New Slav-Communist Imperialism

...Today the Pan-German dream is wrecked for decades, if not forever, but it has left behind it a still more formidable successor in the growing movement among the Slavs...

...The various conferences that have been held during the past years have no mora cleared up this dilemma than ilid all the gatherings of sovereigns ami diplomats during the nineteenth century...

...Yet the situation is still unclear and shows no improvement over the situation of the nineteenth century...

...It menaces all agreements that can lie made...

...Their attack upon the Soviet Union brought about a community of interests between the Soviet Union and the democratic forces which confused the thought of western Europe and America under the pressure of military necessity...

...The Soviet Union still possesses the same contradictions that Russia has always possessed since its organization...

...Yet this movement, ideal as it was, has always met with startling difficulties...

...The old ideas of a Slavonic brotherhood were pulled out and revamped in Wie Slavonic Congress of Moscow, and there started aii energetic propaganda to show that the community of (he Slavs against'the Germans demanded that all the Slavs come under Russian hegemony...

...The third and unknown factor in the emerging coalition is the MRP...

...The West became Increasingly aware of the millions of non-Slavs in the Russian Empire, of the attitude of the government toward the Finns, Lithuanians, Estonians, Latvians and Rumanians, as well as the stubborn idea of Russians' of all .lasses and modes of belief that there was no such language or culture as that of Ukraine, and it interpreted Pan-Slavism rightly or wrongly as merely Pan-Russianism...

...Between the Communist l^eft and the Catholic Right of the MRP, the Socialists are the obvious moderators...

...Even after the Pan-Slav feelings were aroused, the Polish revolts of 1831 and 1868 were never regarded as a feud between two brother nations but were something to lie suppressed with the greatest zeal and energy...

...In the country's desire to secure control of the Straits and Constantinople, it was ready to lend all assistance to the Balkan Slavs in their efforts to free themselves from Turkish domination, but it was equally ready to turn against the Balkans when the newly liberated Slavs sought to exercise too much control over their own fate...

...Another complained to me, however, that only the Communists were rlearcut about what they wanted and that the Socialist program was indefinite This indicates some failure of the Socialists at salesmanship...

...The various groups of Slavs, when they came to think of the advantages of the movement, have taken widely separated views as to its significance, and still more as to the relationship of Russia as the greatest and most powerful Slavonic-speaking nation...

...It has never given a definite answer as to its course, and as a result the demooatie powers, seeking for a solution of the troubles of humanity, must think long, and hard before they submit blindly to a scheme, which apparently is the next step in the construction of a free and democratic world Democratic humanity can no more accept the ideal of international Com-munism'tied up with Slavonic linguistic imperialism than it could the ideal of anti-Communism lied to the chaiiot wheels of a German master race...

...If the Slav nature of the rivals were mentioned, it was for a purpose only like that of Pushkin in his poem on the Slanderert of ftnxsia, when he said that the Slavonic rivers must run into the Russian sea or it would dry up...

...Poland was regarded almost as a traditional enemy...

...There is even more to it than this...

...To them Russia was Uncle Ivan, their powerful relative, interested in them as nmch because of the Orthodox religion as because of language, tinder the hardships of Turkish rule, they hoped that Russian armies would penetrate into their valleys and drive out the tyrannical invader...

...If it did, these people were to be treated as a political minority...

...During the long centuries when Moscow and Poland were competing for the mastery of eastern Europe, there were never any feelings of brotherhood between the two nations, but these were cloaked by the difference in religion...

...To the enthusiasts of a Slavonic brotherhood, (he great enemy of the world is Germany, not Ihe Nazis, but the entire population which does not speak Sis Minic II leads lo n demand for Ihe re-Hlavizalion of a large part ef Germany and of northern Italy...

...The big question mark over the MRP is whether the liberals or conservatives will dominate it...

...Even today Kerensky cannot sew any reason why the Baltic Slates, the independence of which was recognized by all the democratic poweis, should desire any rights of self-government and of self-rule...

...In a certain sense, the doctrine of self-determination in the form which it teak in 1918 bad little to do with any economic or political democracy...

...They dreamed to the end of a restoration of Holy Russia, their great protector, and even the influence of their more radical paities did not seriously shake the belief of the peasants in the correctness of their past ideas...

...This dualism in Russian policy between a willigness to aid the Slavs and a desire to secure the aid of nnn-Slsvs, including Germany, against other enemies, even at the cost of sacrificing Slavonic interests, runs through the whole history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and was xieapesmible for much of the confusion thai preveosd in western minds about both Russia and the Slavs...

...tern...

...Report from Paris Balance of Power in France Held by MRP By Robert Root New Leader's Roving European Correspondent THOUGH there was always to me an aura of the comic opeia around such remarks, Frenchmen in the late summer often talked darkly, and epiite seriously, shoot the possibility of revolution...

...It is Ihe only hope of peace and of eairying out those ideals and desires which all peace-loving, democratic peoples claim...

...It stubbornly insisted upon the sanctity of all of Russian territory without regard to the ideals of self-determination, and long before it was finally overthrown, it was confronted with definite demands for separation which would have reduced Imperial Russia to the Great Russian ethnic territory...

...Even the Provisional • The age-old pan Slavic dream*, ef tke Russian Tsars, against which all Russian liberals and Socialist*) fought, and which even Lenin condemned, are reeaaerging in a modern totalitarian scheme hacked by all ef Sotiet Russia's resources and hy Cem-miinmit...

...The Soviet Government, in the interests of international Communism, ostensibly cared little for Russian territorial integrity...

...They will inevitably have a certain stieugth from their balance-of-power position...

...From there it was but a step to even more grandiose conceptions of a time when all cognate languages would be merged in some sort of a higher union and when almost the whole of Europe might be combined in a Pan-Germanic, a I'an Latin, and a Pan-Slav federation...

...more widespread and more powerful than ever, a Pan-German idealist dared to dream of...

...It was the definite theory that all people who spoke the same language weVe entitled to be under one government and, vice versa, a government to be ideally derao-eratic should include no people who »poke another language...

...In a word, there is no definite content to the expression, the Slavs, except a similarity in language, and all attempts to create a real nnity among the Slavs rest more or less openly a poo the theory that speaking of the same er related Ian-aage produces a similarity and an identity in methods of thinking, a theory hardly mere scientific than the German belief that the peeHession ef a Nordic figure like Goering qualified a man to rule the earth...

...One Socialist told me that the Com-ihunists were cooperative immediately win i liberation but now they are 1*1 lifi-.iol and intransigent...

...Its strength lies in the fact that the common words of eating, drinking, and going about are practically the same in all the Slavonic languages and that a man traveling from the western border of Czechoslovakia to the Pacific Ocean can supply his simplest wants without difficulty...

...New Slav-Communist Imperialism USSR Improves Upon Tsar's Pan-Slavic Policy By Clarence Manning THE world has been oo busy- with the attaining of democracy during the last century and a half in ita political and economic aspects that it haa paid little attention to the language developments which have occurred during this period...

...The absorption of the Baltic States,in 1940 was carried out with more skill and power than were the abortive at-temps in the early twenties*, but there was Rtill the use of the same fundamental subterfuge, that these states were really part of the Russian domain and that they needed to acquire proper development by being governed by good Communists trained in the Soviet sys...

...Pan-Slav feelings have been there based on purely intellectual reasoning...

...There was a generally tolerant admis* n ion, however, that France had liten through so much that it was no wonder many had turned to Communism for salvation...

...I heard again, as in August, that on thing which was luiiting the Communists was the disillusioned reports of French soldiers returning from captivity in the east...

...It was in this sense that the movement found its earliest adherents...

...They bothered little with the ideological aspects of the problem and much with the possibility of military support...

...For eight 01 nine years, the transcendent question about the Democratic Party in the USA has been whether the New Dealers or the Bourbon reactionaries would win...

...At limes the Communist principles at the denial of any significant element in Ihe Union tended to encourage the different nationalities...

...Slav-* ommiiiiisi Imperialism Government could not formulate any policy ©f honest federation...

...Even later Dostoyevsky with his feelings on the debt of Russia to the brother Slavs could still emphasize the Asiatic roots of Russia and give vent to words of hatred against the western and the non-Orthodox Slavs and especially the Poles...

...It, was inclined to disregard any real feeling for the other Slavs and suspect it as merely a desire to expand the l.oondni ics of Russia itself...

...Both the Socialist and Communist positions are clear enough that the people know what sort of government to expect from them...

...They ssean tke Slavonic languages, for there is no ether element common to the varieaa groups...

...In fact, it is still more confused, for the international complications of Communism are still not faced clearly by people who are sick of the bloodshed of the last years...

...Their ¦ ion aggression part with the Soviet Union gave it a free hand in eastern Europe...

...It found a sympathetic hearing among the Slavs of the Balkans, still struggling to free themselves from the Ottoman Empire...

...It was willing to sign the Treaty pf Brest-Litovsk and give up Ukraine and the west, if only it ¦ cold find the opportunity to strengthen the rule of the Communist Party for its leaders with their dreams of a world revolution expected that sooner or later the proletarians of the world would come under the jurisdiction of the new world- organization centering in Moscow...

...Yet the fulfillment of those desires must lest entirely upon the Soviet Union itself...

...At limes Ihe realization that Ihe leading Communists were Russians has lent added weight to Russian control of the subordinate Soviet republics...

...The Poles have been little touched by this movement...

...There are peoples with all degrees ef literacy, and all kinds ef intellectual and economic interests...

...All the parties, except the MRP, wjere critical of De Gaulle...

...Unflinching honesty is the best policy, and unflinching honesty for democracy will bring out the undoubted democratic instincts of the Slav and the non-Slav and eliminate the evil of totalitarian Communism and inaugurate the better world that democratic humanity desires...

...People speak ef the Slavs and ef the Slavonic race...

...The axis of the new government must go through the Socialist Party," said a I Miniiin ni Frenchman...

...It emphasizes .the Slavic nature of (he Soviet Union and facilitates the demand for eastern Germany as pat-t ef that Slavonic territory visualized by Kollar in the Daughter ol Slain It allures and beckon- all non-Communist Slavs nifh the vision of a great and united Slav i...

...It was willing to annex Mohammedan tenitory when it seemed more profitable to take Central Asia or endeavor to increase ita holdings against China or any other country...

...TlIK Russian Revolution of 1»17 threw Into a clearer light, the dualism in Russian foreign policy...

...During the same period when the languages of eastern Europe were being revived, there was a counter-movement...

...The Czechs, on the other hand, have never had direct border contact with Russia...

...With Germane on three sides of their territory, they have sought a moral support in the great empire to the East, even though the personal comments on Hussia by Czechs who visited that country have lieen sharply oritical...

...Finally, as the only significant party more moderate than the Communists and Socialists, the movement by the force of events will doubtless tend to take the more conservative position...

...In this campaign even the Orthodox Church is being exploited politically...

...There is no need to deny that this is an attractive ideal and that it does represent one possible method of bringing humanity nearer together in a political solidarity...

...Blum's own explanation of the fact that the Socialist Party did not come out stronger was that its propaganda was weak...

...We have seen the rise of one language after another from the level of a peasant patois to...

...It spread into Russia, it stirred the Society of Saints Cyril and Methodiis which embraced all the early Ukrainian leaders such as Shevchenko...

...It casta long shsdows over the surrounding territories in Ihe name of language and the Slavonic soul and spirit...

...I ran into no evidence that the Catholic hieraichy has plans for the MRP as a "Catholic" party, but this factor remains a possible influence on its future course...

...It was ready and willing to equate Slav and Orthodox when that suited the nation's interests and it was advisable to sacrifice the Balkan Slavs for noma advantageous deal with the Greeks or Armenians...

...At the moment, the liberals are in control, but they have a sort of "Solid South" to appease if they are going to win the Fame section of the voting public in another election...

...a literary medium, and we have seen also these movements turn into important political problems...

...It .is but another expression of the belief of the Communists since I'Ji'l and it holds out the definite assurance that a pro-Communist government, and only that, ran be friendly to the Soviet Union in their sense...

...With the German attack upon the Soviet Union, the way was open for another shift in the ever-changing kaleidoscope, but it added nothing essentially new...

...The future is dark unless Ihe lielieveis in democracy give up the appeasement policy and stand fast on their position, cost ^hat it may...

...Dunng the period lietween the wars, Prague was the center and the inspiration for dreams of a Slavonic association which would play a great role in the future, and at the present time the Czechs are only loo ready to believe that all would have lieen different had Stalin taken a leading role in in.MK The Balkan Slavs, especially the Serbs and the Bulgers, have had a more realistic approach to the problem...

...They're •lend now," more- than one told me in Fiance...

...TrlERE can be no doubt that when Jan Kollar, a Slovak writing in Czech, produced the Daughter of Slava in the early part of the nineteenth century, he was animated by the highest idealism and also by the desire to bring together the various Slav peoples as the various German states were being united by the early German idealists...

...Hi introducing I kraine and While Hussia into the list of powers represented at San Francisco, the Soviet authorities were playing upon the world belief that the Soviet Union is Hussia...

...The problem of Communism stands sharply against the hope of a unity of the Slavs, and every act in regard to Poland and the other Slav countries is definitely involved in it...

...They have been too conscious of their own great past, and the sad experience of the division of their country between Prussia, Russia, and Austria has taugh them to be as suspicious of one foreign domination an another...

...Many consider its ptogram practically the same as the Socialist...

...The result has been the creation of a dilemma which must be resolved if there is to be a hope of peare in the future...

...The equation in the Soviet mind of democracy and Communism and the willingness to denote all non-Communists as Fascists has confused many people...

...Its weakness lay in the intermingled populations of much of Europe and in the frenzied economic and political rivalries that were allowed to emerge among the individual groups...

...It is almost impossible to decide whether any art is determined by the belief in a monolithic Russian C«mmunist state or by a belief in Communism, the ideal expression of which is the Russian Soviet Republic or Ihe Soviet Union...

...jAi.I, during the nineteenth century the Russian imperial government was now vitally interested in the question and now completely averse to bothering with it, depending upon the general European situation and the next move which it was preparing in the name of its own foreign policy...

...They have learned for good or ill, after centuries of neighborhood, that they must examine carefully every proposal that comes from the East, and they have not reacted as unreservedly as the other groups to fine-sounding words...

...This doctrine was implicit in the Atlantic Charter...

...The voters tended to write the lightish Radical-Socialists off in the way msny Americans have announced the end of the Republican Party after the last three or four presidential elections...

...Profetuter Clarence A. Manning ef Columbia I'aivcraitt ia an outstanding authority en the history, wo the racial, cultural, and MK-ial hackgruvnda of the many people* of Hunaia, the Balkans and the Near East...

...Doubtless the general's personal prestige, reflected in the "oui-oui" constitutional vote, carried over to the great success of this new party...

...Within the area are persons ef every anthropological race, from the purest Nordics se vehemently claimed hy the Pan-Germans to undisguised Mongols...

...Yet the continuing haidibood of the COP elephant, in the USA, makes one wonder whether 40,000,000 Frenchmen may not also In- wrong...

...Undoubtedly many of the MRP votes were cast by reactionaries...

...We have seen the development of movements for the unification •f languages which are closely related, and few people have stopped to think of the motives and the methods that have been employed in these connections...

...The typical mood of Frenchmen surveying the election results is hopefulness that the three parties can find a working basis on a program which will bring economi" imnrovement soon...

...The universally execrated leaders of Nazi Germany, by their insane combination of Pan-German ideals, their doc-tiine of the master race and of opposition to Communism, commenced the second World War and successfully demoralized and destroyed Europe...

...and fellow-travelera everywhere, to "unite" the Slavic countries ef Central and Eastern Europe under the aegia of Moscow...

...It lies today in the hands of the Soviet leaders to decide whether they will stress the bond of Communisnr as the main link in a future totalitarian world, or whether they will emphasize their Slavonic character and work for a Slavonir federation Which will allow the national Slavonic customs and habits to prevail, or whether they will definitely declare that the Slavonic-speaking peoples are to be welded into a solid group for the attainment of Communist erida in the entire world...

...How much influence rightist politicians will tie able to reap in MRP as a result will I* answered in coming months...

...The history of Ihe last twenty yeais siiowH the same dualism in Soviet policy as had existed earlier in the imperial regime...

...Tke boundary line ia the great straggle between Keasan and Byzantine civilization, between the Reman Catholic and Orthodox Churches, between the eastern and western ritea in the Human Catholic Church, runa across Slavonic territory, and there are millions of Slav-apeaking Jews and Mohammedans...

...As a result, they succeeded step by step in reabsorbing- all those sections of Russia which had seceded, except those .states which by their access to the sea were able to obtain a sympathetic hearing from the rest of the world, as Finland and the Baltic States...

...We can trace this idealistic movement throughout the century and ijfrhaps it goes back even earlier to the seventeenth century when the Dominican Croat Krizhanich traveled to the court of Moscow to persuade Tsar Alexis to become the political heaU of all the Slavs and to acknowledge the Pope as the religious head...

...The attempt to set up a government for the Finnish Soviet Republic was but another example of the same technique...

...and it raises problems of Ihe greatest magnitude for Ihe entire world...

...It requires only new conceptions of federation, an expansion ef the method which brought the thirteen American colonies into the United States of America, and all might be well...

...For this purpose they have ignored Ihe nun-Slavic Republics, exactly an they have stressed the While Russian and Ukrainian armies during the war...

...Primarily small land-owners, they were shocked by the rise of Communism snd the attacks on the Orthodox Church, and they were therefore among the last to recognise the Soviet Union...

...Yet, as we have learned to our cost during the past years, the conception, of a Pan-Germanic federation or union was only too easy to encrust with the barnacles of the master race, and instead of unifying northwestern Europe for a period of peace and prosperity, Adolph Hitler used the idea for spreading death and ruin in all directions...

...The democratic world, which has gone through (he agonies of a war against the Nasis, wants earnestly a reconciliation with Russia-Soviet Union...

...The leadership of the MRP is liberal Catholic...

...It proved a powerful weapon in the disintegration of the old Hapsburg Empire and also of Imperial Russia, units which had been created out of numerous smaller groups brought ^under a powerful overlord...

...The emergence of the Com-men'sts, Socislisls and Popular Republican Movement (MRP) as almost equal powcis and the orderliness of the elections bss banished that fear...

...Yet at the same time they developed a fine technique for recognising as proper persons to govern only those individuals who were active Communists...

...We saw the unification of Germany and Italy, largely on the idealistic basis of similarity of language, even when there were more realistic causes for the union...

...The differences between the various Slavonic languages are far leas than are those in any other European family < and the similarities naturally tend to overshadow the other difficulties of a Slavonic unification...