Nothing to Shout About

Fewer than 10,000 of the Communist faithful clustered in Milan's vast Piazza del Duomo last week under a roof of black, rain-spattered umbrellas. The square was two-thirds empty. Soggy onlookers drifted away for hot drinks in nearby cafes. In Rome, a damp crowd sang dispiritedly in the Piazza del Popolo. A newsboy hawked the Communist newspaper: "Here's Unit`a. If you can't read, stand under it." The Reds' May Day show in Italy, billed in advance as the biggest & best ever, was a sodden fizzle.

Elsewhere in Europe the weather was better on the first of May, but everywhere the Communists' annual spring rites seemed dampened and dull. Europe's Communists were still reeling from the blow of the Atlantic Treaty. No matter how loudly party leaders shouted, the Russians had backed down in Berlin. Some observers believed that this was the big break--that Russia was in fact suing for a settlement in Europe to devote all her energies to the Red drive in Asia.

More cautious opinion held that the Russians had merely lost the round in Berlin. There seemed little doubt that they would fight, in the impending Foreign Ministers' conference, for an all-German setup in which Russia would have some sort of veto. But the U.S. was ready for that (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS), and Europe knew it. The Communists had no cause for vernal jubilation.

Disillusion in London. In Paris, the golden skies and wide boulevards played to bigger crowds than the Communists. The Reds marched into the Place de la Bastille, lilies of the valley in their lapels artd clenched fists raised skyward. Across the glittering city in the Bois de Boulogne, 100,000 made merry at a Gaullist carnival, ate colored ices, and paid 20 francs for the privilege of firing shooting-gallery rifles at caricatures of Premier Joseph Stalin and French Communist Leader Maurice Thorez.

In London, parades were banned, but Laborites and Communists traded invective in crowded Trafalgar Square. Then they wrapped up their banners and went home. " 'Ow could you start a revolution like this?" muttered a disillusioned cockney.

Music in Moscow. Only at home in Moscow did the Communists have a really bang-up May Day. Premier Stalin, fit and smiling, climbed atop Lenin's tomb to receive the thundering cheers of Muscovites. Overhead, more than 250 jet planes, including some impressive new models vaunted as the fastest in the world, whooshed past in impeccable formation. In the lead plane was Major General Vasily J. Stalin, the Generalissimo's son.

Minister of Armed Forces A.M. Vasilevsky flung the Politburo's May Day greeting into the sea of onlookers. If he had heard about an impending settlement at Berlin, he gave no indication of it. He cried: "Reactionaries are trying to unleash a new war . . . directed against the U.S.S.R. . . ."

When the serious business was over, Moscow cavorted merrily in the brilliant sunshine, beside lakes of flowers and tremendous red-festooned portraits of Soviet leaders. And the music was grand.

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