U.S.A and U.S.S.R Can Democracy and Totalitarianism Coexist?
HARRISON, CHARLES YALE
U.S.A and U.S.S.R Can Democracy and Totalitarianism Coexist? A Criticism by Charles Yale Harrison FOR mora than twenty turbulent and contradictory years, The *Jew Leader has been a...
...Were not Russia's invasions of Poland and Finland in 19S9 imperialist aggression ? At which point does the parallel between the political philosophies of the two countries become distorted nd invalid...
...This sxeaaa that we have' aa thought of attack en Germany or any ether nation with the political principles ef which we do not agree...
...and the Hitler-Stalin pact gave the Nazis the green light to march into Poland...
...It has been a courageous forum for ideas and causes that could find expression nowhere else...
...they approve the Machiavellian maneuvers of the Communists in Italy and Yugoslavia...
...You would have the United States and Britain treat Russia "with brutal realism as a hostile ally...
...Unfortunately the Communists have been able to win wide acceptance of the illusion that Moscow gives leadership to these democratic forces while London and Washington make deals with and support the reactionaries...
...We greatly prefer "democratic" imperialism to totalitarian imperialism...
...Precisely...
...War is a continuation of politics by other mesns, and the armed strength of a nation largely determines the effectiveness of its diplomacy...
...You leave out of account the possibility of social revolution, of civil war, if a democratic peace is not achieved...
...Thus numerous liberals have applauded Russian imperialism in Poland as liberation of that unhappy country...
...If it fails, and" the chances that it may fail seem very alarming, then World War III is Indeed "inevitable...
...Its influence, for all these reasons, has been far in excess of that to be expected of a publication with its limited circulation...
...but we do not urge the restoration of the independence of these small states by war against Russia...
...Even more amazing in ILGWU statistics is the fact that it has assembled under its banner a membership stemming from no less than 25 racial origins, and out of this "babel of tongues" it has forged a "Little America" in which applied patriotism blends with untarnished trade union loyalties...
...If we took a leaf out of Stalin's book and treated Russia with brutal realism as a hostile ally—we would be in a better diplomatic position than we are today...
...Military defeat ef Russia would not free Russians from totalitarian Communism...
...This will be possible only after a long period ef peace aad prosperity...
...In rebuttal you will say that Germany's political offenses were accentuated by her military aggression...
...These reactionaries are even whispering about an "inevitable" armed clash with Russia...
...This way can be found only through joint agreements, mutual adaption, aad the reconciliation ef national interests...
...We protest vehemently against Russian unilateral action in Poland and the Baltic States...
...The motives of the democracies are not quite 99.9 per cent pure, and the results would be utterly disastrous, for Russia, for Poland, for ourselves, for democracy everywhere...
...Is this not now equally true of Russia, and are not her demands in eastern and central Europe a guarantee that the seeds of World War III are being sown at the present moment...
...nor can Democracy he Imposed by intervention...
...The Record of a Great Union—the ILGWU ThERE are numerically bigger unions in America than the International Ladies Garment Workers Union which meets in a quadrennial convention next week in Boston...
...Peace means compromise of the national interests of all three great power's...
...Its financial resources sre impressive, and its work standards, despite strictures imposed on a consumer industry in wartime, have remained high and safe from attack...
...We cannot have collective security with Hitler because totalitarianism calls for a constantly expanding frontier...
...You forget Russia's desperate need for * long period ef peace, for security, for economic aid in reconstructing devastated areas...
...It means that we are willing to support any reasonable compromise in the effort to find a way of getting an with the German government...
...As military victory over the Axis becomes more certain, the dual character of the war becomes mors evident This is not merely a war for the survival of democratic nations against fascist aggression—it ii also a conservative war waged by conservatives for conservative ends...
...Although all this is greatly oversimplified, it is an indictment with which I basically agree...
...Its leadership, paced during the past dozen years by the dynamic personality of David Dubinsky, remains keenly responsive not only to the economic needs of its membership but to the wider demands of democratic trade unionism...
...Even an armed truce would give time for the reconstruction of devastated Europe, the rebuilding of the trade unions, the reorganization of the movement for democratic Socialism, the revitalization of all democratic forces so that the people may make their voices heard...
...A Reply by Linton M. Oak THE NEW LEADER will continue to be "a consistent, dependable opponent of all forms of totalitarianism," to expose Communism and Fascism alike, and to be "a courageous forum" for ideas...
...You argue that we supported this war because "the political principles of the Nazis are detestable and miift be destroyed...
...There can be no lasting truce between totalitarianism and the western democracies," you state...
...You assume an unchanging Russia that is wholly evil...
...As in former years, the ILGWU haa continued to lead, in the movements for independent labor political action, in labor education, refugee aid and manifold other humanitarian enterprises...
...that the Polish and other disputes are not being resolved by joint Ui.ited Nations negotiations...
...You assume that the United States and Britain are wholly democratic, free of imperialist and fascist trends...
...that the attempt of British and American diplomats to reaih an understanding with Moscow on the basis of mutual compromise of conflicting national interests and ideologies, so as to mske international collaboration possible, is as much to be condemned as Chamberlain's prewar sppeasement of Nazi Germany...
...A totalitarian state, the extirpation of minorities, the establishment of concentration ramps, man-made famine directed against political opponents, mass hiurder, the complete obliteration of all civil liberties...
...We will never find the formuls for a "reasonable compromise" for getting on with Stalin and Stalin's knowledge of this fact is one of the secrets of his international success...
...Considering this enviable background, the boxed editorial on page 11 of your issue of May 6 entitled "The New Leader and Totalitarianism" comes as a distinct ¦hock...
...The 1944 equivalent of Wilson's Fourteen Points remains a great need of American diplomacy...
...Between the extremes of appeasement and war there is an alternative, a middle road, which onr foreign policy should follow...
...To The New Leader the ILGWU has for countless years been a synonym for militant, successful trade unionism...
...Demorratisatiea or any change in the internal regime . ef Russia (or any country) must be the work ef the people themselves...
...Your hope as I understand it is that hard-boiled realism in our diplomacy and foreign policy, backed by the threat of economic sanctions and ultimately, if necessary, by armed force, will achieve what soft sentimentality and illusions as to the nature of Russian totalitarianism, and appeasement, can never accomplish—a system of collective security and international collaboration...
...By substituting the words Nazism and Germany for the words Communism and Russia in the editorial, you imply that there is no difference between them...
...For the man-led ILGWU contains three women for every man...
...At this point I can hear you angrily interrupting...
...they have been, and if memory serves, It was The New Leader that first emphasised the similarity between the two forms of totalitarianism, through the use of expressions like communazi, the red and brown dictatorships, brown bolshevism and red fascism...
...to define the gulf between The New Leader and the Hearst-Patterson-McCormick press...
...there are powerful imperialist forees within the democracies boldly pressing their reactionary demands and war aims...
...The proof)of this will be found in the contents of the very issue of May 6 in which appeared the editorial you criticize, and of subsequent issues...
...And further: cannot the identical crimes be charged against the Communist government of Russia T They can...
...The ILGWU has increased its membership during the past four years by 65,000, numbering now more than 305,000...
...Likewise, Russia has been guilty of military aggression against Finland, the Baltic States, and Poland...
...Anglo-American policies have too often played into the hands of the Russians...
...Granting that the prospects of finding a reasonable and just formula for cooperation of the three big powers are dark, and that Moscow's present policies create seemingly insuperable obstacles, so long as there exists the slightest chsnce for establishing a system of collective security that chance must be taken...
...We do urge Washington and London to use every possible diplomatic means to persuade or compel Moscow to accept and apply the principles of the Atlantic Charter, the promises of collaboration of the Teheran conference...
...the Atlantic Charter is not enough...
...Despite the logic of your letter, I am sure that you do not want war with Russia any more than we do...
...You are unduly alarmed, Charley—we have not changed our "line...
...The New Leader, it goes without saying, wishes the ILGWU a great and successful convention...
...And now let's "see where this leads us...
...But is it not possible to bring the same charge against the Russian government ? Have I not read in the pages of your paper at one time or another that it was Stalin's pact with Hitler that gave the green light to World War II...
...War is the enemy, and war can be averted only if there are internal reforms in every country, snd perhaps revolutions in some of them...
...It is that indefinable collective human quality that has enabled it to swim with as well as against the tides, in rough weather and in smooth, always tremendously alive and forever a stroke ahead at the tape line...
...He knows what apparently you have momentarily forgotten: that there can be no lasting truce between totalitarianism and the western democracies, that the two systems of government cannot coexist on the same planet...
...But I can't agree with your conclusions...
...The editorial which you criticize was written to differentiate our position from theirs...
...Are we not at war with Germany, or at least does not The V?w Leader support this war against Germany because we believe that the political principles of the Nazis are detestable and must be destroyed'' And what are the social- consequences of these principles...
...You list the crimes of the Nazis and say that identical crimes have been committed by the Bolsheviks...
...You wrote "Though we oppese Nasism, we want to se> everything ia oar power to establish such world relations as will make it possible to maintain collective security...
...We do not demand the use of armed force to compel Russia to abide by the Atlantic Charter and the pledges of the Moscow-Teheran conferences—but the people of Poland and other subjugated lands will never forget or forgive injustices perpetrated by Stalin, and liberals everywhere will sympathize with their aspirations for freedom and their determination to right wrongs...
...We deeply regret that the promises of international collaboration made at the Moscow and Teheran conferences have not yet been fulfilled...
...Teheran symbolizes the same sort of capitulation as does Munich...
...Yen postulate a prostrate Europe in which the people will be supine and servile...
...the two systems cannot coexist on the same planet...
...An index of its highly developed sense of labor solidarity and community allegiances may be furnished by the fact that in the past four years the ILGWU has contributed no less than three and a half million dollars to war relief and labor and philanthropic causes here and abroad...
...A Criticism by Charles Yale Harrison FOR mora than twenty turbulent and contradictory years, The *Jew Leader has been a consistent, dependable opponent of all forms and threats of totalitarianism' Ita articles and columns exposing Fascism and Communism have been among the most brilliant and fearless in America...
...But the weight of Anglo-American influence would be increased by clarification of their foreign policies and war aims, so as to aid, and win the support of, the democratic forces throughout Europe, including postwar Germany...
...And today by unilateral acts in Central and Eastern Europe, Russia is sowing the seeds of World War III...
...Some people have called it the "miracle" union because it has achieved something that for generations had been deemed unattainable in America, namely, the organization of women workers into a cohesive, fighting labor force...
...The great need is peace...
...But we doubt if one could be found to match it for color, dynamics and that "something different" which places the ILGWU apart from most of its contemporaries in the trade union world...
...But peace —the very survival of democracy and civilization itself —depends upon a truce and the coexistence of the two systems...
...You must realize that this means war, but you do not recoil with horror from the idea...
...The threat of war lurks behind the facade of foreign policy, and this include* the threat of economic warfare...
...The Ladies Garment Workers will come to Boston with a record of truly amazing achievement...
...That is why all recent Russian diplomatic moves have the quality of being hostile acts against her own allies, inter-allied diplomatic Pearl Harbors, so to speak...
...All right, all right, I admit that I have taken your text, deleted the words bolshevism and Russian, and substituted fascism and German...
...Ten assume that Churchill and Roosevelt are help, leas and incompetent in the face of Stalin's determination to dominate Europe and Asia, and will continue te capitulate endlessly...
Vol. 27 • May 1944 • No. 22
