No More Learning

The Curzon Line assigned to Soviet
Russia almost all of what later became Eastern Poland.
In September of 1939, as the Polish Government was
collapsing under the impact of Hitler's attack, the Soviet
army marched into Eastern Poland and occupied it.
This was an important and reasonable anti-Nazi move
and had not the Soviets effected it, the Germans un-
doubtedly would have taken over Eastern Poland them-
selves. To repeat what Prime Minister Churchill said
in a speech shortly afterwards,* "That the Russian
armies should stand on this line was clearly necessary for
the safety of Russia against the Nazi menace. "
In October, 1939, the peoples of Eastern Poland
voted overwhelmingly to join the Belorussian and Uk-
rainian Republics and thus to become part of the U. S. S. R.
The new Polish-Soviet boundary, along most of its 400-
odd miles, was close to the old Curzon Line. At the end
of World War II Poland received territorial compensa-
tion in acquiring from Germany substantial regions in
* See p. 9.
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Silesia and East Prussia, including 300 miles of the Baltic
coastline. Following the defeat of the Nazis in 1945,
systematic repatriation took place between the Belo-
russian and Ukrainian Republics, on the one hand, and
Poland on the other. Hence today there are relatively
few Poles left in the Soviet Union and relatively few Belo-
russians or Ukrainians still living in Poland.
Again to quote Winston Churchill, he told the British
House of Commons in February, 1944, that at the Tehe-
ran Conference "I took occasion to raise personally with
Marshal Stalin the question of the future of Poland. . . .
We ourselves have never in the past guaranteed, on
behalf of His Majesty's Government, any particular
frontier line to Poland. We did not approve of the Polish
occupation of Vilna in 1920. The British view in 1919
stands expressed in the so-called Curzon Line, which
attempted to deal, at any rate partially, with the problem.
. . . Russia has the right of reassurance against future
attacks from the west, and we are going all the way with
her to see that she gets it, not only by the might of her
arms but by the approval and assent of the United Na-
tions. . . . I cannot feel that the Russian demand for a
reassurance about her western frontiers goes beyond the
limits of what is reasonable or just. Marshal Stalin and
I also spoke and agreed upon the need for Poland to
obtain compensation at the expense of Germany both
in the north and in the west. "22
Bessarabia in the Balkans raises another question
concerning alleged Soviet aggression. It was stolen, as
all the world knows, from Russia in 1918 by Romania.
Bessarabia had been an integral part of the Tsarist Em-
pire since 1812 and in fact fifty-five years previous to
Romania's establishment as an independent state. Its an-
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nexation by the Romanians was never recognized by the
Soviet Union or even by the United States. As in the
case of the Baltic States, Bessarabia's forced separation
from the U. S. S. R. proved very bad economically, especial-
ly for Bessarabia. By applying heavy diplomatic pressure
on Romania in 1940, the Soviet Government was able to
regain this province without violence; and also took from
Romania at the same time Northern Bukovina with its
primarily Ukrainian population.
The case of Finland belongs in a special category.
The Soviet invasion of Finland in the fall of 1939 was
certainly an act of aggression and a terrible mistake. It
has always seemed to me that had the Soviet Government
been more patient in this situation, it might well have
been able to work out a reasonably satisfactory redrawing
of the Finnish frontier. However, the Nazis had gone
on the rampage and all Europe was in turmoil. The
Soviets were justifiably feeling extremely nervous about
their western borders and the possibility of soon having
to defend them. One of the weakest spots was in the
vicinity of Leningrad, which was the Soviet Union's
second city and an industrial, munitions, shipping and
naval center of paramount importance. Here the boun-
dary with Finland was less than twenty miles away. To
imagine a quite comparable situation, what would the
United States do if Long Island, up to within twenty
miles of New York City, belonged to a small, hostile,
foreign nation that was continually intriguing with
foreign Powers against the security and welfare of the
U. S. A. ?
At any rate the Soviet army struck against the Finns
and outraged the public opinion of the democratic world.
The result, however, was that in the Finnish-Soviet peace
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treaty of 1940 the frontier near Leningrad was pushed
back some eighty miles and the U. S. S. R. acquired some
strategic territory farther north. A U. S. Army manual
used during the World War II for information officers
and orientation course teachers said, in reference to the
Soviet attack on Finland: "Without attempting any
moral judgments on the matter, it is enough to state the
military fact that had the U. S. S. R. not acted so, the
Allied cause would be weaker today. " Actually, the
Soviets later held Leningrad against Hitler only with
the utmost difficulty and sacrifice. Both the Finns and
the Nazis attacked from the north; and the new border
may well have been the decisive factor in saving the city.
The fact that Finland so readily joined hands with
Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union in 1941, in what
President Roosevelt called "this hateful partnership,"
indicated that it was scarcely the pure-hearted little
democracy which anti-Soviet propagandists had painted
it. During the Second World War the Finns and Nazis
used the Arctic port of Petsamo as an important sub-
marine and airplane base against Allied ships sailing the
northern route with supplies for the U. S. S. R. So it is
clear why, when Soviet Russia made peace with Finland
in 1944, it demanded and received permanently Petsamo
and a small surrounding region. In this treaty the revised
Finnish frontiers which the Soviets had won in 1939-40
were also restored.
After the downfall of Hitler the Soviet Union, with
the concurrence of President Truman and Prime Minis-
ter Atlee in the Potsdam Declaration, annexed the north-
east third of East Prussia, including the big Baltic port
of Koenigsberg, which was renamed Kaliningrad after the
late Mikhail Kalinin, prominent peasant and government
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leader in the Communist regime. This again meant a
strengthening of the U. S. S. R. 's western defenses, but also
comes under the heading of spoils of victory. In June,
1945, the Czechoslovak Government ceded to Soviet
Russia and the Ukrainian Republic the province of Car-
patho-Ukraine, or Ruthenia, a heavily forested, moun-
tainous strip of land at the eastern tip of Czechoslovakia.
Approximately 500,000 of its 725,000 inhabitants were
Ukrainians.
Following the defeat of Japan by the United Nations,
the Soviet Union, on the basis of agreements made be-
tween Prime Minister Churchill, President Roosevelt
and Premier Stalin at the 1945 Yalta Conference, took
over southern Sakhalin Island, which the Japanese had
acquired from Russia after the war of 1904-05; and the
Kurile Islands, from which the Tsarist Government had
agreed to withdraw in 1875 in return for Japan relin-
quishing its claims to any part of Sakhalin. These acces-
sions in the Far East considerably improved the Soviet
defensive position in that quarter. Finally, in 1944, the
Tannu Tuva People's Republic, a region south of Siberia
in Central Asia which had been a colony of Tsarist Russia
but whose national independence the Soviets recognized
in 1918, voted to join the U. S. S. R. as an Autonomous
Region.
In my opinion the various Soviet territorial acquisi-
tions from 1939 to 1945 do not, despite the Finnish ven-
ture, add up to aggression or imperialism. In the first
place, with the exception of the Carpatho-Ukraine, East
Galicia, Northern Bukovina and part of East Prussia --
all small regions -- the Soviet Union added only territory
to which it had an historical claim through the expansion
of the Tsarist Empire. And the only territories to which
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it still lays claim were part of pre-revolutionary Russia.
These are two districts in northeastern Turkey: Kars and
Ardahan, which were part of Russian Armenia and which
the Soviets were forced to cede to the Turks under the
Brest-Litovsk treaty imposed by imperial Germany.
Soviet Armenians consider these territories as an Ar-
menian terra irredenta.
In the second place, 95 percent of the populations
incorporated by the U. S. S. R. since 1930 were ethnically
Belorussian or Ukrainian and therefore properly be-
longed to the Soviet family of nations. In the third place,
except for Tannu Tuva, all the Soviet annexations cor-
responded with clear and definite security interests of the
U. S. S. R.
In line with the third point, we ought, I believe, to
make a special effort to comprehend the imperative neces-
sity which the Russians feel about having strategic boun-
daries that will provide relative security against aggres-
sion by land and sea. The United States has always been
protected by vast oceans to both east and west; yet even
so it has insisted upon military bases in the Atlantic and
Pacific hundreds and thousands of miles beyond its two
coastlines. For centuries Britain has had the effective
water barrier of the English Channel. But Russia ever
since its rise to statehood has repeatedly had to cope
with potential and actual enemies just over its borders,
east, west and south -- borders that today stretch out
approximately 19,000 miles and abut on eleven different
countries. No Great Power has been so vulnerable to
attack from so many directions; none has actually suffered
in its history from so many invasions on the part of hostile
nations. If the Russians sometimes appear apprehensive
about foreign aggression, we can well understand why.
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The question remains whether Soviet actions since
1945 spell military aggression or indicate a will to such
aggression. Admittedly the Soviet Government has com-
mitted a number of serious errors in foreign policy dur-
ing these post-war years, such as its failure to withdraw
its troops from Iran at the agreed-upon time in 1946, its
too-frequent use of the veto in the Security Council of the
United Nations, and its harsh and mistaken attitude
towards the Tito regime in Yugoslavia. But I am con-
vinced that during this period the U. S. S. R. has not been
guilty of aggression; and that it intends no aggression
in the future.
On the basis of agreements with Great Britain,
France and the United States after the final defeat of
Hitler, the Soviet Government for several years kept
military contingents in the western border states, in
Bulgaria and in Iran. But except for the Iranian inci-
dent, which was finally settled peacefully through a Soviet-
Iranian accord, Soviet troops have been withdrawn on
schedule. There are still Soviet forces in Austria and
Eastern Germany,* but American, British and French
troops likewise remain in Austria and Western Germany.
This unfortunate situation is due to the fact that the Big
Four, with Soviet Russia certainly bearing its share of
the blame, have been unable to agree upon peace treaties
for Austria and a unified Germany.
As to Soviet influence in foreign countries, most of the
Soviet Russians of course wish socialism to triumph every-
where just as most Americans would like democratic
capitalism to triumph everywhere. The Soviets, however,
have never favored trying to extend Communist prin-
? A few Soviet contingents are also stationed by agreement in Hungary
and Poland in order to safeguard communications with the Soviet forces
in Austria and Germany respectively.
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ciples to other lands through the means of armed in-
vasion. They have instead supported the thesis that
"Revolution cannot be exported," but must be the out-
come of indigenous radical movements on the part of
whatever peoples are concerned. Especially since Joseph
Stalin wrested leadership from Leon Trotsky in 1927,
the Soviet Republic has pursued the idea of "building
socialism in one country" and letting the successful
example of Soviet socialism serve as a spur to other na-
tions. The Soviet method, then, of spreading socialism
is primarily that of rendering moral encouragement and
ideological stimulus.
Let us for a moment compare the course of the Rus-
sian Revolution with that of the other great European
upheaval of modern times -- the French Revolution
of 1789. The latter, after approximately ten years of
bloody struggle among the revolutionaries themselves,
fell into the hands of an ambitious and aggressive mil-
itary dictator, Napoleon Bonaparte, who made himself
First Consul. Five years later, in 1804, Napoleon had
himself crowned Emperor of France and was soon march-
ing his armies all over Europe, defeating, subjugating and
annexing country after country on the continent in his
endeavor to set up a "Grand Empire. " After his threats
of invading England had come to nothing, he undertook
in 1812 the disastrous campaign against Russia.
Although Napoleon represented a reaction against
the Revolution, he maintained certain of the fundamen-
tal economic and social changes effected by it. And
before he was finally defeated at Waterloo in 1815, he
and his armies had spread anti-feudalistic ideas and insti-
tutions over much of Europe. Here indeed was a patent
example of an aggressive nation and government propa-
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gating their doctrines abroad by the sword. The Russian
Revolution, on the other hand, has at no point deterio-
rated into a military dictatorship or adopted the policy
of seeking to impose the Communist way of life on other
peoples through military aggression.
The Soviet Government as such took no part in either
the Third International (the Comintern), which went
out of existence in 1943; or in the Communist Informa-
tion Bureau (the Cominform), founded in 1945 to func-
tion as a coordinating body among the Communist Parties
of Eastern Europe, France and Italy. The Soviet Com-
munist Party of course has wielded enormous influence
in these two international organizations and Communist
Parties in every country have in general adopted policies
in agreement with those of the Soviet Communist Party
and the Soviet Government itself.
Foreign Communists claim, however, that they are
not automatically following a Soviet line, but that being
Marxists, they tend to think in the same manner as their
fellow-Marxists in the U. S. S. R. and to reach the same
conclusions. Their primary intellectual allegiance, they
assert, is to Marxism as a science; and it is to that they
render discipline. We must indeed recognize the pos-
sibility that rational men the world over in the field of
social science, as well as natural science, may arrive at the
same conclusions. As modern science has developed,
thinkers and researchers in different countries have more
and more found themselves in agreement on many dif-
ferent facts and principles. The Communists point out
that such parallelism in thought flowing across national
boundaries is being widely utilized today to brand and
prosecute non-Soviet Communists as Soviet agents. And
they have satirized the reasoning involved by suggesting
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the following syllogism: Joseph Stalin believes that 2 and
2 make 4; Mr. X in the U. S. A. believes that 2 and 2
make 4; therefore Mr. X is a dangerous Soviet agent.
Non-Soviet Communists do not deny, however, that
since the Soviet Communist Party was the first one to put
across a successful revolution and to build socialism,
Communists everywhere naturally take into considera-
tion the Soviet Party's great experience and prestige, and
tend to defer, perfectly freely, to its wisdom. With the
recent rise of a triumphant Communist Party in a second
major Power, China, it is improbable that the Soviet
Communists will continue to play such a paramount role
as heretofore in the world Communist movement.
Yet even granting the extreme -- and I believe incor-
rect -- view that Communist Parties the world over slav-
ishly obey the orders of the Kremlin, the aim of these
Parties, as repeatedly set forth in official books, pamph-
lets, newspapers, speeches, demonstrations and political
campaigns, is not to embroil their respective nations in
war, but to establish socialism in their native lands and
urge on the populations to world peace. One of the most
effective slogans of the Russian Communist Party in the
Revolution of 1917 was precisely "Peace. " Ever since
then Communist Parties everywhere have steadily em-
phasized the peace issue, and in fact to such an extent
that capitalist governments have considered it necessary
continually to warn their peoples against "Communist
peace propaganda. " So, even if Moscow is laying down
this anti-war line for foreign Communist Parties, it is
not one that can sensibly be interpreted as a call to inter-
national aggression.
Plainly, the danger of "Soviet aggression" must be
distinguished from the tendency in one country or an-
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other for Communist movements, exploiting backward
economic and social conditions, to come into power.
Western propaganda has illogically striven to equate
these two alleged dangers and to brand vigorous Com-
munist political action anywhere as an example of and
due to Soviet aggression.
This loose use of the term "aggression" is typical of
the vehement yet vague charges which the governments,
press and radio of the Western World fling about in
reference to the artificially concocted Soviet menace.
American commentators constantly talk as if the militant
propaganda emanating from the Soviet Union were itself
equivalent to military aggression. Perhaps such propa-
ganda can be classified as "ideological aggression"; but
if so, then the United States and England, with high-
powered press and radio networks circling the globe, can
certainly be accused of the same thing. The main point,
however, is the necessity for distinguishing clearly be-
tween military and ideological aggression. Throughout
modern times various revolutionary governments, highly
organized religions and dissenting philosophies have done
their best to spread their particular messages throughout
the world.
Americans and the American Republic have been
active from the beginning in secular missionary work.
It was President Thomas Jefferson who said, "Nor are
we acting for ourselves alone, but for the whole human
race. "23 There is nothing reprehensible as such in a
particular country or some group in a particular country
having a sense of world mission and trying to get their
ideas across national frontiers and into the minds of the
various peoples of the earth. With the remarkable de-
velopment of techniques of communication during the
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twentieth century, the opportunities for effective inter-
national propaganda have of course greatly increased.
Soviet Russia has taken advantage of these opportunities
to further the cause of universal socialism, as has the
United States on behalf of democratic capitalism. In
neither case is it reasonable or accurate to describe such
propaganda as "aggression. "
What many Americans in particular seem unable to
grasp is the indigenous origin, the fundamental moti-
vation and the broad scope of the revolutionary move-
ments which have been sweeping into the vacuum left
by the downfall of the Axis and achieving state power
throughout much of Europe and Asia. In an address in
1951, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas well
described what is happening: "The plain fact is that the
world is in a revolution which cannot be bought off with
dollars. There are rumblings in every village from the
Mediterranean to the Pacific. A force is gathering for a
mighty effort. We think of that force as Communistic.
Communists exploit the situation, stirring every discon-
tent and making the pot boil. The revolutions which are
brewing are not, however, Communist in origin nor will
they end even if Soviet Russia is crushed in war.
"The revolutionaries are hungry men who have been
exploited from time out of mind. This is the century
of their awakening and mobilization. . . . The spirit
which motivates these people is pretty much the same
as the one which inspired the French and American
Revolutions. . . . The complaints of the peasants of Asia
are just as specific as those in our own Declaration of
Independence; and to the people involved they are just
as important. . . . These people, though illiterate, are
intelligent. The people of Asia have a catalogue of
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specific complaints. The absence of medical care always
comes first. The absence of schools is always second. Then
comes land reform. . . . The right to vote, the right to
elect a representative government, the power to expel
and punish corrupt officials -- these too are important
claims to reform. Finally they have a new sense of na-
tionality . . . an exultant feeling of independence and
resentment against intermeddling by outside powers. "24
Justice Douglas makes it clear that the primary reason
for today's revolutions is not Soviet propaganda, plots or
intervention, but a deep-seated reaction against poverty,
starvation, disease, graft, cultural backwardness, exploi-
tation by feudal land-owners, and foreign domination.
As one keen observer puts it: "To assert that the U. S. S. R.
causes Communist revolutions wherever they occur is
like saying that the first horse to finish a race causes the
other horses to finish! "25 When native Communist
Parties win leadership of the masses, popular unrest and
upsurge is already well under way.
In important instances the post-war upheavals have
been both anti-Soviet and anti-Communist. This is true
of the Labor Government's attempt to establish socialism
in England; of Prime Minister Nehru's efforts to strength-
en and stabilize India's newly won freedom; of Iran's
nationalistic and anti-Western move, led by a right-wing
administration, in taking over ownership of the country's
southern oil wells from British interests; and of Egypt's
drive to oust the English from the Suez Canal Zone and
the Sudan.
Obviously the Soviet Russians were very happy when
in the Far East the Chinese Communists, led by Mao
Tse-tung, finally overthrew in 1949 the reactionary and
corrupt government of Chiang Kai-shek and set up the
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People's Republic of China. But the Soviets had not
given Mao Tse-tung and his followers either military or
material aid. The country which supplied most arms to
the Chinese Communists, though indirectly, was the
United States, since large quantities of the more than
$4,000,000,000 worth of American materiel for Chiang's
armies reached the Communists through secret sale by
grafting officials or through capture from the demoralized
Nationalist forces. The Communists also obtained valu-
able arms from the Japanese invaders after their collapse
in the summer of 1945.
The Communist-controlled Chinese Government na-
turally established close and friendly relations with the
Soviet Government and in 1950 cemented those relations
in a detailed and mutually advantageous Treaty of
Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Aid. In this pact Soviet
Russia agreed to give the Chinese Government long-term
credits for payments for Soviet industrial and railway
equipment. It also agreed to withdraw Soviet troops
from the harbor of Port Arthur not later than 1952 and
to discuss the special Soviet privileges at the harbor of
Dairen after the conclusion of a Japanese peace treaty.
There was nothing in the Chinese-Soviet Treaty to
bear out the charge of the U. S. State Department that the
Chinese Republic had become subject to the control and
exploitation of Moscow. Of course, Soviet Russia has
great influence in Communist China, but that does not
prove that President Mao Tse-tung and his colleagues are
puppets of the Kremlin. And it does not seem likely
that the proud new China, with its population of almost
half a billion and finally free from the shackles of West-
ern imperialism, is going to submit to the domination of
any foreign Power whatever. In the fall of 1951, the
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Indian Ambassador to China, Mr. Sardar K. M. Panikkar,
commenting on Soviet-Chinese relations, took the view,
according to The New York Times correspondent at
New Delhi, "that the greater weight of influence was on
the Chinese side. In other words, he thought that the
Soviet Union was more influenced by the importance of
China than Peiping was by Moscow. "26 I do not think
that any reasonable person can legitimately claim that
the success of the Chinese Communist Revolution and
the subsequent course of Chinese affairs have constituted
Soviet aggression.
If we turn our attention to Eastern Europe, we shall
see that such aggression has not taken place there either.
Towards the end of World War II the Soviet armies
marched into Poland, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hun-
gary, Romania and Austria not as aggressors, but in pur-
suit of the Nazi, Hungarian and Romanian forces which
had earlier invaded the U. S. S. R. Soviet troops occupied
Bulgaria, which had been an ally of Hitler. While Soviet
soldiers and occupation authorities remained stationed,
by international agreement, in these various countries,
they of course actively encouraged the liquidation of the
old fascist elements and the establishment of People's
Republics dedicated to drastic social-economic reform
and favoring friendly relations with the U. S. S. R.
That such governments, firmly supported or control-
led by the domestic Communist Parties, finally did come
into being along the Soviet border from the Black Sea
to the Baltic is hardly to be attributed to Soviet aggres-
sion. Soviet influence has naturally been especially strong
in these nations because the Red Army liberated them
from the Nazi yoke; because, with the exception of Hun-
gary and Romania, their peoples are dominantly Slavic
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and feel a deep kinship with the Slavs of Soviet Russia;
and because close economic and political relations with
the U. S. S. R. seem to their national self-interest.
Furthermore, the Soviet Union itself has brought
pressures to bear for the establishment in these lands of
peaceful and friendly regimes, instead of governments
bitterly hostile to the U. S. S. R. and ready to serve once
more as springboards for military assault against it. For-
tunately, high officials of the American Government have
clarified this situation for us. At a meeting of the Na-
tional Council of American-Soviet Friendship in New
York's Madison Square Garden on November, 14, 1945,
the Honorable Dean Acheson, then Under Secretary of
State, told the audience:
"The attack upon the Soviet Union came from just
beyond her western borders. There was grave danger
of attack from just beyond her eastern border. We can
get some idea of the consequences of this attack -- the
second of its kind in a quarter of a century -- if we
imagine the United States invaded by the German Wehr-
macht, and an area roughly comparable to the New
England and Middle Atlantic States almost completely
devastated. If we imagine this area as including not only
the industrial centers of New York, Boston and Pitts-
burgh, but a large part of the Middle Western bread
basket and a third of our population as well, we can learn
what aggression means to the Soviet people. We can
understand also the measure of their determination to
prevent it. *
"We understand and agree with them that to have
friendly governments along their borders is essential both
for the security of the Soviet Union and the peace of the
world. Secretary Byrnes made this clear beyond doubt
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATIOH
in his speech of October 31st. "27 Mr. Acheson was refer-
ring to an address by James F. Byrnes, then U. S. Secretary
of State, who, recalling the evolution of the American
Good Neighbor policy from the Monroe Doctrine, had
said:
"We surely cannot and will not deny to other nations
the right to develop such a policy. Far from opposing,
we have sympathized with, for example, the effort of the
Soviet Union to drew into closer and more friendly
association with her Central and Eastern European neigh-
bors. We are fully aware of her special security interests
in those countries and we have recognized those interests
in the arrangements we have made for the occupation
and control of the former enemy states. We can ap-
preciate the determination of the people of the Soviet
Union that never again will they tolerate the pursuit of
policies in those countries deliberately directed against
the Soviet Union's security and way of life. "28 Growing
hostility against the U. S. S. R. on the part of the West has
made the 1945 statements of Acheson and Byrnes even
more relevant in this year of 1952.