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From The Militant, Vol. 12 No. 21, 24 May 1948, p. 3.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
For the second time within a week, the Kremlin moved to intensify its “peace offensive.” This new public bid for a deal with Washington was made by none other than Generalissimo Stalin himself. In a statement broadcast over the Moscow radio on May 17, the Kremlin dictator accepted the propositions contained in Henry Wallace’s Open Letter (issued one week before), as a “good and fruitful” basis for an agreement between Moscow and Wall Street.
Repeating the lie that he has peddled for years, that the Soviet Union can co-exist peacefully with capitalism, Stalin offered to negotiate a general disarmament and the “prohibition of atomic weapons”; to conclude peace with Germany and Japan (the question of Austria was for some reason omitted); and to arrange for the evacuation of troops from China and Korea.
In addition, Stalin assured that agreement could be reached on “respect for the sovereignty of individual countries and non-interference in their domestic affairs; the inadmissibility of military bases in member countries of the UN; world development of international trade excluding any sort of discrimination; in the framework of the UN, assistance to and economic restoration of countries which suffered from the war; defense of democracy and insuring of civil rights in all .countries; and so on.”
While the White House remained silent, the State Department hastened to reject this offer, giving virtually the same arguments as in the case of the Smith-Molotov episode, namely, that issues involved are not subject to “bi-lateral” negotiation, that Moscow is to blame for previous failure to arrive at agreement, etc. At the same time, the State Department cautiously characterized the Kremlin’s latest move as “encouraging.”
From the standpoint of effective propaganda and diplomatic maneuvering, the Stalinist moves have placed Washington in a highly embarrassing position. Counting Moscow’s private bid in January, the White House and the State Department already rejected “peace” overtures three times, and face the prospect of having to parry other offers which may be even more direct than those already made.
Those Kremlin “peace maneuvers” are undoubtedly producing profound repercussions among the masses in Europe. Nor have they passed without telling effect in this country as well.
A mood of uneasiness has set in among those business circles which counted on profiting the most from a continued intensification of the “cold war” and the resulting stepping up of the arms program.
The capitalist press is becoming more and more filled with complaints, veiled or open, that the Truman administration has permitted itself to be badly “out-maneuvered.”
The weekly, U.S. News, May 21, expresses this uneasiness quite crassly by pointing out that war scares will be “more difficult to generate in the future,” and warns that continued rebuffs to the Kremlin might produce a “political kickback [that] would be too much, too strong ...”
Anne O’Hare McCormick, foreign-policy specialist of the N.Y. Times, flatly points out, May 19, that Washington is now faced precisely with the prospect it “has been. dreading for the past two months.”
Basically, however, the situation after the Wallace-Stalin interchange remains much the same as it was after the Smith-Molotov affair. Washington is in worse need than before of an effective counter-move, but its intention to continue the “cold war” is quite obvious.
We repeat what we wrote last week in connection with Molotov’s bid for a deal:
The possibility for such a deal at a later stage cannot be excluded. But first Washington expects to jam the draft through Congress and to still further strengthen its relative position through rearmament, through the operation of the ERP, and the consolidation of all its positions in Western Europe and in Asia.
The very course of recent developments is by itself striking proof that even should another deal eventually be concluded, it would merely denote an armed truce prior to the unavoidable showdown.
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Last updated: 2 February 2022