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From The New International, Vol. XI No. 4, May 1945, p. 127.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
The editors welcome criticism of the New International. The writer of the above letter says many things that are true, but they are not applicable to the question at issue. Thus it is true that Russia has suffered great economic losses and that the economic power of the United States will, in the long run, exercise its influence on Russian aims. But at Yalta, the decisive forces were the positions of the armies. Since the article and the letter were written, what have we seen? The Russian army is actively setting up puppet regimes all over Eastern Europe.
What is it that keeps the Lublin government in possession of Poland? The Russian army. Not only is Stalin in Poland. He shows every intention of staying there. The conferees at Yalta understood all this pretty well. What else ever rules at an imperialist conference but force? Not force in general, however, but the co-relation of forces at a particular place and at a particular time.
Our correspondent says that Stalin has not dared to overturn capitalist relations in Romania. Exactly. Stalin knows his strength and he knows his weakness. It is to be presumed that he would like nothing better than to have one large area incorporating half of Europe directly into his regime. But that would precipitate an infinite amount of trouble from all sides. He carefully refrains from such provocative action.
The internal situation in Yugoslavia or elsewhere is not in question in the NI article. That is a separate topic. We dealt specifically with the imperialist intrigues and maneuvers at the Yalta Conference. Tito’s adventure (and misadventure) at Trieste shows that the Anglo-American imperialists have clear ideas as to how far they can allow Stalin to go.
Our correspondent seems to think that Stalin feels some responsibility for the Stalinists in the various countries and that he allowed thousands to be massacred by Churchill in Greece because of weakness. We do not think so at all. Stalin did not see any necessity for intervening officially in Greece because Greece at the moment was not a vital interest of Russian foreign policy. If it was to his interest to do so he would have joined Churchill in shooting down some more thousands of the brave but misguided Greeks who trusted the Stalinist party. He did it in Spain.
We do not believe in the stability of the British Empire. We do not say that it will collapse tomorrow. What we do say, however, is that, despite its participation in the victory, it has received and is receiving tremendous blows which continually weaken it on the world arena and, therefore, definitely, at home. France too won a great victory in World War I. In the world that followed it could not hold that position. Without United States support, where would Britain be today? And the support of the United States is a strangle-hold.
To conclude. The balance of power in Europe is altered. Russia is the greatest benefactor. Britain is the greatest loser. Yalta sealed that. In the world market in general the United States possesses enormous power. At another stage, this power can be more effective than it was at Yalta. What course will the Japanese war take? There is the all-important question of the revolutionary intervention of the masses. We take up these different aspects at different times but we think that our thesis about Yalta as an imperialist conference was more rather than less correct.
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Last updated on 22 August 2016