The Soviet Union's Five-Year Plan has been men-
tioned as a possible incentive for non-Soviet Europe
to consolidate.
tioned as a possible incentive for non-Soviet Europe
to consolidate.
Soviet Union - 1931 - Fighting the Red Trade Menace
?
Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:25 GMT / http://hdl.
handle.
net/2027/uc1.
b3292264 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www.
hathitrust.
org/access_use#pd-google
? 282 FIGHTING THE RED TRADE MENACE
taker of Soviet goods has put down an embargo, nor
has this investigation revealed the slightest likeli-
hood that they will do so, though to this statement
must be added the qualification that the Tory tem-
perament in Britain has sometimes upset all likeli-
hoods.
They have not put down embargoes because the
majority interests and majority population of Eu-
rope have not suffered but benefited by cheap Soviet
grain, oil and timber. They have not done so because
Soviet exports hit almost no country in its home
markets but only in its foreign markets, over which
it has no control and upon which its own embargo
could have no effect. Those small European agricul-
tural countries which have put down embargoes have
done so in the hope of setting an example and from
political, moral or sentimental reasons but never
under the illusion that an embargo at home would
prevent directly Soviet competition abroad.
Finally, the European nations of any significance
in the question of Soviet trade have not put down em-
bargoes because the products they take from the
Soviet Union compete not at all, or to a very limited
degree, with their own, but with products of the
United States, Canada, Argentina, Venezuela, the
Scandinavian and Baltic countries and with the five
Balkan countries which tried to "lead the way"
against Soviet grain, oil and timber.
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:25 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc1. b3292264 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? FIGHTING THE RED TRADE MENACE 283
Of all these countries the United States comes into
closer commercial competition with Soviet exports in
foreign markets than almost any other country. The
size and power of America makes her feel Soviet com-
petition much less than, say, Sweden or Finland, but
neither Sweden nor Finland nor any other country
competes with the Soviet Union on as many fronts
and in as many articles as does America.
For America, like Russia, produces grain, timber,
oil, cotton, coal, manganese and fish. There is no ques-
tion but that American wheat growers have suffered
considerably from Russian competition in foreign
markets notwithstanding the obvious fact that there
would have been too much wheat or too few takers of
wheat whether Russian wheat had been on the market
or not. It appears, moreover, that Russian wheat
competition will not diminish but increase.
It is equally beyond doubt that American oil com-
panies have suffered, are suffering and probably will
continue even more to suffer from the competition of
the rising river of Soviet oil pouring from the Cau-
casian wells. Though the only really significant part
of this competition is in foreign markets, the latest
development in the Soviet oil campaign to force agree-
ments with Standard and Shell is of exceptional in-
terest. It may or may not be common knowledge at
home that the Soviet Union shipped 52,000 tons of
gasoline and allied products to Baltimore in the pe-
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:25 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc1. b3292264 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? 284 FIGHTING THE RED TRADE MENACE
riod from October, 1930 to May 15, 1931, according
to Soviet official statistics, and that the Soviet Union
intends to erect there a storage station for 35,000
tons of Soviet oil products.
This audacious move, invasion of the American
domestic oil market from a source 6,000 miles away,
may be taken as an evidence of the determined strat-
egy of the Soviet Foreign Trade Monopoly in its
ambition to obtain the markets it needs for a pro-
duction of oil that one day may rival that of the
United States. But this strategy may be easily mis-
interpreted. In the judgment of European oil men
with whom the writer discussed this curious item of
Soviet commercial news, the Soviet Union does not in-
tend seriously to attempt to compete in the American
domestic market. It does, however, in the opinion of
these expert observers, intend, by shipping oil to
Baltimore, to say to American oil companies, "I know
this is your natural market. But Europe is our nat-
ural market. You fight me in Europe, I fight you
there and in America. You pact with me in Europe, I
may get out of America. "
American coal producers have suffered perhaps a
little, and fear they may suffer more. American tim-
ber producers view with little anxiety the immediate
competition of Soviet timber, but look with appre-
hension on the immense strides contemplated by the
Five-Year Plan for Soviet timber exports. American
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:25 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc1. b3292264 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? FIGHTING THE RED TRADE MENACE 285
cotton growers have scarcely felt Soviet competition
and have in the past profited largely by Soviet pur-
chases of cotton, but they, too, are uneasy at the im-
mense additions of acreage to the Turkestan bearing
areas. American manganese producers are among the
few who actually keenly feel Soviet competition in
the American domestic market. American salmon
canneries have lost half their British market to Soviet
canneries. A few more items might be added, but not
many nor of much significance.
It is plain that Soviet competition with America is
not to be measured by the fact that Soviet imports
into the United States itself make up but eight-tenths
of 1 per cent of the total United States imports. These
American present or prospective sufferers from So-
viet competition are numerous and diverse and in-
clude large groups, such as grain farmers, cotton
growers and timber producers who, being dependent
upon the sale of raw materials for their livelihood,
have suffered more than most in the economic depres-
sion wherein raw materials have sunk lower on the
price scale than any other articles of commerce.
On the other hand if one lists those who gain from
Soviet imports into America, obviously consumers
gain immediately, else they would not purchase
Soviet goods. They include the great steel corpora-
tions which require high grade Chiaturi manganese,
wearers of Russian furs, eaters of Russian caviar,
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:25 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc1. b3292264 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? 286 FIGHTING THE RED TRADE MENACE
consumers of the small quantities of Russian anthra-
cite, pulpwood, fish, sausage casings, lumber, licorice,
rags, bristles and flax that together made up $24,-
000,000 worth of Soviet products we purchased last
year. To these consumer gainers from Soviet trade
must be added our exporters, whose machines, auto-
mobile trucks, agricultural implements, electrical
equipment and metals made up our sales of $114,500,-
000 to the Soviet Union last year.
It is impossible to estimate numerically how many
Americans lose, how many gain and to what extent
from the forced Soviet exports under its Five-Year
Plan and from the forced Soviet imports under the
Five-Year Plan. It is even more difficult to estimate
to what degree Soviet trade may touch America in
the future, though it appears from this survey of the
European markets, following last year's survey of
the Soviet sources of production, that America will,
at any rate, feel the Soviet economic expansion for
good or for ill as much as any other country, if not
more.
Our trade balance with the Soviet Union has been
strongly active, and this is supposed to represent a
gain in a nation's economy. It has become abruptly
less active recently under the influence of American
moves toward barring Soviet products and reported
restrictions on credits to Amtorg.
Let these factors, however, be ignored for the mo-
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:25 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc1. b3292264 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? FIGHTING THE RED TRADE MENACE 287
ment and let it be granted that from a coldly commer-
cial point of view America's ledger in account with
the Soviet Union shows a debit. Let it be admitted
that many more Americans lose than gain by Soviet
trade.
If it is then desired that the results of this investi-
gation of Europe's attitude toward the Soviet Union
be submitted for reference in our attempt to answer
the question, "What shall we do about it ? " the follow-
ing data, gathered in twenty-one industrial, commer-
cial and political centers of Europe, may be pertinent.
In most of the countries of Europe where thought
has been devoted to the question of how the non-
Soviet world is to meet, greet or combat Soviet eco-
nomic expansion, five alternatives have been listed as
comprising about all the measures conceivable. They
are (1) war, (2) embargo, (3) import license sys-
tem, (4) a foreign trade monopoly and (5) unre-
stricted trade.
This list leaves out of account the ordinary instru-
ments of customs tariffs and of such regulations as
those adopted by many European countries requiring
domestic millers to use a certain percentage of do-
mestic grain, requiring domestic movie theatres to
show a certain percentage of domestic films, etc. For
these instruments are usually applicable to all foreign
trade. In Europe they have been used with percepti-
ble effect to check American as well as Soviet imports.
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:25 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc1. b3292264 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? 288 FIGHTING THE RED TRADE MENACE
Here, however, the question at issue is what has been
Europe's experience in facing the specific and unique
problem of Soviet economic expansion.
No. 1--War. Coldbloodedly Europe has consid-
ered it. There's no shirking the fact that it has been
considered. Moscow believes it is still being consid-
ered. But if there is one unquestionable conclusion
from this survey of Europe it is that Moscow errs
profoundly in this fear. None but "the lunatic fringe"
of Europeans want war with the Soviet Union. Others
beside lunatics have weighted the idea but found it
distinctly wanting. No European nation could afford
to go to war today and least of all with the Soviet
Union.
For the existence of the Soviet Union has had this
curious influence upon Europe: It has increased pro-
foundly the fear that war must some day inevitably
come between the Soviet and non-Soviet worlds, but
it has diminished considerably the appetite of non-
Soviet nations to war either among themselves or
with the Soviet Union. And from the Soviet stand-
point there ensues the anomaly that whereas ortho-
dox Communist doctrine teaches that world revolu-
tion will follow the next war of "capitalist" nations
among themselves, the fact that the capitalist nations
indubitably, fear this result exercises a restraining
influence upon their belligerence. Thus the Bolshe-
viks have to put up with the melancholy reflection
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? FIGHTING THE RED TRADE MENACE 289
that perhaps if there were no Soviet Union the world
revolution might get along faster than it does.
At any rate the war alternative has been rejected
by Europe for about the following reasons, leaving
entirely out of account any humanitarian, pacifistic
or moral considerations that may or may not have
played a role: Present war has many certain dangers.
Future war may be probable, but is not certain.
Presumptive dangers are preferable to certain dan-
gers. Hence no war.
Solution No. 2--Embargoes on Soviet imports.
Five Balkan countries have imposed them in the vain
hope that their example might move the hearts of
world consumers to reject Soviet goods. They argued,
"You may profit immediately by buying cheap Soviet
products in preference to our dearer ones, but you
will lose indirectly when Soviet competition reduces
our capacity to buy your goods. "
But in this, as in every instance among the many
that have been subjected to observation, the indirect
future presumptive loss failed to impress the recipient
of a direct present real gain, and the consumer na-
tions refused to be disturbed at the plight of the non-
Soviet producer nations. Even France, who listened
sympathetically for a moment to her ally, Jugoslavia,
and reflected upon the possibility of winning from
Italy political territory in the Balkans by helping
Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria, Albania, concluded
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? 290 FIGHTING THE RED TRADE MENACE
her sympathetic interlude with the negotiations now
going on for improvement of Franco-Soviet trade
relations.
An American embargo on Soviet imports, it may
safely be hazarded, would exercise hardly more ef-
fective influence on the nations of Europe which now
profit by receiving Soviet exports than did the ex-
ample of those nations which, up to now, have hope-
fully held out with their embargoes--all of them, be
it noted nations that consumed next to no Soviet
wares.
Europe has found that exemplary embargoes, in-
tended to work by indirection, have failed. The direct
effect of an American embargo on Soviet wares would
be to cut off 4. 46 per cent of the total Soviet exports.
Stoppage of all American exports to the Soviet
Union, which include a good many machines and other
articles nearly indispensable to the execution of the
Five-Year Plan, probably would have a more serious
effect upon the Soviet Union. The possibility of such
a check on exports may be judged in the light of a
statement of the American representative to the Lon-
don wheat conference, that America could enter into
no export quota agreement due to constitutional limi-
tations, a remark presumably having reference to
Article I, Section 9, Paragraph 5, of the United
States Constitution: "No tax or duty shall be laid on
articles exported from any State. "
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:25 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc1. b3292264 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? FIGHTING THE RED TRADE MENACE 291
Solution No. 3--A license system to control Soviet
imports has been tried by France and Belgium and
found to have had an effect directly opposite to the
desired effect of obtaining more Soviet purchases and
lessening French and Belgian purchases from the
Soviet Union. The effect of these two attempts at
license restriction upon Soviet exports has been in-
considerable and both countries admit failure. Con-
sumer interest was too strong, bootlegging of staple
commodities was too easy and Soviet retaliation in
withdrawal of orders was too painful for these two
pioneers in the use of the license weapon against the
Soviet Union to plan its retention.
Solution No. 4--The foreign trade monopoly sys-
tem has been adopted fully only by Persia. Her ex-
perience is too brief to afford conclusions as to the
system's practicability or efficacy in a non-Soviet
state. Norway's Government that recently resigned
had planned to experiment with a foreign trade mo-
nopoly. It is regarded by many Europeans as the
only logical and effective reply to the Soviet Foreign
Trade Monopoly, with all its advantages of concen-
trated buying and selling and all its imposition of dis-
advantages upon the Soviet's competitors.
It may be noted, in addition to those other charac-
teristics of the Soviet Foreign Trade Monopoly, that
already have been described, that under it no foreign
tradesmen may submit their wares in the Soviet Union
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:25 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc1. b3292264 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? 292 FIGHTING THE RED TRADE MENACE
unhindered to Soviet consumers, while the Soviet
Foreign Trade representatives abroad enjoy the cus-
tomary freedom of trade, ability to lay their goods
before the world of customers and to use the com-
petitive habits of non-Soviet businessmen to their
own advantage. As one German put it, the Soviet
Foreign Trade Monopoly was at one time regarded
by the outside world as a nuisance but as a nuisance
operative chiefly within the Soviet Union, whereas
today it is being realized more and more that the
Soviet Foreign Trade Monopoly reaches far beyond
the confines of the Soviet Union with an effect upon
trade that tends from year to year to become more
world-wide.
Nevertheless, objections in any "private capital-
istic state" to a foreign trade monopoly are too nu-
merous to make this solution more than the subject of
interesting speculation on the part of most countries,
and the difficulties of putting such a system into effect
in a democratic land would appear almost in-
superable.
There remains Solution No. 5: unrestricted trade
with the Soviet Union. This, in substance, is Europe's
choice. It must be fairly plain by now that it was as
much involuntary as voluntary choice on the part of
the Continent, that has far more reason to shiver be-
fore "the Red Menace" (nota bene, not "the Red
trade menace") than has America. America's geo-
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:25 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc1. b3292264 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? FIGHTING THE RED TRADE MENACE 293
graphical position, if nothing else, gives us a com-
fortable, if selfish, right, whether we exercise it or
not, to look upon Europe much as MacDonald said
England might look upon Germany. But Europe has
chosen quite voluntarily to add to "unrestricted
trade" with the Soviet Union encouragements of
trade in the shape of government credit guarantees,
that, in the last analysis, operate as export subsidies.
So that if America should attempt to learn from
the example of Europe's experience with the Soviet
Union, and if America should arrive at the conclusion
that, however unpalatable it may be, the only practi-
cable way to recover losses from Soviet competition in
markets unreachable by American Governmental
measures is to make up the losses from the sale of
goods to the Soviet Union, America would be faced in
this, as in many other respects by European state
competition.
All these solutions that have been under discussion
have concerned measures by governments. In the
sphere of private business European concerns have
found it helpful to unite as far as possible in syndi-
cates and trusts in their dealings with the biggest
trust of all, the Soviet Foreign Trade Monopoly.
Nor do European governments put any hindrances
in the way of this concentration of resources. They
rather encourage the process and regard our Sher-
man law as a curiosity.
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:25 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc1. b3292264 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? 294 FIGHTING THE RED TRADE MENACE
International cooperation of the states of Europe
in any effective form to meet the Soviet economic ex-
pansion has been excluded from discussion in this
summary not because its primary importance has not
been realized, but because the component parts of
this Continent as a whole have provided as yet no
example of cooperation to achieve any major end.
The Soviet Union's Five-Year Plan has been men-
tioned as a possible incentive for non-Soviet Europe
to consolidate. European nations, indeed, have
achieved a certain harmony in their common desire
to enjoy the benefits of Soviet orders. So far these
have outweighed in European estimation the deficits
of "Soviet dumping. "
Though the Five-Year Plan has warmed the appre-
hensions of most countries, one observation by a
British student of Soviet progress is worth nothing.
"We have never experienced a five-year plan before.
We have never witnessed the effect upon ourselves of
a nation, Communist or otherwise, operating under
a planned national economy. It seems to be getting
warm for us now, and that before long it may become
very hot. But perhaps we are in the position of the
man who, being born full-grown in June and alone
in the world, with no one to tell him of the seasons,
notes the temperature rising. In July it is very warm;
in August, almost unbearable, and the mercury goes
steadily upward. So he says to himself, in a panic
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:25 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc1. b3292264 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? FIGHTING THE RED TRADE MENACE 295
of fear: 'By Christmas I shall be fried to a crisp. ' "
Whether amenable to effective external control or
not, the Five-Year Plan may be subject to certain
internal correctives.
If this is cryptic it is because the Five-Year Plan
is cryptic and only Marxists claim the future can
be mapped.
THE END
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:25 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc1. b3292264 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? ? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:25 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc1. b3292264 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? ? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:25 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc1. b3292264 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA CRUZ
This book is due on the last DATE stamped below.
50m-6,'67(H2523s8)2373
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:25 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc1. b3292264 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust.
? 282 FIGHTING THE RED TRADE MENACE
taker of Soviet goods has put down an embargo, nor
has this investigation revealed the slightest likeli-
hood that they will do so, though to this statement
must be added the qualification that the Tory tem-
perament in Britain has sometimes upset all likeli-
hoods.
They have not put down embargoes because the
majority interests and majority population of Eu-
rope have not suffered but benefited by cheap Soviet
grain, oil and timber. They have not done so because
Soviet exports hit almost no country in its home
markets but only in its foreign markets, over which
it has no control and upon which its own embargo
could have no effect. Those small European agricul-
tural countries which have put down embargoes have
done so in the hope of setting an example and from
political, moral or sentimental reasons but never
under the illusion that an embargo at home would
prevent directly Soviet competition abroad.
Finally, the European nations of any significance
in the question of Soviet trade have not put down em-
bargoes because the products they take from the
Soviet Union compete not at all, or to a very limited
degree, with their own, but with products of the
United States, Canada, Argentina, Venezuela, the
Scandinavian and Baltic countries and with the five
Balkan countries which tried to "lead the way"
against Soviet grain, oil and timber.
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:25 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc1. b3292264 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? FIGHTING THE RED TRADE MENACE 283
Of all these countries the United States comes into
closer commercial competition with Soviet exports in
foreign markets than almost any other country. The
size and power of America makes her feel Soviet com-
petition much less than, say, Sweden or Finland, but
neither Sweden nor Finland nor any other country
competes with the Soviet Union on as many fronts
and in as many articles as does America.
For America, like Russia, produces grain, timber,
oil, cotton, coal, manganese and fish. There is no ques-
tion but that American wheat growers have suffered
considerably from Russian competition in foreign
markets notwithstanding the obvious fact that there
would have been too much wheat or too few takers of
wheat whether Russian wheat had been on the market
or not. It appears, moreover, that Russian wheat
competition will not diminish but increase.
It is equally beyond doubt that American oil com-
panies have suffered, are suffering and probably will
continue even more to suffer from the competition of
the rising river of Soviet oil pouring from the Cau-
casian wells. Though the only really significant part
of this competition is in foreign markets, the latest
development in the Soviet oil campaign to force agree-
ments with Standard and Shell is of exceptional in-
terest. It may or may not be common knowledge at
home that the Soviet Union shipped 52,000 tons of
gasoline and allied products to Baltimore in the pe-
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:25 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc1. b3292264 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? 284 FIGHTING THE RED TRADE MENACE
riod from October, 1930 to May 15, 1931, according
to Soviet official statistics, and that the Soviet Union
intends to erect there a storage station for 35,000
tons of Soviet oil products.
This audacious move, invasion of the American
domestic oil market from a source 6,000 miles away,
may be taken as an evidence of the determined strat-
egy of the Soviet Foreign Trade Monopoly in its
ambition to obtain the markets it needs for a pro-
duction of oil that one day may rival that of the
United States. But this strategy may be easily mis-
interpreted. In the judgment of European oil men
with whom the writer discussed this curious item of
Soviet commercial news, the Soviet Union does not in-
tend seriously to attempt to compete in the American
domestic market. It does, however, in the opinion of
these expert observers, intend, by shipping oil to
Baltimore, to say to American oil companies, "I know
this is your natural market. But Europe is our nat-
ural market. You fight me in Europe, I fight you
there and in America. You pact with me in Europe, I
may get out of America. "
American coal producers have suffered perhaps a
little, and fear they may suffer more. American tim-
ber producers view with little anxiety the immediate
competition of Soviet timber, but look with appre-
hension on the immense strides contemplated by the
Five-Year Plan for Soviet timber exports. American
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:25 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc1. b3292264 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? FIGHTING THE RED TRADE MENACE 285
cotton growers have scarcely felt Soviet competition
and have in the past profited largely by Soviet pur-
chases of cotton, but they, too, are uneasy at the im-
mense additions of acreage to the Turkestan bearing
areas. American manganese producers are among the
few who actually keenly feel Soviet competition in
the American domestic market. American salmon
canneries have lost half their British market to Soviet
canneries. A few more items might be added, but not
many nor of much significance.
It is plain that Soviet competition with America is
not to be measured by the fact that Soviet imports
into the United States itself make up but eight-tenths
of 1 per cent of the total United States imports. These
American present or prospective sufferers from So-
viet competition are numerous and diverse and in-
clude large groups, such as grain farmers, cotton
growers and timber producers who, being dependent
upon the sale of raw materials for their livelihood,
have suffered more than most in the economic depres-
sion wherein raw materials have sunk lower on the
price scale than any other articles of commerce.
On the other hand if one lists those who gain from
Soviet imports into America, obviously consumers
gain immediately, else they would not purchase
Soviet goods. They include the great steel corpora-
tions which require high grade Chiaturi manganese,
wearers of Russian furs, eaters of Russian caviar,
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:25 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc1. b3292264 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? 286 FIGHTING THE RED TRADE MENACE
consumers of the small quantities of Russian anthra-
cite, pulpwood, fish, sausage casings, lumber, licorice,
rags, bristles and flax that together made up $24,-
000,000 worth of Soviet products we purchased last
year. To these consumer gainers from Soviet trade
must be added our exporters, whose machines, auto-
mobile trucks, agricultural implements, electrical
equipment and metals made up our sales of $114,500,-
000 to the Soviet Union last year.
It is impossible to estimate numerically how many
Americans lose, how many gain and to what extent
from the forced Soviet exports under its Five-Year
Plan and from the forced Soviet imports under the
Five-Year Plan. It is even more difficult to estimate
to what degree Soviet trade may touch America in
the future, though it appears from this survey of the
European markets, following last year's survey of
the Soviet sources of production, that America will,
at any rate, feel the Soviet economic expansion for
good or for ill as much as any other country, if not
more.
Our trade balance with the Soviet Union has been
strongly active, and this is supposed to represent a
gain in a nation's economy. It has become abruptly
less active recently under the influence of American
moves toward barring Soviet products and reported
restrictions on credits to Amtorg.
Let these factors, however, be ignored for the mo-
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? FIGHTING THE RED TRADE MENACE 287
ment and let it be granted that from a coldly commer-
cial point of view America's ledger in account with
the Soviet Union shows a debit. Let it be admitted
that many more Americans lose than gain by Soviet
trade.
If it is then desired that the results of this investi-
gation of Europe's attitude toward the Soviet Union
be submitted for reference in our attempt to answer
the question, "What shall we do about it ? " the follow-
ing data, gathered in twenty-one industrial, commer-
cial and political centers of Europe, may be pertinent.
In most of the countries of Europe where thought
has been devoted to the question of how the non-
Soviet world is to meet, greet or combat Soviet eco-
nomic expansion, five alternatives have been listed as
comprising about all the measures conceivable. They
are (1) war, (2) embargo, (3) import license sys-
tem, (4) a foreign trade monopoly and (5) unre-
stricted trade.
This list leaves out of account the ordinary instru-
ments of customs tariffs and of such regulations as
those adopted by many European countries requiring
domestic millers to use a certain percentage of do-
mestic grain, requiring domestic movie theatres to
show a certain percentage of domestic films, etc. For
these instruments are usually applicable to all foreign
trade. In Europe they have been used with percepti-
ble effect to check American as well as Soviet imports.
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? 288 FIGHTING THE RED TRADE MENACE
Here, however, the question at issue is what has been
Europe's experience in facing the specific and unique
problem of Soviet economic expansion.
No. 1--War. Coldbloodedly Europe has consid-
ered it. There's no shirking the fact that it has been
considered. Moscow believes it is still being consid-
ered. But if there is one unquestionable conclusion
from this survey of Europe it is that Moscow errs
profoundly in this fear. None but "the lunatic fringe"
of Europeans want war with the Soviet Union. Others
beside lunatics have weighted the idea but found it
distinctly wanting. No European nation could afford
to go to war today and least of all with the Soviet
Union.
For the existence of the Soviet Union has had this
curious influence upon Europe: It has increased pro-
foundly the fear that war must some day inevitably
come between the Soviet and non-Soviet worlds, but
it has diminished considerably the appetite of non-
Soviet nations to war either among themselves or
with the Soviet Union. And from the Soviet stand-
point there ensues the anomaly that whereas ortho-
dox Communist doctrine teaches that world revolu-
tion will follow the next war of "capitalist" nations
among themselves, the fact that the capitalist nations
indubitably, fear this result exercises a restraining
influence upon their belligerence. Thus the Bolshe-
viks have to put up with the melancholy reflection
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? FIGHTING THE RED TRADE MENACE 289
that perhaps if there were no Soviet Union the world
revolution might get along faster than it does.
At any rate the war alternative has been rejected
by Europe for about the following reasons, leaving
entirely out of account any humanitarian, pacifistic
or moral considerations that may or may not have
played a role: Present war has many certain dangers.
Future war may be probable, but is not certain.
Presumptive dangers are preferable to certain dan-
gers. Hence no war.
Solution No. 2--Embargoes on Soviet imports.
Five Balkan countries have imposed them in the vain
hope that their example might move the hearts of
world consumers to reject Soviet goods. They argued,
"You may profit immediately by buying cheap Soviet
products in preference to our dearer ones, but you
will lose indirectly when Soviet competition reduces
our capacity to buy your goods. "
But in this, as in every instance among the many
that have been subjected to observation, the indirect
future presumptive loss failed to impress the recipient
of a direct present real gain, and the consumer na-
tions refused to be disturbed at the plight of the non-
Soviet producer nations. Even France, who listened
sympathetically for a moment to her ally, Jugoslavia,
and reflected upon the possibility of winning from
Italy political territory in the Balkans by helping
Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria, Albania, concluded
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? 290 FIGHTING THE RED TRADE MENACE
her sympathetic interlude with the negotiations now
going on for improvement of Franco-Soviet trade
relations.
An American embargo on Soviet imports, it may
safely be hazarded, would exercise hardly more ef-
fective influence on the nations of Europe which now
profit by receiving Soviet exports than did the ex-
ample of those nations which, up to now, have hope-
fully held out with their embargoes--all of them, be
it noted nations that consumed next to no Soviet
wares.
Europe has found that exemplary embargoes, in-
tended to work by indirection, have failed. The direct
effect of an American embargo on Soviet wares would
be to cut off 4. 46 per cent of the total Soviet exports.
Stoppage of all American exports to the Soviet
Union, which include a good many machines and other
articles nearly indispensable to the execution of the
Five-Year Plan, probably would have a more serious
effect upon the Soviet Union. The possibility of such
a check on exports may be judged in the light of a
statement of the American representative to the Lon-
don wheat conference, that America could enter into
no export quota agreement due to constitutional limi-
tations, a remark presumably having reference to
Article I, Section 9, Paragraph 5, of the United
States Constitution: "No tax or duty shall be laid on
articles exported from any State. "
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? FIGHTING THE RED TRADE MENACE 291
Solution No. 3--A license system to control Soviet
imports has been tried by France and Belgium and
found to have had an effect directly opposite to the
desired effect of obtaining more Soviet purchases and
lessening French and Belgian purchases from the
Soviet Union. The effect of these two attempts at
license restriction upon Soviet exports has been in-
considerable and both countries admit failure. Con-
sumer interest was too strong, bootlegging of staple
commodities was too easy and Soviet retaliation in
withdrawal of orders was too painful for these two
pioneers in the use of the license weapon against the
Soviet Union to plan its retention.
Solution No. 4--The foreign trade monopoly sys-
tem has been adopted fully only by Persia. Her ex-
perience is too brief to afford conclusions as to the
system's practicability or efficacy in a non-Soviet
state. Norway's Government that recently resigned
had planned to experiment with a foreign trade mo-
nopoly. It is regarded by many Europeans as the
only logical and effective reply to the Soviet Foreign
Trade Monopoly, with all its advantages of concen-
trated buying and selling and all its imposition of dis-
advantages upon the Soviet's competitors.
It may be noted, in addition to those other charac-
teristics of the Soviet Foreign Trade Monopoly, that
already have been described, that under it no foreign
tradesmen may submit their wares in the Soviet Union
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? 292 FIGHTING THE RED TRADE MENACE
unhindered to Soviet consumers, while the Soviet
Foreign Trade representatives abroad enjoy the cus-
tomary freedom of trade, ability to lay their goods
before the world of customers and to use the com-
petitive habits of non-Soviet businessmen to their
own advantage. As one German put it, the Soviet
Foreign Trade Monopoly was at one time regarded
by the outside world as a nuisance but as a nuisance
operative chiefly within the Soviet Union, whereas
today it is being realized more and more that the
Soviet Foreign Trade Monopoly reaches far beyond
the confines of the Soviet Union with an effect upon
trade that tends from year to year to become more
world-wide.
Nevertheless, objections in any "private capital-
istic state" to a foreign trade monopoly are too nu-
merous to make this solution more than the subject of
interesting speculation on the part of most countries,
and the difficulties of putting such a system into effect
in a democratic land would appear almost in-
superable.
There remains Solution No. 5: unrestricted trade
with the Soviet Union. This, in substance, is Europe's
choice. It must be fairly plain by now that it was as
much involuntary as voluntary choice on the part of
the Continent, that has far more reason to shiver be-
fore "the Red Menace" (nota bene, not "the Red
trade menace") than has America. America's geo-
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? FIGHTING THE RED TRADE MENACE 293
graphical position, if nothing else, gives us a com-
fortable, if selfish, right, whether we exercise it or
not, to look upon Europe much as MacDonald said
England might look upon Germany. But Europe has
chosen quite voluntarily to add to "unrestricted
trade" with the Soviet Union encouragements of
trade in the shape of government credit guarantees,
that, in the last analysis, operate as export subsidies.
So that if America should attempt to learn from
the example of Europe's experience with the Soviet
Union, and if America should arrive at the conclusion
that, however unpalatable it may be, the only practi-
cable way to recover losses from Soviet competition in
markets unreachable by American Governmental
measures is to make up the losses from the sale of
goods to the Soviet Union, America would be faced in
this, as in many other respects by European state
competition.
All these solutions that have been under discussion
have concerned measures by governments. In the
sphere of private business European concerns have
found it helpful to unite as far as possible in syndi-
cates and trusts in their dealings with the biggest
trust of all, the Soviet Foreign Trade Monopoly.
Nor do European governments put any hindrances
in the way of this concentration of resources. They
rather encourage the process and regard our Sher-
man law as a curiosity.
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? 294 FIGHTING THE RED TRADE MENACE
International cooperation of the states of Europe
in any effective form to meet the Soviet economic ex-
pansion has been excluded from discussion in this
summary not because its primary importance has not
been realized, but because the component parts of
this Continent as a whole have provided as yet no
example of cooperation to achieve any major end.
The Soviet Union's Five-Year Plan has been men-
tioned as a possible incentive for non-Soviet Europe
to consolidate. European nations, indeed, have
achieved a certain harmony in their common desire
to enjoy the benefits of Soviet orders. So far these
have outweighed in European estimation the deficits
of "Soviet dumping. "
Though the Five-Year Plan has warmed the appre-
hensions of most countries, one observation by a
British student of Soviet progress is worth nothing.
"We have never experienced a five-year plan before.
We have never witnessed the effect upon ourselves of
a nation, Communist or otherwise, operating under
a planned national economy. It seems to be getting
warm for us now, and that before long it may become
very hot. But perhaps we are in the position of the
man who, being born full-grown in June and alone
in the world, with no one to tell him of the seasons,
notes the temperature rising. In July it is very warm;
in August, almost unbearable, and the mercury goes
steadily upward. So he says to himself, in a panic
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? FIGHTING THE RED TRADE MENACE 295
of fear: 'By Christmas I shall be fried to a crisp. ' "
Whether amenable to effective external control or
not, the Five-Year Plan may be subject to certain
internal correctives.
If this is cryptic it is because the Five-Year Plan
is cryptic and only Marxists claim the future can
be mapped.
THE END
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? THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA CRUZ
This book is due on the last DATE stamped below.
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