5-28-05, 13:00pm
The question I think we should be asking is: was a policy of co-existence possible after WWII, had the U.S. continued Roosevelt's general policy and particularly provided the Soviets with the sort of reparations that Roosevelt suggested at the Yalta conference. Was what was bandied about in some circles before the developing cold war made it impossible to even think about, that is, a 'Finland solution' to Eastern Europe, possible. Finland remained a capitalist country with a strong left(social democratic led) and in effect was a 'protectorate' of the Soviet Union, in that it did not oppose the Soviets on any foreign policy issue(I have Finish social democrat friends who who in the past told me that the Finish schools avoiding any criticism of the Soviets in school texts). Was even a 'Tito' solution, that is, to work with Communist revolutionaries who were neither so beholden or willing to accept Soviet leadership(some thought rightly that the Chinese might be in this category, although those who expressed such thoughts were purged from the State Department and the Foreign Service).
The 'totalitarian theory,' which equates Joseph Stalin with Hitler makes it difficult to remember that Stalin had a world-view based on 'socialism in one country'(building Soviet power as the foundation for global socialism, protecting Soviet power by establishing buffer states around the Soviet union to thwart capitalist encirclement, and waiting for the contradictions within capitalism to deepen it general crisis and bring about the victory of socialism on a global basis. Keeping the capitalist states from attacking the Soviet Union, making it stronger and more self-reliant in a hostile world, was the essence of his thinking from the 1920s to his death in 1953. The practical effect of this thinking led Stalin to make deals with capitalist states and avoid direct commitments to support revolutionary movements, of which there are many examples. In the context of the global Communist movement, Stalin was a 'conservative,' in that he eschewed doctrines of actively promoting revolution, in Spain in the late 1930s, in Greece and China after the war, and for that matter, in Korea in 1950, where materials recently released on Stalin's communications with Mao Tse-tung, show Mao much more willing to fight in Korea than Stalin, who was supporting the idea of a buffer state around the Yalu and a North Korean government in exile in Peking.
On a much lighter note I thought of what might be if the various world leaders of 1945 came back and looked at events today. Roosevelt would probably laugh at a president as malapropic as Harding proclaiming a global crusade for 'democracy' while he attacks democratic rights at home, proclaims far-reaching presidential powers to defend the country from a 'war on terrorism' and seems to forget to forget three of the four freedoms, remembering only freedom of religion.
Hitler might be happy to see the Deutsche Bank back in Prague, Germany the Great economic power in Europe, the Soviet Union destroyed, and the Devil theory of Communism and 'internationalism socialism' of which he was the most famous adherent in the first half of the 20th century alive and well. He would of course be very hostile to the U.S., a power he identified with 'racial degeneracy,' being so influential in the world, hostile also to the European 'liberal' ideology connected to globalization, and most of all the influence of anti-racist thinking on the world scene, which he would probably attribute to the 'political correctness' of radical intellectuals polluting the pure Kultur of family values(kinder, kirche, kuche) civilization. If he could drop terms like 'JudeoBolshevik' and 'Aryan,' he might even become a ranter on talk radio and an occasional guest on Fox News. He would certainly be very confused about who eventually won the war.
Stalin, watching Bush give his Republican stump speech in Tsibilisi to his fellow Georgians would be even more confused. He would probably compose a rejoinder to all the writers who called him paranoid, contending that the capitalist encirclement and subversion that he condemned and launched great terroristic purges to stop had finally triumphed. He also might remember his comment to Roosevelt in 1945, 'how many divisions does the Pope have,' in a world where a former Hitler Jugend member and very late war Wehrmacht soldier is now Pope. Since he was never one to think dialectically, he might assume that the revolutionary movement was back to square one and advocate an underground strategy of the kind he participated in in Czarist Russia.
Churchill might be the most pleased. Not only are the Soviets gone, but so is the Socialist British Labour Party that he fought for so long and eventually defeated him in 1945. While I doubt he would have much respect at all for Bush and those around him(he didn't think that much of John Foster Dulles, from my reading, and Dulles looks like a rationalist compared to Rumsfeld et al) he never had Franklin Roosevelt's social vision. He might even smile at Bush's proclamations of a great age of democracy, remembering the British empire that he fought so hard to preserve proclaiming itself the exemplar of 'civilization, progress, and free trade,' as it built the largest colonial empire in human history in the 19th century.
Norman Markowitz
