Why Berlin Failed

...It follows that one of the camps will grow weaker while the other grows stronger, and "that is what actually constitutes the aggravation of the general crisis of the world capitalist system, following the break-up of the world market...

...Laval did not even have to request the statement...

...Under any given circumstances, the Kremlin applies tactics adapted to the practical situation, taking into account possible advantages and disadvantages, but never losing sight of the final goal...

...He extended repeated invitations to the "decadent West" to restore the single world market, eliminate the opposition between the two "parallel world markets," and sell as much as possible of their surpluses abroad...

...Previously, Tito's representatives had spent their time in futile opposition...

...The West does not yet sufficiently realize this, but the men in the Kremlin know it very well and have no illusions about the feelings entertained toward them by the peoples of the U.S.S.R...

...When Ribbentrop arrived in Moscow toward noon on August 23, 1939, Stalin had already made his decision regarding a pact with Hitler...

...These countries of the new world market, of the vast socialist camp, Stalin went on, "soon will no longer need to import goods from the capitalist countries, but will themselves face the necessity of selling their production surpluses abroad...

...The one thing which the Soviet leaders respect is force...

...the means for a policy already exist...

...He declared that "we now have two parallel world markets which are opposed to each other," for we have seen "China and the people's democracies in Europe detach themselves from the capitalist system to form with the Soviet Union a single vast socialist camp, opposed to the camp of capitalism...

...Stalin spontaneously offered to write it...

...The false dilemma of "war or peace" has too long misled the Western democracies, which are paralyzed by classic notions of fair play in the face of an implacable enemy who cares nothing for the traditional rules...

...lack of principles and scruples is quite another...

...and the satellites...

...It was saved not by the genius of Stalin but by the madness of Hitler...

...At the present time, the Soviet economy has reached an impasse as a result of Stalin's policies from which the country's leaders can extricate it only by increasing agricultural production and thus raising the living standard of the peasant population...

...The men in the Kremlin know what they want and act accordingly...

...Molotov has his instructions, and he stays within an area of maneuver that has been marked out in advance...

...If his adversaries confront him with something unforeseen, he can always gain a little time on some pretext and telephone Moscow...

...In other words, Molotov's line of behavior was laid down in advance by the Politburo, in accordance with internal Soviet political considerations...

...the votes were all unanimous...

...In the interval, Stalin had died and the Politburo had decided to adopt a new policy...

...At the Berlin meeting, Molotov sang a very different tune...

...The preliminary bargaining, which began toward 3 o'clock, with an interruption to consult Hitler by telephone, had lasted less than ten hours...

...Open war against a powerful coalition which included the United States would mean the early end of the Communist tyranny...

...The reading public is fed an anti-American literature which is as varied as it is inexhaustible...

...And no more than a few minutes were required to decide upon and edit the famous declaration approving French rearmament, which represented a completely unexpected political volte-face...

...The pact, which was to unleash the Second World War, was signed shortly after midnight...

...This explains the revision of the Five-Year Plan, the new emphasis on light industry with a view to satisfying consumer needs, and the abandonment of Stalin's megalomaniacal projects for "transforming nature...

...To take only the most recent one: Last December, in a move that passed virtually without comment, the Soviet delegates at the Galati meeting of the Danubian Commission agreed to all of Yugoslavia's proposals without turning a hair...

...This applies all the more to a state of totalitarian martial law like that which has existed for so many years in the Soviet Union, of which neither Cavour nor Rochefort could have had the slightest presentiment...

...Before 1940, France was the fictitious "main enemy" because it was supposedly the protector of Poland and Rumania...

...However, this policy shift, outlined immediately after Stalin's death, cannot be realized without large-scale importation of foreign goods in order to reduce, if not eliminate, the deficits and deficiencies of the pseudo-socialist planned economy...

...In the present circumstances, the supposed enemy is necessarily America, whose very existence is an obstacle to Moscow's ambitions for world domination...

...Since the "international tension" is due exclusively to the actions of the men in the Kremlin, any "detente" must depend on them as well...

...Skill is one thing...

...Berlin only rehashed old propaganda The participants at the Berlin Conference did not play the same game, did not speak the same language and did not pursue the same goal...

...It was therefore vain to expect any agreement to arise from the conference itself...

...Only the alleged external danger furnishes them with justification for the internal despotism...

...In his last literary opus, Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R., Stalin devoted a short section to "the break-up of the single world market" and the resultant "aggravation of the crisis of the world capitalist system...

...BORIS SOUVAKINE, now an editor and journalist in Paris, is the author of the classic biography of Stalin...

...There is nothing to justify the absurd tributes paid to his supposed "skill" in some Western newspapers...

...Countless other examples could be cited...

...Every headline serves to fabricate imaginary grievances against America, to stir up a frightful, unreasoning, implacable hatred of Americans...

...In 1941, the Soviet regime was within a hair's breadth of defeat, even though its only foe was Germany, a considerably smaller nation...

...All the West lacks is a clear comprehension of the cold war, in which we have thus far left the entire initiative to the other side, and a policy based on our means...

...A real peace is unacceptable to the Communists, who can only maintain and justify their permanent state of totalitarian martial law by invoking capitalist encirclement, the hostility of the outside world, the evil designs of imperialism and the other machinations of the so-called warmongers...

...When Stalin decided to change his policy toward France, at the time of Pierre Laval's visit in May 1935, the matter was settled in a couple of hours...

...One might almost say that his chief concern was to prevent the "general crisis of the world capitalist system" of which Stalin made so much ado...

...And any major relaxation in the Kremlin's terroristic grip on the subject peoples would automatically call the very existence of the whole Soviet "system" into question...

...This new Soviet retreat, viewed in conjunction with the tedious propaganda on "coexistence," "international tension" and the urgent need for a "detente," speaks volumes about the crisis not of the world capitalist system, but of the Soviet totalitarian system...

...If Molotov had ended by yielding on a few secondary points or agreeing to some minor concessions in order to demonstrate the extraordinary altruism of the Soviet Empire, this would not have been the result of Western diplomacy but rather the "price" Moscow will often pay to keep the world in a state of vast ambiguity which can benefit only the U.S.S.R...

...It is not a question of peace or war, in the usual sense of those terms, but of weakening the "decadent West" and strengthening the totalitarian empire...

...that was enough to change everything...

...It is in the very nature of the Soviet regime to want neither open war nor a real peace...

...Plays and movies, radio programs and political cartoons all make Uncle Sam the enemy of the human race, a treacherous and ferocious foe capable of anything, against whom eternal vigilance must be maintained, requiring constantly more work, more submission and more sacrifice...

...A glance at the Soviet press over a period of a few days is enough to demonstrate this...

...Separating America from her allies is therefore the first prerequisite to realization of the Kremlin's further plans...

...Stalin's successors cannot give up the myth he invented of American omnimalevolence without, at the same time, giving up their totalitarianism...

...There is a saying, variously attributed to Count Cavour and Rochefort: "Any idiot can govern with a state of martial law...

...Hence the Kremlin's insistence on the necessity for East-West trade and its use of Soviet gold reserves to spur such trade...

...Sir Winston Churchill was right when he said last year that the outcome of such a war would be decided in the very first days...

...The same is true in foreign policy: Any Molotov can pass for "skilful" when faced with adversaries who are weighed down by principles and scruples, compelled to respect conventions and to take seriously a comedy which actually deceives no one...

...Had the latter produced any results, the decision would have been made not in Berlin but in Moscow, and for reasons having nothing to do with the diplomatic exchanges in the former German capital...