Exhibition opened in London by Mr. Kosygin in January of last year. We take the view. as do many of the contributors to this Exhibition, that it would be entirely inappropriate in the present circumstances.

The question of diplomatic functions has been brought up, and the question of invitations to diplomats of the invading countries. Here I can only say (and I thought the remark of a certain noble Lord on this contained a slight element of sarcasm) that Ministers will not be attending social functions of the invading countries for the present. So far as other Members of your Lordships' House are concerned, this is entirely a matter for each individual. I think this is true of a great number of these activities, and I can only say that, even if I were not a Minister, I should not be attending any social functions in the Embassies of these countries for some time to come.

I think I should deal briefly with the question of the B.B.C. On the question of the concert of music that was performed by the Soviet Orchestra on August 21, I think here one must first of all make the obvious plea that the content of the B.B.C.'s programmes is not under any Government control. This was a concert put on immediately after the invasion. To those who were worried that this concert might have been heard in Czechoslovakia I would point out that only one item in the concert was transmitted on the World Service, and that was a work by Dvorak. The rest of the concert was broadcast only on the domestic services of the B.B.C. and could be heard only in this country.

I think that perhaps a more important issue here is the question of the B.B.C.'s programmes to Eastern Europe. Since the crisis the B.B.C.'s programmes addressed to Eastern Europe have been carefully recast. I think there were suggestions that not much has been done about this. The B.B.C. have had to take account of a number of factors, and not least the fact that many people now listening to the B.B.C. in some of these countries find themselves in great danger. The B.B.C. have increased their news bulletins, commentaries and Press reviews at the expense of more general items. The daily transmissions in Czech and Slovak have been increased by 30 minutes a day, and we are looking a great deal at the possibility of further increases in these and other broadcasts to Eastern European countries. I can assure your Lordships' House that this is very much in our minds, and it is a matter that we shall keep under urgent review.

I should like to make one further comment, and that is a comment on the question of economic sanctions. When we are asked to contemplate economic sanctions, as at least one noble Lord has asked us to do tonight, we must ask ourselves the one crucial question: Will this course of action help the Czechoslovak people and the liberal cause in Eastern Europe generally, or will it provide that element of direct provocation which the liberals of the Communist world are so anxious to avoid? I do not believe, my Lords, that we should interfere with the normal commercial relations of these countries. In the case of the Soviet Union, in any case, economic sanctions would have a very limited effect indeed because the Soviet Union does not rely much upon economic relations outside Eastern Europe. Sanctions against the other countries, the Soviet allies, would of course force them back still further into dependence on the Soviet Union.

We must, I suggest, in all this balance the legitimate expression of our rage and contempt for the Russian action against the appalling dangers of a total failure of contact and communication with the Communist world. It may be true, it is true, that progress towards detente has been halted. The clock has been suddenly and brutally turned back. But this question of détente has been referred to I think in rather disparaging terms on one or two occasions today. I should like to say to the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Oakridge, that I certainly do not regard détente as he described it, as a doormat for the Soviet jackboot. I regard détente as the need for two systems, two ideological, economic and political systems, to live in peace together. I believe this is still the only hope for us all if we and our children are not to live our lives out in suspicion, mistrust and the cancerous fear of nuclear war.

It seems to me then, my Lords, that we might express the sense of what your Lordships have said today by sending out two clear messages at the end of this debate, one to the Soviet Union and one to the people of Czechoslovakia. To the Soviet Union we must say bluntly that the people of this great country, not long ago their ally in a great war against tyranny, are saddened, repelled and outraged by what has happened in Czechoslovakia. The trust and the confidence with which we were beginning to build a new understanding in international affairs has been broken and it will not easily be repaired. But it may not be too late. We must ask the leaders of the Soviet Union to believe it possible that they have made a mistake of tragic proportions, not only the obvious and fundamental mistake of believing that they can obliterate the soul of the people under the tracks of their tanks, but the more immediate political mistake of miscalculating the unity and determination of 14 million Czechs and Slovaks, and of underestimating the rage and hostility of world opinion, even of Communist opinion outside their own frontiers, and those of their more servile friends. It is possible that they will not be safe from reaction even within their own frontiers, because there is a limit to the treachery the human mind will contemplate and accept. And, above all, I think it right to say this. Let there be no doubt in Moscow that if the Czech leaders there come to any harm at Russian hands the anger of the world outside may be very difficult to contain.

It may not, then, be too late to hope that the Soviet Union will find some way out of the pit that they have dug for themselves. If any of these reports that we have been hearing to-night are true, this may already have begun. It cannot be in their interest to attract the lasting contempt of civilised men and to shatter permanently the design in which the industrially rich countries in the world will get together in attacking the great problems of the 20th century. There is no reason why East and West should live for ever in a paralysis of hostility and suspicion. But the Soviet Union must now be in no doubt that while their troops keep a stranglehold on the Czechoslovak people, while the nation's leaders remain in scarcely concealed chains, and while the aspirations of Czechoslovakia towards a liberal regime are brutally denied, there will be in the Free World no trust, no confidence and no accommodation. Even those of us whose whole political philosophy is based on the need for understanding across frontiers cannot do business in an atmosphere of violence and of treachery. Perhaps our voices will not be heard by the men in Moscow. It seems that fear has robbed them of their reason.

What then, finally, my Lords, can we say to the people of Czechoslovakia? First, we must say, however sadly, that there is no material comfort that we can bring to them to-night. I do not know how many of your Lordships heard the moving words of the young student on a tape recording that was smuggled out of Prague this week, when he apologised that his English was not very good, and apologised that the quality of the recording was not very good because of the Soviet tanks moving up and down the street outside. He said that he knew there was not very much we could do, but he said: "Please do not forget Czechoslovakia". My Lords, I think the simple and plain answer that we can give to him from your Lordships' House, and from the whole of this country, tonight is that we shall not forget Czechoslovakia.

At the moment we can only stand by with pity and admiration as these people demonstrate once more with such restraint and such conviction the strange and moving indestructibility of the human spirit. But they must still face the guns and the tanks alone. All we can do is to remind them that in ancient Greece, 500 years before the birth of Christ, there began to flow an irresistible tide—the tide of liberty, the tide against tyranny. It is the wave of the future—no dictator or oppressor can hold it in check or turn it back. As Macaulay once said, A single breaker may recede, but the tide is coming in". A single breaker now recedes in Prague, and in Pilsen and in Bratislava, and it leaves the Czechs and the Slovaks unhappy and confused. But they should know that when the tide comes in again —as it certainly will—it will sweep away all those who, through ignorance or fear or evil intent, try to deny the freedom and dignity of mankind.

BARONESS GAITSKELL

My Lords, before the Minister sits down may I ask him one short question? He said that this incident in regard to Czechoslovakia had destroyed Anglo-Soviet relations, and permanently. Did he really mean this?—because it is a very serious statement indeed.

LORD CHALFONT

My Lords, I did not mean that, and I did not say that. I am sorry to have to ask my noble friend Lady Gaitskell to look at the OFFICIAL REPORT to-morrow, but what I said was that great damage had been done to Anglo-Soviet relations. I do not think anyone would deny that. I did not say they had been destroyed, but that great damage had been done and that damage would take a long time to repair. I should be the last person to say that Anglo-Soviet relations had been destroyed, or that they had been finally destroyed, and in case she remains in any doubt I can assure her that Her Majesty's Government will go more than halfway to repair them, but only when the crime against Czechoslovakia has been expiated.

On Question, Motion agreed to.