President Truman said in his first message to Congress on April 16, 1945: “In this shrinking world, it is futile to seek safety behind geographical barriers. Real security will be found only in law and justice.” He said in New York on October 28, 1945: “We do not seek for ourselves one inch of territory in any place in the world.” But in the next sentence he added: “Outside the right to establish necessary bases for our protection, we look for nothing which belongs to any other power.” Truman wants island bases for security although he tells Congress that “Real security will be found only in law and justice.”
Why does Truman talk law one day and island bases or war on another day? Because there can be no law without provision for the enforcement of law, and who can enforce law on great nations? The ultimate way, and in most cases the only way, of enforcing a law on a nation is to make war on it.
America is caught in the contradiction of living as a nation in a world that has split the atom and burst the bounds of nationalism. All nations are caught in the same contradiction. That contradiction may strangle mankind.
Stop Russia, certain people insist. But suppose she does not wish to be stopped? Is the only answer another world war, the first atomic war? Russia is a law unto herself, as every nation, particularly every strong nation, is a law unto itself.
The problem of Russia is thus the problem of nationalism in a world that will get internationalism or get itself into another international war.
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Preventing World War III
How could there possibly be a third world war? How could it arise?
Anthony Eden, on the eve of the San Francisco Conference in 1945, when he was still British Foreign Secretary, said in Glasgow: “We have always, though sometimes tardily, as recent history well shows, striven to prevent Europe falling under the domination of one power. We have never sought such a position for ourselves, and we have never allowed any other state to obtain it, for we knew that if this were to happen our own liberties would soon be gone with those of the rest of Europe. We have fought three great world wars for this end.”
The United States has fought two great world wars for this end.
Having fought the First and Second World Wars to prevent one country from dominating Europe, England and America are interested in preventing Russia from dominating Europe. If Russia succeeded in dominating Europe she would also dominate Asia. The European problem and the Asiatic problem have merged into one Eurasian problem.
Russian aggression against small or weak states in Eurasia can be regarded by the American and British governments as a step towards Russian control of a billion and a half people and therefore as a threat to the rest of the world.
Hitler aggression and Japanese aggression contained the same threat and caused the Second World War.
However disguised and excused, any aggression anywhere may be the signal for a third world war.
The first shot of the Second World War was fired on September 18, 1931, when the Japanese seized Mukden. But many people did not hear it until it re-echoed on the other side of the world ten years later, at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
I have read articles and speeches by seemingly intelligent Americans who say: “America and Russia are so far from one another; they have no territorial differences; why should they fight?” Neither did America have any territorial differences with Germany. Yet America fought two wars with Germany on the one issue of European domination. Those who are comforted by the absence of territorial conflicts between the Soviet Union and the United States pay too much attention to flat geography and too little attention to global politics.
Wars do not commence when a big power attacks a big power. The First World War and the Second World War started when big powers attacked small powers. Aggression against Abyssinia, Spain, Manchuria, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Albania, and Poland took boys in Ohio, Liverpool, and Leningrad out of their homes and into graves all over the world.
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What is Aggression?
Aggression against small countries is the beginning of all our woes.
Has Russia been an aggressor?
There is an excellent Soviet definition of aggression, drafted by Soviet Foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov and embodied in a “Convention for the Definition of Aggression” signed in London on July 3, 1933 by the Soviet government and the governments of Rumania, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Turkey, and Lithuania, and subsequently by Poland, Iran, Afghanistan, Finland, Esthonia, and Latvia.
This Convention says, in Article 2:
An aggressor . . . shall be considered to be that state which is first to commit any of the following actions:
- Declaration of war upon another state.
- Invasion by its armed forces, with or without declaration of war, of the territory of another state.
- Attack by its land, naval, or air forces, with or without a declaration of war, on the territory, vessels, or aircraft of another state . . .
- Naval blockade of the coasts or ports of another state.
- . . . . support to armed bands formed on its territory which have invaded another state. . . .
The “Annex” to this Convention is even more interesting and apropos than the Convention itself. It reads:
No act of aggression within the meaning of Article 2 of this Convention can be justified on any of the following grounds, among others:
- The internal condition of a state, for example: its political, economic, or social structure, alleged defects in its administration, disturbances due to strikes, revolutions, counter-revolutions or civil war. . . .
According to this official Soviet government definition of aggression, the Soviet government has been the aggressor in Finland, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Esthonia, and Iran—all of whom signed the Litvinov Convention.
It is futile to expect Big Three unity when one of them is expanding. Unity and aggression are incompatible. Unity and expansion are irreconcilable.
It is equally futile to plead for American-Soviet friendship and simultaneously condone the Soviet expansion which strains that friendship.
Stalin first asked Poland for Polish territory in December 1941, when General Sikorski, Polish Prime Minister, visited him in the Kremlin. Moscow told the British in 1943 that it intended to annex the Baltic countries. Moscow asked for Czechoslovak territory in 1943. Russian aggrandizement was confirmed by Roosevelt and Churchill at Teheran in December 1943, and at Yalta in February 1945. That was before there had been any serious tension or friction between the three big war allies. That was before the atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima. That was when the peoples and governments of Great Britain and the United States were vociferously and overwhelmingly friendly and helpful to Russia. Stalin’s expansion and aggrandizement, therefore, cannot be attributed to the atomic bomb or to Anglo-American hostility.
We fought the Second World War in order to introduce some semblance of law into international affairs, for there is peace only to the extent that there is law. But aggression in violation of treaties is lawlessness, the maintenance of troops in foreign countries against the wishes of their peoples is lawlessness, pressure on small nations for concessions is lawlessness—the exact kind of lawlessness which brought war in 1939. The law-breaker robs others of their security and usually, in the end, gets himself into trouble.
In The Soviets in World Affairs I wrote a detailed history of Soviet Russia’s relations with the capitalist world. The Soviet Union was for many years subjected to unwarranted armed intervention, economic boycotts, financial embargoes, and diplomatic exclusions. Its envoys were assassinated, its offices abroad raided.
That was an era. It lasted while Russia was relatively weak and comparatively Communistic. While it lasted Russia was afraid and unaggressive. Now Russia is strong and nationalistic. Now Russia is aggressive. This is an altogether new era. If Russia were afraid she wold not be aggressive.
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Does Russia Fear the West?
The Nazis did not understand the democracies. They held them in contempt and underrated their determination. Stalin has behaved as though he held similar views. He could truthfully say to himself: “At Teheran and Yalta, Roosevelt and Churchill gave me what I asked for in Germany, Poland, the Balkans, Manchuria, Korea, the Kurile Islands, and Sakhalin. The moment they agreed in principle to my annexation of parts of East Prussia, but before they finally approved of it, I actually incorporated them into the Soviet Union and they did not demur. Then in Rumania, Austria, Poland, and Bulgaria I unilaterally set up governments of my own choosing; this was in contravention of the Yalta agreement [‘The three governments will jointly assist the people in any European state or former Axis satellite state in Europe . . . to form interim governments broadly representative of all democratic elements in the population’].
“Strange how quietly Truman, Byrnes, Attlee, and Bevin took the whole thing. They do not seem to be very dynamic. England is having trouble in the Empire. The Arabs are stirring. China is divided. The American Communist party and its ‘fronts’; have done a good job confusing people and paralyzing the action of liberals and labor. The German Communist party is trying to get the upper hand in all Germany. France is unable to act decisively because of the French Communist party. Europe and Asia are starving. I have built up a tremendous new Russian empire. They have swallowed that camel; will they strain at the gnat? I will see what happens if I turn towards Iran and Turkey.”
This psychology alone would not make a war. But this psychology together with strident nationalism and the usual tensions within a totalitarian state might produce a war. They produced the Second World War.
In these circumstances, some Americans and Englishmen propose that America forego the manufacture of atomic bombs. Why not forego the manufacture of TNT bombs and Superfortresses and super-dread-naughts? Why not disarm? Why are nations not ready to disarm? Because they see potential conflicts between themselves.
Suppose America stopped producing atomic bombs. Is there any guarantee that Russia would not produce them? Would Russia permit inspection of Soviet plants throughout the country, of power stations and power lines, of laboratories? Foreign technical experts to peer into every nook of Soviet industry to discover whether atomic bombs were being made? That is quite inconceivable to anyone who knows a little about the Soviet system. When the United States was giving the Soviet government eight billion dollars’ worth of lend-lease arms and materials, American military men were not permitted to go to the front or into Soviet factories for more than a brief perfunctory glimpse.
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Shall We Give Russia the Bomb?
Give the bomb to Russia, some propose.
What would Russia do with the atomic bomb? Use it against Germany and Japan? This is unnecessary; they have been crushed and occupied. Use it against the United States or England? That is no good reason for giving it to her. Use it against a small country for extortion purposes? That is no good reason for giving it to her.
“But Russia will have the bomb anyway,” they argue, “and meanwhile the Anglo-American atomic monopoly sows suspicion in Moscow and widens the rift between the two worlds.” Perhaps Russia has the bomb; perhaps Russia will get it. But suppose it is only two years or one year or six months until Russia begins to produce it. The map of Europe and Asia is being made every day, and if Russia has the bomb the map may be made to the disadvantage of Europe and Asia. The atomic bomb in Russia’s hands would make weak nations in Eurasia quail before her even more than they do already. It would make America and England more inclined to appease Russia than they already are. In this sense, the gift of the bomb to Russia would keep us out of war, as appeasement always keeps nations out of war—for a while. Then the war is worse because of the appeasement.
Would the revelation of the atomic secrets to Russia relieve her of suspicion and fear?
“It is untrue that America has the atomic bomb,” I have said. Audiences sit up startled. Actually, of course, America possesses the bomb. But under what circumstances would America use it?
It is obvious that the United States government could not conceivably, in peacetime, order an atomic bombing of Mexico, or Argentina, or France, or England because it wished to extort something from the victim. It is inconceivable so long as the United States is a democracy and so long as public opinion remains virile, critical, and free.
There is a defense against the atomic bomb. It is democracy.
Stalin knows that the United States will not use the bomb for aggressive purposes. He probably hopes that the United States will hesitate to use it in defense of a small country.
I have seen many statements in American newspapers that the Soviet authorities are suspicious of or afraid of the United States. I have seen no proof of it in Soviet publications or in Soviet declarations or in Soviet acts. Indeed, Joseph Barnes, a pro-Soviet writer, told a Foreign Policy Association luncheon audience in New York on December 15, 1945, shortly after his return from a trip to Russia, that he had found “arrogance and bumptiousness” there towards the outside world.
Russia is not afraid and not suspicious for two clear reasons: the British Empire is in decline and on the defensive; America rushed from victory to headlong psychological and military demobilization. Nobody else could attack Russia: not Germany, not Japan, not Iran, not Finland, not China, not France. Britain’s weakness and America’s unimperialistic demobilization encouraged Stalin. The strong respect strength.
Is my view prejudiced, or unfair to Russia, or too kind to America, or too friendly to England?
I check my opinions carefully. I have never hesitated to criticize and condemn the actions and policies of the American and British governments. My first loyalties are to freedom, progress, peace, and human happiness; when I think anybody interferes with these I speak up. I do not believe that criticism makes wars. On the contrary, lack of criticism may make wars; the soft-pedaling of dangers and mistakes may hasten wars. Hitler did not send his armies across the German frontier because some person delivered a speech or wrote a book. Stalin does not order mobilization when he reads a sizzling denunciation of the Soviet Union; he merely replies with a sizzling denunciation.
Churchill poured forth fire and brimstone on Nazi Germany, yet Hitler did not attack England in 1939; he attacked grimly silent Poland and tried to avoid fighting Britain. From August 23, 1939 to June 22, 1941, the Soviet authorities not only refrained from criticizing Germany, they fawned on Germany; and then Germany invaded Russia.
The reactionary American newspaper syndicate, radio commentators, editorial scribes, and Congressmen who incessantly crusade against Russia are repugnant to me. But they cannot precipitate a war any more than isolationist propaganda before Pearl Harbor kept America neutral. Propaganda can ripen sentiment or delay the ripening of sentiment, but wars are precipitated by concrete military moves, the marching of armies, the bombing of cities—by aggression.
Has the government of Britain or of America given the Soviet Union cause for alarm and concern?
The American government has been criticized for its reluctance to intervene against the Argentine dictatorship and against Franco. I was actively engaged in the fight against Franco, and I loathe any dictatorship. But I think it would be dangerous to the peace of the world to establish the principle that great powers have the right to intervene with armed force in the affairs of another state which is not at war. One day it might be a liberal government intervening to overthrow a dictatorship, and the next day it might be a reactionary government intervening to overthrow a democracy. In one case, the motive might be honestly anti-Fascist; in another, it might be imperialist.
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Is Intervention Justified?
Foreign intervention rallies the people around the dictator for patriotic reasons even when they are opposed to him for class and economic reasons.
It is significant that those who approve of Soviet intervention and aggression were loudest in urging American intervention in Spain and Argentina. But how could the United States protest Soviet intervention in Eurasia if it intervened itself in Latin America?
Armed intervention in a peaceful state is permissible only in obedience to the voluntary decision of an effective international organization acting under no pressure from the one or two powers that are likely to be chosen as the intervening agents of the organization.
The very fact, however, that the British and American governments avoided armed intervention in Spain and Argentina although they vehemently excoriated, condemned, exposed, and denounced the dictatorships there should reassure Moscow, for it shows how hesitant democracies are in taking military action against weak countries which could only put up a token resistance; how much greater would be the hesitation in attacking a mighty military nation like the Soviet Union.
I see valid ground for censure of the British government’s action in Indonesia, but that was a case, as Jawaharlal Nehru wrote, of “one decadent empire [trying] to help another still more ramshackle empire,” and the Kremlin probably took comfort from the cracks in the Dutch and British imperial positions which the bloody Java events disclosed. Certainly Russia is not menaced when colonials refuse to be ruled by Western imperialists.
The British government has been criticized for its actions in Greece. This is a turgid, complicated situation because the domestic affairs of that unhappy, hungry country, as of several other countries, are less a reflection of political alignments within than of the pull and tug of rival foreign powers.
If the Communist party or the EAM gained the upper hand in Greece (and if Russia obtained the one-power trusteeship of Tripolitania in North Africa) Turkey would be semicircled, Italy would be flanked by Russian power, and the whole British position in the Near East would be menaced. “Russia is reaching across our throat,” British Foreign Secretary Bevin said.
Churchill made the mistake, not surprising in his case, of encouraging the Greek royalists. The Labour government had no sympathy with royalists. It tried to follow another line. But it could not easily shake off its Tory legacy. And it felt compelled to try to keep Russia from seizing one of England’s few remaining footholds in southern Europe. England fights back with poor weapons.
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Germany and China
The central fields of struggle between Russia and the Western powers are Germany and China. These nations, as well as Greece, as well as Italy, will not enjoy tranquillity and prosperity until the conflict between Russia and England and America is resolved. Today, each side is endeavoring to draw the defeated Axis peoples, the small neutrals, and China or parts thereof into its camp.
The process is shrouded in much murky and dishonest propaganda. When the American and British military authorities do not de-Nazify their zones to the satisfaction of the American and British Communists, the uproar is terrific. When the Communist daily of Berlin, the Deutsche Volkszeitung, of January 31, 1946, proposes allowing “small Nazis” to join the German Communist party, and when Wilhelm Pieck, top German Communist, in the same week asks Nazis to help the Communists in “reassuring a democratic, anti-Fascist Germany,” the critics of American and British de-Nazification are silent. When German industrialists are permitted to operate in the Western zones this immediately becomes a preparation for war against Russia. When German industries are restored in the Russian zone it is regarded as smart politics.
Who runs German industry makes a lot of difference. German industrialists contributed to the advent of Hitler and of the war. A natural, and sometimes a financial, bond exists between them and certain conservative groups in the capitalist West. The international liaisons and the domestic actions of the industrialists should be sternly scrutinized and curbed; yet the British contention is not without validity that the restriction of German factory output creates hunger, unemployment, and unrest, and as a result, new difficulties for the Western powers and new opportunities for Communist aggrandizement. Perhaps the escape from this dilemma is German industry without German industrialists.
But the crowning fact of the German situation is that half of Germany has been annexed by Russia or Poland or is occupied by Russia. This area has been sealed off by Moscow and is irretrievably lost to Western influence. In the remaining half of Germany, on the other hand, German Communists and some German Social Democrats who have fallen under the Communist spell, and certain pro-Soviet American, British, and French trade unionists are furthering Russia’s interests and undermining England’s and America’s.
The eastern half of Germany has been drawn into the dictatorial orbit. Hitler’s concentration camps have been reopened and fly the hammer and sickle. In the western half, democracy is still a weak reed. But there at least the struggle for free speech, free trade unions, free political parties, and free men can go on.
In Japan and China the Soviet government has a legitimate, power-political grievance. Japan is American-controlled territory. A China united under the rule of anti-Communist Chiang Kai-shek would be solidly ensconced in a mighty American sphere of influence.
“The American armed forces defeated Japan,” it might be contended. True, but the Soviet armed forces drove Hitler out of the Baltic states, Poland, Rumania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and Hungary, and shed most blood in crushing Hitler in Germany; and yet Americans object to Russia’s preeminent political position in those countries.
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An End to Empires
What-Came-First: The-Chicken-Or-The-Egg debates are always fascinating but usually fruitless. Russia staked out her claims for the Baltic region, Poland, the Balkans, and Manchuria long before United States troops landed in Tokyo Bay and before Japan had been driven out of China. Moscow could reply that it was easy to divine American intentions in Japan and China. And had not Churchill proclaimed that Britain would not liquidate the Empire? Then why should not Russia reach out for empire?
My own attitude is that England should liquidate the Empire, Russia should not acquire an empire, and America should not aspire to empire. Then war and threats of war would cease.
Britain’s imperialism is in retreat. American imperialism is not full-fledged. Russian imperialism is dynamic, expansive, and unconcerned with the destinies of the human beings over whom it spreads like a glacier. Iran, the looting of Manchuria, the annexations at the expense of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Japan, and Germany, and the oppressive, Soviet-puppet regimes in Europe prove this. It cannot be said that the United States or Great Briain has annexed any continental areas, or partitioned any countries, or looted any, or set up governments and then prohibited the voters from changing them.
The United States is keeping a strong air force and navy, and seeks more island bases. Russia has kept under arms many millions of men, is building a bigger navy, and is concentrating on the expansion of armaments industries. What is decisive is Russia’s absorption since 1939 of a vast empire, still growing, where freedom is dead.
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Transition to Peace
For many months after the victories over Germany and Japan, innumerable Americans, Englishmen, and others gave Russia the benefit of every doubt that tortured their minds. They could only hope that Moscow’s moves in Poland, the Balkans, Austria, Germany, and Asia were a passing phase. They held their tongues, and their breath. They praised Russia while fearing the worst.
At all the wartime conferences—Teheran, Yalta, Potsdam, etcetera—Russia’s one vote counted for more than the two votes of Great Britain and the United States. Russia could not be antagonized; therefore London and Washington, against their better judgment, gave Russia what she asked.
To make the transition from wartime to peacetime diplomacy, a fundamental change of approach was necessary. In the first postwar conference in London in September 1945, accordingly, Secretary of State Byrnes and Foreign Secretary Bevin tried to teach Commissar Molotov a lesson in peacetime arithmetic: one is one; one is not more than two. Molotov said that was not so. The disagreement was so complete that they could not even agree on a communiqué stating that they had disagreed. Molotov likewise refused to include France and China in the making of the peace. Molotov wanted the Big Three to dominate and in the Big Three he hoped Russia could dominate by the war-period mathematical paradox of one is more than two.
One is more than two is the arithmetic of dictatorship.
Byrnes decided on another effort; the three foreign ministers met in Moscow in December 1945. Iran and Turkey, bubbling issues under the surface, were passed over in silence. In everything that was officially discussed, Molotov won.
Restraint and optimism still triumphed over doubt. Then the United Nations convened for the first time in London in February 1946. Bevin jousted fiercely with Vishinsky over Greece and Indonesia, but the Russians rejected talks on Iran where his comrades had established an “autonomous” government of Azerbaijan in territory adjacent to Stalin’s Soviet Georgia; the territory was under Russian military occupation. Earlier, Russia had demanded an oil concession in northern Iran, and Teheran had refused.
This precipitated a crisis in Anglo-Russian and American-Russian relations. Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg, returning from London where he served as an American delegate, delivered a widely commented speech in the Senate in which he asked, “What is Russia up to now? . . . Russia,” he declared, “is the supreme conundrum of our time.” Then Secretary Byrnes, straight from the same UN meeting, revealed his concern in a long address. He referred to “aggression” by Russia and said world conditions were not “sound or reassuring.” That same day, another American UN delegate, John Foster Dulles, who on occasions has been the Republican adviser to the Democratic administration, told a Foreign Policy Association audience in Philadelphia: “It is particularly hard to find ways of working together with the Soviet Union, for it seems not to want cooperation.”
Columnists, commentators, editors, and the public on both sides of the Atlantic and elsewhere reflected the gathering crisis.
“What to do about Russia?” everybody asked.
Winston Churchill was in Florida for a rest-cure amply earned in his five years as Britain’s Prime Minister. With President Truman he traveled to the tiny town of Fulton, Missouri.
“I do not believe that Soviet Russia desires war,” Churchill speculated. “What they desire is the fruits of war and the indefinite expansion of their power and doctrines.”
What did Churchill propose?
“The fraternal association of the English-speaking peoples.”
“A special relationship between the British Commonwealth and Empire and the United States of America.”
“Fraternal association,” Churchill explained, “requires . . . the continuance of the intimate relationships between our military advisers, leading to a common study of potential dangers, and similarity of weapons and manuals of instructions and the interchange of officers and cadets at technical colleges. It should carry with it the continuance of the present facilities for mutual security by the joint use of all naval and air force bases in the possession of either country all over the world . . . Thus, whatever happens, and thus only, shall we be secure ourselves. . . .”
This looks very much like the text of a military alliance.
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The Weapon of Discontent
Churchill and his proposal and the British Labour government were bitterly attacked by Stalin in an interview—a most unusual act. The Soviet press excoriated Churchill with passion. The reaction in America was varied. Some liked his analysis and his projected alliance. Others, including myself, felt that while Churchill had done a service by calling attention to the central problem of our time, his proposal was unfortunate and inadequate.
The peace of the world depends on a steady job at a living wage for all workers, land that yields a livelihood to all farmers, liberty for all individuals of all races and classes, and independence for all countries and colonies. Alliances do not yield these results.
This is not the age of the common man. It is the age in which the common man has commenced to make insistent demands. If he does not get full employment, a full dinner-pail, education, security, opportunity, and surcease from discrimination, he may become an easy victim of the totalitarians who promise him these things and ask him, in return, to forfeit his freedom first.
All the imperfections of the democratic world will be used by the Communists to destroy it. Here and there, especially in Latin America, the Fascists will pursue a similar strategy.
Moscow holds up a mirror which reflects and often enlarges the misery of those who choose to look into it. Against that, an alliance or any other power-political mechanism is powerless.
Churchill’s proposal is a 9th-century power proposal. It might suffice to deal with certain aspects of the Russian challenge. It might either prevent a Soviet military move or serve as one possible device of coping with it. But Russia is not merely a nation; it is not merely Peter the Great. Russia is Peter armed with Marx, a perverted, almost unrecognizable Marx, to be sure,. but a Marx who nevertheless still represents the revolt against what is rotten in the status quo.
Hitler’s Panzers and dive bombers would not have leveled Europe so quickly if Europe had not been eaten through with disease. Japan’s path to conquest was likewise smoothed by the unhappiness of Asia’s colonials—in Java, Burma, China. The ultimate defeat of Hitler and Japan requires the molding of a better world and of a better human being.
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How Meet Russia’s Challenge?
Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito challenged the democratic world. We smashed the challengers. Now Russia challenges the democratic world. This is the greatest challenge democracy has ever confronted. It is a challenge to improve or succumb.
It does not matter that the challenger has more room for improvement than the challenged. The subjects of the challenger are not accessible to outside challenge; they live behind the iron curtain which hides the high wall and the inmates within it. The challenger is a challenger not because of his superiority but because of our shortcomings.
Russia or no Russia, there would be death in India, discontent in China, dissension in Greece, republicanism in Italy, and anti-Fascism in Spain. The Soviet government merely makes itself the spokesman and champion of all opponents of what is. It collects them and exploits them.
Organize an Anglo-American military alliance and “Stop Russia”? How would that affect Russia’s role outside her borders or outside her zone? March an army into the Soviet Union and smash the regime? How many millions of lives would it cost; would it, even if successful, kill the decay in the body of democracy? It might have the opposite effect.
Churchill attacks the problem on the military and diplomatic level, not on the social, economic, and political level. But the problem is chiefly social, economic, and political.
International politics used to be the relationship between governments. It was “foreign” policy. A momentous change has taken place, and as yet few foreign offices have realized it. Diplomacy has been invaded by the people’s problems. America’s relationship to China is no longer an exclusive relationship with the Chinese chief of state, foreign minister, and foreign traders. America’s relationship to China must be, above all, a relationship to the land reform and industrialization. America’s and England’s and France’s relationship to Germany is a question of whether the Social Democrats can survive the attempt of the Communists to merge with and devour them. America’s relationship to Great Britain involves Socialism, freedom for India, and tariffs.
That is why diplomats in spats no longer belong. Diplomacy must descend from the rarefied realm of démarches, aide-memoires, “conversations,” and notes, into the peasant’s hut, the factory, and the political parties. Diplomacy must deal with the frustrations of the middle class and the aspirations of the hundreds of millions, for these are winds in the sails of totalitarian adventurers.
The foreign policies of America and Britain should be as broad, and deep, and inclusive as human life. Then they will come to grips with the great challenge which Russia has flung out to them.
The expansion of the Soviet Union has already induced the United States and British governments to begin mending their broken military bridges and, wherever possible, to do it together. Continued tension between Russia and the West will produce an Anglo-American alliance in fact if not in name.
But if England and America stop there they will not meet the challenge. Russia will try to split every country in the world. In that atmosphere, the fundamental problems of poverty and democracy will not be solved. On the contrary, the people will bend under backbreaking armament budgets, and freedom will languish.
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Two Worlds or One
This is one world geographically. But politically and ideologically the one world is riven; there are two worlds. Perhaps there are three: Russia, England and America, and the remainder where the contest between them rages.
In the present era of heavy foreign and domestic pressures, few countries in Europe or Asia can stand .alone. Within all of them, even in those under complete or partial Soviet domination, the two worlds are struggling for supremacy.
Treaties and alliances will not help. The path from the First World War to the Second World War was paved with non-aggression treaties, peace conferences, solemn and passionate promises to keep the peace, and beautiful descriptions of the benefits of peace.
Treaties and alliances are not enough. We need world government.
The weakness of Poland in comparison with Nazi Germany was the immediate impetus to war. If Poland had had the support of an international organization which, to the certain knowledge of Hitler, would march to Poland’s (or any other nation’s) defense, the war might have been prevented.
But this truth is an oversimplification of the world situation. The fact is that Poland did not have the support of an international organization and could not have had it at the time because any organization would have suffered from the divisions between the Anglo-French entente and Russia, and from the aloofness of the United States.
The situation is better today because collective security is attainable.
In the sphere where it might be interested in aggrandizement, no practicable combination could stop the United States; but the United States is not likely to go to war for aggrandizement.
England could be stopped from committing acts of aggression.
Given Anglo-American readiness to act, either directly or through an international organization, Russia too could be stopped, at least in the next few years, for Russia is weak from loss of blood and wealth in beating the Nazis. The Soviet government does not want a major war and would try hard to avoid even a lesser war if it knew that such a conflict would grow into a bigger affair by reason of collective-security intercession on the part of other great powers.
Provided Russian territorial expansion does not subject relations within the Big Three to an unbearable strain, the central problem of the next five or six years will not be actual world war but rather the absorption, penetration, and undermining of weak states by big powers in order to extend their spheres of influence; this would later be regarded as a threat by the nonexpanding powers and thus might lead to the first atomic clash between nations.
An Anglo-American alliance could very likely deter Russia from invading a foreign country, and a United Nations with teeth—that is, without the veto—would have the same effect. How, however, could that alliance or the UN keep Moscow from tearing at the inner social and political structure of foreign countries?
The unequal strength of one nation can be corrected by allies or by an effective international collective security body. But the unequal domestic, political, and economic development of nations which makes some eager to expand and others incapable of resisting expansion cannot be eradicated by power instruments—even by international organizations.
The final key to international politics and to peace is the domestic policy of nations and the social character of national regimes.
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Russia and World Government
Suppose the United States, Great Britain, and many smaller countries that would follow their lead were prepared to create a world government, and suppose the Soviet Union refused to adhere because it did not want to become part of a capitalist government or because it felt that it would be hopelessly outvoted in such a body? What then?
As soon as the non-Soviet countries are ready for world government—and the sooner the better—they should offer every inducement to the Soviet government to join them in initiating a world state, leaving broad areas of autonomy for the expression of the personality of each country. If Russia wished to remain outside, no pressure and no punitive measures would be applied to her. The non-Soviet countries would merely organize a four-fifths-world government and keep the door always open for Russia.
To obviate the resulting cleavage, some would counsel against world government for the present. That would not end the cleavage. That would simply cover it up. The cleavage already exists. If this were one world we would proclaim it joyously. Since there are two worlds we do well to recognize the fact.
To refuse to organize a world government as long as Russia will not join is to allow Russia to keep the non-Soviet world divided endlessly so that it cannot withstand Russian pressure. It is far healthier for both worlds to admit the division between them than for the democracies to nourish the illusion of oneness—the Soviets have no such illusion—when in fact one part is undermining the other while consolidating and extending its own sphere of influence.
I would rather the world were one world, one decent world. But blindness does not make it so. One World is a great goal, and Willkie, who gave humanity that slogan, was a great man. But one world is not a fact.
The division of the world into two unequal parts does not preclude friendly diplomatic relations between them. Trade, scientific and cultural exchanges, and travel can flourish. The competition of the two worlds can remain non-violent for a very extended period.
What is the nature of this competition? Is it the old Slav, anti-West Messianism harnessed to modern Communist proselytism? Is it that the world cannot be half-slave and half-free? Is it that the Soviet leaders are afraid that they cannot indefinitely maintain their present state-capitalistic tyranny if the rest of the world enjoys personal liberty? Is it that the capitalist nations fear they will be destroyed by Communists and radicals oriented on Moscow?
The Axis powers were lured into aggression and war and destruction by the physical weakness of their prospective victims and the reluctance of the non-aggressors to protect those victims.
The Soviet regime feels that it may succeed where others failed because it is equipped to exploit an additional weakness in the capitalist world: the unsolved social, political, and economic problems of many nations.
When Russia reaches out to China, the Mediterranean, North Africa, Trieste, Greece, and, through her Communist parties, into every capitalist country, she is moved not only by imperialistic arrogance but also by ideological confidence.
The democracies export their goods and are ready to export their ideas. They prefer freedom to dictatorship; many democrats are convinced that capitalism is best. But the democracies have not crusaded for a long time. Perhaps they have lost faith in themselves. Perhaps they do not believe in imposing ideas by force. They are actually mingling their capitalism with Socialism, which shows a readiness to try something else.
The Soviets, on the other hand, are sure they are right and that their way is best. They have not proved it but they assert it very vehemently.
Stalin’s ideological offensive stems from his certainty that he can win it. He is buoyed in that faith by the stupidity of the defenders within the fortresses he expects to assail.
An alliance proposal arouses Moscow’s ire. “Tough talk” followed by tough acts impresses the Soviet government. But only when Washington and London begin to favor movements for freedom and social democracy throughout the world will Stalin believe that we have understood his intentions and are prepared, by constructive, progressive measures, to block his offensive.
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And in the Empires
The British Labour government’s plans for the independence of Asiatic colonies worry Moscow much more than Churchill’s Anglo-American entente. Let the Western powers shift their support from the feudal landlords of the Near East to the impoverished peasantry, and Moscow will know that something important has happened. Let the Chinese federal government introduce a land reform and Stalin will say: “They are uniting China and driving me cut of it.” Let the white race give incontrovertible evidence of a new and honorable attitude towards colored people, and Moscow will realize that it is being robbed of millions of potential political recruits. Let the democracies demonstrate that they combat anti-Semitism, and those who compare and judge will conclude that the democracies are anti-Fascist. Let England and America work out a solution for Palestine, with justice to Jewish needs and fairness to the Arabs, let England and America befriend the forces of social change in Europe, and Europe will find new vigor to fight Slav-Communist imperialism. Let the Anglo-Americans shun Fascists, clerical reactionaries, royalists, economic royalists, and militarists, and the freedom-loving millions will flock to the Anglo-American banner. Let England, America, France, Holland, and Portugal abjure territorial, oil, and trade imperialism, and they will acquire a fresh moral power to obstruct any other imperialism. Let the West refuse to intervene forcibly in the affairs of weak countries and it will have clean hands in blocking Soviet intervention. Let the spokesmen for Eastern colonial peoples crusade not only for freedom from outside tutelage but for social justice inside; then they can hope to be fully free.
These are the kinds of weapons that can stop Russia’s offensive against the democracies. This is ideological competition with Russia. It is a substitute for war with Russia. If the democracies win there will be no war, there will be no war ever, there will be a world government which ultimately will include Russia. If Russia wins, there will be no democracies.
Inevitably, some will say that this proposal for conscious ideological competition with Russia is “anti-Russian,” cuts a chasm between Russia and the rest of the world, and makes war unavoidable. I think the opposite is true. Moscow is now actively engaged in a combined territorial-ideological offensive against the non-Soviet world. Not to resist means to help Russia expand to a point where, alarmed, the two great Western powers will seek to call a halt by the use of force.
There are these ways of dealing with the Russian problem. 1) Fight Russia now. I reject that vehemently. 2) Appease Russia. (Appeasement always includes saying that what you are doing is not appeasement but the only way of getting on with Russia.) I reject that because it will wipe out freedom in many countries and end in war. 3) Block Russia’s territorial expansion by an effective international organization and block Russia’s ideological expansion by increasing the contentment and cohesion of the countries in her path. I defend that. It will be attacked by those who do not wish to block Russia’s expansion.
A foreign policy based on conscious ideological competition with Russia will improve the chances of peace, check the inroads of totalitarian thinking among liberals, fortify democracy, raise standards of living, and give the free world a muchneeded moral lift. The alternative to ideological competition with Russia is to accept defeat supinely at the hands of Russia.
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Ballots Can Make the Peace
But foreign policy is not the whim or plan of a foreign minister. What America does abroad is determined by what America is at home. The same is true of England and of other nations.
“Have we got leaders big enough and wise enough to carry out an international, progressive policy?” This question troubles many citizens. The answer is that leaders in a democracy cannot be much bigger or move much faster than the people they lead.
The men and women who make foreign policy, and every policy, are those who sit in legislative halls and behind desks in government offices. They are elected or they are accessible to the will, pressure, and arguments of those who are elected. Thus ballots make foreign policy. Foreign policy, and peace, are made in Peoria, Illinois, in Hamilton, Ohio, in Dallas and Schenectady, in Liverpool, Glasgow, Hull, and Dover, in Marseilles, Bordeaux, and Nice, in every town and village where the voters go to the polls to vote in free and honest elections.
Peace, like charity, like every virtue, begins at home.
The mass of the people desire the welfare of the mass of the people in all countries. The average person will make many material sacrifices for peace; he puts peace above the interests of tariff-seeking corporations and privilege-seeking cartels. Normally, the common folks are neither militaristic nor imperialistic.
The average citizen wants to do something about peace or war, freedom or dictatorship, plenty or poverty. He does something by producing, distributing, and consuming material values. He does something by his personal conduct. He must do more as a political unit.
“Go west, young man” was the sage advice of one who foresaw the emergence of a great new country. “Go political, young man and young woman, and older man and older woman” should be the slogan of all who hope for the birth of a great new and free world.
A better America, a better England, a better France, a better Germany, a better Russia, a better India, would work together for a better world. There is no magic formula for freedom and peace. It is a matter of hard work and sweat in each family, in each community, in each state and in each nation.
In a better world, there would be freedom and opportunity for all, freedom from the indignity of unemployment, freedom from soul-cramping discrimination, freedom from want where there could be plenty, freedom from insecurity and fear, freedom from too much government and the obsession of too much wealth, freedom from uncontrollable political and economic masters, and the opportunity to learn, to grow, and to be one’s self while serving others. In such a world of peace within man and between men there would be peace between nations.