Hi Joanne:
I know, I know - I said I would not try to reply to all your points!
But in amongst all the recent & extraordinary mud-slinging - I had
overlooked your dump on the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Well, none of this
will convince you, But at least it is off my chest!
I will argue here, that the diplomatic history of the period shows that
the USSR tried BLOODY hard to get an anti-fascist front, but that the
imperialists were trying to shove Hitler East.
See for instance "Documents Relating to the Eve of the 2nd WW";
International Publishers; New York; 1948;
or; Axell A: "Stalin's War Through the Eyes of His Commanders"; London
1997;
or "Grand Delusion: Stalin & The German Invasion of Russia"; Gabriel
Gorodetsky; Yale 1999.
They butress my following precis of the argument drawn from an anlysis
by the alte W.B.Bland, at our web-site. All of these (& many other
books) more or less project the following scenario:
1) that the USSR was being set up for attack, & that this was the
"function" of the infamous Munich appeasement sessions. The "set-up" of
the USSR had started in the Spanish Civil War (which I note you have
commented on also, & I would contend that Stalin was aiding the
Republicans & that the USSR was being sabotaged in this also: see:
http://www22.brinkster.com/harikumar/CommunistLeague/Compass123-Spain1996.htm
).
2) The secret diplomacy of the pre-SWW shows clearly the collusion of
the imperialists with the German fascists. e.g.:
"British Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax is on record as telling Hitler
in
November 1937 that:
"he and other members of the British Government were well aware
that
the Fuehrer had attained a great deal. . . . Having destroyed
Communism in his country, he had barred the road of the latter to
Western Europe and Germany was therefore entitled to be regarded as
a
bulwark of the West against Bolshevism. .
When the ground has been prepared for an Anglo-German
rapprochement, the four great West European Powers must jointly set
up the foundation of lasting peace in Europe".
('Documents on German Foreign Policy: 1918-1945', Series D, Volume
1;
London; 1954; p. 55)."
See:
http://www22.brinkster.com/harikumar/AllianceIssues/WBBJVSNaziPact.htm
3) The onset of moves agisnt Poland by fascist Germany provoked Lloyd
George to set up talks with the USSR. However, the Anglo-French
delegation did not exactly set off to the USSR in a hurry - nor
empowered to actually take substantive steps: :
"On 23 July the British and French governments finally agreed to begin
military discussions before the political treaty of alliance had been
finalised,
and a British naval officer with the quadruple-barreled name of Admiral
Reginald Plunkett-Ernie-Erle-Drax was appointed to head the British
delegation. No one, apparently, had informed the British government that
the
aeroplane had been invented, and the delegation left Tilbury by a slow
boat
to Leningrad, from where they proceeded by train to Moscow. When the
delegation finally arrived in Moscow on 11 August, the Soviet side
discovered
that it had no powers to negotiate, only to 'hold talks'. Furthermore,
the
British delegation was officially instructed to:
"Go very slowly with the conversations";
('Documents on British Foreign Policy;', 3rd Series, Volume 6;
London;
1953; Appendix 5; p. 763).
http://www22.brinkster.com/harikumar/CommunistLeague/Compass123-Spain1996.htm
4) The US Ambassador to the USSR (Joseph Davies) made clear that these
(one of many) filibusters of the imperialists, was exasperating the
USSR:
On 11 March 1939 Joseph Davies, the former US Ambassador in Moscow,
now posted to Brussels, wrote in his diary about Stalin's speech to the
18th
Congress of the CPSU a few days before:
"It is a most significant statement. It bears the earmarks of a
definite
warning to the British and French governments that the Soviets are
getting tired of 'non-realistic' opposition to the aggressors. . .
It certainly is the most significant danger signal that I have yet
seen".
(J. E. Davies: 'Mission to Moscow'; London; 1942; p. 279-80).
http://www22.brinkster.com/harikumar/CommunistLeague/Compass123-Spain1996.htm
5) The Soviet Zhadnov made public the increasing urgency and the
continuing dilemma:
On 29 June the leading Soviet Marxist-Leninist Andrei Zhdanov published
an
article in 'Pravda' which, most unusually, revealed that there were
differences
in the leadership of the CPSU on whether the British and French
governments
were sincere in saying that they wished for a genuine treaty of mutual
assistance:
"the Anglo-French-Soviet negotiations on the conclusion of an
effective
pact of mutual assistance against aggression have reached a
deadlock. . .
.
I permit myself to express my personal opinion in this matter,
although
my friends do not share it. They still think that when beginning
the
negotiations with the USSR, the English and French Governments had
serious intentions of creating a powerful barrier against
aggression in
Europe. I believe, and shall try to prove it by facts, that the
English and
French Governments have no wish for a treaty . . . to which a
self-respecting State can agree. .
The Soviet Government took 16 days in preparing answers to the
various English projects and proposals, while the remaining 59 days
have been consumed by delays and procrastinations on the part of
the
English and French. .
Not long ago . . . the Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Beck,
declared
unequivocally that Poland neither demanded nor requested from the
USSR anything in the sense of granting her any guarantee
whatever.....However, this does not prevent England and France from
demanding from the USSR guarantees . . . for Poland. . .
It seems to me that the English and French desire not a real treaty
accepable to the USSR, but only talks about a treaty in order to
speculate before the public opinion in their countries on the
allegedly
unyielding attitude of the USSR, and thus make easier for
themselves
the road to a deal with the aggressors.
The next few days must show whether this is so or not."
(A. Zhdanov: Article in 'Pravda', 29 June 1939, in: J. Degras
(Ed.):
'Soviet Documents on Foreign Policy'; London; 1953; p. 352, 353,
354).
http://www22.brinkster.com/harikumar/CommunistLeague/Compass123-Spain1996.htm
(6) Even many bourgeois commentators of note agree with the general
interpretation offered above:
Take E.H.Carr:
"Even such anti-Soviet writers as Edward Carr agree that the Soviet
government's decision to sign the non-aggression pact with Germany was
an
enforced second choice, which was taken only with extreme reluctance:
"The most striking feature of the Soviet-German negotiations . . .
is the
extreme caution with which they were conducted from the Soviet
side,
and the prolonged Soviet resistance to close the doors on the
Western
negotiations".
(E. H. Carr: 'From Munich to Moscow: II', in: 'Soviet Studies',
Volume
1, No. 12 (October 1949); p. 104)."
http://www22.brinkster.com/harikumar/AllianceIssues/WBBJVSNaziPact.htm
(7) E.H.Carrr's summation was that this pact was crucial in saving the
USSR. (I will not even discuss the idiotic statement that Stalin
believed that the Germans were not going to invade).
Even such virulent anti-Soviet writers as Edward Carr admit that the
signing
of the German-Soviet non-aggression pact enabled the Soviet Union to put
itself in an incomparably stronger defensive position to meet the German
invasion:
"The Chamberlain government ., as a defender of capitalism, refused
. .
. to enter into an alliance with the USSR against Germany. . . .
In the pact of August 23rd, 1939, they (the Soviet government --
Ed.)
secured:
a) a breathing space of immunity from attack;
b) German assistance in mitigating Japanese pressure in the Far
East;
c) German agreement to the establishment of an advanced defensive
bastion beyond the existing Soviet frontiers in Eastern Europe; it
was
significant that this bastion was, and could only be, a line of
defence
against potential German attack, the eventual prospect of which was
never far absent from Soviet reckonings. But what most of all was
achieved by the pact was the assurance that, if the USSR had
eventually
to fight Hitler, the Western Powers would already be involved".
(E. H. Carr: 'From Munich to Moscow: II', in: 'Soviet Studies',
Volume
1, No. 2 (October 1949); p. 103). "
http://www22.brinkster.com/harikumar/AllianceIssues/WBBJVSNaziPact.htm
Sorry to be so long winded.
H