The Evening Star (April 5, 1946)
ON THE RECORD —
A piece of reporting in a Swiss weekly
By Dorothy Thompson
An article in the Swiss weekly, Weltwoche, of March 1 illuminates what is happening in the Soviet Union. The writer, who entitles the article “The Soviets at the Crossroads,” merely reports, without editorializing. He says that the Soviet government, immediately after the close of the war, realized that millions of Russians have learned, from manning occupation armies, that the standard of living for the ordinary man is, in many border countries, higher than that in the Soviet Union, and that in the depths of the Russian masses many desires of a political, economic and spiritual nature are stirring.
As a result, the Soviet government has been making a systematic study of public opinion among the higher functionaries of the party, the upper bureaucracy, army officers, diplomats and selected professors and intellectuals. This “Gallup Poll,” if one might so describe an inquiry which has gone deeper than answers to questionnaires, has revealed four separate and contradictory streams of opinion. The writer classes two of them under “The Imperialists” and two under “The Isolationists.”
The imperialists, like the isolationists, divide themselves into a right and left wing.
The right wing includes nationalists who always favored a strong nationalist base for the USSR and who, formerly pushed into the background, emerged during the ‘'patriotic war,” which, they maintain, proved nationalism a stronger cohesive force than Communism.
These believe that the USSR should give priority to foreign affairs. They argue that the Soviet Union has become a world power and should exploit that fact to the utmost. They argue that the Soviets have nothing to fear, since the contradictions that plague the rest of the world will not ease; that British-American solidarity is only temporary, and, therefore, no compromises are necessary. They advocate never retreating on Soviet interests, but, instead, raising counterattacks and counterclaims.
(Recent speeches of Molotov and Stalin would seem to indicate that this policy of the right-wing nationalist imperialists has, at the moment, the upper hand.)
But the author maintains it has strong opposition even in the nationalist camp. The left wing is satisfied with the awakening of the national spirit and wishes to deepen national internal unity through concentrating on rapid reconstruction of the economy and raising the living standard, taking a defensive, not aggressive, attitude abroad. They fear the dissipation of the national strength through foreign adventures, and are against any Soviet attempt to sacrifice internal national strength for the creation of any special sort of order in Europe.
The second category embraces two wings of specifically Communist theoreticians, though both are in contradiction to the nationalists of either camp. The right wing regards with uneasiness the power politics of the Soviet. They fear that the means by which Soviet foreign policy is conducted will prejudice European and American workers against Communism, and hold that power politics is in contradiction to the Russian revolution. They wish a moderate foreign policy, no extension of Communism by force, but rather the building up of Moscow as a withdrawn spiritual center of the world proletariat – a “Red Vatican.”
The left-wingers, on the contrary, take a cosmopolitan view that Communist prestige has risen, but, interestingly enough, are also in favor of toning down expansionism. They are not isolationists, but want to concentrate on building up Soviet internal economy and then throwing the country wide open to the world – as they believe will be desirable within a few years. They believe that through friendly contact with the outside world the Communist idea will be better spread than by official propaganda.
As yet these are opinions, not factions. The Soviet government, wishing to avoid factionalism, is making concessions to all of them, and trying to steer a middle course. (This is the more necessary, since the death of Stalin might lead to a split in the country, if divergencies are not previously focused.)
The writer’s report seems, in common sense, probable. Differences of opinion exist in the most totalitarian states and are bound to form over every new position, such as the postwar situation. In totalitarian politics, once a decision has been made, whether by accepting one view or compromising several, further opponents are “liquidated.”
But which line is followed will also be influenced by the behavior of Britain and America. If we open opportunity to the imperialists, they are more likely to triumph. If we support the caution of the moderates, they are more likely to win credence in Moscow. It is, therefore, necessary for us to consider which groups in Russia we wish to aid or hamper by our policies.