Czechoslovakia

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 26 August 1968.

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Photo of Hon. Sam Silkin Hon. Sam Silkin , Camberwell Dulwich 12:00, 26 August 1968

I hope that the hon. Lady the Member for Hamilton (Mrs. Ewing) will forgive me if I do not follow her into Scotland, attractive though that idea might be.

I do not intend to take up the time of the House by repeating the expressions of condemnation of the outrage which has been inflicted on Czechoslovakia. That has been done far more eloquently and forcefully than I could do it, by authorities as far removed as Peking and King Street.

This debate will have been worth while if it enables us to learn some lessons. I cannot say, however, that I agreed with any of the lessons which the hon. Member for St. Albans (Mr. Goodhew) suggested should be learned. The first lesson which should be learned is one to be learned not by us but by those in Moscow and in the capitals of Russia's allied countries. That lesson is that the rest of the world, including ourselves, is vitally concerned with what happens in any country which is part of the Warsaw Alliance. The authorities in Moscow must not think hereafter that they can do exactly what they wish, so long as they confine their activities to countries in the Communist world, without the rest of the world being concerned.

A number of lessons can and should be learned from the events of the last few days. Although one can see the lessons, it is important that one should not jump to hasty conclusions before the events have come to an end. With some predictable exceptions, the majority of hon. Members have taken a balanced view of the situation and have not jumped to hasty conclusions.

Of vital importance is the question of trust. The vast majority of hon. Members had taken the view that the sequence of events of the last few years had increased the chances ofdétente between East and West and that that was of the greatest possible value to the security of the world. It would be wrong if, because of the recent series of events—notwithstanding the fact that the trust on which that point of view was based must necessarily to some extent be eroded—we now took the view that all possible future progress towardsdétente was at an end, and adapted our policies accordingly. That would appear to be the view expressed by some hon. Gentlemen opposite.

We must be clear, looking at the matter from the military and political point of view, that it cannot be said that the events of the last few days have altered the balance of power in favour of the Warsaw Pact countries. On the contrary. They have clearly altered the balance of power against them. This is likely to happen even more in future unless some acceptable compromise is produced between Mr. Dubcek and his colleagues and the authorities in Moscow. When I speak of an "acceptable compromise" I do not simply mean the return of Mr. Dubcek to Prague and the withdrawal of Russian forces. I mean that that must be accompanied by a guarantee from the Russians that they will not seek to infringe the freedom for which the Czechs are groping.

It seems to follow from that that although, of course, Her Majesty's Government should look at the situation with fresh eyes—this is an important event and one must reconsider one's policy as a result of it; naturally among the matters that must be considered are the questions of defence, military alliances and so on and the assumptions that have been made about the disposition of our forces—it would be wrong and foolish to go to the extreme to which the hon. Member for St. Albans seemed to be inviting the House to go and now adopt a policy of looking at everything on the most pessimistic possible assumptions. It remains true thatdétente is the ultimate hope we have and that we must look on that, however realistically we look at the situation in other ways.

The next matter of great importance is the question of free speech generally, an issue which has been raised as a result of these events. There has not been a victory for the forces that are against freedom of speech. On the contrary. I believe that there has been a victory for free speech. I say that because the Russians, by their actions, have shown that the ony way in which freedom of speech can be curtailed or removed is by the use of force, of stratagem and of tanks and soldiers. That is the message we should be sending out by every possible means to our friends in Czechoslovakia, indeed, to the Communist world generally, that in order to prevent freedom of speech from spreading throughout the Communist world it was necessary for the Russians and their friends to bring in tanks and soldiers to repress it.

If that is accepted, the next lesson we must learn is that Communism, unlike freedom, is not indivisible. There are different forms of Communism; the Peking Communism, the Moscow Communism as we believed it to be and the Communism as we have now seen it, and the Communism to which Mr. Dubcek and his friends were groping in Prague. It is surely our task not to adopt the sort of monolithic approach towards Communism which has been suggested by some hon. Members opposite as a result of the last few days, but to be selective in our approach, to show that there can be freedom within a Communist society and that freedom is to be encouraged.

That leads one to ask how it came about that this freedom within the Communist society has been growing. I believe the answer is quite inescapable. It has been growing because of the very exchange of cultural activities between East and West, this trade which has grown between Eastern and Western countries, this exchange of tourists between ourselves and countries behind the Iron Curtain, between their citizens and ours. This has led to ideas of freedom being expressed to the ordinary people of the Communist countries. It has led to their receiving them. It has led to the youth of those countries being receptive to these ideas. It has led to them wanting to express these views.

If that is right, can it be a mere coincidence that this idea of freedom has been growing at the same time as these exchanges have been developing? If that is right, the last thing we want to do is to cut off the food of that very freedom, the cultural and trade exchanges and exchanges between citizens which would produce that desire for freedom. These things we should be encouraging rather than discouraging. We ought to be leaving it to the Communist countries, which are afraid of freedom, to pull down the Iron Curtain again, not ourselves to pull it down in their faces.

I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Belper (Mr. George Brown) in his views on the unity of Europe. This has been expressed again and again in debates on that and other subjects and my views are well known. When we debated the British application to join the Common Market and I succeeded on the third day towards the end of the debate in saying a few words on it, I said that the biggest political reason for a united Europe was that it seemed that the greatest danger to Europe is a divided Germany and that we shall never solve the problem of a divided Germany so long as we have a divided Europe.

I was interested to hear the speech of the Leader of the Opposition, who pinpointed the division of Germany as the great danger which exists today. I agree with him entirely there. If we are to try to heal this rift in Europe—which has grown greater, we cannot deny, as a result of the events of the last few days—we must adopt policies which consciously go towards creating a united Europe. I do not mind whether one agrees with the idea of Britain joining the E.E.C. or not. That is not in issue at the moment. What is in issue is the creation of a united Europe.

I happen to believe that Britain joining the E.E.C. is the best and quickest way of achieving it, but there may be other ways. I am not concerned about that, but I urge, whatever else we do, that we should adopt a policy of strengthening the bonds between the countries of Western Europe with a view ultimately to creating—with the help of the countries of the Warsaw Pact, groping as I am sure they will be in future, towards the same freedoms which we enjoy—that united Europe which will be a safeguard against such events as have occurred in the last few days.