Oliver MacDonald's article 'Stalinist Regime and Soviet State' we published earlier this year has provoked considerable debate. We have already printed & reply by Zbigniew Kowalewski Lodz region of Solidarnosc before the declaration of martial law in Poland. Here we are printing a further reply by FRED PORTER, ford branch of the British-Soviet Friendship Society.
It becomes increasingly urgent to develop discussion and then to 'What Attitude to Eastern Oliver MacDonald's article 'Stalinist Regime and Soviet State'.
MacDonald recognises that 'the world balance of power heavily against declares his sympathy with the USSR's terests and recognises that the economic and military cold war is not a reciprocal ding-dong between equivalent super-powers but a sustained aggression against the USSR which is noW encircled by American military bases.
But MacDonald writes as though the cold war was a post 1945 phenomenon, like NATO, and historical.
preceded it. doesn't discuss NATO and the cold war in the historical context which he must know is relevant?
As early as 4 Foreist 1918 Foreign Secretary, Balfour, claimed in parliament 'the categorically declare that they have intention whatever of infringing in the slightest degree the territorial integrity of Russia'. In the same month British troops landed at Archangel.
From 1918 to 1921 foreign powers were imposing a total blockade on te new coverse. vading its territory every direction, and giving every kind of support to anti-Bolshevik forces in the civil war.
the initial German invasion of Russia August 1914 to the end oi the wars of foreign inICI VCuLUl 1921, the Soviet state suffered — a leader of the chairperson of the OxEurope?' following unimaginable destruction chaos lost million people (give take the odd million or two human beings). Prime George proudly declared in parliaNovember 1919 that 'there is no country that nas spent more in supporting the antielements in Russia than this country has'.
And 30 years later, on January, 1949, Mr Churchill still claimed in House of Commons the that history would one day justify the attempt he had made sarance DO -shevism in its cradle'.
Cynical In 1921 the last British troops left Russia which then had just 20 years to create less than nothing) agricultural, industrial military base to withstand the next invasion from the West -an invasion which was correctly seen as inevitable. These employed by the Capitalist WCIC to undermine денино security against fascist aggression ano to give all out open support to the fascist their colonial and anti-socialist ag gressions and especially Nazi Germany ambitions to conquer 'Leben(living space)
Eastern Europe the USSR was not until May 1939 British government accepted the Soviet proposal of a Three power accessarcel of genuine responsibility mutua assistance against Nazi aggression. minor Foreign Office official was sent to Moscow and like the military mission which followed him it August (taking an unhurried six davs to arrive bi rail) neither he nor they nad authority to agree to anything of importance and had to report back to London continually for instructions.
This cynical tactic was tried again TITSLA 1939-40 when 'phoney war' inaction in the West concealed plans and train"switch the ing lor a real war' strategy against the USSR, and secondly in the aclayea opening ol a cond front in Europe for mediate danger of the Red beating the wenr macht in Europe. Vulnerable Sw nen the Polish government decared August 1939 that it would not acceot soviet ald resisting aggression from Germany the British and French governments simpacquiesced this refusal of any alliance with the Soviet leaving the USSR to wait its own frontiers wate German 'panzers destroyed Poland invaded Soviet ter ritory without any serious distraction from the West.
No minimall responsible COlO be manoeuvred into such vulcasic BOS LION non-aggression pact with vermany. recognised as ‹ expedient to gain a little more time to For event Union e became the Soviet 1939a mat trof wore his light this record will yOUL COll tributor of 5 October still maintain that the Soviet bureaucracy has an 'obsession' (ie an irrational fixed idea with protecting borders? Can we lault that Reagan, Thatcher et al are less dangerous and belligerent at this stage of capitalist crisis than Baltour and Churchill that the new right would not encourage, explolt and intervene in disturbances upheavals of the USSR's military allies? Does Socialist Action and Labour Focus on Eastern Europe • (via Oliver MacDonald) call upon socialists to urge the Soviet not military alliances to detend its territory, besieged threatened for the third time this century for Croes saker Subjugation Have your contributors forgotten (they must surely know) that disruption of post-war settlements in Europe has of US foreign policy fron Foster Dulles' 'roll-back' McNamara's 'containment' theory on carters 'liberation' of Eastern Europe and now the con sidered polic statements (not funny jokes) made by rejecting the 'passive acceptance of the permanents aste peoples Eastern Europe' and Secretary of State Schultz's view that: 'the USA will never accept the idea divided Europe'.
Bluff ceaseless of states nothing than the social prowas bodadiy because ic was d dotard, involuntarily more candid, when he proposed to parliament on January 1948 that 'we bring mallers to a ncad and impose a settlement on the USSR bv the threat of wat before the Soviet got the A bomb. Liberation excuse for or ever overt once the was detled.
The › campaign for diverts attention firstly 1917 continuing and 30s agents doubtedly many)
USSR.
American magazine whether if defeated war This uprisings along the borders the Soviet which somehow remain more free of US intervention contamination than the wretched countries of Central America and the Caribbean. in pertod of galloping imperialist crisis that kind of 'liberation' means curtains for the lot of us.
MANY OF US are still reeling from the shock of nightly TV picEthiopian Vietnamese HARholocaust'.
under Socialist Action 7 December 1984 milions starve.
Even dramatically.
immunisation wealthiest 20 per cent are 67 times better off than the poorest 20 per cent Europe is a landscape of wine lake.