Bullitt, "Pravda" and Lerner
Bullitt, "Pravda" and Lerner An Analysis of the "Liberal" Blitzkrieg Against Bullitt By William Henry Chamberlin WILLIAM C. BULLITT'S brilliant, fearless and candid discussion of tba raalitiaa...
...It was Bullitt's duty as Ambassador to be in touts with theae last two Prime Ministers of the French Republic and with the commander-in-chief of the French • armed forces...
...It is both symptomatic and encouraging that Bullitt's article should have elicited such an outburst of fur...
...And it impressed me as a breath of fresh sir in ths hothouse atmosphere of propaganda, inhibitions, and falsehoods, direct snd indirect, in which so many commentators on international affairs feel obliged to function...
...It is improbable that either Life or PM, either Bullitt or Lerner, would appreciably influence the hard decisions they were forced to mske...
...To the best of my knowledge, Max Lerner was not In Eastern Poland during the period of Soviet occupation...
...Bullitt, "Pravda" and Lerner An Analysis of the "Liberal" Blitzkrieg Against Bullitt By William Henry Chamberlin WILLIAM C. BULLITT'S brilliant, fearless and candid discussion of tba raalitiaa of contemporary Europe ia a recent isaoe of Lift has woo him two distinguished tributes to his integrity...
...When one strips away the screaming abuae and innuendo, what kind of case do K. Demidov, of Pravda, and Msx Lerner, of I'M, succeed in msking sgsinst Bullitt ? The Pravda srticle is very little but abuse, judging from the cabled summaries...
...One wonders, therefore, on what authority, unlet* it b« the familiar ftUow-traveler formula that the Kremlin e&u do no wrong, he airily diemittet at "otil tlandere" tueh m well-documented historical fact as the mate deportation of Polet to Ruttia during the period of Soviet occupation, "The essential point is," Lerner solemnly announces, "that anyone who drives a wedge between the Russian armies and the Polish underground is thereby helping the German armies...
...LiERNER takes Bullitt to task for suggesting thst our lend-lease aid to the Soviet Union, which has now passed the ?5,000,000,000 mark, should have been linked j up with some assurances on Stalin's part of willingness to observe Atlantic Charter principles in Fasten Europe...
...It is rather a warning that certain forms of Soviet aggression, political and ideological, if allowed to go uncurbed, may create conditions under which Western Europe will face the alternative of submission to Soviet dictatorship or war...
...It was fashionable then to jeer at him as a conceited young man who took himself too seriously snd posed as s pessimist But in the light of Europe's agony during the last decade...
...The miserable lying of Bullitt...
...Neither Lerner nor any Kremlin apologist hsi explained why, under the principles of the "sovereign equality of peace-loving nations" (a phrase taken from the Moscow Declaration to which Hull, Molotov and Eden subscribed), Poles, Finns, Letts, Lithuanians aiK* Eatonians should be denied the self-determination that is universally acknowledged to be the right of Dutch, Belgians, Norwegians and Danes...
...It is improbable, to say the least, that the former puts away his lend-lease arms in a special cache and does not use them in this private war in which the victims would often be Serb r~-mm wad adhere to Mikhailovich...
...Some Americana- were deceived by the suggestion, absurd si 11 seems on close analysis, that Stalin's actions in * international field would be seriously affected by i"0* pendent articles appearing in American publications...
...No American diplomat was the target of so much sbuse in the Nasi press and radio broadcasts, and in Nasi propaganda designed for American consumption...
...This same note of .fantastic unrealism pervades Lerner's comment on Bullitt's alleged "incitement to the Finns not to oust the Germans from their territory and make peace with Russia...
...Of the four men mentioned, only Bonnet could fairly be considered a defeatist...
...in Moscow and such a sympathetic echo as this outburst in PM, Communists and fellow-travelers in this country have been acting and talking on the assumption that America Is a twelfth, or seventeenth, Soviet ' ReVubJic...
...With the glib eoeksoreness of ignorance Lerner writes: "More than any other American, he (Bulllitt) was mixed up with Daladier and Bonnet, Gamelin and Reynsud, who engineered the fsll of the French Republic...
...Nor has hs made any personal investigation of the numerous Soviet concentration camps and places of exile...
...Apparently to Lerner, as to many other totalitarian liberals, the Atlantic Charter is s scrap of paper which the American Government has no obligation to uphold...
...Gamelin was I scholarly but inept general...
...But anyone with even an elementary knowledge of modern French history knows that this is sheer nonsense...
...They hire rowdies to bresk np meetisg* when the speakers have not received the party-Us* imprimatur...
...To the uninitiated reader this would convey the impression that here were four disreputable traitors, witk whom Bullitt was "mixed up" in some sinister fashion, perhaps meeting them ia disguise in dark cellars is order to plot the downfall of the Republic...
...Anyone who, like the writer, wss ia touch with Bullitt while he was Ambassador to France before and during the first phase of the war, could testify that he waa aae hundred per coat for resistance to German aggression, oppossd to any repetition of the tactics of Munich...
...It is to be hoped thst these sttaeks will insure for Bullitt's outspoken article an even wider audience than it would have otherwise obtained...
...This hits sn incredibly low point of unrealism...
...Daladier and Raynaud were patriotic' and loyal Frenchmen, of whom all thst could fairly be said vu that they were not big enough in political stature ti redeem an almost hopeless situation...
...The epithet "liar" which they hurl I* Bullitt-with Such intemperate violence tends to roes...
...They...
...So he writes: "Bullitt repeats the old slanders about millions of Polos having been deported to Siberia by the Russians...
...So he will not be asked for an embarrassing explanation as to why thia "friend of Hitler" was singled out for persistent special attack on the German radio from the beginning of the war...
...He could not be tells us, "escape the slightly nauseating job of dissecting the rotten esdsver of Bullitt's piece...
...Lerner takes up where Demidov leaves dC^wifh empty sbuse...
...As If the Polish underground fighters, urged to rebel by Moscow radio messages, left to their fate with sneers by the Soviet military and political leaders, needed an article in an American magasine to form a correct and realistic evaluation of Stalin's policy toward their country...
...Misrepresentation of Bullitt's role in France is naturally blended with misrepresentations of his ideas and facts about the European situation...
...These tactics met with some success so long Communists and fellow-travelers were able to in»o» the phony argument of war expediency...
...Tito's feud with Mikhailovich is a matter of record...
...I read Bullitt's article before it bad received the irreaiatible recommendation of Pravdm't and Lerner's billingsgate...
...Oae is a Sow of gutter abase from the Moscow Communist organ which, with gargantuan lack of humor, calls itself "Truth" (Preede...
...The Finns, as their desperate last-ditch resistance showed, hsvs few illusions about the fate which awaits them in a Stalindominated Europe...
...As is so often ths) case, this pseudo-liberal organ plays ths role of so obedient Man Friday to the totalitarian fulroinalions of the Kremlin...
...Bullitt's letter of resignation as a member of ths staff of the American delegation at the Peace Conference was a frank, discerning indictment of the injustices snd hypocrisies of ths Versailles settlement...
...A curious amalgam of sophistry, ignorance, real or assumed, untruth aad unrealism pervades Lerner's attempts to refute Bullitt on individual points...
...Then he works himself into a dither on the alleged ground that "it Is the first time that anyone with a veneer of respectability, In a respectable paper, has uttered a direct call for a war between England and America on one side and Russia on the other...
...Only s mind completely distorted bj hatred and prejudice could find anything discreditable in this association...
...They organise campaigns ef alander and persecution 'against writers ana speakers on Rassian affairs who do not toe the party line...
...Say a Demidov: "That la a low-down lie, and Bullitt exposes himself as a spy who has assimilated the instructions of German fascist propagandists...
...Lerner professes to be shocked because Bullitt remarks that the Italians know that Tito's Communist followers use lend-lease arms to kill Serbian peasants who are opposed to communism and adhere to General' Mikhailovich...
...It is s pretty fine tribute to the integrity of a man's personality when, in two great crises ef world history, hs statu the truth as he sees it plainly snd without equivocation, indifferent to slander and misrepresentation, instead of taking the easy wsy of conformity...
...What actually arouses Lerner's wrath is his perception that Bullitt has helped to shatter the blockade against forthright discussion of Stalin's aims in foreign, policy, and of the probable consequences of aa all-out appeasement policy in relation to those aims...
...Witaoss the experience of Bertrsa Wolfe at the Institute Of lnternati.mil Affairs sponsored by the Americas Friends Service Committee la Seattle last sammer...
...Here one Is amused by the touching spectacle at hands-across-ths-sea in abuse presented by Demidsv aad Lamer...
...And Bullitt's influence witk his acquaintances in French Government circles wsi exercised in precisely the opposite direction froa Bonnet's, as every American correspondent in Park knew...
...Now Bullitt has rudely snd insistently drsgged out of the Teheran cloaet all the skeletons...
...Lowdown liar who has assimilated the instructions of German fascist propaganda...
...Mow, no one who reads Bullitt's srtiels with a mini-" mum of fairness aad intellectual honesty would in, terpret it as a call to arms against Russia...
...Lamer echoes his master as follows: "Only the Gorman lie tint Tito's purpose is ts kill Serbs, rather than to rid the common Yugoslav country of the hated Germans...
...Again this aeems to be only the statement of an obvious fact...
...Its level of argument is sufficiently reflected in such phrases as: ' "Bankrupt spy . . . Dirty anti-Soviet work...
...It was ths Sams William C. Bullitt who put up a gallant but unsuccessful fight for s just and decent peace in 1918 and 1*19, who was a mors gsnuine Wilsonian then Wilson himself, who wore no men's and no government's collar...
...They csll let the imprisonment of candid critics of the Soviet totalitarian state...
...When the Pravda't star writer relaxes from his synthetic brainstorm and tries to plant his feet on some solid factual ground, he utters an untruth so notorious, so ludicrous and so easily refuted that it puts his whole article out of court: "Bullitt openly advertised his sympathies toward Hitler, striving for an alliance between France and Hitlerite Germany...
...on their own heads...
...No one is going to answer Mr...
...But no one who knew the American people (*• people of whom Abraham Lincoln said that no <*• could fool all of them all the time) could believe that they would submit to a permanent blackout of ir" discussion of the character and policies of sn impotent world power...
...Bullitt's article has let a good ** of light into this blackout The shrill cries of j* emanating from Pravda and PM are also cries of d*"*1...
...Demidov within Russia...
...Poland, the Baltic States, Finland, Yugoslavia, unscrupulous power politics, Communist propaganda, appeasement of Stalin...
...The other is a responding Sew of abuse, garnished with some pretense at serious argument, bp PM't Max Lerner...
...It is an article of challenging importance, one that should mske Americans far more aware of the realities of the international scene than they are at present In printing this article, Lift has given gratifying proof of courage and independence...
...aasume thst criticism of Stalin and his policies is s form of high treason...
...Bat of sympathy with or toleration of Nashua there waa not a trace, as the Nasi abase convincingly testified...
...If Bullitt was guilty of aa error of judgment at that time, It waa ia estimating too favorably the immediate AagloFrench military prospects...
...It ia difficult to deny either ths truth of Bullitt's criticisms or the correctness of ths instinct that led him to dissociate himself from any responsibility for s mistaken and unjust settlement...
...It has atoned for its lamentably inaccurate and inadequate Russian issue, published in the spring of 1943...
...So it can be recognised that on the factual side tt* indictments of Demidov and Lerner are pretty feeble performances...
Vol. 27 • September 1944 • No. 38
