The New Left and the Origins of the Cold War
Perkins, Dexter
Book Review The New Left and the Origins of the Cold War by Robert James Maddox Princeton, $7.95 Professor Maddox's book is a critical analysis of the work of seven revisionist historians...
...True, we had given the Russians a small voice in Italy, and were to give them a very small voice in Japan...
...To return to the Maddox volume, Poland is by no means the only theme...
...They had placed that regime in control of a large chunk of territory...
...One important piece of evidence on the identity of Roosevelt's and Truman's view was known earlier...
...To maintain that the dissension on the Polish issue was a central cause of the Cold War is not, in my judgment, in accord with the facts...
...Though this compromise solution came unstuck in time, Poland was supplanted by Germany as the central subject of the succeeding debates of the great powers...
...Williams cannot find many references to the Open Door in the correspondence on Poland...
...Will these Poles be tried...
...But if one reads Truman's whole account of the interview they relate to little more than a plea to the Russian foreign minister for the Soviet Union to keep the engagements that it had made at Yalta...
...His analysis of Alperovitz's picturesque theme that the dropping of the atom bomb was timed to make the Russians more amenable is published in The Journal of American History together with Alperovitz's reply...
...The fact already mentioned that the Polish government was recognized in July ought to shake this conclusion...
...It is published in Foreign Relations of the United States, vol...
...But let us look at the arguments used in connection with the Polish question...
...Maddox has some devastating criticism of Joyce and Gabriel Kolko's theory that the United States let the Russians down on the military side...
...he was asked...
...Washington, 1967, p. 194...
...But three of the revisionists criticized by Maddox wrote after it and had seen the light...
...Book Review The New Left and the Origins of the Cold War by Robert James Maddox Princeton, $7.95 Professor Maddox's book is a critical analysis of the work of seven revisionist historians (Williams, Fleming, Alpero-vitz, Horowitz, Kolko, Clemens, and Gardner...
...To deal with all of Maddox's criticisms, his citation of errors and of twisted interpretations, would be to write a review almost as long as the book itself...
...But let us remember that after a short interval we gave up trying to control Eastern EuropeMy reference to the arrest of the fourteen Poles leads me to digress with a personal reminiscence...
...The trouble is that the revisionists pay no attention to the course of events in the spring of 1945...
...But the revisionists make another point...
...But there is a lot more to the matter...
...This, I think, Professor Maddox has sought to illustrate...
...It is, I think, an historical contribution that deserves serious notice...
...But it does not obey the canons of the best historical scholarship...
...The breach between the West and the Soviet Union is a complicated matter...
...It seems a little unreasonable to attribute broad historical significance to a remark made in a private discussion...
...Often based on economic factors, it ignores the immense complexity of international affairs, the role that sentiment and ideology play in human affairs, the interplay between economic and political motives that is essential to the understanding of large events, the role of individual personality, and in a democracy, the importance of the public mood...
...That economic interests had something to do with it should be conceded, though only when it is realized that the connection between such an interest and a free society is fundamental...
...The economic argument is used, of course, by other revisionists following Williams...
...There is, of course, no debate on the contention that discussions on the Polish question played a significant part in the diplomacy of the period from Yalta to Potsdam...
...But what the revisionists have failed to note (and what Professor Maddox has failed to mention) is that a compromise solution was reached on the Polish issue before the meeting at Potsdam took place...
...It dwells upon the errors, real or assumed, of the United States, and never points out that the Russians were not precisely angels of light...
...Furthermore, and all important, there is a fundamental despatch from Roosevelt which says exactly the same thing...
...The explosion of laughter that followed somewhat confused the Russian foreign minister...
...There is some discussion of the reparations question...
...This idea is certainly not to be brushed aside...
...It would do them good to read or reread it...
...It is written with a parti pris, whereas the conscientious historian draws his conclusions from the data, rather than using the data to buttress a predetermined conclusion...
...Dexter Perkins...
...Sharp comments there were...
...They will be, if they are guilty...
...This seems to the reviewer divination rather than history...
...It is Harriman's statement to Truman in April: Frankly, one of the reasons that made me rush back to Washington was the fear that you did not understand, as I had seen Roosevelt understand, that Stalin is breaking his agreements...
...This statement was completely neglected by Gar Alperovitz in detailing Harriman's views...
...The reader can judge for himself...
...To make economic interests central raises for Professor Williams a difficult question of which Professor Maddox takes full advantage...
...It is the predilection for taking the part for the whole...
...But another favorite theme is that Roosevelt was conciliatory in dealing with the Soviet Union about Poland, and that Truman was bumptious and offensive...
...That applies to revisionists and more conventional historians alike...
...It is only fair to Professor Williams to say that, as far as I know, it had not been published when he wrote...
...The Russians had set up a left wing government in Poland, and were dragging their feet on the question of reconstituting it to meet the views of the West...
...But he is equal to the occasion...
...It seems to me important...
...5, Europe...
...The broadest approach comes from Professor Williams, the pioneer of the revisionist school...
...It presents, however, a somewhat difficult problem to the reviewer...
...To it, at the insistence of the Americans and British, other elements were added...
...The flavor of the government set up by Russia in Poland was distasteful both to the United States and Great Britain...
...But the difficulty, in Williams' case, is the difficulty with all revisioni-ists...
...And now let us look at the theme mentioned above, the question of Poland...
...Molotov consented to hold a press conference...
...Broadly speaking, revisionism is too often history written with a predetermined thesis and with a double standard...
...They refer to the sharp comments of the President in his conversation with Molotov on April 23...
...Of the revisionists cited by Maddox, only Gardner seems to have any hint of this fact...
...But let us look at the arguments put forward...
...One of them rests on the fact that Truman, in conversation with his advisers, said that if the Russians did not come to San Fransicso, they could -go to hell...
...The question was brought up at the Conference of San Francisco which I attended in a modest capacity...
...There was, no doubt, some heat in the discussions...
...they had signed a defense treaty with it, and they had arrested fourteen Polish leaders whose views presumably they disapproved of...
...There is nothing incendiary about this...
...For Williams the heart of the Cold War problem is the desire of the United States for open markets...
...But the central value of Maddox's book lies not in any particular criticism (some of Maddox's points are small ones), but in the warning it serves on all of us not to accept blindly anybody's historical judgments on the last twenty-seven years of American foreign policy...
...He suggests that the Open Door approach was so well known that "it was not thought necessary to explain or defend it...
...And the regime thus constituted was recognized by the United States...
...But before undertaking this task, some general comments with regard to revisionism are in order...
...Revisionism can be useful and provocative, particularly in exposing the nationalistic excesses of much conventional history, and the mistakes of our own policy...
...In what follows I have taken one recurrent theme, the question of Poland in the period between Yalta and Potsdam, and shown how justified Maddox is in his thesis...
Vol. 6 • May 1973 • No. 8
