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#Post#: 20270--------------------------------------------------
The American Plan for the Enslavement of Europe
By: Long Knives 88 Date: January 11, 2016, 3:55 pm
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From Zhdanov's speech to Cominform in Sklarska Poreba, 22
September 1947:
The aggressive and frankly expansionist course to which American
imperialism has committed itself since the end of World War II
find expression in both the foreign and home policy of the
United States. The active support rendered to the reactionary,
anti-democratic forces all over the world, the sabotage of the
Potsdam decisions which call for the democratic reconstruction
of Germany, the protection given to Japanese reactionaries, the
extensive war preparations and the accumulation of atomic
bombs—all this goes hand in hand with an offensive against the
elementary democratic rights of the working people in the United
States itself.
Although the U.S.A. suffered comparatively little from the war,
the vast majority of the Americans do not want another war, with
its accompanying sacrifices and limitations. This has induced
monopoly capital and its servitors among the ruling circles in
the United States to resort to extraordinary means in order to
crush the opposition at home to the aggressive expansionist
course and to secure a free hand for the further prosecution of
this dangerous policy.
But the crusade against Communism proclaimed by America’s ruling
circles with the backing of the capitalist monopolies leads as a
logical consequence to attacks on the fundamental rights and
interests of the American working people, to the fascization of
America’s political life, and to the dissemination of the most
savage and misanthropic “theories” and views. Dreaming about
preparing for a new war, a third world war, American
expansionist circles are vitally interested in stifling all
possible resistance within the country to adventures abroad, in
poisoning the minds of the politically backward and
unenlightened American masses with the virus of chauvinism and
militarism, and in stultifying the average American with the
help of all the diverse means of anti-Soviet and anti-Communist
propaganda—the cinema, the radio, the church and the press. The
expansionist foreign policy inspired and conducted by the
American reactionaries envisages simultaneous action along the
lines:
1) strategical military measures,
2) economic expansion, and
3) ideological struggle.
Realization of the strategical plans for future aggression is
connected with the desire to utilize to the utmost the war
production facilities of the United States, which had grown to
enormous proportions by the end of World War II. American
imperialism is persistently pursuing a policy of militarizing
the country. Expenditure on the U.S. army and navy exceeds
11,000 million dollars per annum. In 1947-48, 35 per cent of
America’s budget was appropriated for the armed forces, or
eleven times more than in 1937-1938.
On the outbreak of World War II American army was seventeenth
largest in the capitalist world; today it is the largest one.
The United States is not only accumulating stocks of atomic
bombs; American strategists say quite openly that it is
preparing for bacteriological weapons.
The strategical plans of the United States envisage the creation
in peace-time of numerous bases and vantage grounds situated at
great distances from the American continent and designed to be
used for aggressive purposes against the U.S.S.R. and the
countries of the new democracy. America has built, or is
building air and naval bases in Alaska, Japan, Italy, South
Korea, China, Egypt, Iran, Turkey, Greece, Austria and Western
Germany. There are American military missions in Afghanistan and
even in Nepal. Feverish preparations are being made to use the
Arctic for purposes of military aggression.
Although the war has long since ended, the military alliance
between Britain and the United States and even a combined
Anglo-American military staff continue to exist. Under the guise
of agreement for the standardisation of weapons, the United
States has established its control over the armed forces and
military plans of other countries, notably of Great Britain and
Canada. Under the guise of joint defence of the Western
Hemisphere the countries of Latin America are being brought into
the orbit of America’s plans of military expansion. The United
States government has officially declared that it has committed
itself to assist in the modernisation of the Turkish Army. The
army of the reactionary Kuomintang is being trained by American
instructors and armed with American material. The military
circles are becoming an active political force in the United
States, supplying large numbers of government officials and
diplomats who are directing the whole policy of the country into
an aggressive military course.
Economic expansion is an important supplement to the realization
of America’s strategical plan. American imperialism is
endeavouring, like a usurer, to take advantage of the post-war
difficulties of the European countries, in particular of the
shortage of raw materials, fuel and food in the Allied countries
that suffered most from the war, to dictate to them extortionate
terms for any assistance rendered. With an eye to the impending
economic crisis, the United States is in a hurry to find new
monopoly spheres of capital investment and markets for its
goods. American economic “assistance” pursues the broad aim of
bringing Europe into bondage to American capital. The more
drastic the economic situation of a country is, the harsher are
the terms which the American monopolies endeavour to dictate to
it.
But economic control logically leads to political subjugation to
American imperialism. Thus the United States combines the
extension of monopoly markets for its goods with the acquisition
of new bridgeheads for its fight against the new democratic
forces of Europe. In “saving” a country from starvation and
collapse, the American monopolies at the same time seek to rob
it of all vestige of independence. American “assistance”
automatically involves a change in the policy of the country to
which it is rendered: parties and individuals come to power that
are prepared on directions from Washington, to carry out a
program of home and foreign policy suitable to the United States
(France, Italy, and so on).
Lastly, the aspiration to world supremacy and an the
anti-democratic policy of the United States involve an
ideological struggle. The principal purpose of the ideological
part of the American strategical plan is to deceive public
opinion by slanderously accusing the Soviet Union and the new
democracies of aggressive intentions, and thus representing the
Anglo-Saxon bloc in a defensive role and absolving it of
responsibility for preparing a new war. During the Second World
War the popularity of the Soviet Union in foreign countries was
enormously enhanced. Its devoted and heroic struggle against
imperialism earned it the affection and respect of working
people in all countries. The military and economic might of the
Socialist State, the invincible strength of the moral and
political unity of Soviet Society were graphically demonstrated
to the whole world. The reactionary circles in the United States
and Great Britain are anxious to erase the impression made by
the Socialist system on the working people of the world. The
warmongers fully realize that long ideological preparation is
necessary before they can get their soldiers to fight the Soviet
Union.
In their ideological struggle against the U.S.S.R. the American
imperialists, who have no great insight into political
questions, demonstrate their ignorance by laying primary stress
on the allegation that Soviet Union is undemocratic and
totalitarian, while the United States and Great Britain and the
whole capitalist world are democratic. On this platform of
ideological struggle—on this defence of bourgeois
pseudo-democracy and condemnation of Communism as
totalitarian—are united all the enemies of the working class
without exception, from the capitalist magnates to the Right
Socialist leaders, who seize with the greatest eagerness on any
slanderous imputations against the USSR suggested to them by
their imperialist masters. The pith and substance of this
fraudulent propaganda is the claim that the earmark of true
democracy is the existence of a plurality of parties and of an
organized opposition minority. On these grounds the British
Labourites, who spare no effort in their fight against
Communism, would like to discover antagonistic classes and a
corresponding struggle of parties in the USSR. Political
ignoramuses that they are, they cannot understand that
capitalists and landlords, antagonistic classes, and hence a
plurality of parties, have long ceased to exist in the USSR.
They would like to have in the USSR the bourgeois parties which
are so dear to their hearts, including pseudo-socialistic
parties, as an agency of imperialism. But to their bitter regret
these parties of the exploiting bourgeoisie have been doomed by
history to disappear from the scene.
The Labourites and other advocates of bourgeois democracy will
go to any length to slander the Soviet regime, but at the same
time they regard the bloody dictatorship of the fascist minority
over the people in Greece and Turkey as perfectly normal, they
close their eyes to many crying violations even of formal
democracy in the bourgeois countries, and say nothing about the
national and racial oppression, the corruption and the
unceremonious abrogation of democratic rights in the United
States of America.
One of the lines taken by the ideological “campaign” that goes
hand in hand with the plans for the enslavement of Europe is an
attack on the principle of national sovereignty, an appeal for
the renouncement of the sovereign rights of nations, to which is
opposed the idea of a “world government.” The purpose of this
campaign is to mask the unbridled expansion of American
imperialism, which is ruthlessly violating the sovereign rights
of nations, to represent the United States as a champion of
universal laws, and those who resist American penetration as
believers in a obsolete and “selfish” nationalism. The idea of a
“world government” has been taken up by bourgeois intellectual
cranks and pacifists, and is being exploited not only as a means
of pressure, with the only purpose of ideologically disarming
the nations that defend their independence against the
encroachments of American imperialism, but also as a slogan
specially directed against the Soviet Union, which indefatigably
and consistently upholds the principle of real equality and
protection of the sovereign rights of all nations, big and
small. Under present conditions imperialist countries like
U.S.A., Great Britain and the states closely associated with
them become dangerous enemies of national independence and the
self-determination of nations, while the Soviet Union and the
new democracies are a reliable bulwark against encroachments on
the equality and self-determination of nations.
It is a noteworthy fact that American military-political
intelligence agents of the Bullitt breed, yellow trade union
leaders of the Green brand, the French Socialists headed by that
inveterate apologian of capitalism. Blum, the German
social-democrat Schumacher, and Labour leaders of the Bevin type
are all united in close fellowship in carrying out the
ideological plan of American imperialism.
At this present juncture the expansionist ambitions of the
United States find concrete expression in the “Truman doctrine”
and the “Marshall plan”. Although they differ in form of
presentation, both are an expression of a single policy, they
are both an embodiment of the American design to enslave Europe.
The main features of the “Truman doctrine,” as applied to Europe
are as follows:
1. Creation of American bases in the Eastern Mediterranean with
the purpose of establishing American supremacy in that area.
2. Demonstrative support of the reactionary regimes in Greece
and Turkey as bastions of American imperialism against the new
democracies in the Balkans (military and technical assistance to
Greece and Turkey, the granting of loans).
3. Unintermitting pressure on the countries of the new
democracy, as expressed in false accusations of totalitarianism
and expansionist ambitions, in attacks on the foundations of the
new democratic regime, in constant interference in their
domestic affairs, in support of all anti-national,
anti-democratic elements within these countries, and in the
demonstrative breaking off of economic relations with these
countries with the idea of creating economic difficulties,
retarding their economic development, preventing their
industrialization, and so on.
The “Truman doctrine”, which provides for the rendering of
American assistance to all reactionary regimes which actively
oppose the democratic peoples, bears a frankly aggressive
character. Its announcement caused some dismay even among
circles of American capitalists that are accustomed to anything.
Progressive public elements in the U.S.A. and other countries
vigorously protested against the provocative, and frankly
imperialistic character of Truman’s announcement.
The unfavourable reception which the “Truman doctrine” was met
with accounts for the necessity of the appearance of the
“Marshall Plan”, which is a more carefully veiled attempt to
carry through the same expansionist policy.
The vague and deliberately guarded formulations of the “Marshall
plan”, amount in essence to a scheme to create a bloc of states
bound by obligations to the United States, and to grant American
credits to European countries as a recompense for their
renunciation of economic and then of political independence.
Moreover, the cornerstone of the “Marshall Plan” is the
restoration of the industrial areas of Western Germany
controlled by the American monopolies.
It is the design of the “Marshall Plan”, as transpired from the
subsequent talks and the statements of American leaders, to
render aid in the first place, not to the impoverished victor
countries, America’s allies in the fight against Germany, but to
the German capitalists, with the idea of bringing under American
sway the major sources of coal and iron needed by Europe and by
Germany, and of making the countries which are in need of coal
and iron dependent on the restored economic might of Germany.
In spite of the fact that the “Marshall Plan” envisages the
ultimate reduction of Britain and France to the status of
second-rate powers, the Attlee Labour government in Britain and
the Ramadier Socialist government in France clutched at the
“Marshall Plan” as at an anchor of salvation. Britain as we
know, has already practically used up the American loan of a
3,750,000,000 dollars granted to her in 1946. We also know that
the terms of this loan were so onerous as to bind Britain hand
and foot. Even when already caught in the noose of financial
dependence on the USA, the British Labour government could
conceive of no other alternative than the receipt of new loans.
It therefore hailed the “Marshall Plan” as a way out of the
economic impasse, as a chance of securing fresh credits. The
British politicians, moreover, hoped to take advantage of a
creation of a bloc of Western European debtor countries of the
United States to play within this bloc the role of America’s
chief agent, who might perhaps profit at the expense of weaker
countries. The British bourgeoisie hoped, by using the “Marshall
Plan”, by rendering service to the American monopolies and
submitting to their control, to recover its lost positions in a
number of countries, in particular in the countries of the
Balkan-Danubian area.
In order to lend the American proposals a specious gloss of
“impartiality,” it was decided to enlist as one of the sponsors
of the implementation of the “Marshall Plan” France, as well
which had already half sacrificed her sovereignty to the United
States, inasmuch as the credit she obtained from America in May
1947 was granted on the stipulation that the Communists would be
eliminated from the French Government.
Acting on instructions from Washington, the British and French
governments invited the Soviet Union to take part in a
discussion of the Marshall proposals. This step was taken in
order to mask the hostile nature of the proposals with respect
to the USSR. The calculation was that, since it was well known
beforehand that the USSR would refuse American assistance on the
terms proposed by Marshall, it might be possible to shift the
responsibility on the Soviet Union for “declining to assist the
economic restoration of Europe,” and thus incite against the
USSR the European countries that are in need of real assistance.
If, on the other hand, the Soviet Union should consent to take
part in the talks, it would be easier to lure the countries of
East and South-East Europe into the trap of the “economic
restoration of Europe with American assistance.” Whereas the
Truman plan was designed to terrorize and intimidate these
countries, the “Marshall Plan” was designed to test their
economic staunchness, to lure them into a trap and then shackle
them in the fetters of dollar “assistance”.
In that case, the “Marshall Plan” would facilitate one of the
most important objectives of the general American program,
namely, to restore the power of imperialism in the countries of
the new democracy and to compel them to renounce close economic
and political co-operation with the Soviet Union.
The representatives of the USSR, having agreed to discuss the
Marshall proposals in Paris with the governments of Great
Britain and France, exposed at the Paris Conference the
unsoundness of attempting to work out an economic program for
the whole of Europe, and showed that the attempt to create a new
European organization under the aegis of France and Britain was
a threat to interfere in the internal affairs of the European
countries and to violate their sovereignty. They showed that the
“Marshall Plan” was in contradiction to the normal principles of
international co-operation, that it harboured the danger of
splitting Europe and the threat of subjugating a number of
European countries to American capitalist interests, that it was
designed to give priority of assistance to the monopolistic
concerns of Germany over the Allies, and that the restoration of
these concerns was obviously designated in the “Marshall Plan”
to play a special role in Europe.
This clear position of the Soviet Union stripped the mask from
the plan of the American imperialists and their British and
French coadjutors.
The all-European conference was a resounding failure. Nine
European states refused to take part in it. But even in the
countries that consented to participate in the discussion of the
“Marshall Plan” and in the working out of concrete measures for
its realization, it was not greeted with any special enthusiasm,
all the more so since it was soon discovered that the USSR was
fully justified in its supposition that what the plan envisaged
was far from real assistance. It transpired that, in general,
the U.S. government was in no hurry to carry out Marshall’s
promises. U.S. Congress leaders admitted that Congress would not
examine the question of granting new credits to European
countries before 1948.
It thus became evident that in accepting the Paris scheme for
the implementation of the “Marshall Plan”, Britain, France and
other European states themselves fell dupes to American
chicanery.
Nevertheless, the efforts to build up a western bloc under the
aegis of America are being continued.
It should be noted that the American variant of the Western bloc
is bound to encounter serious resistance even in countries
already so dependent on the United States as Britain and France.
The prospect of the restoration of German imperialism, as an
effective force capable of opposing democracy and Communism in
Europe, cannot be very alluring either to Britain or to France.
Here we have one of the major contradictions within the
Anglo-French-American bloc. Evidently, the American monopolies,
and the international reactionaries generally, do not regard
France and Greek fascists as a very reliable bulwark of the
United States against the USSR and the new democracies in
Europe. They are, therefore, staking their main hopes on the
restoration of capitalist Germany, which they consider would be
a major guarantee of the success of the fight against the
democratic forces of Europe. They trust neither the British
Labourites nor the French Socialists, whom, in spite of their
manifest desire to please, they regard as “semi-Communists”,
insufficiently worthy of confidence.
It is for this reason that the question of Germany and, in
particular of the Ruhr as a potential war-industrial base of a
bloc hostile to the USSR, is playing such an important part in
international politics and is an apple of discord between the
USA and Britain and France.
The appetites of the American imperialists cannot but cause
serious uneasiness in Britain and France. The United States has
unambiguously given it to be understood that it wants to take
the Ruhr out of the hands of the British. The American
imperialists are also demanding that the three occupation zones
be merged, and that the political separation of Western Germany
under American control be openly implemented. The United States
insists that the level of steel output in the Ruhr must be
increased, with the capitalist firms under American aegis.
Marshall’s promise of credits for European rehabilitation is
interpreted in Washington as a promise of priority assistance to
the German capitalists.
We thus see that America is endeavouring to build a “Western
bloc” not on the pattern of Churchill’s plan for a United States
of Europe, which was conceived as an instrument of British
policy, but as an American protectorate in which sovereign
European states, not excluding Britain itself, are assigned a
role not very far removed from that of the “49th State of
America”. American imperialism is becoming more and more
arrogant and unceremonious in its treatment of Britain and
France. The bilateral, and trilateral talks regarding the level
of industrial production in Western Germany (Great Britain—USA,
USA—France), apart from constituting an arbitrary violation of
the Potsdam decisions and, are a demonstration of the complete
indifference of the United States to the vital interests of its
partners in the negotiations. Britain and especially France, are
compelled to listen to the America’s dictates and to obey them
without a murmur. The behaviour of American diplomats in London
and Paris has come to be highly reminiscent of their behaviour
in Greece, where American representatives already considering it
quite unnecessary to observe the elementary decencies appoint
and dismiss Greek ministers at will and conduct themselves as
conquerors. Thus the new plan for the Dawesization of Europe
essentially strikes at the vital interests of the peoples of
Europe and represents a plan for the enthrallment and
enslavement of Europe by the United States.
The “Marshall Plan” strikes at the industrialization of the
democratic countries of Europe, and hence at the foundations of
their integrity and independence. And if the plan for the
Dawesization of’ Europe was doomed to failure, at a time when
the forces of resistance to the Dawes Plan were much weaker they
are now, today, in post-war Europe, there are quite sufficient
forces, even leaving aside the Soviet Union, and if they display
the will and the determination they can fell this plan of
enslavement. All that is needed is the determination and
readiness of the peoples of Europe to resist. As to the USSR, it
will bend every effort in order that this plan be doomed to
failure.
The assessment given by the countries of the anti-imperialist
camp of the “Marshall Plan” has been completely confirmed by the
whole course of developments. In relation to the “Marshall
Plan”, the camp of democratic countries have proved that they
are a mighty force standing guard over the independence and
sovereignty of all European nations, that they refuse to yield
to brow-beating and intimidation, just as they refuse to be
deceived by the hypocritical manoeuvres of dollar diplomacy.
The Soviet government has never objected to using foreign, and
in particular American credits as a means capable of expediting
the process of economic rehabilitation. However, the Soviet
Union has always taken the stand that the terms of credits must
not be extortionate, and must not result in the economic and
political subjugation of the debtor country to the creditor
country. From this political stand, the Soviet Union has always
held that foreign credits must not be the principal means of
restoring a country’s economy. The chief and paramount condition
of a country’s economic rehabilitation must be the utilisation
of its own internal forces and resources and the creation of its
own industry. Only in this way can its independence be
guaranteed against encroachments on the part of foreign capital,
which constantly displays a tendency to utilise credits as an
instrument of political and economic enthrallment. Such
precisely is the “Marshall Plan”, which would strike at the
industrialisation of the European countries and is consequently
designed to undermine their independence.
The Soviet Union unswervingly holds the position that political
and economic relations between states must be built exclusively
on the basis of equality of the parties and mutual respect for
their sovereign rights. Soviet foreign policy and, in
particular, Soviet economic relations with foreign countries,
are based on the principle of equality, on the principle that
agreements must be of advantage to both parties. Treaties with
the USSR are agreements that are of mutual advantage to both
parties, and never contain anything that encroaches on the
national independence and sovereignty of the contracting
parties. This fundamental feature of the agreements of the USSR
with other states stands out particularly vividly just now, in
the light of the unfair and unequal treaties being concluded or
planned by the United States. Unequal agreements are alien to
Soviet foreign trade policy. More, the development of the Soviet
Union’s economic relations with all countries interested in such
relations demonstrates on what principles normal relations
between states should be built. Suffice it to recall the
treaties recently concluded by the USSR with Poland, Yugoslavia,
Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria and Finland. In this way the
USSR has clearly shown along what lines Europe may find the way
out of its present economic plight. Britain might have had a
similar treaty, if the Labour Government had not, under outside
pressure, frustrated the agreement with the USSR, the agreement
which was already on its way to conclusion.
The exposure of the American plan for the economic enslavement
of the European countries is an undisputable service rendered by
the foreign policy of the USSR and the new democracies.
It should be borne in mind that the America herself is
threatened with an economic crisis. There are weighty reasons
for Marshall’s official generosity. If the European countries do
not receive American credits, their demand for American goods
will diminish, and this will tend to accelerate and intensify
the approaching economic crisis in the United States.
Accordingly, if the European countries display the necessary
stamina and readiness to resist the enthralling terms of the
American credit. America may find herself compelled to beat a
retreat.
#Post#: 20273--------------------------------------------------
Re: The American Plan for the Enslavement of Europe
By: mistermax Date: January 11, 2016, 5:47 pm
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