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From The New International, Vol. XIX No. 2, March–April 1953, pp. 59–64.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
The Republican administration had been in office just sixty days when Stalin left this earth a better place for his departure. The seventy days which followed have wrought a massive change in the plans of the men who make up the “Eisenhower team.” The turn in world affairs, so strikingly illustrative of the swiftness with which history can change its course in our unstable society, has descended on the businessmen and generals who run things in Washington like a bolt out of the blue. In their frantic attempt to reorganize themselves and their “thinking,” it can hardly be expected that they will find the time to reflect on the fact that this new “peace” crisis shows that their previous plans were far from the “the best laid” in the first place.
In the January–February issue of the New International we described the Eisenhower administration as seeking to take the offensive in foreign policy. Those were the far-off days in which Dulles was touring Europe with a view to whipping the allies on that continent into a forced march on remilitarization and political and economic integration; in which the government had just “de-neutralized” Formosa; in which there was widespread talk of a full-scale naval blockade against the coast of China; in which the administration had started on its futile attempt to satisfy the Republican right wing while at the same time entrapping the Democrats in a declaration “repudiating” the agreements at Yalta and Teheran which had formalized the division of the world after the last war.
It is not much over two months since then, but it is already difficult to remember that the Republicans were hell-bent on a “new” foreign policy, or just what were the opening moves in that foreign policy. Stalin died, and the Kremlin began to talk “peace” in well-modulated tones. Within a matter of weeks it became clear once more just who has the political initiative in this world.
The American government’s foreign policy offensive was short-circuited before it could get a good start. The reason for this should be obvious. Its basic strategy, as well as the tactics which flowed from it, were fundamentally military in character. Political results were to be derived from stepping up the military pressure on the Stalinist world. If the Kremlin and/or Peiping showed signs of retreating before this military pressure, it would be proof to all the world that might still has primacy on this globe, and that America has the might on its side. This would stiffen the allies and bring them more firmly behind America in the struggle. If, on the other hand, the Stalinists sought to resist the military measures by counter-measures of their own, the world tension would be increased, and the allies would have no alternative but to band more closely together in the face of imminent military peril.
For any kind of success, the strategy required an enemy who would continue to keep the tension at a high level throughout the world. It was based on the conception that what makes Stalinism a threat is its military potential, that Stalinism’s advances and successes have been basically military in character, and hence that the leaders in the Kremlin would have no choice but to continue to apply military pressure on the periphery of their empire. The conception was one-sided. It was the other side of Stalinism, its political side, which came around and whacked the American policy makers in the left eye, where they have been blind from birth.
The policy of “toughness” with allies and Stalinists alike had a basic weakness, even given the most favorable circumstances. That was the attitude of the peoples of Europe and Asia, and of the governments which have to take this attitude into account. Outside of this country, there was almost no serious political force which supported the American “offensive.” It cannot be said that the American government was blind to this fact. But cheered on by the most reactionary elements in Congress and in the country at large, it hoped to overcome the reluctance and resistance of Europe and Asia by a few major successes (combined, of course, with very potent economic threats). Unless it could score a quick victory, however limited, the danger was that the aforementioned reluctance would flare up into a major conflict among the allies, endangering the whole structure so painfully built up since 1946.
If the American government was aware of the chief danger besetting its strategy in the cold war, the Stalinist rulers understood it even better. It has been widely pointed out that the chief conclusion for world policy to be drawn from Stalin’s theses for the 19th Congress of the Communist Party of Russia was that contradictions in the capitalist world were of a continuing and ineradicable character, and that Russia could count on these contradictions to break up the world capitalist alliance sooner or later.
It would be assuming too much to maintain that the Stalinist “peace offensive” is simply the translation of this concept into policy. First of all, the concept has validity in the long run, in the epochal sense. Only rigid sectarians attempt to deduce their tactics solely from the nature of the epoch in which they live. Secondly, the idea that the capitalist world is bound, if left to itself, to fall apart into economically and eventually militarily warring segments has a big “if” in it. ’This is an abstraction from the existence of Stalinist powers in the world, and the forces which prevent them from standing still in the struggle for world power while waiting for the inter-capitalist Armageddon. This theory is akin to the excellent schema according to which, during the ’20s and early ’30s, it was demonstrated that the next great struggle would be between the United States and Great Britain, the two major capitalist economic rivals of that time. Its only fault was that it ignored the specific drives which impelled Germany to make its bid for world power long before the Anglo-American conflict could ripen into belligerency. And finally, Stalin’s theory suffered, as a guide to action, from the fact that it abstracted also from the inner weaknesses and contradictions of the Stalinist empire itself. As it turned out, the first one to show up in effective form was the corruption of the flesh of the “immortal leader,” which threw the whole structure of power inside Russia out of balance at least to the degree that his successors badly need a period of stability and calm in which to get their bureaucratic society back on a steady and even keel.
It appears that the immediate reason for the “peace offensive” lies in the dangerous position in which the Russian ruling class finds itself today, more than in any long-range calculation by the Stalinist gang. Yet the fact remains that there is a large element of truth in Stalin’s analysis of the tendency of the capitalist world to disintegrate, and this makes it possible for the Kremlin to gain time and advantage by its present tactic, regardless of whether this is viewed as a long-range strategy or merely as a temporary expedient.
To official American analysts of world affairs, it appears that the Kremlin has diabolically chosen the “worst” possible time at which to “pull” its peace offensive. The more discerning, or the more honest among them admit that this time is really no worse than any other would have been since the end of World War II. After seven years, during which the United States has supported the economic and political structure of the nations of Western Europe and of much of the rest of the world with over thirty billions of dollars, that structure is as precarious and vulnerable as it has been at any time since the Marshall Plan was inaugurated.
From the beginning of the war in Korea till this is written, the American armament boom, combined with the foreign aid programs, has served to keep the capitalist world from crisis. But now that boom is showing very definite signs of weakening, and the Republican administration with its businessman mentality seems to be doing its best to hasten the process. Britain and Western Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands and Japan all have benefitted from the enormous demands of the American war economy in different ways. But with a slackening of that demand two things are on their way: (1) a contraction of the American market for their goods; (2) an increased competition among themselves and with the United States for the rest of the world market. Not one of them can look to the future with any degree of confidence.
The tendency toward the economic and political integration of Western Europe, induced by the military threat of Russia, and lashed on by American threats and urgings has practically come to a stop. The Benelux customs union, the only actual achievement of note in that particular field, is straining at the seams. And the Schuman Plan steel union still has to undergo the first test which a sag in world demand would place on it. The plan for a European Defense Community is bogged down in the French Parliament, and faces a major test in the coming general elections in Western Germany.
The economic situation in Western Europe shows weakness and vulnerability wherever one looks. In the backward economic areas of the world, the situation is no better. The high demand and resultant high prices for the raw materials which form the chief source of export and of internal economic stability for these countries have already begun to tumble. Representatives of Indonesia, of the rubber interests in Malaya, and their colleagues in other countries look fearfully at the plans of the American government in the hope that its drive to put business über alles will not mean an economic knife drawn across their throats.
All these problems, though difficult, would not necessarily lead to an early catastrophe, given one of two alternatives. Either a continued buildup of American military power on terms which could absorb the production of the capitalist world, or international pump-priming by the United States on an ever-expanding scale. The Russian peace offensive has made both of these alternatives virtually impossible.
The first reaction of the American government to the peace offensive has been to try to pretend that it does not exist. This motif still dominates the utterances of its major spokesmen. Quite justifiably, they demanded that Russia prove with “deeds” that her government is really intent on a truce in the cold war. It soon became evident, however, that the “deeds” demanded were the equivalent of a Stalinist capitulation on all the major issues over which the cold war had been fought.
In President Eisenhower’s only foreign policy speech since the peace offensive started, he gave as “examples” of the things the Stalinists would have to do to prove their peaceful intentions: an end to the war in Korea, Indo-China and Malaya; a peace treaty for Austria, and the unification of Germany on American terms. After this, he said, the United States would be willing to consider disarmament on the terms it had put forth in the United Nations, and it would then also consider the possibility of diverting a portion of the funds now spent on arms to the development of the economies of other countries.
The rest of the world, however, greeted the Stalinist peace propaganda with an almost audible sigh of relief. As far as the countries of Western Europe are concerned, the choice between continuing re armament at the levels demanded by the United States, and of the economic dangers implicit in the slackening of the war drive is a choice between almost indistinguishable evils. On the other hand, to these war-weary peoples and governments even the hope that World War III may be averted has an almost irresistible attraction.
While the American government has stood firm on its inspiring assertion that it is willing to “meet halfway” any real evidence of the willingness of the Stalinists to end the cold war, the latter have been performing one “act” after another which gives some substance to their peace offensive. Among these have been the freeing of allied civilians interned by the Stalinists in North Korea; the re-opening of Korean truce negotiations by making proposals which at least appear to yield to the United Nations principle of non-forcible repatriation of prisoners of war; the release of William Oatis who had been convicted on “espionage” charges by the Czechoslovak government. It is quite possible, too, that the abrupt termination of the Vietminh offensive in Laos was another “act” by the Kremlin or Peiping which shows their intention, at the very least, to prevent the spread of that conflict beyond its previous confines.
All of these actions do not necessarily indicate that the Stalinists have decided to end the cold war for good. Such a decision is beyond their capacity. The “cold war” is, after all, a term given to the friction and conflict between the capitalist and Stalinist world which is historically irreconcilable. Although no one gave it that name at the time, a “cold war” between Germany, Britain and France and between Austro-Hungary and Russia preceded World War I, and a “cold war” between Germany and the Western powers raged at least from 1936 through 1939. There was only one power in the world which could have prevented those two wars, and it did not reside in the governments of the great powers which engaged in them. That was the organized socialist working class of Western Europe whose leaders capitulated before their governments in the first war, and before the rise of Nazism which preceded the second.
But this does not exclude a truce in the cold war, an extension of the time before the conflict explodes into world catastrophe. And in these times, when for capitalism nothing is permanent any longer, the governments and peoples of most of the capitalist world are quite willing to settle even for a little time.
Hence, from the moment the peace offensive was announced from the Kremlin, the division between the United States and her major allies has been growing. Much of that growth has been silent, even underground. In a certain sense, the governments of Europe which seem determined to grasp at every straw offered them by the Kremlin are acting just as irrationally as the American government which wishes that the whole annoying problem of the offensive had never come up in the first place. But what really counts for the moment is that those governments are, in their own way, expressing the deepest fears and aspirations of their peoples, while the American government reflects the smug satisfaction and blind provincialism of a nation riding the crest of thirteen years of war and war-induced prosperity.
The first open break in attitudes toward the peace offensive came in the debate on foreign policy in the House of Commons. Prime Minister Churchill called for a top-level conference of the great powers to attempt to negotiate a truce in the cold war. Clement Attlee, leader of the Labor opposition, went farther. He took the occasion to point out that in America there are powerful interests who do not appear to want a truce in Korea, and to demand that Britain take a real share in the truce negotiations in that country to counter-balance those forces. He went on to say that with the separation of powers inherent in the American constitution, it is impossible for any American government to give firm commitment on foreign policy questions. In the present situation, he said, it is difficult to know who really speaks for the American government, President Eisenhower or Senator McCarthy.
From this discussion it became quite clear that in Britain both parties ardently desire a conference of the heads of the most powerful governments in the world (it appears it is indelicate to specify just which these are, in view of the inflated sensibilities of the French and the difference over which is the real government of China). When Attlee stated that Communist China would have to be included in any really stable settlement, Churchill simply interjected: “Not while the actual fighting is going on, though.” He then remained silent, in apparent acquiescence, while Attlee continued to make his point.
The reaction from this side was immediate. Senator McCarthy, of course, came out for sinking every British ship which carries goods to China. He demanded an apology from Attlee for criticizing the American Constitution. The more direct government spokesmen had little to say. Eisenhower handled the question of a meeting with Churchill and Malenkov evasively, and the New York Times and liberals of all stripes rose to the occasion by clucking like nervous hens whose favorite chicks had got into a squabble.
In India, Nehru spoke out in favor of the latest Stalinist truce proposal, and condemned the Americans for turning it down. In Germany, Chancellor Adenauer was so concerned about the effects of the peace offensive on his electoral prospects in the coming contest with the Social Democrats that he had little to say. The French are preoccupied with putting down the colonial stirrings in North Africa, the open war in Indo-China, and the stirrings of their “loyal” governments in the same country. In short, the American government could find virtually no one in the whole wide world outside American borders who was willing to firmly back up the American position that short of capitulation by the Stalinists nothing can be done about the cold war except to arm and stand firm.
There are ways in which even the blind can sense that they are blundering into danger. And frustrating as this may appear to Eisenhower’s businessmen in one way, and to his more belligerent “socialistic” would-be advisers in another, America’s allies are forcing a change of pace on the American government. If there is any prospect of a relaxation of cold-war tensions even for a few months or a few years, they are going to embrace them. This is not a policy or an attitude which can avert World War III, or which can give it a progressive content if that disaster finally deluges us. But if the Stalinists are in sufficient difficulty to have to slow up their drive toward war, it is an attitude which can give the world a breathing-spell.
The question is simply: what will the world do with such a reprieve from destruction? If the masses sink down in apathy, and simply wait till the conjuncture of economic and political forces once more permits a resumption of the struggle, they will have gained little. Surely this is the opportunity for the conscious socialists to come forth with policies for the labor and socialist movements which can once more give them the initiative in the struggle for the world.
For us in the United States, the isolation from world support into which the Democratic and Republican governments have taken us should be the beginning of wisdom. The American labor movement must be shown that this isolation is not a product of foreign stupidity or perversity, but rather of the character and policies of their own government. As the continued burden of armament on the one hand, or of depression on the other falls on the backs of the workers, they must be shown that these evils are direct consequences of the kind of social system and the kind of government which they have supported heretofore. Only after this lesson has been absorbed can we hope that the American labor movement will become a positive force for social change and for peace in the world.
May 20, 1953
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