https://declassified.library.utoronto.ca/files/original/2f3de53b46847f6467f8aaa892cebe3b.pdf c31a2a89e12e5d81482f6f4fc14ed8e3 PDF Text Text 1 W O RLD C OMMUNISM SIN C E 19^7. When the first ye ar of pe ace began the world was still relaxing in the honeymoon of the E ast-W est marriage. Though undoubtedly it was a mariage de convenance , if not an outright shotgun a ff air in the minds of most of the world ’ s citiz e nry, the partners were living together in the hope of producing the brave new world. Although the capacity for s elfdelusion is infinit e , not everyone was bemused. There had be en disquieting signs. The San Francisco C onference where the United N ations began brought forth the new Soviet diplo matists—men who were no longer willing to play the tunes of the western nations, men who were to express in exasperating oratory th eir nation ’ s new self-confidence, intransige ance and messianic b elief in socialist glory and c a pitalist doom. ' Alre ady, as in the a ff air of the imprisonment of the Lublin Poles in Russia, the USSR was showing its total disregard for good relations with the west. D espite its bluntness, its apparent shortsightedness, the USSR still benefited from the gre at funds of goodwill accumulated during the war, funds of goodwill which would long delay the wakening of the west to the nature > of Soviet--policy. There were worried voices to be raised. Some were the professional anti-C ommunists , or were so regarded —the organs of big business and other groups with-tra dition al sympathy for right-wing causes. These were discounted in the public mind. Some were in the chancelleries of the west5 the difficultie s of de aling with the Russians were not new to them, but it was'not th eir job to arouse the people, and the politicia ns who might.have done so were not convinced them selves of a Soviet menace, or were reluctant to shake the indolent pe ace of th eir exhausted peoples. The people were re ady and anxious to believe the best of the Soviet Union and of the possibility of la sting pe ace. It was an announcement in Ottawa, which did as much as anything to shake that mood. On F ebruary 15, 19*+6, the C anadian G overnment told the world of an espionage ring which had be en operating from the Soviet Embassy in O ttawa. Though the ordinary man in the stre et might take it for granted that diplomacy and espionage, if not synonomous, at le ast went hand in hand, there was something damnable . about friends spying upon one another. The espionage case had a psychological impact where the philosophical complexities of Marxism or the dis sembling ta ctics of Stalinism were e ntirely too obscure. If there were a single watershed in the post-war psychological relations betwe en W est and E ast, possibly this was it. N evertheless,? the C anadian G overnment did a ll in its power to prevent the espionage case from becoming any more of a cause celebre in Intern ation al relations than ne ed have be en. Diplomatic officers of the E mbassy, including the Ambassador, were exonerated in a manner which must have astonished the Kremlin 5 on far flimsier grounds diplomatic relations betwe en the USSR and Latin American countries were soon to be completely severed. The honeymoon was still on when, on July 29, 19*+6, the Peace C onference opened. It was a Peace C onference with only limite d objectives—to draw up the pe ace tre atie s with It aly, Bulgaria, Hungary, Roumania and F inland. The tre atie atic.s with G ermany and even Austria were still but dista nt hopes. 000005 �2 The July C onference opened in an atmosphere of pessimism, but oddly enough— at le ast in the light of later history— it was successful; by autumn fiv e pe ace tre aties were re ady for approval by the C ouncil of F oreign Ministers. By 19*+7 they were signed and ratifie d by a ll countries concerned. By 19h-6 the world was becoming fa miliar with the pattern or the new diplomacy by the international demagoguery. The United N ations was becoming accustomed to the acid phrase of Mr. Molotov, and was being ’ introduced to the Soviet cliches about imp erialist aggressors and warmongers. The veto in the S ecurity C ouncil, which had be en insisted upon by the U.S. delegation at San Francisco now became an exclusive Soviet possession. The first of the so-called incidents shocked a world which in a few ye ars would become almost inured to the shooting down of aircraft or the violation of borders; this was the destruction of a US plane by Yugoslavia during the P aris Peace C onference. In the pattern of intern ation al relationships, one could, by the end of the ye ar, cle arly se e the growing hostility betwe en the USSR and the W est, but it was becoming apparent that the Soviet Union, in its rather clumsy way, was trying to split the United States and United Kingdom by being just a littl e nicer to the la tt er. G oodwill delegations were still flitting betwe en Britain and Russia, where as the only goodwill being shown by the Kremlin in North America was to a new frie nd named H enry W allace. March 10, 19^7? was the opening day of the Moscow C onference, more accurately known as the F ourth Plenary S ession of the C ouncil of F oreign Ministers, thre e previous sessions having taken place in late 19^5 and in 19>+6 . Although there was to be another session in D ecember, 19^7? in London, and one in June, 19^9? the failure of the Moscow session heralded the bre akdown of this instrument of diplo macy. Probably h alf a doz en dates could be fixed for the beginning of the cold war, but the end of the Moscow confer ence is one of the most plausible. After th at the Soviet campaign of violence against the west inte nsifie d, and by a succession of minor acts the USSR, and later the west made cle ar that the pe ace had now gone to pieces. The F ourth and F ifth sessions of the C ouncil of F oreign Ministers broke up with the G erman and Austrian Tre aties no closer to signature. One of the many causes of de adlock betwe en e ast and west was the d efinition of the countries which should take part in the G erman settlement. The USSR held that only countries which had be en invaded had the right to be he ard. The US D eputy F oreign Minister pointedly observed that it was more important th at C anadian troops entered G ermany than that no G erman forces entered C anada. But the main stumbling block was that neither e ast nor west could tolerate any departure from its own pattern for the organiz ation of a unifie d G ermany. Statesmen of the time said that the Moscow C onfer ence neither incre ased nor narrowed the gulf betwe en'e ast and west, but c ertainly it defined the rift in far cle arer terms than ever before. E ach side was now faced with the assumption 000006 �3 th at it would have to consider the future of E urope without the co-operation of the oth er. To the Russians this was no surpris e , but to the west, e sp e cially to the United States, it was an important milestone in the postwar approach to diplomacy. The Moscow C onference set the scene for the Marshall Plan. The Marshall Plan was born in a spe ech given by the US S ecretary of State at H arvard U niv ersity in June, 19^7• In it he proposed "the re viv al of a working economy in the world so as to permit the emergence of politic a l and social conditions in which fre e institutions can e xist" . The United States, Mr. Marshall indic ate d, was willing to commit its e lf to a co-ordin atsd plan of fin ancial help to E urope an countries if those countrie s would themselves consult together on plans for the best use of such aid. Both the proposal its e lf and the philosophy behind it were far-sighte d, a remarkable com bin ation of generosity and enlightened s elf-int ere st. As C anning had remarked in 1826, it was a case of c alling in the New World to redress the balance in the old. E urope re acted quickly and, in W estern E urope, fa vourably. The Kremlin was cle arly confused. It continued to spe ak d arkly of American aggressive designs, but Mr. Molotov accepted an invit a tion to attend a conference of F oreign Ministers of the United Kingdom, France and the USSR in P aris. The me eting broke down when Molotov walked out, claiming th at no plan for E urope an recovery was possible without int erf er ence by one country in another's a ff a irs. The E astern E urope ans were s eriously intere ste d in the prospects of g etting badly ne eded dollars . Poland made cle ar priv ately, and C z echoslovakia publicly, th eir willingn e ss and e agerness to p articip ate in the Plan, But Poland had its mind changed before it form ally accepted the invit a tion, and-C z echoslovakia made its embarrassed volte-fa c e after acceptance. The Soviet counterpart to the Marshall Plan, :if such could be c alle d, was something tot a lly unlik e the western plan of enlightened aid: the milking of E astern E urope was too Important and too tempting to Soviet planners for th at. E astern E urope was, however, thoroughly integrated in a single tra ding economy dominated, inde ed dictated, by Moscow. Trade tre aties with Poland and C z echoslovakia were signed in July and August, and with the remaining Soviet neighbours la t er th at ye ar and e arly in the n e xt. The economies of the ex-enemy state s were furth er tie d to the Soviet Union through re p arations. A more immediate answer to the Marchall Plan came in S eptember, 19*+7» when, at a conference in W arsaw, the C ommunist inform ation Bure au was founded. The origin al members of the C ominform were the USSR, B ulgaria, C z echoslovakia Yugoslavia, Hungary, Poland, France and It a ly. The objectiv e was co-ordin ation of opposition to the Marshall Plan and to the socialist p artie s which supported it. Both the. name of the new org aniz ation, with its re colle ctions of the C omintern, and the keynote spe ech by Zhdanov had sinist er implic ations for world pe ace. Zhdanov threw to the winds the ple as a ntrie s about pe aceful co-existence and dwelt on the new imp erialist war which the United States was preparing against the Soviet Union. The a n alysis of intern ation al relations was along Marxist lin es, and emphasis at the C onference g e n erally, both in domestic and foreign a ff a irs, was on orthodoxy. 000007 �4 The path of the C ominform— if we may a nticipate tim e —was far from smooth. It broke upon the world with the e clat which we have come to expect in connection with such Soviet births . It opened up its large he adquarters in B elgrade and began public ation of a newspaper c alle d " F or a Lasting P e ace, F or a P eople ’ s D emocracyl", in a number of languages. It had some limite d success in influe ncing left-wing socialists in the west. Then it began an acrimonious dispute with its host, the Yugoslav G overnment which erupted into viole nc e in June, 1948. After th at event the C ominform was, re lativ e ly a spent forc e , and although the newspaper and offic e s still remain, cle arly the C ominform is no longer one of the most important instruments of Soviet foreign policy. In January, 1948, the rift between west and e ast widened furth er. Although the cold war had by now be en in vented as a term, it was by no me ans as chilly as it was to become. Just the month pre viously the United Kingdom signed a new trade agre ement with the Soviet Union, and although the British Prime Minister (Mr. Atle e) was a constant object of Soviet abuse, soft words were occ a sionally spoken in the h alf-he arte d attempt to split the Anglo-American allia nc e . Mr. B evin's spe ech on January 22, in advocacy of a W estern Union was th erefore bound to cause a sharp re a ction from Moscow. On March 17, the F oreign Ministers of the United Kingdom, France, B elgium, the N etherlands and Luxembourg signed the-Brussels Tre aty, a milit ary allia nc e in defence of the western way of lif e , to be v alid for JO ye ars. It was the parent of the North Atla ntic Tre aty to be concluded just over a ye ar la t er. The org a niz ation of blocs was gathering momentum. In a ddition to the Brussels Tre aty, western E urope an nations counted two other successes in th at spring of 1948. In mid March the United States S enate passed the E conomic C o-operation Act of 1948, and simultaneously the sixte e n "Marshall" countries worked at the management of the E urope an end of the E C A plan. The B enelux countreis, B elgium, the N etherlands and Luxembourg had achieved an economic union, and were hard at work on a customs unions a study group was considering an all-E urope an C ustoms Union. On the other side of the curtain, the Soviet Union achieved a limited success when, on A pril 6, F inland signed a Tre aty of Frie ndship, C o-operation and Mutual Assistance similar to those imposed on the other E astern E urope an countrie s, but F inland managed to maintain a remark able degre e of independence. Unlike a ll the E astern E urope an neighbours of the USSR, the G overnment of F inland never made the long descent from a re pre s e ntativ e cabinet to C ommunist P arty rule . Late in the spring of 1948 te nsion mounted s eriously until people began to use- phrases about preventing the third world war. The centre was B erlin. On March 20, the Soviet, d ele g ation walked out of the allie d C ontrol C ouncil. In July a Soviet re pre se ntativ e declared th at not only did the a llie d C ontrol C ouncil, whose re sponsibility encompassed a ll of G ermany, ce ase to e xist, but de ath had come also to the Kommandatura responsible for the a dministration of B erlin. W estern observers at the time saw in this move an. attempt to end F our-Power occupation of B erlin and place the city firmly in the Soviet zone which surrounds it. The B erlin dispute roamed over many issues, nota bly the circula tion of western and e a stern! currency, but the re al issue from the beginning was the continued esistence of the western powers in the city. J 000008 �5 Late in June, 19^8, the Russians closed a ll roads and canals to B erlin, isolating it e ntirely from the western zones of G ermany, except by a ir. The re a ction of the west was immediate and dramatic—the biggest a irlift ever organiz ed in pe acetime and, by the time it was over, one of the most remarkable a ir operations of a ll time . The a irlift impressed and surprised the Russians, and it gave time for almost a ye ar of h e artbre a kingly prolonged n e gotiations. The course of the talks, in Moscow, in B erlin, and in New York, ne ed not d etain us. Their bre akdown time after time brought a mounting tension and furth er despairing t alk of war. The value of B erlin was weighed c arefully in the c a pitals of the west, and many a spe ech was made about ' appe asement. In th at ye ar of mounting gloom, one event of f arre aching importance he artened the west and shook the e ast— the C ominform-Yugoslav dispute . It was announced on June 28, th at at a recent me eting of the C ominform held in Bucharest, Yugoslavia, had be en expelled from the C ominform for incorre ct policie s. The a ctu al issues are not very important to historys it was in essence a re volt of the non-Russian C ommunists, a re volt of those who could stomach no longer a Moscovite interfere nc e which they could regard only as a form of Russian imperialism completely alie n both to Marx and to th eir own n ation al intere sts. Violent as vrords always are among C ommunists in diss e nt, the dispute followed a curious course. At first the Yugoslavs complained bitt erly against the C ominform and c ertain Soviet offici a ls , deplored th eir economic subservience to Russia, but continued to tre at Stalin as sacred. In august, at an important confer ence to s ettle questions of D anube n a vig ation, Yugoslavia supported the Soviet Union right down the lin e , even while the nasty words were flying outside the C onference room. E ven in D ecember a new trade agre ement betwe en the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia was signed, although it c alle d for an exchange of goods in 191 +9 which was only one-eight the value of the exchange in 191 +8. The fin a l disenchantment with Stalin and with a ll things S oviet, the new-found frie ndship with the west were slow in coming. But even before west and e ast f e lt the ta ngible re sults of the shift of this weight from one side to the oth er, th ere , for a ll to se e, was a gia nt crack in the Soviet imp erial system, a crack whose causes were to be found everywhere in the much vaunted monolithic Soviet structure . I To most W estern observers the lesson of Yugoslavia appe ared to be th at the Soviet E mpire was too rigidly admini stered from Moscow and th at to preserve it some screws would have to be loosened where they did not matter in order th at ultimate power could be controlle d. Although the British had long since le arned this lesson, the Russians had not. The re a ction to the Yugoslav d efe ction was the a pplic ation of more pressure - the tighte ning of screws which should have be en loosened. On F ebruary 2>, after a chain of events organiz ed in minute d e t ail by envoys from Moscow, President B enes of C z echoslovakia was obliged to accept a new govern ment dominated by the C ommunists. Klement G ottwald was in stalle d as Prime Minister, and a ll effe ctiv e opposition to C o.miunist rule was extinguished. The end of democratic, 000009 �6 or even re pre s e ntativ e government was organiz ed on the eve of a general ele ction in which western observers believed the C ommunists would have suffered severe losses. The C z echoslovak coup, which some Soviet offici a ls openly boasted of as a masterpiece of org aniz ation, caused a re vulsion of fe eling in the W est which was probably tot a lly un a nticip ated in Moscow. Undoubtedly it had some effe ct in persuading the U.S. C ongress to approve E . C .A. expenditures and in hastening the signature of the North Atla ntic Tre aty, which took place on A pril M-, 191 +9. The P act e sta blish e d a s e curity are a in the whole Atla ntic region north of the Tropic of C ancer re aching to North Afric a and It a ly, and including occupation troops of the W estern Powers in G ermany and A ustria . Later it was extended to includ e Gre ece and Turkey. The nations within these fix e d are as undertook to act as a single unit to re sist armed atta ck and to consult together whenever the t erritori a l int e grity and politic a l independence or s e curity of any of them was thre atened. More than a p a ct, the North Atla ntic Tre aty, insofar as any one document could be, was a union of new and old worlds and of the unde -writing of E urope by the economic and milit ary might of the United States for twenty y e ars . By the spring of 19^9, the psychological stre ngth of Communism abroad was waning. Just how f ar the fortunes of C ommunist p artie s had sunk was indic ate d in a s eries of statements made by C ommunist le aders, beginning in F ebruary. Thore z and T oglia tti began the chorus and it was taken up by le aders of C ommunist p artie s even unto A ustralia: the gist of e ach of these statements was th at if, in consequence of aggression against the Soviet Union, the Soviet Army should have to advance into these countrie s, the workers, led b; the C ommunists, would welcome it as a d eliv erer. Abandoned was the picture of the p a triotic C ommunist, the honest man of the people, the upstanding citiz e n re ady to d defend his country as he had done in the la st war, the fellow whose interest in Russia was purely academic. These state ments were more than a change of lin e - they were an admission of d efe at. It was the sort of statement th at was bound to re p el many fellow-tra vellers and we aker sisters upon whom the C ommunists had be en able to count for much support during the war and immediately afterwards. The era of pe ace con gresses and pe ace p etitions, not to be confused with the post-Stalinist period of the pe ace campaign, re a lly goes back to August 25, 19*4-8, when a " World C ongress of Int e l le ctu als " was held in Wroclaw, Poland, and c alle d for the formation of N ation al P e ace C ommitte es. In A pril, 19^9? a " World P e ace C ongress" was held in P aris and Prague and at th at time a World P e ace C ommitte e of 138 persons was estab lishe d. O f these, 58 were known C ommunists, 30 were re pre s e ntativ e s of the U.S.S.R. and s a t e llit e states and 36 were known C ommunist sympathiz ers. The C ommitte e was controlle d and its policy determined by a permanent bure au of 12, 7 of whom were C ommunists and the remainder indistinguish a ble from C ommunists. In March, 1950, the World P e ace C ommitte e, me eting in Stockholm, lauched the so-c alle d " Stockholm Appe al", demanding the banning of the atomic we apon, the establishment of strict intern ation al control to ensure the implementation of the ban and a d e claration th at the government first using the atomic we apon would be committing a crime against the 000010 �7 commity. In August, 1950, the E xecutive Bure au, without any form of consultation, even with the World P e ace C ommitte e, expanded the aims of the movement with a new s et of re solutions which were duly endorsed at the second World P e ace C ongress held in W arsaw in November. These aims relate d to such objec tiv e s of Soviet foreign policy as the- unific a tion of Kore a and G ermany under C ommunist rule . At the W arsaw C ongress, the P ermanent E xecutive Bure au was expanded from 12 persons to 22 and the World P e ace C ommitte e, also expanded, now became the " World P e ace C ouncil". In 1951 j the pe ace movement was at its h eight. The C ouncil met in B erlin in F ebruary and produced a s eries of re solutions, a ll in accord with Soviet foreign policy. It received an a ddition al impetus by an intervie w given by Stalin to a Pravda correspondent on the Subject of pe ace. The intervie w set a new theme damning the United N ations, and for some time ths world wondered if Moscow would withdraw from the UN and form its own spurious intern ation al body. One of the campaigns of World P e ace C ouncil was for signatures for a p e tition demanding a world pe ace pact. This pe ace p e tition was to be even larg er in scope than the campaign for signatures to the Stockholm appe al. In Moscow appe ared a new E nglish language p eriodic al dedicated, in tones of unaccustomed moderation, to the cause of e ast-west col la boration. After a few months it sank into obscurity. The so-c alle d "p artis a ns of pe ace " in every p art of the world vigorously campaigned for signatures to the p e tition for a pe ace p a ct. E v e ntu ally it was announced th at 596,303?296 signatures had be en collecte d. The P e ace C ouncil met again in November, this time in Vienna,, and the following July in B erlin. After th at its a ctivitie s taile d off. It is difficult ,o judge what success the campaign had. It North America most people, at le a st a ft er some e arly mistakes, recogniz ed th at the co-c alle d "pe ace campaign" was merely a new t a ctic of the C ommunist P arty and would have nothing to do with it. E ven here, however, the pe ace campaign did cause a good de al of confusion among naive people who were unable to se e the obje ction to stating th at they thought th at pe ace and a pe ace pact would be a good thing. Undoubtedly the campaigns had more success in E urope, where the "p artis a ns of pe ace " were able to work on n e utralist opinion and on a larg e body of people who were to some extent disillusion ed with W estern policie s. During the time of the pe ace campaign, the Soviet Union c ertainly had the initi a tiv e in psychological warfare. The general answer of the W est to the pe ace p e tition was eith er, on the one hand, a d etaile d expose of Soviet hypocrisy in sponsoring it, or, on the other hand, the swe eping statement th at it was C ommunist-inspired and th erefore wrong. The first was too involved to appe al to most unthinking people, and the second was uns atisfa ctory to thinking people. The plain fa ct was th at there was no e asy answer to the Soviet shibboleths and while the pe ace campaign ran its course it probably did a good de al of damage to the minds of men. It had run its course by mid 1952 suffocated by a new S t a linist scripture 000011 re ading on the eve of the Ninete enth P arty C ongress. �8 The S oviet-inspire d pe ace campaigns se em paradoxical in the context of the developing cold war which-, in May, 19*4-9? took a curious turn. By then the Russians had not only se en th at the B erlin a irlift could, and probably would, fe ed the city ind e finit e ly, but the bre akdown of trade was having harmful effe cts in the E astern zone of G ermany. Q uite possibly, too, the Kremlin fe ared the ultimate consequences of th eir policy in B erlin, and were anxious to avoid serious risk of conflict, at le a st until E astern E urope was purged of Titoism. In any event, on May p, announcement was made of the ending of the B erlin blockade scheduled for May 12. The B erlin crisis was over and the ground of the cold war was shifte d. Just the day after this announcement the Brussels Tre aty powers, together with Norway, Sweden, D enmark, It a ly and E ire signed the statute bringing into existence the C ouncil of E urope. Unlike the Brussels Tre aty and the North Atla ntic Tre aty, this was in no sense a defence compact and, inde ed, sp e cific ally excluded defence from its competence.’ The C ouncil of E urope was, or was to become, the E urope an P arliament of two houses which would bring a ll W estern E urope an countrie s clos er together without elimin ating n ation al e ntiti e s . It was a me asure of hope and investment in the future , a me asure of id e ologic al s elf-defe nc e, to which the Soviet Union quite n aturally took strong exception. and The but the The C ouncil of F oreign Ministers met again in May June as a postlude to the lifting of the B erlin blockade. re sults of its d elib erations on G ermany were inconclusiv e , the me eting gave ris e to some hope of future progress on A ustria n P e ace Tre aty. On S eptember 23, 19*+9 ? conventional thinking on the balance of power betwe en the United States and the Soviet Union in the postwar world was shattered with the announcement from W ashington th at there had be en evidence of an atomic ex plosion of Soviet t erritory. If the news had any concrete effe ct beyond the shaking of W estern complacency, it was probably se en in the inje ction of some new degre e of urgency in the North Atla ntic Tre aty Organiz ation, whose building by then had merely starte d. Throughout the winter of 19*1-9-50 there were few events to change signific a ntly the balance betwe en the Soviet Union and the W est or to alt er the atmosphere of ste a dily growing mistrust and hostility. The " H ate America " campaign was by now at its h eight and its most absurd and yet sinist er m a nife station was the wid ely published and believed Soviet story th at Americans were dropping C olorado be etles to destroy G erman crops. By this time, it is w ell to remember th at the Soviet E mpire- in E urope was larg ely solidifie d. The hostility betwe en Tito's Yugoslavia and S t alin ’ s Russia mounted until it became quite cle ar th at only the most unexpected cataclysm could take Tito from the W estern to the Soviet camp. The E astern E urope an countrie s were se arched for Titoists and they underwent purges which were n either th eir first nor th e ir la st. In a ll this, the W est had to remain but an idle sp e ctator. O nly in Gre ece could the W est fe el some substa ntial progress. The C ommunist armies, which had once thre atened the existence of democratic politic a l lif e in Gre ece, were • now a spent forc e destroyed by a combination of British and U.S. aid, Loy alist determination and, la st but not le ast, apparent Soviet indiffere nc e to th eir fate . By the end of 000012 �9 19>+9, a ll re sistanc e to the C hinese C ommunists on the main land of C hina had collapsed and the second C ommunist re volu tion, which Stalin alle g e dly n either lik e d nor wanted, was an accomplished fa ct. The C hinese C ommunist regime was announced on O ctober 1 , and recogniz ed by the Soviet Union on the following dc\y. E ven before this offici a l a ct, how ever, the Soviet p e n etration of C hina had begun. On the other side of the P a cific, the hunt for alleged C ommunists and others guilty of subversive a ctivitie s had become a fa miliar p art of the p attern of American lif e . The whole course of relations betwe en E ast and W est was profoundly changed on June 25, 1950, when troops from North Kore a crossed the 38th P arallel at several points. On June 26, President Truman said th at he had ordered U.S. air and se a forces to give the Kore an government troops cover and support. The S ecretary G eneral of the United N ations condemned North Kore an a ction and the Soviet G overnment was asked to use its influ e nc e with North Kore an a uthorities "for withdrawal of the invading forces and the cessation of hostiliti e s " . The Soviet G overnment re plied th at responsi bility "re sts with the South Kore an a uthoritie s and on those who stand at th e ir back". The Soviet Union used its own professed aloofness from the Kore an war as a contra st with the b ellig erency of the United States and its a llie s in the context of the pe ace campaigns which the P artisans of P e ace were now waging. F or the next two and a h alf ye ars world diplomacy was to be dominated by the war in Kore a. F irst, the United N ations forces made slow progress, then were able to advance ra pidly north of the 38th P arallel. On O ctober 1, 1950, G eneral MacArthur was demanding the surrender of the C ommander in- C hief of the North Kore an forces - "the e arly and tot a l defe at and complete d e struction of your armed forces and warmaking pote ntial is now in e vita ble " . Late in November the U.N. forces were in retre at south across the p arallel. The nature of the war had be en completely changed by the e ntry in forc e of C hinese troops. The war d eteriorate d into a stalemate around the 38th P arallel, a situ ation which pro moted G eneral MacArthur to announce his willingn e ss to me et his C hinese opposite number on the b a ttlefie ld to discuss a truc e . With these p a cific overtures to the C ommunist le aders there went an accompanying thre at th at if it still should be found necessary, C hinese co a stal and int erior bases would be bombed and R ed C hina doomed. The proposal for the truc e , as w ell as the thre at, were made without any consultation with W ashington at a time when it was known th at the U.S. and U.N. were preparing to discuss conditions of a s e ttle ment. G eneral. MacArthur was dismissed. Whether G eneral MacArthur ’ s dismiss al had any re la tion to Mr. M alik's suggest! n of a truce in Kore a made in the la st we ek in June is unknown, but unlik ely. What Mr. Malik had in mind is cloaked in mystery and it has even be en alleged th at Mr. Malik had nothing in mind, not even a truc e . At th at time , there were many suggestions for a truc e and it was not surprising th at n e gotiations should begin. It was surprising th at they would take more than two ye ars to con clude . While the Kore an n e gotiations dragged on, the Soviet Union c arrie d on its pe ace campaign and the W est 000013 �10 continued to organiz e its e lf for defence in other parts of the world. On S eptember 8, 1951? the P e ace Tre aty with Japan was signed in S an Francisco. In E urope the North Atla ntic Tre aty Organiz ation, which Ernest B evin had once described as " a ll harness and no horse ", was at la st be ginning to show milit ary stre ngth. To the Soviet Union these two developments could be regarded as the re building of both the Japanese and G erman thre ats to Russian s e curity. E ven though the Soviet Union might be winning in psychological warfare, it was losing the diplom atic war; no longer was time on its side in the building of milit ary stre ngth. With the Kore an truc e n e gotiations still de adlocked J tho Soviet Union c arrie d its professions of pe ace into new fie lds. ±n e arly A pril, 1952, it held an intern ation al economic conference at which a ll those who could be persuaded to come were told of the b e n efits which would flow from trade betwe en E ast and W est. The Russians f e lt no embarrassment in com bining this t a lk of pe ace with a vitriolic campaign accusing the United States of using b a cteriologic al we apons in Kore a. During the summer of 1952, there was some evidence of changing emphasis on the propaganda of foreign C ommunist p artie s. Once again there se emed to be a broader approach which sought wider popular support. The disgrace of the veteran French C ommunist le a d ers, Marty and T illon. and the announcement th at Thore z would take over the p arty's le a der ship, was a good indic ation of a return to "popular front" ta ctics in foreign p artie s. On August 20 20, the long postponed Ninete enth C ongress of the C ommunist P arty was announced' for O ctober 5. The C ongress took place in an atmosphere of aggressive s elf-confid enc e int ern ally and of changing outlooks abroad. No long er, said Stalin, did the Soviet Union have to fe ar the atta ck of the American warmongers and th e ir NAT O lackeys. The scripture s reve aled th at the next war would be fought among the c a pit alist powers themselves in a suicid al struggle for markets. The immediate thre at from abroad, mira culously, lift e d overnight from the Russian people for the first time since the war. What followed was not the kind of pe ace offe nsiv e which was to make the world rub its eyes in 1953? for the United States was still damned d aily in the press, if in slightly less aggressive terms. There was once more an attempt to help the dialectic al forces by splitting the United States from its a lli e s. There was no re ason to believe th at this t a ctic would be any more successful than it had be en in the p a st, when a ll Soviet policy was turned upside down and insid e out by the de ath of Stalin, announced on March 5, 1953. Indic ations of the change in policy were not long in coming. The orations at S t a lin ’ s fun eral were notably unprovocative and a we ek la t er Malenkov, in his address to the Supreme S oviet, said th at there were no outstanding E ast-N est differe nc e s which could not be s ettled by n e gotiation. One sour note was struck when two W estern a ircra ft were shot down over G ermany, but it soon became cle ar th at the shooting was not p art of Muscovite design. 000014 �11 Many words came from Moscow on the d e sira bility of clos er cooperation betwe en E ast and W est. There were also a few de eds. None were of p articular signific a nc e but, after seven ye ars of singularly unconciliatory de eds, they assumed signific a nt proportions. Molotov agre ed to intervene with the North Kore ans to obtain the rele ase of British, French and U.S. intern e es. Moscow granted viasa to te n U.S. journ alists. C onditions for foreign diplomats in Moscow were somewhat improved and a new atmosphere of relativ e cordiality began. There was a whole series of rele ases of intern e d foreign ers - fishermen, W estern soldiers in G ermany and Russian wives of foreign n ation als. Of more significa nc e was the note which Molotov gave the Turkish Ambassador in Moscow on May 31. In it the U.3.3.R. renounced its claims on thre e S ovietTurkish E order regions and indic ate d th at it was willing to negotiate on the re vision of the regime of the S traits. And above a ll, it seems quite cle ar th at the truc e n e gotiations in Kore a, which came so close to success before the dis a strous machinations of Syngman Rhe e, were possible only with the nod, or twist, from Moscow. It is not e asy to assess the me aning of these moves but one or two things are cle ar. F irst, there has be en a sharp bre ak from the S t a linist regime, a bre ak which will permit changes of lin e without n e c e ssitating them. There is apparently no embarrassment about rejecting what Stalin revered, It is re asonable to conclude, th erefore , th at in the short term at le a st Soviet foreign policy is now more fle xible. It is e qu ally obvious th at for the present the emphasis in Soviet foreign policy is on the possibility and d e sira bility of pe aceful co-e xiste nc e ., I don't think, th at we can assume th at Malenkov is ta king this lin e just because he has decided to be a good man, or has suddenly "got re ligion " . There are many re asons why pe ace, however sup erficial, can serve the Kremlin and be dangerous to the W est. E fficie ntly as the new regime grasped power in the spring of 1953, a period of pe ace would no doubt be us eful to it for consoli d ation. And the ne ed for consolidation has re c e ntly become manifest in some of the f ar corners of the Soviet E mpire, nota bly in E astern G ermany and in Hungary. The main re ason for the accent on pe ace,5 however, is a bit more subtle. Probably the Kremlin is convinced, through f a ith in its own Marxist id e ology, th at the W est is bound to have an economic collapse which will be but the precursor of a complete politic a l colla ps e. The collapse has so f ar be en delayed, the Kremlin re asons, only by the artificia l lift to the economy which larg e war orders have given. Without defence spending, the W est would shortly face a serious depression. Therefore, it appe ars th at the Russians are try ing to cre ate an atmosphere of pe ace as a me ans to economic catastrophe in the W est. The dilemma which the W est faces is th at it cannot afford to ignore Russian pe ace ov erture s, for by so doing it will hand to the Kremlin an overwhelming victory in psychological warfare. There are many people, e sp e cially in E urope, who . could be convinced th at the Soviet Union is an anxious , or more anxious, for pe ace than the United States. On the other hand, the W est cannot afford to f a ll in too e a sily with Soviet plans. F irst, just from the poker playing point of view, a c ertain amount of reluctance from the W est is lik e ly to encourage furth er Soviet concessions. The Russians are n't 000015 �12 lik e ly to pack up the game when they have so much to gain by winning it. S econd, there c ertainly is an economic problem if defence spending is sharply or suddenly curtaile d. There are many ways to me et th at situ ation - one of the most h elp ful of which was suggested by F ir. E isenhower, when he pro posed th at defence monies - might in p art be turned over to te chnic al assistance and aid for underdeveloped countrie s. U nfortun ately, economic history t e lls us th at unless some unusual step is taken when defence spending is cut, there will be danger of a depression along the lin e s th at the C ommunists pre dict . The C ommunists think th at they can afford to w ait p atiently. The W est, on the other hand, has the urgent task, of proving them wrong. 000016 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CDIG00189 Title A name given to the resource CDIG00189 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Library and Archives Canada, RG146, volume 5873, Part 1, "Brief - Talks deliveryed to Special Branch Class 1953-07-13 to 1953-07-22," Wallet 1 (A-2013-00622) Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource RCMP Special Branch Subject The topic of the resource Counterintelligence Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Canada Declassified Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Language A language of the resource en