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University Daily Kansan Wednesday, Feb. 25, 1953
Lest We Forget—
Fate of Czechoslovakian Students Stands as Warning to Free World
Editor's Note: This is a review and a warning of the events in Czechoslovakia led to the Communist Compat d'etat exactly five years ago today. Writer Jan Brazda is a graduate student in political science from Czechoslovakia. He was arrested in the student purge of which he tells and spent one year in a uranium mine slave labor camp before escaping and finally coming to this country.
Five years ago today Czechoslovakia Communists, backed by Russia, forced an organized coup d'etat in highly democratic Czechoslovakia.
In the five days of parliamentary crisis, which led up to this tragic day, the Czechoslovak students proved themselves the most active force in trying to prevent the Communists from taking over the government. Through daring demonstrations and two petitions, submitted to President Edward Benes, they expressed their deep faith in democratic ideals and their willingness to defend these ideals.
It seemed rather strange that what happened during these critical days was to a great extent a repetition of what had happened in 1939 when students resisted the Nazi movement. On November 17 of that year thousands of students demonstrated in the streets of Prague. The Nazis could suppress these demonstrations only with guns and military force. Many students were fatally wounded and the university doors closed. Since that time, November 17 has been accepted universally as a memorial day, honoring all students who have given their lives for the cause of freedom.
No one thought that such a tragedy would be repeated within three years of the war's end. Czechoslovak universities were the bulwark of the democracy. Continual communist propaganda, directed at students, was in vain. During the parliamentary crisis, which they provoked and used in February 1948, the Communists were very much concerned with students and the universities. They considered students a formidable threat to their new regime.
On February 20, just five years ago, thirteen non-Communist members of the Czechoslovak government resigned as a protest against overweighing the police department of the Republic with Communists. President Benes refused to accept their resignations and tried to solve this crisis in the democratic, parliamentary way.
During these five days the students were almost the only vocal element which supported democracy. They alone seemed able to organize for open resistance. Due to the hardships of the war, the
people of this strategically important country in the heart of Europe had become weary. They were stunned by the fact that Communists overnight had their own armed militia in factories, already controlled the big trade union, the police, and occupied the highest, most important offices in the army.
During the post-war years Communists had quietly and unsuspectingly worked themselves into these key positions and carefully laid plans for this revolution. Benes was given the ultimatum of accepting the resignation of the democratic ministers and replacing them with a new, entirely Communist government, or civil war in which the unarmed democratic part of the population would face police, militia, and heavily armed communistic fanatics backed by the Soviet Army.
In the face of all this, the students still encouraged Benes to resist. But Benes was outmaneuvered and overpowered by the Communists and was forced reluctantly to give in. Immediately after the coup d'etat, Communists started by arresting individuals whom they considered the greatest threat to their power—namely democratic-minded students.
And there were many of them. About eight of every ten students were anti-Communists. Hundreds were arrested already on February 25, as they actively took part in the demonstration. Some were injured by police bullets, one fatally. Tens of thousands were expelled from universities through political purges. The majority of these students were placed in jails and forced labor camps.
Some students were lucky enough to escape this tyranny and come to the free world. But the majority who are still behind the barbed wire fences of labor camps stand as a warning to the whole free world. The democratic-minded students of the world have a vital role to be the guardians of freedom and opponents to any form of totalitarianism—be that Nazism which once threatened the world or insidious communism which promises peace and actually makes slaves of free people.
—Jan Brazda
Students Who Rally Should Read Headlines
Probably the main thing that can be pointed out from Chancellor Murphy's statement about vandalism in Monday's Kansan is the sentence about selective service permitting college men to complete their education.
Whether we realize it or not, many of the folks at home regard us as just so many draft dodgers—not as the future leaders of the nation as so many commencement speakers would lead us to believe.
But before we jump down the old fogies' throats let's pause for a little analysis of the situation. We realize that only our bad actions make headlines: We may be as pure as the driven snow for 364 days—but watch the headlines for that one day of drunken celebration—the folks at home do.
They are inclined to think our actions a little juvenile when we try to buy out the taverns, destroy property, and make general asses of ourselves hours before the team we are lauding arrives in town.
The people who give out the scholarships are inclined to balk when they realize that their money is going for that demon rum instead of school books. And when we gripe at student wages—or wonder why dad doesn't come through with that raise in allowance —we might pause. And read the headlines. —Ron Kull.
After seeing "Limelight," which opened last night at the Varsity theater, one can be sure of one thing: the creative genius of Charles Chaplin does not wane with the years or public abuse.
Chaplin's Touch Infuses 'Limelight'
The off-beat movie tells well the laugh-clown-laugh story of Calveno, whose last contribution to his art is renewing a love for life in a young ballerina (Claire Bloom).
"Limelight" has been senselessly cancelled in West coast and New York theaters through the utterly stupid boycatting actions of the American Legion, which cannot or will not distinguish between Chaplin's screen artistry and his political beliefs.
The broodiness of "Limelight" accentuates the rich philosophy of life which Chaplin has chosen to convey. If the movie is too broody or too philosophical, perhaps it is because the little man with the baggy trousers and wistful eyes has much yet to give the world—and is packing it in. —Jerry Knudson
by Dick Bibler
Little Man on Campus
“—An’ I no sooner parked th' car when she wanted to hold hands—
She wouldn't let go of 'em'th whole evening.”
Book Review
Charlotte Armstrong Leads Mystery-Suspense Writers
THE BLACK-EYED STRANGER, Charlotte Armstrong. New York:
Pocket Books Inc. No. 880-168 pages.
CATCH-AS-CATCH-CAN, Charlotte Armstrong. New York: Coward McCann. Inc., 219 pages.
To this reader the release of Charlotte Armstrong's latest thriller, "Catch-As-Catch-Can," early this year was a long-anticipated event. Miss Armstrong's 1951 production, "The Black-Eyed Stranger," left us agog with her masterful handling of suspense. "Catch-As-Catch-Can" is even more breath-taking.
The two books together are, we feel, pointing the way toward the mystery thriller of the future. Miss Armstrong slashes through all excess verbiage and cheap who-dunnit tricks to anchor her novels solidly on characterization and action. Her melodramas sing with the tautness of a coiled steel spring—building up sheer terror in the reader almost from the opening page to the fast-paced climax.
But there is more here than entertainment: Miss A m s t r o n g while setting our stomachs churning, also has some deeply meaningful comments on various facets of humankind underlying the surface glitter of the plots.
"The Black-Eyed Stranger" is the story of Sam Lynch, a crime columnist living in a half-world between the underworld and the law, and his efforts to save a millionaire's attractive daughter whom he has learned by chance is to be kidnapped by a ruthless, brilliant criminal, Ambelli. Sam, the black-eyed stranger, fails to convince the girl's family of her danger because they question his motives.
The desperate columnist then does "a crazy thing"—he kidnaps the girl himself, which he sees as the only way of protecting her. All pressure is then on himself as the novel becomes a frantic three-way scramble
against time and death—the family to retrieve the girl, Ambilii to revenge his honor on Sam, and Sam to save himself and the girl.
The ending is inexorable as the lines of the story fuse to an unlinching conclusion. Why, author Armstrong asks, did Sam do the "crazy thing"?
"There are odd things, and inconsistent things, and things that do not fit. They can lead to unpredictable deeds, done for unuseable reasons, by unexpected people. You never know, she reflected, when you may meet a black-eyed stranger. Around the corner, at a party, in a crowd, looming up, breaking the pattern open, warping all the threads."
And now comes "Catch-As-Catch-Can." A young, inexperienced island girl, Laila, is left as a ward of Dee Allison upon her wealthy uncle's death. A triangle develops between the two women and Dee's fiance, Andy Talbot. Talbot, trying to set things straight in a conventional manner, hurts the sensitive island girl and she runs away. It is discovered afterwards that she has eaten home-canned beans that are bacillus botulinus poisoned. She must be given an anti-toxin within 16 hours or face certain death.
The chase is catch-as-catch-can. Every by-stander concerned has his own little interests, responsibilities, directions, that obstruct the search.
It's a mad dash through the environs of Los Angeles—racing always against time, with almost every human emotion involved—as the story reaches the most bizarre climax of recent mystery fiction.
In our opinion, her last two novels have elevated her far above the rest of the pack of mystery fiction writers.
—Jerry Knudson
Mail Subscription rates: $3 a semester or $4.50 a year (add $1 a semester if in Lawrence). Published in Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the University year except Saturdays and Sundays, Uni-
terned second and examination periods. Entered second and examination periods. 1910, at Lawrence, Kan., Post Office under act of March 3, 1879.