To readers of the Militant, Secretary of State Dulles' announcement to the press Oct. 6 that a "nonaggression pact between the United States and the USSR" is "being studied" among the Western powers came as no surprise. The probability of such a turn in diplomacy was forecast by the Militant as long ago as last January —some weeks before Eisenhower was sworn into office.
Even the Wall Street Journal now admits that "In some form or other, a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union is clearly becoming an integral part of American foreign policy." (Oct. 9.)
But it is one thing to offer such a pact —quite another to actually sign one. It takes two to make a bargain, as the old saying goes. What are the chances of our actually seeing "a kind of peace treaty for the cold war," to use the formula of the Wall Street Journal?
First of all, I do not know of a single serious political observer who believes a long-term pact is in sight. Such a course, advocated by Wallace in 1946-48, was ruled out by Truman under the pressure of Big Business. The reason for this was that the capitalist tycoons who are the real rulers in America require world domination to maintain their economic system. They need colonial areas for investments, raw materials and cheap labor power. By taking these and also smashing the Soviet Union, they could gain a new lease on life for their profit system. Being realists of a kind, they knew that the bureaucracy in the Soviet Union would not voluntarily commit suicide, and therefore they projected the new world war for which they are now preparing.
Their main strategy is designed to further this objective.
But what about a short-term pact? Here the possibilities, in my opinion, are far from ruled out. They hinge on Wall Street's timetable for war and on the advantages such a pact might offer in preparing for the conflict. We should not forget that Hitler, too, in readying his invasion of the Soviet Union found it advantageous, some two years before he sent his panzer divisions into the Ukraine, to sign and seal a non-aggression pact with the Kremlin.
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As I have pointed out in previous articles, Wall Street has postponed the scheduled outbreak of hostilities several times. Eisenhower last spring cancelled all projected dates. Charles E. Wilson, head of the Defense (formerly "War") Department, recently saw a "three-year" period at least "before the Soviet would be ready to attack," which is the formula generally used for the projected date.
American Big Business needs this time (1) to complete the rearmament of Japan and German, (2) to wipe out the worldwide impression that it wants war, (3) to tame the American workers, possibly through a "small" depression.
Wall Street is especially concerned about knocking out the opposition to the war within the labor movement by stepping up the witch-hunt still more and dealing some paralyzing blows to the unions.
A temporary pact with the Kremlin could facilitate achievement of these ends. Just as the Stalinists painted up the Stalin-Hitler pact as a great achievement for peace, thereby helping to lull workers everywhere into a false sense of security, so a Malenkov-Eisenhower pact would be pictured by the Stalinists as a new guarantee of peace. The intended effect would be to divert workers from taking the only possible road to enduring peace, that is, the road to socialism.
While the Stalinists are thoroughly discredited in the American labor movement and consequently have little influence in this country, in other places such as France and Italy where they head the bulk of the labor movement, they could play a most perfidious role.
In the Aug. 22 Nation, Mark Gayn suggests some of the counter-revolutionary services the Kremlin might perform for American Big Business in return for a pact: "... we might find Moscow and Peking ready to sacrifice the Communist regimes in East Germany and Indo-China, as Stalin once sacrificed the Communist rebels in Greece. . . And a Communist pledge to still the spirit of revolt and conspiracy in the more turbulent segments of the non-Communist world might prove a better incentive to American investments than an uncertain stability based on our threats. A time of peace is also a time when our best allies, Japan and Germany, France and England, can regain economic health through worldwide trade."
Of course, it is another question whether or not the Stalinists can deliver the goods. But in combination with direct force applied by the U.S., Great Britain, France, etc., a Stalinist betrayal might prove decisive. In Indo-China, for example, French troops supplied from American arsenals might prove sufficient to put down the freedom-seeking movement if the Stalinists cooperated with a stab in the back.
Dulles, representing the interests of American Big Business, naturally seeks other concessions from the Kremlin in addition. The Oct. 7 Wall Street Journal reports that in return for the projected non-aggression pact, "Russia would be asked to agree to a unified Germany, a unified Korea, and to a peace treaty for Austria." In addition, the Kremlin would "have to agree to withdraw their troops from Germany, Austria, and Korea; the U.S. and its allies would promise to do likewise."
Eisenhower-Churchill may only be probing, hoping that the Malenkov regime may be so interested in gaining time to take care of a precarious domestic position that it will grant unexpected concessions. The Western powers may settle for less. In any case, they count on coming out in these maneuvers with the aura of "peace-lovers."
As the Wall Street Journal puts it, "So State Department officials figure they can't lose. At the least, if the Russians reject the pact, the U.S. will have made a gesture calculated to help cement relations with its Western allies. At the most, the U.S. will have won important concessions in three hot spots: Germany, Austria, and Korea."
Far from the impression that the press may have given recently, the negotiations are not out in the open. William R. Fay of the Christian Science Monitor reported Oct. 8 in relation to the Korean conference that an American message "needs to be read ... in the context of private negotiations which have been taking place both among the western nations and indirectly between East and West in recent days."
Why certain of the negotiations are held in secret is quite clear. Main victims of the pact would be the insurgent colonial peoples and working people of the entire world. The common understanding between Western imperialism and the Kremlin would be reached at their expense. It would be a united front against mass up-thrusts that could unseat either of these counter-revolutionary forces.
It is noteworthy that in the June uprising in East Germany, the Western powers refrained from giving any serious aid to the insurgents. By their course they demonstrated their capacity to give tangible support to the Kremlin against a common foe.
By way of reciprocity, in the August general strike in France, the Stalinists refrained from guiding the most promising movement since 1936 toward government power, thereby demonstrating their capacity to give tangible support to Wall Street against the class they both fear.
These reciprocal stands of Wall Street and the Kremlin in East Germany and France are in the pattern of a tacit understanding. This pattern could simply be extended, and it could turn out that a non-aggression pact might not actually be put down on paper but just go into effect as an uneasy and unstable "gentlemen's agreement." Such an accord would be in keeping with the traditions of capitalist diplomacy.
The lesson to the working class of these "peace" maneuvers can be summed up briefly: No confidence whatsoever in the intentions of either Wall Street or the Kremlin. Even if a "peace" pact were signed, it could prove only shortlived. At most it would turn out to be not much more than the lull before the storm of World War III. To save civilization from the threat of atomic war, it is necessary to take the revolutionary road to socialism.
To interpret the postponement of war — with or without a pact—as the opening of a prolonged period of peace would prove fatal. The task is to take advantage of the difficulties Wall Street faces in plunging our planet into another war. That means utilizing the breathing space to fight for the establishment of a Workers and Farmers Government in the United States. There is no other way to win enduring peace.