>>> Jim at heartfield.demon.co.uk 11/01/00 05:52PM >>>
In message <sa00059b.074 at mail.ci.detroit.mi.us>, Charles Brown
<CharlesB at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us> writes
>This also applies to the non-aggression pact that the Soviets signed with
>Germany before the war. It is only with hindsight, that we know the extent of
>the Nazi horrors. In the late 30's, though Germany was highly militarized and
>undemocratic, the full meaning of Nazi fascism as equivalent to world historic
>war crimes and crimes against humanity was not established until the war itself.
>German fascism was not necessarily worse than Francoism from the standpoint of
>the 1930's. The distinction between Germany and the other capitalist countries
>was not as sharp as it was after the war, and which we can see with hindsight.
>
I don't agree that you can minimise the disastrous impact of the non- aggression pact. (Nor does it seem to me that the error turns on failing to understand the special nature of fascism.) The point was that the Soviet leadership openly collaborated with the Nazis on a political level, giving credence to their regime and movement.
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CB: "Collaboration" is not an accurate term for relations between states. The SU was under no obligation to make symbolic gestures to make fine distinctions among imperialist powers. It's diplomacy was appropriately targetted to maximize the splits among the imperialist nations and delay the inevitable assault that was most likely to come from Germany. So, getting some delay with the non-aggression pact was not collaboration, but pro-world working class policy, as preservation of the only socialist state was top priority of the world's working class and oppressed peoples.
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Ilya Ehrenberg's memoirs make it quite clear that the pact went way beyond merely pragmatic avoidance of conflict to open collaboration.
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CB: Henry Ford was collaborating with the Nazis. The SU was maneuvering for time to save the world. And it worked.
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Since the principal victims of the Nazis special measures were members of the KPD, this was particularly cynical. Strategically it was a disaster for the left, because it made them apologists for fascism.
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CB: SU couldn't have saved the KPD, but could save itself and the rest of the world, and it did.
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In its own way, the subsequent policy of the 'People's Front' with the imperialist Churchill was just as foolish. It was the weakness of the Stalin leadership that they were incapable of making simply pragmatic deals (as Lenin did in exchanging grain for US technology) but felt the need to go further, justifying these tactical alliances politically.
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CB: The whole Soviet policy during this period, including the People's Front was shown not to be foolish, because the SU won the war. That was the point of emphasis on the eastern front being an order of magnitude bigger than the western front , in the sense that the SU was the chief momentum of the victory, so their policies look good , all in all.
You talk in counterfactual historical terms as if you, in hindsight have a better policy than the SU did. That is rather remarkable hindsight claim to fame. You probably would have lost the war. Stalin seems to be the baddest pragmatist of all times. He beat Hitler. Stalin made a deal with the Devil, wrestled with him, and won.
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Hence the false counterposition of 'peace-loving' and rapacious imperialisms - as if imperialism could ever be progressive.