WANTED: AN AMERICAN POLICY
Holmes, John Haynes
Wanted: An American Policy Chamberlin's Book Is Required Reading On World Affairs AMERICA: PARTNER IN WORLD RULE, by William Henry Chamberlin. Vanguard Press. $3. Reviewed by John Haynes...
...What this means to the present and the future is set forth by Mr...
...There is too much appeasement toward Russia...
...Chamberlin, by "the 3 principal centers of military power—Washington, Moscow, and London...
...The peace of the world depends, in the last analysis, on understanding between America and the Soviets, and to this end should be mobilized and directed the whole great power of the American people for peace...
...I commend this book as "required reading" for those who would know what is going on in the world today...
...Chamberlin's book covers a wide area of political, diplomatic, social and ethical discussion...
...Chamberlin is a liberal, one of the few still left to us whose integrity of mind and poise of soul stand unshaken under the impact of these terrific times...
...To counterbalance this, there is only Britain, now feverishly and with ill success trying to build up a counterbalancing bloc in the west...
...The determination of this good and evil is predominantly in the hands of Russia, which is the biggest of the "Big 3." This power cannot be "restrained by treaties, or shut up within the neat regional blue-prints that have become a favorite plaything of speculators in the course of world affairs...
...At the moment Russia on a rampage is supreme in Europe, and thus the victor in the war...
...As a journalist, he ranks among the leaders of his profession...
...Resident for years in Russia, Japan, and Europe, he has a knowledge of foreign affairs, that makes ridiculous the vapid ignorance of most of those who so irftemperately criticize and condemn him...
...Never will so much power have rested in the hands of such a small number of powers...
...We are already far advanced toward another war...
...Chamberlin sees nationalistic policies here far exceeding any reasonable need for security, and resembling all too closely the traditional methods of the Tsars from Ivan and Peter to Alexander and Nicholas...
...Whether for good or for bad, for peace or for war, "it will be Stalin, with a small group of trusted counsellors and lieutenants, who must make this fateful decision...
...As well blame the weatherman for bad weather as an able, honest, and well-informed reporter for a dark future...
...Which seems curiously like the situation as regards Hitler and "his counsellors and lieutenants" in 1936-39...
...This Russian sweep westward is being amiably attributed to Stalin's desire to render the Soviets politically and militarily secure in the postwar world, but Mr...
...If they are terrifying, they are none the less true...
...Much the same situation pertains in Asia...
...What he sees is not a pretty picture as sketched out for us in terms of what he calls "power vacuums...
...Here the only counterbalancing force is America, which will have to share its victory of arms over Japan with a Russia already on the scene and knowing exactly what she wants...
...These) will dominate the globe on a scale and with a thoroughness for which there is scarcely any precedent in history...
...Rather is it a prejudice, and an ineradicable one, against imperialism, militarism, power politics, tyranny, injustice, immorality, hypocrisy, cruelty, and all evil...
...Here a wrecked and ruined China corresponds to Europe and a collapsing Japan to Germany...
...If this'be prejudice, make the most of it...
...If he is not any too optimistic, it is not his fault...
...But it is too weak and compliant a partner...
...David Dallin has described him as "one of the best if not the best American authority on Russia...
...Chamberlin has a prejudice against Soviet Russia...
...And would we had some more of it to break the dark veil of secrecy and dilute the vile poison of propaganda which on the one hand hides and on the other hand destroys the truth in these direful days...
...Chamberlin speculates as to whether Teheran will not deservedly "be remembered as the place where the peace was lost...
...The result is another vacuum, into which Russia is alone prepared to move, with plenty of signs that she is already on the way...
...Anticipating the end of the war, Mr...
...When he sees the Soviets occupying Latvia, Esthonia, and Lithuania as Germany occupied Belgium, Denmark, and HollanthTending-Poland as ruthlessly as the Reich rent France, setting up "Quisling" governments in Rumania and Yugoslavia after the pattern of the Nazi governments in Norway and Hungary, practicing .prison tortures, purges, and slave labor long befofe"Hitler's horrors of this kind were ever heard of, maintaining through years a totalitarian j£gime utterly hostile to all the freedoms known to man—when ,he sees these things, he reports them as an honest journalist and denounces them as an honest man...
...THIS latest book by Mr...
...The destruction of Germany, with the accompanying political and economic ruin of the European continent, leaves a yawning vacancy into which Russia is pouring like tides through a broken sea-wall...
...Its timeliness is notable...
...Reviewed by John Haynes Holmes IAM glad to review this book if only because it gives me opportunity to pay tribute to its author, who is on occasion so shamefully abused in the correspondence columns of The Progressive...
...It is the old imperialism at work again, as we see the latest move toward the Dardanelles...
...Chamberlin is not the best that he has written, but it is one of the most useful...
...Chamberlin takes a look at the world "from China to Peru," and attempts to assess the consequences of the long years of fighting...
...This country, whether it likes it or not, is now definitely a "partner in world rule...
...His forecasts of what would follow that collapse are so astonishingly accurate as to lend authority to his forecasts of what still lies ahead...
...Its "possibilities, both for good and evil, are so vast as to be almost breathtaking...
...Chamberlin in 4 chapters on Russia which are the most important in the book...
...THE immediate outlines of the world after the war, of the peace which will be established after the fighting is done, is already being fashioned at Yalta, Potsdam, Dumbarton Oaks, and San Francisco>This world will be ruled, says Mr...
...The main burden of it all is American policy in the postwar world...
...This is one more evidence of Russian predominance in the postwar world...
...Chamberlin's book was written before the collapse of Germany and the end of fighting in Europe...
...It is charged that Mr...
...It is true that he has a prejudice, but it is not against Russia...
...Chamberlin declares that "the supreme question which the Soviet colossus poses is the direction in which its strength will be exerted...
...No less a scholar than Mr...
...India is only referred to in passing...
...But he points out clearly and convincingly what American statesmanship still ean do to save mankind from doom, and clings to the hope that our leaders may not fail...
...See how Poland in 1944-45 reproduces Czechoslovakia in 1938-39...
Vol. 9 • September 1945 • No. 36
