NO THIRD WORLD WAR

Grey River Argus, 24 August 1946, Page 2

NO THIRD WORLD WAR

[This is the last instalment of an article from the British “Labour Monthly,”' from the pen of R. PalmeDutt, authority on world affairs.] REPEATED VIOLATION OF PLEDGES It is the violation and even repudiation of these pledges by the Western Powers, once the danger of war has passed, that underlies all the present difficulties. The Teheran and Crimea Agreements, solemnly signed on behalf of Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union, had laid down the basis of Three Power collaboration and leadership in the post-war world as the indispensable foundation of peace and condition of success of the United Nations, the only alternative to which would mean the renewal-of rivalries and antagonism, two-Power combinations against a third, and all the instability of balance-of-power politics. Yet official British, and to a certain extent American Government declarations to-dav shamelesslv renudi-

ate the basis of Three-Power politics. Thus Noel-Baker declared on behalf of the Government in the Hous-e of Commons on February 20:— The Government did not agree that •we could get peace and co-operation between ourselves and Russia by withdrawing important "questions out of the framework' of the United Nations Organisation and by going back to Three-Power politics. The same violation could lie traced in detail in relation to the operaliop. of the Potsdam Agreement and the pledge to "destroy the vestiges of Nazism and Facism.” It is this, and not any imaginary shift of policy of the Soviet Union, which has remained, loyal to the Crimea and Potsdam Agreements, that is responsible for the present difficulties.

ATOM BOMB GAVE ILLUSIONS OF GRANDEUR What led to this dangerous reversion of Anglo-American policy at the end of the war from the ThreeFower basis to the old plans for Anglo-American domination and antiSoviet manoeuvring? The evidence tends to indicate that the decisive shift came from the atom bomb, and the illusions of grandeur to which the new weapon gave rise in the heads of the Anglo-American strategists and reactionary statesmen that the monopolist possession of this weapon changed the entire balance of world forces and made possible the renewal of the plans for AngloAmerican world domination against the Soviet Union and the risingdemocratic forces. As Churchill declared in his report to the House of Commons on August 16:— The decision to us the atomic bomb was taken by President Truman and myself at Potsdam . . . from that moment our outlook on the future was transformed.

The decision to maintain monopolist possession of the atom bomb broke the basis of strategic collaboration and confidence, and was accompanied by the launching of a wholesale anti-Soviet propaganda offensive. As the “Observer” declared, on August 12,' 1945:— The declaration that Britain and the United States will not reveal the secret of the atom bomb until means have been found to control the bomb is reassuring. But it means a great change in world-power relations . . . It binds' Britain and America together as never before ... It shifts the balance of power among the Big Three . . . The possession of the monopoly of the atom bomb makes AmericanBritish power preponderance for the time being a fact.

DREAMS OF ANGLO-SAXON WORLD DOMINATION Such was the heady wine of strategic illusion which led to the renewal of the dreams-, of AngloAmerican world domination and found reflection in the present worsening of the international situation. It was not until the anti-Soviet propaganda campaign from the West, launched since the summer of 1945, had reached extreme heights, that the Soviet Union abandoned its policy of loyal silence in public on the actions of its Western allies and began to reply in public on behalf of the democratic anti-facist forces of the world.

At this point it is' worth recalling the final speeches which Goebbelswas making on behalf of Nazism only a year ago, on the eve of the Nazi collapse. Goebbels described how Europe and Germany would be divided between the Anglo-American and Soviet forces. He painted a picture of how Eastern Europe would be organised by the Soviet Union behind an “iron curtain” (it is worth recalling that that phrase, the ‘ iron curtain,” was first coined by Goebbels, which is so eagerly repeated to-day by all the Western reactonary publicists, including Churchill). He prophesised how this would lead to inevitable future conflict between the Anglo-American Powers and the Soviet Union in World War 111. On this basis he foresaw the return of Nazism. This indication of Nazi post-war c-trategy is all-important to bear in mind to-day, •if we are to understand the true significance of the reactionary campaign which is being conducted with such fidelity along the lines laid down by Nazi strategy in so many countries to-day. This tendency already began to reveal itself in the shady episodes which made such a ragged and even disparate ending of the war in Europe, with the wholesale surrender of German armies without a struggle in the West alongside desperate fighting in the East, the affair of the Doenitz Government, the prolonged recognition. of German Wehrmacht formations in defiance of Potsdam, etc. ANTI-COM I NTERN PACT REVIVED It is against this background that we need to see the significance of Churchill’s speech at Fulton and his continuing campaign. The fallen crime-soaked mantle of the AntiComintern Pact is picked up to be worn on new shoulders.. The cracked clarion-call of the “crusade of Christian civilisation” against the “menace” mf Communism and Soviet “expansion” is proclaimed from new lips.

i The time-worn spectre •of Hitler and Ribbentrop and Goebbels, which had already done duty for so many years to cover every rascally and criminal project of world aggression, walks again; and Goebbels’ sneering ghost may rub his hands over his new convert. It is not difficult to understand the fury behind this last desperate crusade of the beaten Churchill, whose original attempts to crush in blood the infant Soviet Republic ended in a costly and inglorious fiasco, and whose pre-war eulogies of Japanese expansion, of Mussolini, of Hitler and of Franco helped to pave the way for the war. The post-war world' has not turned out as he intended. The Soviet Union is not prostrate and submissive, begging for favours from the Anglo-American lords of the earth, but, despite all the terrible losses, striding forward along the path of reconstruction, and more bold and strong and confident in policy than ever, while it is British and American capitalism that are more and more clearly faced with gigantic economic problems. EUROPfE ELUEJING IMPERIALIST SCHEMES

Europe has not obeyed the dictation of Anglo-American finance; even France, thanks to Communism, is eluding the snare of the Western bloc. The reactionary proteges are going; Mihailovich, Badoglio, Darlan, Peter, Victor Emanuel, Leopold—where are .they now? Churchill himself has been rejected by the British people; and, alone of the three war leaders; Stalin continues Strenger than ever in the confidence of a united people. So the' defeated gambler calls for the last stand —the military coalition of Anglo-American reaction (Europe is already despaired of as lost) against the world: 200 millions against 1800 millions, with the one hope, the devil’s lure of the atom bomb.

The choice before the British people is plain. It is not surprising that Churchill and Tory reaction should embark upon this reckless defeatist, adventurist course; their bolt is shot; their star is- setting. But it is a matter of serious concern, that a Labour Foreign Secretary should by his own actions and speeches have have helped to pave the way for Churchill’s speech, and, while formally disassociating himself from the responsibility for the speech, should do nothing to repudiate the policy set forward in the speech and blazoned to the world (especially to German Nazism, where the effect of the repeated T3.8.C. broadcasts of the speech to Germany is stated to have been electric) with all the devices of British official publicity, and should in his own concrete policy so closely approximate to many of the main lines of Churchill.

This is a state of affairs which needs to be put right; for the whole future of the British people and of the British labour movement is involved in this basic issue of foreign policy. We welcome the action of the 105 Labour M.P.’s, who have shown their understanding of the importance of this issue and the necessity for a public and practical repudiation of Churchill’s policy and turn to democratic foreign policy.

THE CHOICE IS CLEAR — The choice before the British people is clear. Either forward with the advance of the progressive peoples of the world, with the Soviet Union, the new democracies in Europe, the colonial peoples', world trade unionism and working-class unity. Or back to enslavement to ! American finance-capital and its British reactionary partners. The voice of Churchill is the voice of the most reactionary sections of AngloAmerican finance, which fear the advance of the peoples and' socialism over- .the world. His crusade is not merely directed against Communism and the Soviet Union, any more than was the crusade of Hitler, which used the same public device. It is directed not least against the advance of the labour movement and socialism in Britain. His policy is not merely anti-Soviet. It is' anti-British. His policy would make Britain the pawn of the American millionaires, their strategic outpost against a socialist world, the cockpit and the victim of the planned third world war.

In vain Churchill speaks of “fifth columns,” and seeks to conceal the fact that the Fifth Column is the classic engine of fascism. The British people want no Wall Street Fifth Column here. Their patriotism rises against enslavement to the American billionaires- for the benefit of the reactionary money-bags, here. Thej’ seek the path of friendship and firm unity with the Soviet Union and all the progressive peoples of the world, to maintain peace, while they advance on the long overdue tasks of social change in Britain. That is the path 'which will defeat the reactionary plans for a third world war. And the first indispensable step along Ihis path is the change-over to a democratic foreign policj’ and the establishment of working class unity in Britain.