Some months later the Soviet
delegate
on
the U.
the U.
Soviet Union - 1952 - Soviet Civilization
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? CO-EXISTEHPE OR CO-DESTRUCTIOW
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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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
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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? CO-EXISTEHCE OR CO-DESTRUCTIO^?
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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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
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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? CO-EXISTEHCE OR CO-DESTRUCTIOW
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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? SOVIET CIVILIZATIOH
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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? CO-EXISTEHPE OR CO-DESTRUCTIOW
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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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
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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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
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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. submitted a resolution, which
met defeat, calling for an immediate cessation of hostilities
in Korea, the conclusion of an armistice and withdrawal
from the country of all foreign troops and volunteer de-
tachments within three months. It also moved, unsuccess-
fully, to have the U. N. Security Council consider meas-
ures to help bring the slow-moving cease-fire and truce
negotiations in Korea to a successful conclusion.
Fifth, Foreign Minister Vishinsky urged another reso-
lution, likewise not adopted, that the establishment by
several states of military, naval or air bases on foreign
territory was incompatible with membership in the
United Nations.
Sixth, he called, again unsuccessfully, for a Five-
Power Pact of Peace between France, the People's Repub-
lic of China, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and
the United States as a step "to counteract the threat of
a new war and to strengthen peace and friendship among
nations. "27
Seventh, the Soviet Union moved that the five Great
Powers reduce their armed forces and armaments by one-
third, within a year after such a disarmament accord;
that a world disarmament conference be held not later
than July 15, 1952; and that all governments should file
with the U. N. "complete official data on the status of
their armaments and armed forces, including atomic
weapons, and concerning military bases on foreign ter-
ritory. "28 In connection with the last-mentioned resolu-
? Cf. p. 382.
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tion the Soviet delegation recommended that an interna-
tional control organ be created under the Security Coun-
cil for the "checking of information presented by the
states about the status of their armaments and armed
forces. "29 The U. N. Assembly referred these three pro-
posals to the new Disarmament Commission, which now
combines the functions of the former Commision on
Conventional Armaments and the former Atomic Energy
Commission.
As compared with the 65. 1 billion dollars or 76 per-
cent of the 1952-53 Truman budget allocated for defense,
the 1952 Soviet budget of 119. 2 billions earmarked for
defense 28. 4 billions (at the official ruble exchange rate)
or 24 percent. Discounting the fact that the Soviet Gov-
ernment budget covers a much larger proportion of the
national economy than the American, the percentage
devoted to the military still is far smaller than in the
United States.
The clarifying Steps to Peace: A Quaker View of
Foreign Policy, a 1951 report of the American Friends
Service Committee, sets us right on another important
comparison. It is widely believed, the report states, "that
the United States disarmed unilaterally after World War
II, thereby weakening itself and opening the way for
Soviet expansion. The fallacy in this is in its frame of
reference, for while it is true that we demobilized our
army to a much larger extent than did the Russians, the
military strength of the United States has never been
measured by the size of its standing army.
"For geographic reasons we rely primarily on sea and
air power, while the Soviet Union is primarily a land
power. If all categories of weapons are included, as they
must be in any fair analysis of military strength, the
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theory of America's unilateral disarmament collapses. In
the years since the war, our production of atomic weapons
has proceeded at an increasing tempo, accompanied by
the maintenance of a far-flung network of air bases and
the bombing planes necessary for their delivery. Our
navy, by far the largest in the world, has been maintained
on a standby basis. In no post-war year has our military
budget fallen below eleven billion dollars. This is hardly
unilateral disarmament. "30
Eight, the Soviet delegation brought before the As-
sembly important new proposals, also referred to the Dis-
armament Commission, for the international control of
atomic energy. These embodied significant concessions
on the part of the Soviet Government. The American
State Department had previously claimed that the Soviet
plan was unacceptable because it meant that the conven-
tion on banning atomic weapons would be signed before
adequate inspection could be instituted. But Foreign
Minister Vishinsky now proposed that the machinery of
inspection should go into effect simultaneously with the
agreement to prohibit and destroy all atom bombs.
Another American objection to the position of the
U. S. S. R. had been that the Soviet offer of periodic inspec-
tion of atomic facilities, from the mining of raw materials
to plant production, was not a sufficient guarantee against
violations. However, Vishinsky's 1952 compromise pro-
vided that agents of the international control agency
should have the right of continuous on-the-spot inspection
in every country, with the qualification that the agency
was not entitled to "interfere in the domestic affairs of
states. " The Soviet Government had already agreed in
October, 1950, that this agency was to make all its deci-
sions on investigation and inspection by majority vote
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? COEXISTENCE OR CO-DESTRUCTIOH?
and not subject to any veto. It had also suggested that
atomic materials be de-natured in such a way that they
could not be used for atomic weapons.
Later Deputy Foreign Minister Malik went into
further details concerning the Soviet idea of inspection,
saying that the representatives of the international au-
thority "will have access to all plants producing, stock-
piling and using atomic raw materials as well as plants
which exploit atomic energy. They will have the possibil-
ity of getting to know the production operations to an
extent necessary for control purposes. They will conduct
the weighing, measuring and different analysis of atomic
raw materials, materials and half-finished products. They
will have the right to demand from the government of
any state various information and reports on the activ-
ities of plants producing atomic energy and the right to
verify this information. . . . They will have the right to
conduct special investigations in cases of suspicion of
violation of the convention on the prohibition of atomic
weapons and to make recommendations to the Security
Council on measures of warning and prevention with
regard to violators of the convention. "31 All this sounds
sufficiently explicit.
The major point still at issue, then, between the
American and Soviet Governments regarding atomic
regulation is the insistence of the United States, under
the plan drawn up by Mr. Bernard M. Baruch, on inter-
national ownership and operation of all atomic facilities
throughout the world. The Soviets have opposed this
ownership project as a "super-trust"; and are afraid that
the U. N. agency in charge might limit or prevent Soviet
application of atomic power to peaceful economic devel-
opment. And we must ask whether in the last analysis
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATIOH
the Congress of the United States itself would permit the
drastic and far-reaching interference with national sov-
ereignty implied in international ownership of all Amer-
ican atomic resources and installations.
In any event it is high time for the U. S. Government
to show that it is willing, in the interests of world peace,
to revise in some degree the Baruch Plan, which was orig-
inally presented to the U. N. in June, 1946, and had as its
major premise America's monopoly at that time of the
atomic bomb. When it became known in 1949 that the
Soviets definitely possessed the secret of atomic fission, the
situation immediately changed. Walter Lippmann sum-
med it up: "Now that the Russians have broken the
monopoly, the basic premise of the American policy has
disappeared. A totally different policy, based on the
radically new condition, will have to be formulated. . . .
There is no alternative to the negotiation of a modus
vivendi based on the balance of power and of reciprocal
advantages. "32
The direct answer of the United States to the Soviet
proposals for immediate disarmament, immediate aboli-
tion of the atomic bomb and immediate international
atomic control was to offer a complicated plan for a step-
by-step census by United Nations inspectors of all armed
forces and armaments throughout the world as a prelude
to any disarmament whatsoever. The Soviet idea had
been that each of the Big Five, following an agreement
to reduce armaments one-third within a year, should
furnish within a month complete information on their
arms and armed forces, such data to be checked by a
special U. N. control body. Thus, the Soviet Government
tied in the arms census and inspection with a going dis-
armament plan.
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? COEXISTENCE OR CO-DESTRUCTIOXV
It is obvious to everyone that the American counter-
proposal would delay actual disarmament for years and
years. Commenting from Paris on the Western plan,
James Reston of The New York Times said: "As an ins-
trument for ending the 'cold war' it was, to use an old
diplomatic term, a bust. " Mr. Vishinsky, he continued,
"accused the Western Allies of hypocrisy, and if the truth
is to be reported there are a lot of people around here
who believe there is some justification for the charge. "33
On April 22, 1952, the U. S. Government gave an-
other answer to the Soviet Union by exploding in the
Nevada desert an atom bomb releasing energy equal to
over 20,000 tons of TNT and far more powerful than
the two wartime missiles dropped on Japan. This test,
the fifteenth of the kind made in continental United
States, was carried out with much fanfare and as part of
a complicated military maneuver in which more than
2,000 troops participated. Television cameras relayed
. images of the explosion to TV stations from coast to coast.
Typical of the publicity build-up was the message sent
out in advance by Hugh Baillie, president of the United
Press: "A demonstration of the atom bomb as a humane
weapon was scheduled today at Yucca Flat. Atom bomb-
ing as a mercy stroke is based on the theory that it will
kill troops quickly and in large numbers, and enable the
capture of positions with a minimum of loss and a maxi-
mum speed and thus shorten wars. "34 Dictionaries, at
least those published in America, should at once under-
take to revise their definitions of "humane" and "mercy"!
In discussions of atomic energy it is essential to re-
member that it was not the Soviet Government, but the
American Government which manufactured the first
atom bombs and assumed the terrible moral responsibil-
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
ity of dropping them on two densely populated Japanese
industrial centers, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with the
purpose of causing economic havoc and undermining
enemy morale by mass killings. In the two gigantic ex-
plosions approximately 120,000 persons lost their lives;
about 110,000 more were injured. Throwing light on the
wisdom and morality of the American move is an official
government report, the United States Strategic Bombing
Survey, issued in 1946, which came to the conclusion
that Japan had been so weakened by the spring of 1945
that it was highly probable she would have surrendered
during the summer or autumn, even without the added
disaster of the A-bombs and the Soviet offensive in Man-
churia. The Survey revealed that as early as May the
Japanese were tendering peace feelers through the
U. S. S. R. In 1950 Rear Admiral Ellis M. Zacharias, war-
time Deputy Director of U. S. Naval Intelligence, pub-
lished an article in Look entitled, "We Did Not Have
to Drop the A-Bomb," in which he asserted that Japan
had been ready to surrender anyway in August of 1945.
It is possible, however, that an unexpressed motive
may have entered into the calculations of U. S. military
leaders and of President Truman, who personally gave
the order for the dropping of the atomic bomb: That was
the potential advantage from an American viewpoint of
winning the war against Japan before the Soviet Union
could enter the conflict and take a substantial share of
the credit for victory. Since Stalin had agreed at Yalta
that the Soviets would attack the Japanese army on the
Asiatic mainland three months after V-E Day, it was
well known in highest governmental circles in England
and the United States that the expected date of the Soviet
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war declaration would be August 8, 1945. * And there
is weighty opinion to the effect that U. S. Army officials
moved heaven and earth in their eminently successful
effort to have the first atomic missiles ready before that
particular day.
Mr. Thomas K. Finletter, now U. S. Secretary of the
Air Force, in a joint article with Mr. Norman Cousins,
Editor of the Saturday Review of Literature, stated in
June, 1946: "Assuming that the use of the bomb was
justified, why did we not demonstrate its power in a test
under the auspices of the U. N. on the basis of which an
ultimatum would be issued to Japan -- transferring the
burden of responsibility to the Japanese themselves? t . . .
Whatever the answer, one thing seems likely: There
was not enough time between July 16, when we knew at
New Mexico that the bomb would work, and August 8,
the Russian deadline date, for us to have set up the very
complicated machinery of a test atomic bombing. . . .
"No; any test would have been impossible if the pur-
pose was to knock Japan out before Russia came in -- or at
least before Russia could make anything other than a
token of participation prior to a Japanese collapse. "35
This plan, according to Messrs. Finletter and Cousins, was
supposed to prevent a "struggle for authority" between
the U. S. A. and the U. S.
? CO-EXISTEHPE OR CO-DESTRUCTIOW
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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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
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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? CO-EXISTEHCE OR CO-DESTRUCTIO^?
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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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
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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? CO-EXISTEHCE OR CO-DESTRUCTIOW
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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? SOVIET CIVILIZATIOH
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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? CO-EXISTEHPE OR CO-DESTRUCTIOW
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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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
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
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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. submitted a resolution, which
met defeat, calling for an immediate cessation of hostilities
in Korea, the conclusion of an armistice and withdrawal
from the country of all foreign troops and volunteer de-
tachments within three months. It also moved, unsuccess-
fully, to have the U. N. Security Council consider meas-
ures to help bring the slow-moving cease-fire and truce
negotiations in Korea to a successful conclusion.
Fifth, Foreign Minister Vishinsky urged another reso-
lution, likewise not adopted, that the establishment by
several states of military, naval or air bases on foreign
territory was incompatible with membership in the
United Nations.
Sixth, he called, again unsuccessfully, for a Five-
Power Pact of Peace between France, the People's Repub-
lic of China, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and
the United States as a step "to counteract the threat of
a new war and to strengthen peace and friendship among
nations. "27
Seventh, the Soviet Union moved that the five Great
Powers reduce their armed forces and armaments by one-
third, within a year after such a disarmament accord;
that a world disarmament conference be held not later
than July 15, 1952; and that all governments should file
with the U. N. "complete official data on the status of
their armaments and armed forces, including atomic
weapons, and concerning military bases on foreign ter-
ritory. "28 In connection with the last-mentioned resolu-
? Cf. p. 382.
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? CO-EXISTEHCE OR CO-DESTRUCTIOW
tion the Soviet delegation recommended that an interna-
tional control organ be created under the Security Coun-
cil for the "checking of information presented by the
states about the status of their armaments and armed
forces. "29 The U. N. Assembly referred these three pro-
posals to the new Disarmament Commission, which now
combines the functions of the former Commision on
Conventional Armaments and the former Atomic Energy
Commission.
As compared with the 65. 1 billion dollars or 76 per-
cent of the 1952-53 Truman budget allocated for defense,
the 1952 Soviet budget of 119. 2 billions earmarked for
defense 28. 4 billions (at the official ruble exchange rate)
or 24 percent. Discounting the fact that the Soviet Gov-
ernment budget covers a much larger proportion of the
national economy than the American, the percentage
devoted to the military still is far smaller than in the
United States.
The clarifying Steps to Peace: A Quaker View of
Foreign Policy, a 1951 report of the American Friends
Service Committee, sets us right on another important
comparison. It is widely believed, the report states, "that
the United States disarmed unilaterally after World War
II, thereby weakening itself and opening the way for
Soviet expansion. The fallacy in this is in its frame of
reference, for while it is true that we demobilized our
army to a much larger extent than did the Russians, the
military strength of the United States has never been
measured by the size of its standing army.
"For geographic reasons we rely primarily on sea and
air power, while the Soviet Union is primarily a land
power. If all categories of weapons are included, as they
must be in any fair analysis of military strength, the
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATIOH
theory of America's unilateral disarmament collapses. In
the years since the war, our production of atomic weapons
has proceeded at an increasing tempo, accompanied by
the maintenance of a far-flung network of air bases and
the bombing planes necessary for their delivery. Our
navy, by far the largest in the world, has been maintained
on a standby basis. In no post-war year has our military
budget fallen below eleven billion dollars. This is hardly
unilateral disarmament. "30
Eight, the Soviet delegation brought before the As-
sembly important new proposals, also referred to the Dis-
armament Commission, for the international control of
atomic energy. These embodied significant concessions
on the part of the Soviet Government. The American
State Department had previously claimed that the Soviet
plan was unacceptable because it meant that the conven-
tion on banning atomic weapons would be signed before
adequate inspection could be instituted. But Foreign
Minister Vishinsky now proposed that the machinery of
inspection should go into effect simultaneously with the
agreement to prohibit and destroy all atom bombs.
Another American objection to the position of the
U. S. S. R. had been that the Soviet offer of periodic inspec-
tion of atomic facilities, from the mining of raw materials
to plant production, was not a sufficient guarantee against
violations. However, Vishinsky's 1952 compromise pro-
vided that agents of the international control agency
should have the right of continuous on-the-spot inspection
in every country, with the qualification that the agency
was not entitled to "interfere in the domestic affairs of
states. " The Soviet Government had already agreed in
October, 1950, that this agency was to make all its deci-
sions on investigation and inspection by majority vote
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? COEXISTENCE OR CO-DESTRUCTIOH?
and not subject to any veto. It had also suggested that
atomic materials be de-natured in such a way that they
could not be used for atomic weapons.
Later Deputy Foreign Minister Malik went into
further details concerning the Soviet idea of inspection,
saying that the representatives of the international au-
thority "will have access to all plants producing, stock-
piling and using atomic raw materials as well as plants
which exploit atomic energy. They will have the possibil-
ity of getting to know the production operations to an
extent necessary for control purposes. They will conduct
the weighing, measuring and different analysis of atomic
raw materials, materials and half-finished products. They
will have the right to demand from the government of
any state various information and reports on the activ-
ities of plants producing atomic energy and the right to
verify this information. . . . They will have the right to
conduct special investigations in cases of suspicion of
violation of the convention on the prohibition of atomic
weapons and to make recommendations to the Security
Council on measures of warning and prevention with
regard to violators of the convention. "31 All this sounds
sufficiently explicit.
The major point still at issue, then, between the
American and Soviet Governments regarding atomic
regulation is the insistence of the United States, under
the plan drawn up by Mr. Bernard M. Baruch, on inter-
national ownership and operation of all atomic facilities
throughout the world. The Soviets have opposed this
ownership project as a "super-trust"; and are afraid that
the U. N. agency in charge might limit or prevent Soviet
application of atomic power to peaceful economic devel-
opment. And we must ask whether in the last analysis
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATIOH
the Congress of the United States itself would permit the
drastic and far-reaching interference with national sov-
ereignty implied in international ownership of all Amer-
ican atomic resources and installations.
In any event it is high time for the U. S. Government
to show that it is willing, in the interests of world peace,
to revise in some degree the Baruch Plan, which was orig-
inally presented to the U. N. in June, 1946, and had as its
major premise America's monopoly at that time of the
atomic bomb. When it became known in 1949 that the
Soviets definitely possessed the secret of atomic fission, the
situation immediately changed. Walter Lippmann sum-
med it up: "Now that the Russians have broken the
monopoly, the basic premise of the American policy has
disappeared. A totally different policy, based on the
radically new condition, will have to be formulated. . . .
There is no alternative to the negotiation of a modus
vivendi based on the balance of power and of reciprocal
advantages. "32
The direct answer of the United States to the Soviet
proposals for immediate disarmament, immediate aboli-
tion of the atomic bomb and immediate international
atomic control was to offer a complicated plan for a step-
by-step census by United Nations inspectors of all armed
forces and armaments throughout the world as a prelude
to any disarmament whatsoever. The Soviet idea had
been that each of the Big Five, following an agreement
to reduce armaments one-third within a year, should
furnish within a month complete information on their
arms and armed forces, such data to be checked by a
special U. N. control body. Thus, the Soviet Government
tied in the arms census and inspection with a going dis-
armament plan.
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? COEXISTENCE OR CO-DESTRUCTIOXV
It is obvious to everyone that the American counter-
proposal would delay actual disarmament for years and
years. Commenting from Paris on the Western plan,
James Reston of The New York Times said: "As an ins-
trument for ending the 'cold war' it was, to use an old
diplomatic term, a bust. " Mr. Vishinsky, he continued,
"accused the Western Allies of hypocrisy, and if the truth
is to be reported there are a lot of people around here
who believe there is some justification for the charge. "33
On April 22, 1952, the U. S. Government gave an-
other answer to the Soviet Union by exploding in the
Nevada desert an atom bomb releasing energy equal to
over 20,000 tons of TNT and far more powerful than
the two wartime missiles dropped on Japan. This test,
the fifteenth of the kind made in continental United
States, was carried out with much fanfare and as part of
a complicated military maneuver in which more than
2,000 troops participated. Television cameras relayed
. images of the explosion to TV stations from coast to coast.
Typical of the publicity build-up was the message sent
out in advance by Hugh Baillie, president of the United
Press: "A demonstration of the atom bomb as a humane
weapon was scheduled today at Yucca Flat. Atom bomb-
ing as a mercy stroke is based on the theory that it will
kill troops quickly and in large numbers, and enable the
capture of positions with a minimum of loss and a maxi-
mum speed and thus shorten wars. "34 Dictionaries, at
least those published in America, should at once under-
take to revise their definitions of "humane" and "mercy"!
In discussions of atomic energy it is essential to re-
member that it was not the Soviet Government, but the
American Government which manufactured the first
atom bombs and assumed the terrible moral responsibil-
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
ity of dropping them on two densely populated Japanese
industrial centers, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with the
purpose of causing economic havoc and undermining
enemy morale by mass killings. In the two gigantic ex-
plosions approximately 120,000 persons lost their lives;
about 110,000 more were injured. Throwing light on the
wisdom and morality of the American move is an official
government report, the United States Strategic Bombing
Survey, issued in 1946, which came to the conclusion
that Japan had been so weakened by the spring of 1945
that it was highly probable she would have surrendered
during the summer or autumn, even without the added
disaster of the A-bombs and the Soviet offensive in Man-
churia. The Survey revealed that as early as May the
Japanese were tendering peace feelers through the
U. S. S. R. In 1950 Rear Admiral Ellis M. Zacharias, war-
time Deputy Director of U. S. Naval Intelligence, pub-
lished an article in Look entitled, "We Did Not Have
to Drop the A-Bomb," in which he asserted that Japan
had been ready to surrender anyway in August of 1945.
It is possible, however, that an unexpressed motive
may have entered into the calculations of U. S. military
leaders and of President Truman, who personally gave
the order for the dropping of the atomic bomb: That was
the potential advantage from an American viewpoint of
winning the war against Japan before the Soviet Union
could enter the conflict and take a substantial share of
the credit for victory. Since Stalin had agreed at Yalta
that the Soviets would attack the Japanese army on the
Asiatic mainland three months after V-E Day, it was
well known in highest governmental circles in England
and the United States that the expected date of the Soviet
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? CO-EXISTEHCE OR CO-DESTRUCTIOW
war declaration would be August 8, 1945. * And there
is weighty opinion to the effect that U. S. Army officials
moved heaven and earth in their eminently successful
effort to have the first atomic missiles ready before that
particular day.
Mr. Thomas K. Finletter, now U. S. Secretary of the
Air Force, in a joint article with Mr. Norman Cousins,
Editor of the Saturday Review of Literature, stated in
June, 1946: "Assuming that the use of the bomb was
justified, why did we not demonstrate its power in a test
under the auspices of the U. N. on the basis of which an
ultimatum would be issued to Japan -- transferring the
burden of responsibility to the Japanese themselves? t . . .
Whatever the answer, one thing seems likely: There
was not enough time between July 16, when we knew at
New Mexico that the bomb would work, and August 8,
the Russian deadline date, for us to have set up the very
complicated machinery of a test atomic bombing. . . .
"No; any test would have been impossible if the pur-
pose was to knock Japan out before Russia came in -- or at
least before Russia could make anything other than a
token of participation prior to a Japanese collapse. "35
This plan, according to Messrs. Finletter and Cousins, was
supposed to prevent a "struggle for authority" between
the U. S. A. and the U. S.
