Russia And Germany MILITARY STRENGTH; POLITICAL WEAKNESS

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28895, 15 May 1959, Page 10

Russia And Germany MILITARY STRENGTH; POLITICAL WEAKNESS

[By

ISAAC DEUTSCHER)

[l]

LONDON May 5. In the six months since Mr. Khrushchev raised the demand for a change in the status of West Berlin his diplomacy has displayed much initiative and a great deal of confusion. Initiative has brought rewards. It has sent the British Prime Minister on an unprecedented diplomatic errand to Moscow; it has caused reluctant Western governments to accept the prospect of a summit meeting or even of a series of such meetings; and it has helped to reveal, if not produce, discord in the Western camp. But the signs of Soviet . confusion have been not less evident. At the starting point of the Berlin crisis, last November, Mr Khrushchev denied the Western Powers any right to stay on in Berlin; and he appeared to confront them with the demand for an early withdrawal and with an ultimatum. He has since reacknowledged explicitly and solemnly the right of the Western Powers to maintain their position in Berlin. As the Foreign Ministers assemble in Geneva, the Soviet purpose thus appears to be more modest than it was six months ago. Moscow claims that it wishes merely to change the legal and diplomatic basis for the Western presence in the German capital; the Western Powers should stay on in Berlin on the basis of new rights which ought to be defined through negotiations, not by the right of conquest dating back to 1945. This, then, is the main item in Mr. Gromyko’s Geneva brief. He is not to parley about larger issues such as the unification of Germany or disengagement. Instead, he is to propose that the former belligerents conclude a peace treaty with the two German governments. As the Western Powers are not prepared to agree to this, the re-definition of the legal basis for their continued presence in Berlin remains the only real object of negotiations. Even some of Mr Khrushchev’s closest associates may be wondering now whether it was worth while raising so much dust over this question. “Slump” of Communism

Underlying the confusion there is a deeper conflict between Soviet political strategy on Germany and Soviet tactics. Strategically, Moscow is playing from strength; tactically, it is playing from weakness. Its policy-makers are convinced that in the long run the industrial and technological ascendancy of the Soviet Union is bound to have its effect on Germany and to draw the whole of Germany into the Soviet orbit. In the short run, however, Germany remains the most important European bulwark of the West, and even East Germany is potentially, because of the mood of its people, a stronghold of anti-com-munism. Despite all its strength, Soviet policy has been helpless against this fact.

The contrast between strategic strength and tactical weakness has had its source in the legacy of the Stalin era in Germany. Even if Mr. Khrushchev will not say it openly, he 'knows full well that it was Stalin’s Potsdam policy, with its emphasis on reparations, territorial annexation, and nationalist Russian revenge on the defeated Reich, that has produced the present, long-lasting slump of communism in Germany, weakened the economy and lowered the standard of living of East Germany, and utterly discredited the Ulbricht regime. As long as the consequences and the memory of this Stalinist legacy have not been effaced, Soviet policy on Germany is bound to be torn between a sense of power and a sense of weakness. The latest Soviet initiative over B ~ r ! ln illustrates this state of affairs. What has prompted Mr Khrushchev and his policy-makers to press for a revision of the status of Berlin is their confident awareness of the great shift in Russia’s favour that has recently taken place in the international balance of power. They see the division of Berlin as the remnant of a now closed era, an era during which the outlook in Germany was determined, on the one hand by the predominance of the Ruslan land power in Europe and. on the other, by the American monopoly of atomic power. With the lapse of that monopoly, and with Russia’s present lead in the development of missiles. Soviet policy is tempted to do away with the “anachronism” of Berlin, especially because the position of the Western Powers in Berlin is particulary exposed and vulnerable to Soviet pressure. Soviet Also Vulnerable However, when, in November, Mr. Khrushchev set out to probe the exposed Western outpost, he soon found out, not for the first time, that in Berlin the Soviet position is not less vulnerable. To both East and West. Berlin is the chink in their armour. But while the weakness of the Western Powers is of a military nature Russia s weakness is mainly political; it lies in the stubborn opposition of the local population to any change that might enhance the Russian influence on the spot. Since East and West conduct at present their contest by political not by military, means, Mr Khrushchev has had to acknowledge the precariousness of his position and to climb down. The mixture of strength and weakness determines also Mr Khrushchev’s attitude towards disengagement. On strictly strategic grounds, he could well afford to withdraw Soviet troops from East Germany— nothing, indeed should suit him better than to be able to do so. He might even afford to carry out a unilateral withdrawn!, f° r he knows that whether Soviet troops stand on the Elbe on the Polish, or on the Soviet frontier, the NATO Powers cannot, under the present balance of military strength, risk to move across the Elbe; and in certain circumstances unilateral Soviet withdrawal might compel them, too, to withdraw.

Yet Mr. Khrushchev is in fact almost as much afraid of disengagement as are most NATO leaders But while the latter fear that disengagement might lead to the disintegration of N.A.T.O M f- Khrushchev is afraid that it might je followed by an anticommunist upheaval, of which the Berlin rising of 1953 and the Budapest rising of 1956 gave him the foretaste. He has to keep Sov-

iet military power, or at least to preserve his freedom to use that power, in East Germany and East Europe in order to protect not Russia’s security directly, but the security of the governments of Ulbricht, Kadar, and Gomulka.

As Moscow sees it, the great question on which the prospects of its diplomacy hang is how and how soon can the legacy of the Stalin era be lived down in east Europe, especially in East Germany.

It would be a mistake to overlook or underrate the efforts the Soviet Government is making to clear the liabilities of that legacy. Soviet economic policy towards East Germany is no longer governed by the Stalinist spirit of ruthless Russian egoism. Not for nothing has the doctrine of “Socialism in one country” been replaced by that of “international division of labour within the socialist camp.” East Germany is already benefiting from the change. It is no longer treated, as it was in Stalin’s day, as both a defeated enemy and an exploitable satellite. It derives definite advantages from economic exchanges with the Soviet Union. Its trade with the countries of the Soviet bloc has considerably grown, its engineering industries play an important part in the industrialisation of China and other under-developed, . com-munist-ruled countries. The standard of living of the East German people has been rising steadily even though it is still well below that of the west Germans. All this has probably been enough to soften the acute popular discontent which exploded in Berlin in 1953, but not enough to create contentment. Moscow expects, however, that East Germany will continue to make progress and will secure full employment and prosperity to its people, while conditions in the Federal Republic may become stagnant or even deteriorate into a slump and mass unemployment. As Mr. Khrushchev has put it; in the 1950's the German people were impressed by the “economic miracle” of West German capitalism; in the 1960’s they will see the “economic miracle” of the East German socialism, which will radically alter the political climate in the whole of Germany. But even by Mr. Khrushchev’s most optimistic calculations, it must take quite a few years before this happens. Ulbricht’s Position Mr. Khrushchev and his advisers are aware that the problem is not merely an economic one. Since his visit to East Germany the Soviet leader has few illusions about the Ulbricht regime. Some of his advisers are well aware of the distrust and hatred by which it is surrounded. But on this point Mr. Khrushchev is extremely cautious and shuns “risky experiments.” He has met any hint about the desirability of a change in the East German Communist leadership with the argument that the experience with Rakosi was enough for him and that he was not going to “turn Ulbricht into another Rakosi”—that is, to make him into a scapegoat for all that has happened in East Germany and thereby to encourage the anticommunist opposition there. He tries, on the contrary, to build up Ulbricht’s prestige, believing that the opportunity for a relaxation of the East German regime will come later when, helped by economic progress, East German communism has recovered from its moral slump. It is also assumed in Moscow that new political trends at work in Bonn may favour East Germany. At least some Soviet political observers interpret Dr. Adenauer’s assumption of the Presidency of the Federal Republic as a move towards a new authoritarianism, modelled on General de Gaulle’s Presidential government; and they believe that this will deprive the Federal Republic of the moralpolitical advantages and the popular appeal which, as a parliamentary democracy, it has hitherto enjoyed.

As all these changes, economic and political, which are expected to strengthen Russia’s hands in Germany, must take time, a lot of time, Soviet diplomacy is at present determined to postpone any general German settlement. This was the meaning of the appeal which Mr Khrushchev made to the Germans from Leipzig earlier this year, begging them to bear up patiently with the continued division of Germany. The time when the Soviet Union will be ready to press for a general German settlement will, in his view, be around 1965. It may be even later, between 1965 and 1970, after the completion of the present Seven Year Plan, when the Soviet Union wfll be able to play new trump cards in its foreign policy.—World Copyright Reserved. (To be Concluded)