No More Learning

"Since the end of the Second World War the purchas-
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ing power of our money, measured in wholesale price
indexes, has decreased 40 percent. . . . It is the average
family who pays the bulk of taxes, both income and hid-
den. Among them are corporation taxes. These are ulti-
mately passed on to their customers or the corporation
would quickly go bankrupt. . . . These huge taxes are
also overstraining our economy. "8 In addition, President
Truman's reckless program is using up America's limited
natural resources, such as iron ore and oil, at such a
furious rate that coming generations, under whatever
form of economy, will be seriously handicapped. The
Washington spendthrifts are robbing future Americans
of their birthright for a wasteful mess of bombs and bat-
tleships, guns, tanks and warplanes.
The burgeoning American armaments economy has
brought the United States to a condition, as described by
Walter Lippmann, "of gigantic, almost explosive, indus-
trial expansion which draws tremendously and competi-
tively on the available supplies. "9 America's accelerating
need for raw materials, scrap metal and finished goods
to meet the insatiable demands of a defense policy run
wild has made it increasingly difficult for Britain, France,
Italy and the Benelux countries to find the necessary
imports for their own needs; to pay the inflated prices
asked, most frequently by American manufacturers; and
to put across their vast rearmament programs, in con-
formance with American foreign policy, without more
and more lowering their own standards of living through
domestic inflation, crushing taxation and a sheer lack
of consumers' goods.
Mr. Aneurin Bevan commented most persuasively on
the situation in his speech of April 23, 1951, when he
resigned in protest as Minister of Labor in the British
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Labor Government: "It is now perfectly clear to anyone
who examines the matter objectively -- the lurchings of
the American economy, the extravagance and unpredict-
able behavior of the production machine, the failure of
the American Government to inject the arms program
into the economy slowly enough has already caused a vast
inflation of prices all over the world. It has disturbed the
economy of the Western World to such an extent that if it
goes on more damage will be done by this unrestrained
behavior than by the behavior of the nation the arms are
intended to restrain. . . .
"I say, therefore, with full solemnity of the serious-
ness of what I am saying, that the ? 4,700,000,000 arms
program is already dead. It cannot be achieved without
irreparable damage to the economy of Great Britain and
the world. . . . The fact is that the Western World has
embarked upon a campaign of arms production and upon
a scale of arms production so quickly and of such extent
that the foundations of political liberty and parliamentary
democracy will not be able to sustain the shock. "10*
In December, 1951, Winston Churchill, soon after
he became Prime Minister for the second time, declared
frankly in the House of Commons that Britain would be
unable to complete on schedule its three-year $13-billion
rearmament program. He said that he was giving Aneu-
rin Bevan "honorable mention" for having, "it appears
by accident -- perhaps not from the best of motives -- hap-
pened to be right. "11 Early in 1952 Churchill's Con-
servative Government launched a new austerity program
"to avert national bankruptcy. " Measures included a
drastic curtailment of the social services, cuts in the civil
? In his challenging book, In Place of Fear, published In the spring of
1952, Mr. Bevan expanded this thesis in detail.
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service staff, a sharp reduction in manufactured goods
for the home market and a record low foreign travel al-
lowance for each individual annually of $70 for Europe
and $14 for the United States.
The remarks of Bevan and Churchill raise the por-
tentous question of whether the long-range effect of
American policy will not be to force Western Europe
farther and farther to the left instead of rescuing it from
the Communists. A most significant report issued in
March, 1952, by the ultra-conservative U. S. Chamber
of Commerce puts the issue squarely: "There is little
surplus fat in Western Europe to permit the luxury of
large armies. It will take decades fully to repair the
destruction of the recent war. . . . Further sacrifice would
inevitably drive many into the already large Communist
and Socialist Parties. It would seem the part of wisdom,
given these trends, not to overlook the political and eco-
nomic problems of Europe. Heavy emphasis upon the
military may well backfire. "12
The only sound way, of course, to prevent the spread
of Communist regimes is to institute far-reaching social
and economic reforms which will do away with poverty,
unemployment, depression, currency crises and the other
ills which have afflicted Europe over the past few decades.
But the heavy-handed Truman Administration, insisting
everywhere on the warfare state in place of the welfare
state, has offered no effective plan for permanent eco-
nomic well-being and is, on the contrary, depressing liv-
ing standards in the nations it purports to be aiding.
The careening American economic juggernaut has
affected for the worse not only England, France and
Western Europe in general. A staggering rise in prices
has taken place during the past few years in most of the
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nations having a close economic relationship to the
United States. If President Truman had studied his own
reports more carefully, he would have been more con-
scious of the unhappy consequences of his policies. For
example, his Mid-Year Economic Report of 1951 stated:
"The enormous price increases which have occurred
constitute in some countries a danger to political and
social stability, and to the security program of the free
world. . . . Because the economies of these countries have
been under great strain and because in some of them the
political and social situation is tense, inflation raises not
only the question of equitable distribution of the eco-
nomic burden of defense; it also raises the grave question
of the ability of their governments to carry through the
needed defense programs and maintain economic stabil-
ity. "13
With the economic situation steadily deteriorating
in the very nations the American Government proclaims
it is saving from the Soviet menace, the Truman Admin-
istration has all along insisted that its allies follow its
own lead of drastically curtailing trade with members of
the Soviet-led bloc for the purpose of weakening Com-
munist military potential. The U. S. Congress reinforced
this policy in 1951 by passing the Battle Act, under which
any nation selling strategic goods, very broadly defined,
to customers in the Communist bloc loses all American
economic and military aid. The over-all result has been
a severe decline in commerce between Western and East-
ern Europe, and between Japan and China, which has
traditionally been Japan's best customer as well as its
main source of raw materials.
The lack of normal trade relations with Western Eu-
rope has indeed been some handicap to the Soviet Union
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and the smaller Eastern European countries in their post-
war economic reconstruction; but it has been consider-
ably more of a handicap to the Western European eco-
nomies. This is because Soviet Russia and its allies, with
their far-reaching economic planning, have been better
able to adjust to the falling off of commerce than the
West.
Furthermore, the American-imposed barriers against
economic relations with the East have forced the North
Atlantic Pact countries to attempt to fill the vacuum
through trade with the U. S. This endeavor is impossible
of fulfilment because European exports run into the
barrier of America's high tariffs and because European
imports must be paid for in dollars. These difficulties
have combined to create throughout Western Europe a
critical and continuing dollar deficit. And it is my belief
that the U. S. "get-tough" policy towards the U. S. S. R.
is toughest of all on the hard-pressed Western European
peoples.
In July, 1951, the American Government took the
extreme step of breaking off its formal trade and com-
mercial agreements with Soviet Russia and the People's
Republics of Eastern Europe, despite the fact that these
nations have been most desirous of maintaining trade re-
lations with the West. American business of course loses
out economically from this short-sighted policy. The
total value of exports from the U. S. to the U. S. S. R. fell
from $149,504,000 (including $50,540,000 in aid and
relief) in 1947 to $27,879,000 in 1948, to $6,617,000 in
1949, to a trickle of $621,407 in 1950 and $55,000 in
1951.
Walter Lippmann makes some pertinent and pene-
trating remarks about the all too successful American
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campaign to dislocate international trade. "A dominat-
ing part of Congress," he writes, "which Mr. Truman
and Mr. Acheson have felt it necessary to appease, is
demanding a virtual embargo and blockade of the whole
Communist orbit. The reasoning of these Congressmen
is that an embargo and blockade of this kind would hurt
the Communists more than it hurts the United States.
That, considering our immense self-sufficiency and
enormous financial power, is no doubt true. But from
this truth they have jumped to the quite unwarranted
conclusion that the embargo hurts the Communists more
than it hurts our weak and stricken allies. That is not
true, and we shall be learning more and more, but in the
hard way, how untrue it is. "
Mr. Lippmann analyzes the situation further: "The
great problem looming on the horizon is how to keep the
large, congested, industrial populations of Britain, West
Germany and Japan at work and at a standard of living
which they will accept as reasonable for themselves. To
deal with this problem we are compelled -- as things
stand now -- to replace the markets and sources of supply
which they have lost by finding markets and sources of
supply within the world which is dependably in the
Western political orbit. This is perhaps the most radical
reconstruction and rerouting of the trade of the world
which men have ever dreamed of trying to bring about. "14
Although Mr. Lippmann does not say so, the chances are
slim that this drastic and unnatural alteration in long-
established trade patterns will succeed.
The reference by Mr. Lippmann to appeasement
on the part of the Truman Administration reveals the
extent to which American foreign policy, in its aspects
of combating and denouncing the alleged Communist
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menace, has been formulated, not for the benefit of the
American people or the world, but to enable the Demo-
cratic Party to stay in power by outdoing the Republican
Party in anti-Soviet and anti-Communist declarations
and deeds. President Truman's announced determina-
tion to "contain" communism was far more successful in
containing the Republicans than in its original goal.
The Chicago Tribune is not my favorite newspaper, but
it hit the nail on the head when it stated "it may be sur-
mised that if Russia did not exist, it would be necessary
for Truman and Acheson to invent her. "15
Unfortunately, current in Administration and Con-
gressional circles is a strong feeling that an armed conflict
with the Soviet Union is inevitable. Mr. Demaree Bess
corroborates this fact in The Saturday Evening Post:
"A fatalistic feeling has pervaded both major political
parties that we can solve our own and the world's prob-
lems only by overthrowing the expanding Soviet Empire
by force of arms. This fatalism has spread so widely that
we no longer pay much attention to the most belligerent
statements by our representatives in Washington. "16
One of the most disturbing -- and threatening -- fea-
tures of American foreign policy is that the U. S. has
lined up as allies an incredible assortment of fascist or
semi-fascist governments dedicated to violence, terror
and tyranny. The so-called "free world," supposedly
banded together to extend the blessings of intellectual
liberty and political democracy, includes seventeen Latin
American dictatorships or quasi-dictatorships (I exclude
here Guatemala, Mexico and Uruguay); the royal fascist
regime of Greece; the cruel police state of Turkey; the
Formosan remnants of Chiang Kai-shek's bloody and
primitive fascism; the Union of South Africa with its
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horrible racist laws; Franco's Falangist Spain, established
with the help of Hitler and Mussolini and perpetuated
in their image; the Nazi-tending republic of Western
Germany; and still semi-feudal Japan with its thin veneer
of democracy. This roll-call obviously shows that "the
free world" is a propaganda myth.
Mrs. Vera M. Dean of the moderate Foreign Policy
Association makes clear in the weekly Bulletin of that
organization the strange double standard characteristic
of American policy: "In Eastern Europe Washington
has urged free and unfettered elections and has de-
nounced the establishment of dictatorial governments
dominated by Communists. Yet at the Bogota conference
of 1948 the United States proposed recognition of gov-
ernments in Latin America without inquiry into their
character and without the requirement of prior elections.
In the opinion of many observers, this doctrine has en-
couraged seizure of power by military juntas in Peru,
Venezuela and El Salvador at the expense of the kind
of middle-of-the-road regimes we have urged for Eastern
Europe and the Balkans. "17
The efficient manner in which the United States
Government has enlisted in its coalition well-nigh every
reactionary force and gangster government throughout
the world indicates the possible use of such elements in
the unscrupulous rough-and-tumble of aggressive warfare.
Certainly the make-up of the American-led bloc must in
itself awaken grave apprehensions in the Soviet mind.
And when in addition the Truman Administration in-
sists on the provocative rearmament of Western Germany
and Japan, both the Russians and all other peace-loving
peoples have a right to be anxious. Let us remember that
already coming to the fore in post-war Western Germany
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and Japan are the same sort of economic and political
groupings which so ruthlessly unleashed the Second
World War.
The Japanese Peace Treaty, forced upon the world
by the United States at San Francisco in September, 1951,
summarily violated the Cairo Agreement, which prom-
ised the return of Formosa to China; and the Potsdam
Declaration, which guaranteed that there should be no
revival of Japanese militarism. The Treaty provided for
continuing American military occupation of Japan and
for numerous U. S. bases for land, sea and air forces.
With India and Burma refusing to attend the San Fran-
cisco Conference because of their opposition to the
Treaty and with the Chinese Republic deliberately ex-
cluded, representatives of two-thirds of the people of Asia
took no part in this settlement directly affecting that half
of the earth's population living in the Orient.
Closely related to the Truman Administration's col-
laboration with and support of reactionary regimes is its
reversal of America's traditional attitude of sympathy
towards the aspirations of colonial peoples for self-determ-
ination and independence.
Americans are themselves a
proud and freedom-loving people who threw off the yoke
of empire through revolution. But today the United
States has become the great champion of Western im-
perialism, resorting to dollar diplomacy, political intimi-
dation and military intervention in taking over the sup-
pressive functions of faltering empires.
The Tunisian crisis -- to cite but one example -- re-
vealed plainly the unmistakable direction of American
policy as regards colonial struggles for liberty. In April,
1952, eleven Asian and African members of the United
Nations appealed to the Security Council to put on its
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agenda the question of Tunisia, the French North Afri-
can Protectorate where France's violent suppression of
the independence movement was, according to the com-
plaint, threatening international peace and security. The
motion for Council discussion was lost owing to the ad-
verse votes of Britain and France, and to the abstention
of the United States and three of its associates in the
North Atlantic bloc.
The fact is that the American Government preferred
not to offend its two strongest allies, the imperialist Pow-
ers of Britain and France, by supporting even a discussion
of the right of a long-suffering colonial people to self-de-
termination. As Thomas J. Hamilton, chief correspondent
at the U. N. Bureau of The New York Times, further ex-
plained: "In the case of such areas as North Africa which
are of such strategic importance . . . it is vital for the
United States to have the right to maintain bases in them
against the Soviet threat. "18 Apparently the alleged Soviet
menace justifies any betrayal of principle whatsoever.
The effects of American foreign policy, then, since
Mr. Truman took over the White House, have been such
as to cause deepest misgivings throughout the globe. The
apparent readiness of leaders in the United States Gov-
ernment to risk blowing civilization to smithereens for
the sake of political advantage, the bellicose attitude of
many American journalists, radio commentators and
other prominent citizens, the stratospheric sums spent
on atom bombs and other weapons, the expanding global
ring of U. S. air and military bases, America's alliance
with outright fascist or old-fashioned military dictator-
ships, the rearming of Western Germany and Japan -- all
these things raise the question whether American policy
is not directed towards war rather than towards peace
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through preparedness. Even the conservative London
Economist states: "In large measure the present Ameri-
can program is designed for fighting Russia, not for stay-
ing at peace by deterring a Russian aggression. "19 And
some of the missteps that Soviet Russia and other mem-
bers of the Communist bloc have taken in foreign policy
are attributable in no small degree to fear of American
intentions and a sharp defensive reaction to them.
Most of these deplorable developments flow from a
policy that has been worked out and put through as the
answer to the danger of "Soviet aggression. " Returning
to this theme a moment, let me again cite a man who, in
the American community, is as respectable as the Wash-
ington Monument and who was denouncing the Soviet
Union and all its works for years before Harry Truman
even became a Senator. I refer to Mr. Herbert Hoover,
who, in his speech early in 1952,* noted that Western
Europe, in its judgment as to the risk of a Communist
invasion, takes a view "profoundly different from the
attitude of Washington. "
"There is in Europe today," asserted Mr. Hoover,
"no such public alarm as has been fanned up in the
United States. None of those nations has declared emer-
gencies or taken measures comparable with ours. They
do not propagandize war fears or war psychosis such as
we get out of Washington. Not one European country
conducts such exercises in protection from bombs as we
have had in New York. " Mr. Hoover then cited eight
major reasons why public opinion in Western Europe
estimates the "risk of invasion as so much less than does
Washington. " "I cannot say," he added, "whether these
eight assumptions are correct or not. But they do con-
? Cf. pp. 372-373.
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tribute to Western Europe's lack of hysteria and their
calculation of low risk and, therefore, their lack of hurry
to arm. In any event this whole European situation re-
quires that the United States recalculate our own risks
and reconsider the possible alternatives. "20
I have quoted ex-President Hoover at some length,
not only because of the intrinsic soundness of the state-
ments cited, but also in order to show that conservative
defenders of the capitalist system, opponents of socialism
and enemies of the Soviet Union are also critical of Amer-
ican foreign policy and agree on important international
issues with liberals and radicals. The point is that the
U. S. drift toward war and a garrison state is likely to
prove catastrophic for the well-being of all Americans,
regardless of their political and economic viewpoints. .
Another conservative gravely troubled by the inter-
national situation is Pope Pius XII. In a Christmas
message broadcast to the world on December 23, 1950,
the Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church ap-
pealed to Soviet Russia and the Western Powers to enter
into direct negotiations before their deepening cleavage
degenerated into war. "How earnestly," he pleaded, "the
Church desires to smooth the way for these friendly re-
lations between peoples! For her, East and West do not
represent opposite ideals, but share a common heritage
to which both have generously contributed and to which
both are called to contribute in the future also. "21
Now it is precisely "direct negotiations," especially
with the United States, that the Soviet Government has
been suggesting over the past few years and to which the
Truman Administration has turned a cold -- very cold
-- shoulder. The U. S. Government argues that diplo-
matic negotiations for the settlement of the cold war and
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the easing of American-Soviet tensions should take place
within the framework of the United Nations. Yet the
United States has itself by-passed the U. N. whenever it
seemed convenient, as in the drawing up and effectuation
of the Truman Doctrine regarding Greece and Turkey,
the institution of the North Atlantic Treaty and the
N. A. T. O. , and the rearming of Western Germany and
Japan.
Certainly the founders of the United Nations never
intended that its establishment was to rule out special
conversations and confidential negotiations between two
or more of its members. Indeed, the first Article in the
U. N. Charter's Chapter on the Pacific Settlement of Dis-
putes reads: "The parties to any dispute, the continuance
of which is likely to endanger the maintenance of inter-
national peace and security, shall, first of all seek a solu-
tion by negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation,
arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies
or arrangements, or other peaceful means of their own
choice. "22
The negative American attitude towards Soviet over-
tures has brought forth from the right-wing David Law-
rence, writing in the Republican-oriented New York
Herald Tribune, the following comment: "The biggest
barrier to world peace today has been erected by persons
inside and outside Washington who have closed their
minds to any further discussion with the Russians. This
school of thought says conferences are no good, that Rus-
sians can't be trusted, that sooner or later there will be
war and that America must stay on a war footing every
day and night, borrow unearned billions from tomorrow's
generations and even perhaps fight a 'preventive war'
striking before the enemy can. The exponents of that
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doctrine have nothing to offer but physical force and
threats. "23
Soviet foreign policy does not and cannot function
within a vacuum; to be realistic it must take into con-
sideration the fundamental forces operating in interna-
tional affairs, including the actions and policies of the
United States, world capitalism's acknowledged leader.
Hence the Soviet Government shapes and re-shapes its
own policies with the particular attitude of America
always in mind. As we have seen, you do not have to be
a Soviet diplomat to feel that the effects of current Ameri-
can policy are not conducive to international peace and
economic stability.
If I am correct in my analysis, then the trade, arma-
ment and cold war policies of the Truman Administra-
tion, while certainly not helpful to the Soviet-led coali-
tion, will not in the long run be helpful, either, for U. S.
capitalism, world democracy and the so-called contain-
ment of communism. And these policies may well prove
fatal for Western Europe. To cite Aneurin Bevan again:
"The main weapons in the hands of the Soviet rulers
are not military but social, economic and ideological.
But, in my opinion, the U. S. Administration has mistaken
the nature of the Soviet threat. And because it is easier
to frame a military than an economic answer to it, the
United States has not only prescribed the wrong remedy,
but this remedy itself feeds the danger. "24
The artificially created anti-Soviet atmosphere in the
United States so stifles objective thinking that there is
a tendency here among many leaders in government, busi-
ness and public opinion automatically to discard as bad
any move that would be good for the Soviet Union or the
other Communist countries. Now indubitably interna-
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tional peace, disarmament and a normal exchange of
goods on the world market would be beneficial for the
Communist nations. But to reject these aims on this ac-
count is to negate the processes of reason. For plainly the
fulfilment of such goals would also be immensely bene-
ficial to America and the rest of the non-Communist
world. Mutual self-interest is the key to ending the
present American-Soviet impasse.
3. Recent Soviet Efforts towards World Peace
On April 1, 1952, Premier Joseph Stalin, replying to
questions wired him by a group of American newspaper
editors, stated, regarding a meeting of the heads of the
Great Powers, that "possibly it would be helpful. . . . The
peaceful co-existence of capitalism and communism is
quite possible, provided there is a mutual desire to co-
operate, readiness to carry out undertaken commitments,
and observance of the principle of equality and non-
interference in the internal affairs of other states. "25 On
the following day Izvestia, official Soviet Government
newspaper, declared: "In the answer of Comrade Stalin
there is expressed the readiness of the Soviet Union to
solve all international questions by peaceful means on
the basis of international cooperation, on the basis of
equality, on the basis of respect of mutual interests. "26
Government quarters in the United States and Eng-
land reacted in a bored manner to Stalin's statement,
insisting that there was nothing new in it. This of course
was true, since Stalin has been proclaiming the possibil-
ity of co-existence for the last twenty-five years, and since
the Soviet authorities have long been pressing for direct
conversations between the top statesmen of America, Bri-
tain and the other Powers. So far as the Soviet Union
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is concerned, the idea of peace is an old one and hardly
needs refurbishing. The wonder is, to a rational man,
why the Western governments keep on refusing the Soviet
bid for a peace parley and maintain at full blast their
propaganda that the Socialist Republic is conspiring to
unleash a war against the West.
Stalin's statement which I have quoted above pointed
up a number of serious Soviet efforts towards world peace
during the previous six months. I shall summarize under
ten headings these Soviet proposals, most of which were
put forward at the sixth session of the United Nations
General Assembly held at Paris from November, 1951,
to early February, 1952.
First, the Soviet Government offered a resolution in
the General Assembly proposing admission to the U. N.
of fourteen new nations, five of them (Albania, Bulgaria,
Hungary, Romania and the Mongolian People's Repub-
lic) supported by the U. S. S. R. , and nine of them (Austria,
Ceylon, Finland, Ireland, Jordan, Italy, Libya, Nepal
and Portugal) supported by the United States. * Soviet
Russia was unwilling to accept the application of the
South Korean Government, but on the other hand did
not ask for the admission of North Korea. The Soviet
proposition received wide support and actually won out
in the Political and Security Committee; but it was vigor-
ously opposed by the American delegation and was de-
feated in the final Assembly vote, which requires a two-
thirds majority on important questions. The Soviet sug-
gestion, however, bringing in five Soviet-backed coun-
tries as compared with nine American-backed, seemed a
fair compromise.
? Japan did not become eligible for U. N. membership until April 28,
1952.
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? CO-EXISTEHCE OR CO-DESTRUCTIOW
Second, the Soviet delegation won Assembly approval,
thirty to twelve, with eight abstentions, for a resolution
that a carefully worked out definition of aggression is
both possible and necessary, and that the matter should
be taken up by the next General Assembly. In a long
debate in the Legal Committee the Soviet delegate
argued that an aggressor state should be defined as one
which initiated any kind of armed attack, with or without
a declaration of war, on the territory of another nation;
which undertook armed intervention in another country's
domestic affairs; which instituted a blockade against
another state; or which supported armed bands invading
it. The United States and Great Britain stood out
against this clearcut definition of aggression; and it is
difficult to understand why.
Third, the Soviet delegation at the General Assembly
supported a resolution, passed over U. S. opposition, that
the political and civil liberties section of the proposed
Human Rights Covenant include an article stating that
"All peoples have the right of self-determination. " This
new Covenant is being drawn up by a special U. N.
Human Rights Commission and will be legally binding
on all nations which ratify it. It will embody in inter-
national law much that has been set forth in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, which has moral force
only.
The Soviet Union implemented its strong backing
of national self-determination by asking for the with-
drawal of all foreign military forces from Libya, in order
to give reality to the newly announced independence of
that country. Some months later the Soviet delegate on
the U. N. Security Council voted with the minority to
place on the Council agenda the matter of the French
389
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
Protectorate of Tunisia, after the French Government
had wielded the Big Stick against the nationalist move-
ment and had jailed the Tunisian Prime Minister and
most of his Cabinet. *
Fourth, the U. S. S. R.