All of this twisting and turning was in complete harmony with Soviet policy until 1945. After World War II, the announced policy reverted to traditional Marxism. To justify the complete switch in policy, Earl Browder, the American Communist leader, was accused of being personally responsible for the “errors” of the former policy. He was expelled from the party.
The party leadership was immediately taken over by William Z. Foster. Foster, it will be recalled, had written an inflammatory book in 1932 called Toward Soviet America. Just before World War II he had testified before a Congressional Committee: “When a Communist heads a government of the United States, and that day will come just as surely as the sun rises, that government will not be a capitalistic government, but a Soviet government, and behind this government will stand the Red Army to enforce the dictatorship of the proletariat.”{84}
It is no longer difficult to understand why Moscow wanted men like Foster at the head of its Communist parties throughout the world. We now know that the Russian leaders approached the conclusion of the world’s greatest war with the conviction that World War III might be in the near offing. In their secret circles they hopefully speculated that this next war might be Communism’s final death struggle with capitalism.
Igor Gouzenko states that after the armistice, he and the other employees in the Russian Embassy at Ottawa, Canada, were warned against an attitude of complacency. Colonel Zabotin gathered the employees together and then referred to the free-world democracies as follows: “Yesterday they were our allies, today they are our neighbors, tomorrow they will be our enemies!”{85}
Remarkable insight into the Communist mind during this Period can also be obtained from a speech delivered to an intimate circle of Communist leaders by Marshal Tito, head the party in Yugoslavia:
“The second capitalist war, in which Russia was attacked by her most dangerous and strongest fascist enemy, has ended in a decisive victory for the Soviet Union. But this does not mean that Marxism has won a final victory over capitalism…. Our collaboration with capitalism during the war which has recently ended, by no means signifies that we shall prolong our alliance with it in the future. On the contrary, the capitalist forces constitute our natural enemy despite the fact that they helped us to defeat their most dangerous representative. It may happen that we shall again decide to make use of their aid, but always with the sole aim of accelerating their final ruin….
“The atomic bomb is a new factor by means of which the capitalist forces wish to destroy the Soviet Union and the victorious prospects of the working class. It is their only remaining hope…. Our aims have not been realized in the desired form because the construction of the Atomic bomb was speeded up and perfected as early as 1945. But we are not far from the realization of our aims. We must gain a little more time for the reorganization of our ranks and the perfecting of our preparations in arms and munitions.
“Our present policy should, therefore, be to follow a moderate line, in order to gain time for the economic and industrial reconstruction of the Soviet Union and of the other states under our control. Then the moment will come when we can hurl ourselves into the battle for the final annihilation of reaction.”{86}
Such were the reflections of Communist leaders as they emerged from World War II as the second greatest political power on earth. They felt Communism might have unprecedented possibilities as the “brave new world” entered the post-war period.
CHAPTER NINE
Communist Attacks on the Free World During the Post-War Period
Stalin’s plan for the expansion of Communism after the war involved three techniques: the creation of pro-Communist puppet governments in occupied territory, the military conquest of new territory by satellite armies, and the further infiltration of free countries by Soviet espionage and propaganda organizations.
In this chapter we shall try to account for the phenomenal success of these three programs. It should provide the answers to these questions:
• Toward the last part of World War II did Allied leaders begin to suspect a Russian double cross? Why did Harry Hopkins make a special trip to Moscow a few months before he died?
• How did the free world lose 100,000,000 people to the Iron Curtain through Soviet strategy?
• How did the free world lose 450,000,000 more people through the conquest of China? What did the Wedemeyer Report reveal?
• Do you think diplomatic blunders may have encouraged the attack on South Korea? What significance do you attach to Owen Lattimore’s amazing statement in 1949: “The thing to do is let South Korea fall, but not to let it look as if we pushed her”?
• What was the turning point in the Korean war which gave the U.N. forces their first military advantage?
• After the Korean cease-fire in 1953, what did the U.S. Secretary of State say to indicate that the U.S. was abandoning a twenty-year policy of appeasement?
• What was the role of the FBI in the “Battle of the Underground?”
• Why did the U.S. not do more to prevent the loss of French Indo-China?
• In the dispute over Formosa, why did the Red Chinese call the U.S. a paper tiger?
• What did Dimitry Z. Manuilsky say about the strategy of “peaceful coexistence”?
The Decay in U.S.-Soviet Relations at the End of World War II
The evidence of Communist subversion and aggression became so apparent toward the close of World War II that even some of those who had staked their professional careers on the friendship of the Soviet leaders began to sense a feeling of alarm. This included Harry Hopkins. Within a month after the death of President Roosevelt, Hopkins became so concerned with developments that he hurriedly made arrangements to see Stalin in person. At the time Hopkins was critically ill, with only a short time to live, but he forced himself to make this final pilgrimage to Moscow to try and salvage some of the remnants from the wreckage of what was to have been a master plan for post-war peace.
When he arrived in Moscow, however, Hopkins was confronted by a blunt and angry Stalin. We are indebted to former Secretary of State, James F. Byrnes, for an account at what happened.{87} Stalin made an amazingly antagonistic verbal assault on the handling of the program Hopkins had sponsored for Russia—the program of Lend-Lease.
The shock of this attack may be better appreciated when it is remembered that Hopkins considered himself to be the best friend the Soviets had in America. He and his associates had just spent billions of dollars and risked an atomic war to try and create a Russo-American partnership for peace. Probably Hopkins would not have been more startled by the treatment he received if Stalin had physically slapped him in the face.
In reply, Hopkins vigorously pointed out “how liberally the United States (through him) had construed the law in sending foodstuffs and other non-military items to their aid.” Stalin admitted all of this but roughly crossed it off by saying the Soviets still could not forgive the United States for terminating Lend-Lease after V-Day in Europe.
At the moment it seemed that nothing would pacify Stalin but a brand new round of wide-open American Lend-Lease generosity; otherwise he apparently could think of no particular reason for even pretending to want the friendship of the United States any longer. He even threatened to boycott the United Nations Conference which was soon to be held in San Francisco.