uksoapbox : Message: Chapters 39 - 41. 1917 AND ALL THAT: THE UNTAUGHT HISTORY SYLLABUS. In Their Own Words: A Political History Of The Cold War 1917-1983.

First of all; my apologies to group members, readers, students, tutors, and
other independent journalists who have been trying to keep up with some long
delays between this series of articles. Illness has delayed me periodically over
the time I have been posting the series. I am now able to continue more
regularly.

1917 AND ALL THAT: THE UNTAUGHT HISTORY SYLLABUS.
In Their Own Words: A Political History Of The Cold War 1917-1983.
By Brian Mitchell.

Chapters 39 - 41 of 50.

Chapter 39

A NEW EUROPE IS FORMED.
It is a political and historical deception to say that the 'superpowers'
"divided" Europe among themselves, as I have sometimes heard among some peace
activists. It is equally false to say that the Soviet Union divided Europe or
imposed socialism on the countries of Eastern Europe.

"Nowhere and at no time has any credible evidence been presented to show that
the Soviet Union wanted to divide Berlin, Germany or Europe; or to create a
massive military alliance system; or that these developments were in reply to
threats or aggressive moves by the USSR. Any careful and objective study will, I
am convinced, show that the exact opposite was the case.

Not only did the Soviet leaders oppose the division of Berlin and Germany and
the splitting of Europe but the record shows that they have consistently called
for a reunion of a disarmed and neutral Germany and the abolition or merger of
the two alliances, NATO and the Warsaw Pact."

(US General Hugh B. Lester.) (1)

After the war Soviet forces were stationed in Austria for 10 years, Iran for 5
years, in Denmark and Norway; yet no revolutions happened in those countries,
nor did the Red Army see its business to impose any. It is a fundamental Marxist
principle that revolutions cannot be imposed by anyone from outside; and that
conditions in a country have to be right for a socialist revolution. Conditions
were ripe for a socialist revolution at the end of the war in Greece when the
Greek resistance army ELAS entered Athens and Piraeus in October 1944. But this
was bloodily crushed by British troops who landed there immediately afterwards.
Churchill even admitted in the House of Commons that this was not due to any
military needs of the war. In Belgium the British imposed an unpopular
government and disarmed the Belgian resistance forces on the pretext that they
were planning an "uprising". In Italy on January 5 1945 Harold MacMillan as
Chairman of the Allied Control Commission called on the US and British
governments to make "heroic efforts to save Italy from revolution." (2)

#The Soviet armies withdrew from Yugoslavia, Norway and Czechoslovakia in 1945,
from Denmark, Iran and China in 1946, Bulgaria, Rumania and Hungary in 1947,
Korea in 1948, and Austria in 1955.

At the Potsdam Conference in 1945 the British and Americans had been looking for
a way of ejecting the Soviets from the Soviet Zone in Germany, particularly
Berlin. Stalin informed the delegates:

#Stalin:"I want to inform you that today the Soviet troops in Austria started
withdrawing... The withdrawal is to be completed by July 24. The advance units
of the Allied troops have already entered Vienna."

Churchill:"We are very grateful to the Generalissimo for having so swiftly
started implementing the agreement."

(From the transcripts of the Potsdam Conference, Sixth Sitting, July 22 1945.)
(3)

#The Soviets pulled out of Austria. The British government and media continued
to jibe at the Soviets remaining in Berlin. But Stalin had every right to query
the British occupation and acquisition of new territories such as the former
Italian colonies of Cyrenaica, Eritrea, Somaliland (Somalia), and Tripoli.

(1)See:"The Minority of One, Inc." US. in: British-Soviet Friendship, Oct 1988
and Jan 21 1967.

(2)See:"Recalling the Past For the Sake of the Future: The Causes, Results and
Lessons of World War Two." Novosti. Moscow 1985.

(3)See:"The Teheran Yalta and Potsdam Conferences. Documents." Progress
Publishers. Moscow 1969.

When the Anglo-American allies lost their unofficial and unagreed 'race for
Berlin' they tried to discredit and disgrace the Soviet Union by hostile
propaganda about the Soviet Union's rightful occupation of the territories
agreed at Yalta. Particularly was the West sore about the Soviet advance and
subsequent occupation of Berlin. And their propaganda surrounding this was
particularly hostile; and their attitude contradictory. They castigated and
vilified the USSR in its occupation of Berlin; but kept silent about the postwar
Western occupations and economic and political gains of territories in North
Africa such as Somaliland, Eritrea, Cyrenaica and Tripoli:

Stalin:"We learn from the press... that Mr.Eden, in a speech in the British
Parliament, declared that Italy has lost her colonies for ever. Who has decided
that? If Italy has lost them, who has found them? [Laughter.] That is a very
interesting question."

Churchill:"I can answer it. By steady effort, at the cost of great losses and
through exceptional victories, the British Army alone conquered these colonies."

Stalin:"And the Red Army took Berlin." [Laughter.]

(From the transcripts of the Potsdam Conference, Sixth Sitting, July 22 1945.)
(1)

It was the West who felt the need to create military blocs and redivide Europe
and Germany. It had been these needs which had determined their political
conduct of the war and military strategy. Immediately after the Soviet victory
at Stalingrad US and British plans were devised in London for the partition of
Germany, a federation of Danube countries of Austria, Hungary, Yugoslavia and
Czechoslovakia with the southern German lands of Bavaria, Wurtenberg and Baden:

"The need for a Scandinavian bloc, Danubian bloc, and a Balkan bloc appears to
be obvious."

(Winston Churchill, in a message to President Roosevelt, Feb 2 1943.) (2)

German Archive documents captured by the Soviets at the end of the war show
that, in a statement reminiscent of Hitler and the modern revanchists, Allen
Dulles had said:

"By extending Poland to the East and preserving Romania and a strong Hungary,
the establishment of a cordon sanitaire against Bolshevism and Pan-Slavism must
be supported."

(US representative Allen Dulles, in a private meeting with Nazi German
representative Prince Hohenlohe, Feb 1943.) (3)

But Poland's eastern frontier, the Curzon Line, had been agreed in 1919 at
Versailles. And in 1921 Poland had annexed Byelorussian and Ukrainian
territories. Poland's western border, the Oder-Neisse Line, was agreed by the
West at Teheran in 1943.

And how did the West intend to "extend Poland to the East" once more? How were
they going to change the balance of political and ideological power in Europe? A
war had failed to do this in their favour. The capitalist world's "big and
dangerous game" only served to strengthen world socialism and drastically weaken
capitalism. It had certainly ended in a "serious fiasco" for them.

(1)See:"The Teheran Yalta and Potsdam Conferences. Documents." Progress
Publishers. Moscow 1969.

(2)"Roosevelt and Churchill. Their Secret Wartime Correspondence." Saturday
Review Press/Dutton & Co Inc. NY 1975.

(3)See:"Recalling the Past For the Sake of the Future: The Causes, Results and
Lessons of World War Two." Novosti. Moscow 1985.

Contrary to the wishful aims of Western propaganda, which tries to belittle the
achievements of the resistance movements by presenting them as separate,
disjointed, individual sabotage groups organised and directed from London; the
emergence of the new socialist countries after the war was largely as a result
of the efforts and popularity of the resistance movement, in which communists
played a leading part; just as they did against capitalism and fascism in their
countries before the war broke out. Communists all over Europe had always been
trying to organise to prevent and stop the war:

"We are fighting for peace. And there can be no peace while Hitler is in power
and the power of the real masters of Germany, the Krupps, Thyssens, Siemens and
Klockners is not completely smashed. This time we want to pluck out the evil by
its roots, and build a new Germany where an end is made to exploitation and the
drive for profits which always leads to wars."

(Illegal leaflet circulated by the "Trade Unionist, Social Democrat and
Communist Workers of the Siemens armaments factory, Berlin, December 1939.) (1)

"From this war there must emerge as victors not those who have called it forth:
neither Hitler nor Chamberlain; neither Daladier nor Mussolini nor Beck. The
victors must be those who, against the will of these people, will end the war:
and they will be the international working class..."

??(Manifesto of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, Dec 1939.)

It must now be quite obvious that the war was one of the organised capitalist
class against the organised working class. It was the working class who were the
victims of the war and bore the brunt of the war.

But even during the war, in August 1943, the US was preparing for the prevention
of a Europe in which capitalism was not the dominant power:

"...to prevent the domination of Europe in the future by any single power (such
as the Soviet Union), or by any group of powers in which we do not have strong
influence... after the defeat of Germany, no single power, and no group of
powers in which we do not have a strong influence, shall direct the strength of
Europe."

(US secret wartime Quebec Conference document JCS121, Aug 1943.) (2)

The Soviet Union had gained much well earned prestige during the war and the
peoples of Europe had a lot of sympathy for the Soviet peoples.

French Premier Charles de Gaul said that:

"Frenchmen know what Soviet Russia has done for them; they know that it is
Soviet Russia which has played a leading role in their liberation."

(Charles de Gaul.)

Communism gained many supporters in the European countries as a result of the
prestige of their own communists and of the Soviet Union in the war. At the
beginning of the war, in 1939, there were 4.3 million communist party members in
Western Europe. By the end of the war, in 1945, their numbers exceeded 20
million; not forgetting several million more who were killed or murdered by the
Nazis and Nazi collaborators. And there were Communist Ministers in the post-war
governments of many capitalist countries including Austria, Belgium, Denmark,
Finland, France, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Norway and San Marino, and there were
Communist MPs in many others such as Britain. In other countries of Europe and
of Asia the communists became the leading party. Communism was gaining
popularity and support all over the world:

(1)See:Ernie Trory "Imperialist War." Crabtree Press. Brighton 1977.

(2)See:New Times, No.2, Jan 20 1986. Moscow. Available in UK in English.

"In... the ideological phase - the Soviet challenge became increasingly
powerful. In most of the world effective popular leadership is in the hands of
persons who are sympathetic to Soviet Communist doctrines and who turn to Moscow
for moral support.

In India, Soviet Communism exerts a strong influence...

In Latin America Communist leaders are steadily gaining in political power. They
are effectively agitating against the so-called "capitalism" and "imperialism"
of the United States. Hemispheric solidarity is precarious and the Monroe
Doctrine faces its sternest test.

In western Europe Communist strength has grown so that in France and Italy
Communists now exercise a large measure of governmental power."

(John Foster Dulles, in a speech, Jan 17 1947.) (1)

Communist parties won leading positions in the first post-war elections in
France and Italy; and there were Communist ministers in the governments of
Austria, Belgium, Norway and Denmark.

#In Britain in 1945 two Communist MPs were elected to parliament and the British
people voted overwhelmingly towards socialism in the shape of Clause 4 in the
Labour Party programme, which stipulates common ownership of the means of
production. But it was non-socialist elements in the Labour Party that betrayed
them and gained control, implementing only a bourgeios or state capitalist
nationalisation of the economy, which never actually got into real common
ownership and control.

The fascist elements in British ruling circles among finance, industrial and
land-owning capital had never actually had to fully show their hand during the
war. But it can be certain that had Britain been occupied by the Nazis Britain
would have collapsed from the top with a massive majority of ruling class and
big capitalist collaboration just like the rest of Europe. It would have been
these elements who would have collaborated fully with the invading Nazis, and
these elements who would have been put back in power after a possible German
defeat by a liberating US army, just as was the case in the rest of Western
Europe.

Capitalism had been thoroughly weakened in Europe. What's more, Western Europe
was so thoroughly impoverished that there was a real fear among capitalists that
more countries would soon become socialist.

With all this popular support for the Soviet Union and socialism after the war
the capitalist Cold War media immediately began to scream "Soviet threat!" once
more.

Emigre governments during war tended to be Right-Wing. Many were as
nationalistic as any Nazi. On the other hand, the resistance fighters in these
countries, most of whom were communists or progressives who stayed and fought,
were the true patriots of their countries. The British feared that these would
hinder the post-war restoration of the former reactionary capitalist order in
Europe. Britain and the US crushed any popular resistance and liberation
movements and promoted the interests of the right-wing emigre governments.

#One wartime example of this is the use by the British of the murder of Heydrich
in Czechoslovakia; which was the idea of the Czech emigre government and not the
resistance fighters who stayed and fought. The result of this ill planned
adventure, which was not supported by the genuine Czech resistance, was the Nazi
reprisal which was the total elimination of the village of Lidice and the
annihilation of its population. A similar operation was the Warsaw uprising
which was planned by the British backed Polish emigre government and not by the
broad based popular resistance movement in Poland.

The Right-Wing ideas of nationalists, fascists, and other collaborators such as
the Right-Wing nationalist resistance organisations finally became bankrupt and
little support for them remained; except perhaps among dissident groups and
their emigre and capitalist supporters in West. Most of those who did not intend
to stay in their countries and help build a socialist future, many of whom were
aspiring capitalists

(1)See:W.W. Rostow "The Division of Europe After World War II: 1946." University
of Texas Press. 1982.

and leaning towards fascism or had collaborated with the Nazis and were
therefore highly unpopular in socialist countries, where fascism is illegal,
fled into the arms of the West where they found the 'freedom' to flirt with
extreme Right Wing anti-communist organisations set up by the CIA and other
capitalist security institutions in Western Europe and the US. The US and
British used ex Nazi supporters and collaborators, ex fascists, right-wing
elements, depossessed capitalists, bankers and land owners and other dissident
and emigre elements for propaganda purposes and as spies and provoking agents in
incidents to destabilise and discredit their socialist governments such as in
Hungary and Czechoslovakia, and tried to sow discontent among the populations in
last ditch attempts to provoke counter-revolutionary uprisings in these
countries.

In the countries of Western Europe it was also the resistance and liberation
movements, in which communists played a leading role and which were socialist
orientated, who had credibility and support from the peoples of their countries.
By the end of the war the French partizans had freed more than half of France.
The Belgian partizan army captured areas of Belgium before the Western Allied
armies arrived on the scene. Among communists who died in these armies were
75,000, French, and 38,000 Italians.

In countries liberated by the Soviets it was the patriotic resistance who
remained armed and were facilitated, without interference, to form governments.
Whereas it was a feature of Western 'liberation' that the resistance was
disarmed and an emigre government imposed on the peoples of these countries.

In some countries, such as in France and Belgium, and especially in Greece,
these popular mass liberation movements were crushed by the British. In Italy it
was the US use of the Mafia which put an end to any Communist presence in the
Government. Eventually in Western Europe it was the capitalists who collaborated
with the Nazis that were soon back in power, and communists and resistance
fighters who were kept from positions of power, such as under the West Germany
government's Berufsverbote (refused employment) policy:

"The secret investigations have started once again. Files are combed to see
whether there is any indication that postman Muller is a member of the Communist
Party or whether tram conductor Schmidt is a member of the Association of Nazi
Victims... We are returning to the dictatorship of Hitler's Third Reich."

(Frankfurter Neue Presse Oct 26 1950.)

The West German Minister of the Interior ex-Nazi Dr. Robert Lehr applied to the
Federal Constitutional Court for the Communist Party to be dissolved as "an
unconstitutional organisation." The West German newspaper "Welt der Arbeit
stated that this application had been made on direct orders from Washington. And
an organ of the West German arms concerns Die Zeit stated that: "There will be
many arrests. The prisons will be filled." (1)

The power of US finance capital in the shape of the Marshall Plan, combining
with big business and anti-communist and fascist elements in the church,
accompanied by Cold War rhetoric, succeeded in securing the removal of the
Communist ministers from West European governments where they were becoming
stronger, such as France and Italy, by 1947 as a condition of these countries
receiving Marshall Aid.

"Mr Marshall used the occasion to serve notice to all European countries that
they can expect no sympathy or help from America if they conspire with
Communism, even to the extent of including Communists in Coalition Governments."

(American correspondent, News Chronicle, June 3 1947.)

(1)See:"Conspiracy Against Europe. The Paris Agreements." Committee for German
Unity. Berlin 1955.

In territories liberated by the Soviets, on the other hand, unmolested by forces
of capitalism, these resistance and liberation movements were able to form
credible popular governments.

In Asia, in Indonesia, Malaya and Indochina also, it was the British forces who
crushed any popular uprisings. In Vietnam the British rearmed Japanese prisoners
of war against Ho Chi Minh and turned the country over to the French. The US
occupied South Korea and installed its puppet government there. They also
established their domination of the Philippines by installing Roxas. Roxas had
collaborated with the Japanese in their atrocities against the Filipino people.
In 1945 he became head of the US puppet government. Like his ilk who
collaborated with the Nazis in Europe, in exchange for exclusion from war crimes
convictions, Roxas was prepared to make his country fully subservient to the US
economy.

In country by country, the West used every means possible short of all out war
to see that the popular spread of socialist ideas was halted and reversed.

In Europe it was not Moscow, but London who used its armies to impose exile
governments on people who didn't want them:

"As victory was approaching British policy seemed inclined to support many of
the worn out regimes in Europe as against the popular forces which had emerged."

(British Labour MP Seymour Cocks, in a speech in Parliament, 1945.) (1)

In Belgium Churchill used the propaganda of a deliberate lie in Parliament that
an armed uprising was planned against the Belgian government in exile in London
on its return. Churchill said that:

"A putsch had been organised at the end of November to throw out the properly
constituted Government of M. Pierlot."

(Annual Register, London, 1945.)

The Belgian resistance was disarmed by the British army and the emigre
government installed under the usual British pretext, as declared by Eden in
Parliament on December 1 1945, of maintaining law and order.

Later the truth came out. A News Chronicle correspondent wrote that:

"After making careful enquiries he had been unable to find any trace of the
intended putsch which Mr. Churchill had alleged as the ground of British
interference in Belgium."

(Annual Register, London, 1945.)

It was one of the provisions of the Atlantic Charter that the Belgian people,
like the people of other German occupied countries, had the right to form
governments from patriots who had remained in their countries and fought against
the Germans and to reject the emigre governments who fled to Britain.

In Italy the British disarmed resistance forces and prevented social reforms.

The Italian partizans, anti-fascists and communists held great anti-fascist
rallies and organised strikes for peace. Mayy were murdered by the Nazis and
Italian fascists and were among the best and bravest throughout the war. At the
end of the war, after Mussolini met his death at the hands of a partizan firing
squad and hung upside down by his boots from a lamp-post, the Italian communists
had tremendous support and prestige and were set to win elections to the Italian
parliament. But the US tried its hardest to prevent communists being elected to
the Italian government:

(1)See:Annual Register. London, 1945.

"The Italian elections were described as a struggle between the United States
and the Soviet Union. There was massive American intervention, but there was no
Soviet interference of any kind and never had been...

The United States officially identifies Communist Parties (and Socialist or
other parties allied with Communists) everywhere as fifth columnists and agents
of the Soviet Government. Therefore any approach to power by any means,
constitutional as well as revolutionary, is regarded as Soviet interference and
internal aggression and the United States must fly to the rescue."

(British Labour MP Koni Zilliacus, in "Dragon's Teeth.")

The US had plans in case of a Communist electoral victory in Italy:

"In the event of Communist electoral victories in Italy, the United States
should among other things: Provide military equipment and supplies to Italy only
if such equipment and supplies are received by anti-communist elements."

(US NSC Directive 1/3, Dec 14 1947.) (1)

Various methods were used to get the Communists out of the Government, including
the use of the Mafia:

"It was not until the OSS became the CIA and the Mafia was used to save Italy
from the Communists rather than from the Fascists...

The switch from resisting the Fascists to resisting the Communists was begun in
1945, when the Communists came very near to gaining control of the labour
unions, first in Sicily, then in all Italy and southern France. At that time,
cooperation between the OSS and the Mafia was successful in stemming the tide.
No serious historian, left or right, who is familiar with the situation at that
time can deny that had it not been for the Mafia the Communists would by now be
in control of Italy, and the world balance of power would be decisively in
favour of the Soviets."

(Ex CIA officer Miles Copeland, in "The Real Spy World.")

In his memoirs "The White House Years" Henry Kissinger said of the Italian
elections:

"The communists... were tilting the entire spectrum to the left... before a
final push to obtain participation in government...

The communists thus had a growing, if indirect, influence on the Italian
government... The communist influence therefore graduated from a tacit to a
formal veto under Moro's sponsorship...

#The general sense of impotence was reflected in a State Department memorandum
to the president of January 22, 1970... It urged that we 'keep the problem under
close scrutiny and continually assess the means of using our resources to make
our view known in a discreet, but effective fashion'."

re?(Henry Kissinger "The White House Years.")

(1)See:Final Report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations
with Respect to Intelligence Activities, US Senate, Book IV, Washington, 1976.

Italian Minister of the Interior Aldo Moro was one of those progressive Italian
politicians to whom the US made their view felt in a "discreet but effective
fashion." He spoke for all political forces playing their democratic part in the
Italian government and was not liked for it by the US or the Mafia. The US
Ambassador to Italy declared publicly that Aldo Moro was a dangerous politician.
Two weeks later Moro was kidnapped and murdered by the so-called "Red Brigades".
The testimony of his wife at the trial of those accused of his murder show that
he was threatened while on a trip to the US in 1974:

"My husband told me word for word what had been said to him, although he did not
name the person who had said these words.

I shall try to repeat them exactly: "Mr. Minister, you will have to give up
pursuing any further your political course of bringing about direct co-operation
of all political parties in Italy. Either you stop doing that, or you'll pay
dearly for this. Decide for yourself how you should understand this warning"."

(Testimony of Eleonora Moro, wife of murdered Italian Interior Minister Aldo
Moro.) (1)

The Italian newspapers Il Giorno, L'Europeo and others, quoting Italian Senator
Giuseppe Giovagnello, said of Moro's murder that "Traces lead to the White
House", that he had been killed by agents of a "foreign power" and that behind
the "Red Brigades" stood the CIA, the US State Department, Henry Kissinger and
Italian fascists. A Red Brigade leader stated at his trial in 1983 that Moro was
killed because or his support for communist participation in the Italian
government. And in January 1978 the US State Department stated that it would not
accept participation of communists in West European governments. (2)

Today there is large communist influence in local government in Italy with
communist majorities or total control of some town councils such as Milan,
Perugia, and others. But they are still effectively excluded from central
Government.

In France, after the German defeat at Stalingrad there were intensified
operations by the French resistance:

"This magnificent resistance of the Russians, which shrank from no sacrifice,
was the signal for the immense wave of revolt that swept across all countries
occupied by Germans."

(French war historian L.M.Chassin "Histoire Militaire de la Seconde Guerre
Mondiale 1939-1945.")

A British Special Operations Executive memorandum of March 22 1943 to the French
National Committee warned their contacts to prevent the spread of the
resistance. The memorandum said that the assistance requested for the resistance
by French President de Gaulle was counter to Britain's policy of averting the
spread of popular uprisings. (3)

"It is the sacred duty of all patriots, above all, the Communists, to unite,
take up arms and fight, in order to involve the whole of France, as soon as
possible, in a merciless struggle against the invaders and traitors and thereby
bring the hour of victory closer."

(French Communist Party appeal, June 1944.)

It was the French Resistance and labour movement, and not the Anglo-Americans,
who liberated many French towns including Lyons and Toulouse and a large area
south of the Loire and west of the Rhone as well as the whole of the territory
from the Western Alps to the Italian and Swiss borders.

The armed uprising of French communists and resistance fighters in 1944 was an
added factor which showed the Western Allies that they were losing the battle
for the control of post-war Europe and hastened their urgency for a second
front.

"To avoid chaos on the continent it would have been necessary for us to mount
such forces as we had, cross the Channel at once, move on into Germany, disarm
its troops, and seize control of the nation."

date(US General Omar Bradly, in his book "A Soldier's Story.")

(1)See:Denis and Cynthia Roberts "How to Secure Peace in Europe." Harney and
Jones. London 1985.

(2)See:Denis and Cynthia Roberts "How to Secure Peace in Europe." Harney and
Jones. London 1985.

(3)See:V.Trukhanovsky "British Foreign Policy During World War II." Progress
Publishers. Moscow 1970.

#When the Western Allies landed in France Eisenhower ordered the French
resistance to cease fighting the Germans. The French resistance and liberation
armies continued to fight; taking control of large areas including more than 40
towns and hundreds of villages before the Allies arrived. The French uprising
had also liberated a large area of Paris. The surrender of the German garrison
in Paris was received in August 1944 by French General Jaques Leclerc and
Colonel Henri Rol-Tanguy - a Communist.

#"We would... enter it at our leisure... I might just as well tell you we are
not at all anxious to liberate Paris right now... It would be good if Paris
could pull in its belt and live with the Germans a little longer."

(US General Omar Bradly, in his book "A Soldier's Story.")

#"I could have taken it [Paris B.M.] had I not been told not to."

(US General Patton, in his book "War As I Knew It.")

As in Italy, the US forced the removal of communists from the French government,
especially as a prerequisite of Marshall Aid:

"America is preparing plans to help France stop the growth of Communism, as part
of a world-wide policy of resisting it wherever it has prospects of gaining
control of governments.

This means that America has decided... that even where there is no question of
Russian pressure. as in the case of France, Communism must be avoided at all
costs.

It was expected that very substantial aid would have to be given over the next
two years.

This decision means that even if the French people decided to elect a Communist
majority under the present French constitution, the American State Department
would not regard this as "democratic government, nor France as an independent
country."

(New York correspondent, News Chronicle May 12 1947.)

"In plain English, a government is democratic and a country is independent only
when its government has been made to order for the State Department. This policy
was imposed on France and Italy and is still being enforced by the USA in those
countries (in the ways described below)...

As long ago as December 5th 1947, Mr. James Reston, Diplomatic Correspondent of
the New York Times, reported from Washington that... it was not much use giving
economic assistance to anti-Communist regimes in Europe in order to keep them in
power, unless the United States was prepared to back up this policy with armed
force in case of need, to prevent Communists or their political allies having
any share in power whatever the majority of the electorate in the countries
concerned might want, and even if the alternative was fascism and
counter-revolution, as it may well prove to be in France.

On March 18th, 1948, President Truman, in a violently worded message to
Congress, said the United States must rearm in order to protect Western Europe
against not only external but also "internal aggression"."

(British MP Koni Zilliacus in his book "Dragons Teeth.")

By 1947 French Communists were removed from Government as a condition of
Marshall Aid.

#Nevertheless, there is still a strong communist movement in France, with
majority or total communist control of some town councils, such as Lyon,
Boulogne, Calais, and districts of Paris; although they are still effectively
prevented from gaining positions in the Government.

The British intervention in Greece was as bloody and destructive as that of any
Nazi.

Before the war Greece was ruled by a corrupt and repressive fascist
dictatorship, which collaborated fully with the occupying Nazis. After the war
these same Right Wing elements cooperated fully with the British who landed
there in 1944 after the Nazis had retreated.

The Greek resistance, comprised of Liberals, Agrarians, trade unionists,
Socialists, Communists and other progressives formed the National Liberation
Front of Greece (EAM) and together with progressive Greek Army officers, its
People's National Army of Liberation (ELAS) armed forces.

Churchill then ceased aid to these resistance organisations, who had fought
against the Nazis, and in 1943 began to increase aid to emigre and reactionary
elements who supported the monarchy and had collaborated with the Nazis, and to
the Royalist EDES "resistance" forces, who had spent most of their time not
fighting the Nazis, but against ELAS.

EAM and ELAS had set up a Political Committee of Liberation in March 1944 to
convene a National Council of elected people's representatives. Even The Times
noted that the Greek liberation movement had the support of 90 percent of the
population. And it was supported by the Greek forces based in Cairo, who
mutinied in April 1944 and were crushed by the British.

Frightened of the Soviet advance West, the Nazis retreated to the north, pursued
by the EAM/ELAS forces, who eventually controlled the whole of Greece and began
entering Athens.

As part of his Balkan strategy as early as August 1943, in which he planned to
invade Europe from that area in order to stop the Soviet advance into Europe,
Churchill had plans to return the unpopular Greek monarchy to Greece:

"If substantial British forces take part in the liberation of Greece the King
should go back with the Anglo-Greek Army."

(Churchill, in a letter to Eden, August 1943.)

British forces did not play any part in the liberation of Greece. As Churchill
had admitted in Parliament, there was no military need for landing British
troops in Greece in 1944. The invasion of France having further diminished
Churchill's Balkan strategy, he switched his plans to a British Army landing in
Greece after the Germans withdrew in order to impose the reactionary emigre
Monarchy on the Greek people:

"If Greece is liberated as a result of an Axis withdrawal, we should be forced
to provide sufficient troops to further the present policy of His Majesty's
Government. This would involve us in a military commitment of at least two
divisions, since a weaker force might land us in an embarrassing position
vis-a-vis the Resistance groups, who were... carrying considerable sway in the
country when it had been liberated."

(British Chief of Imperial Staff, Sept 1943.) (1)

When the Greek resistance had pushed the Germans to the North, British
paratroopers under General Scobie were landed in Athens on October 13 1944
followed five days later by the Right Wing Papandreou monarchist Government from
exile.

The Greek resistance movement not only had the support of the majority of the
Greek people, it also earned the deep respect of British Army officers who had
fought with them:

"We should never have been able to to set foot on Greece had it not been for the
magnificent efforts of the resistance movements of EAM and ELAS."

(British Brigadier Barker-Benfield, at a press conference in Athens, Oct 18
1944.) (2)

(1)See:J.Ehrman "Grand Strategy. August 1943-September 1944." Vol.V. London
1956.

(2)See:D.F. Fleming "The Cold War and its Origins." Doubleday. London 1961.

Brigadier Barker-Benfield had served with other British officers with the Greek
partizans. Two days later Barker-Benfield and other British Officers who had
served with the Greek partizans were ordered out of Greece.

So weak was the support for the Papandreou emigre government flown in by the
British in October that not only had it to be preceded and accompanied by
British paratroopers, but it also had to be maintained by the diversion of
60,000 British troops to suppress the popular EAM/ELAS resistance in December;
all this while the Allies were in trouble in the Ardennes.

EAM accepted the Papandreou government flown in by the British as a provisional
government until a general election. Papandreou proposed that ELAS disarmed,
which they agreed, provided that EDES and royalist troops disarmed also.

On November 16 Scobie was instructed to get ELAS forces out of Athens and disarm
them. Churchill gave an order to Scobie to smash the ELAS resistance movement.
"as if you were in a conquered city where a local rebellion is in progress." (1)

Wanting to win at any price, Churchill ordered:

"Do not hesitate to act... We have to hold and dominate Athens. It would be a
great thing for you to succeed in this without bloodshed if possible, but also
with bloodshed if necessary."

"It is most desirable to strike out of the blue without any preliminary crisis."

(Winston Churchill "The Second World War.")

In order to involve the British armed forces in a direct conflict with ELAS, the
British used Right Wing forces to deliberately provoke a conflict in Athens on
December 3 1944 :

"Right-wing extremists were definitely fomenting discord... The British attitude
is influenced by those of the Right wing, previously collaborators, who rushed
to the British when they entered Greece, offered their services, and in many
instances had been taken on as advisers, etc."

(The Times Dec 11 1944.)

The British controlled Greek police, who had collaborated with the Nazis, opened
fire on a demonstration in Athens on December 3 1944, killing and wounding
several people. On December 6 Churchill ordered:

#"Stop, being neutral between the Greek parties; shoot at the communists without
hesitation."

(Churchill, in a telegram to General Scobie, Dec 6 1944.) (2)

Together with British troops, this started a civil and interventionist war by
the British, fascists and royalist police forces against the Greek people and
their EAM/ELAS organisations. The British forces destroyed vast working class
areas of Athens where there was mass support for EAM and ELAS.

"[British troops B.M.] gradually conquered, block by block... Hundreds of
buildings were destroyed, usually containing homes of the poorer people of
Athens, at least eighty per cent of whom were on the side of EAM."

?(British historian D.F.Fleming, in "The Cold War and its Origins.")

(1)Winston Churchill "The Second World War." Vol.VI. London 1954.

#(2)See:Life May 12 1947.

And:John Mahon "Harry Pollitt. A Biography." Lawrence and Wishart. London 1976.

And:Dr.Bilbo, Political Committee of UNA, 1948.

In February 1945 in Varkiz, near Athens, EAM and ELAS signed an agreement with
the Greek Government to end the state of emercency and hold a plebiscite on the
form of the state system and disarm the resistance and form a combined army. But
the Greek Government did not keep its word. While ELAS disarmed, a repressive
monarchist government of those who had collaborated with the Nazis was installed
by the British, whos actions were presented as "defending democracy" by the
media. Mass terror was launched by the regime using criminal elements who had
collaborated with the Nazis and who now formed part of the government against
the partizans who had fought against the Nazis as allies of the British only
months before.

With the support of the Labour leaders Churchill stepped up the intervention,
and in a major attack by three British divisions with tanks and planes ELAS
forces were eventually driven into the mountains, where they continued fighting
for several years.

World capitalist policy, dominated by the US, now sees Europe as part of its
global strategy:

"I am reluctant to revert to that lengthy and tiresome discussion which took
place in Camp David... To put the problem in a nutshell - our policy must be
both "global", ie: embrace every part of the world, and also "total", ie:
include political, psychological, economic, military and special measures
integrated into one whole.

In Europe we started with economic aid. It is quite possible that without the
Marshall Plan we would have found it more difficult to form NATO. What in fact
happened in this case was that a co-ordinated foreign policy using every kind of
pressure, resulted in the creation of what we hoped was a solid military
union...

...First of all, we should pick out the countries with anti-communist
governments friendly to us, which are already bound to the US through stable
long-term military agreements. In this governmental subsidies and credits may
take the form mainly of military appropriations. The hooked fish needs no
bait... At the same time economic support for those strata of the local business
community which are ready to co-operate with the US should be increased and the
necessary conditions would be created for businessmen of this type to be put in
key economic positions and accordingly for their political influence to be
increased...

Such countries may be given direct economic aid as well but we must give them
only as much as is necessary in order to keep suitable governments concerned in
power and to check any hostile opposition elements."

(From a letter from US Council on Foreign Relations member millionair Nelson
Rockefeller to President Eisenhower, January 1956.) (1)

The fact that sixteen European states including the British were receiving US
Marshall Aid in yearly instalments might have had something to do with the way
they cooperated militarily with the United States to the extent that they became
virtual military-economic hostages of US nuclear global strategy to the economic
detriment and suffering of their populations, which had to be carefully kept in
check by pseudo-socialist governments which pandered fully to US dollars in
order to keep themselves in power.

Thus the US had bought a large collection of European states subservient to the
wishes of the United States and who would vote the US way in any UN or other
negotiations.

"The hooked fish needs no bait."

(1)See:Denis and Cynthia Roberts "How to Secure Peace in Europe." Harney and
Jones. London 1985.

See also:Neues Deutschland, GDR, Feb 15 1957.

And if political and economic means fail; how then will the US prevent people's
democratic or revolutionary right to choose a socialist future or in any way
threaten the economic or military strategic interests of the US in Europe?

How many European countries have secret treaties or agreements which are not
openly written into their constitutions, (Britain remains one of the only
countries in the world which does not have a written legal constitution or a
Bill of Rights), but such as the FRG (West Germany) - that NATO forces of
another country have the right to intervene if the interests of NATO are
considered to be threatened - eg. by the coming to power of a socialist,
neutralist or non-aligned government in that country, or one that wanted to
remove US nuclear weapons and bases, or get out of NATO?

"Do you know what would have happened then? You may read about this in the Bonn
Treaty on relations between the FRG and the Western powers of the 26th May,
1952, in which Article 2 refers to the rights of the Allies, and Article 5 to a
state of emergency. According to this treaty the Federal Government 'in case of
serious violation of public security and order' shall first use its police force
and if it cannot restore order and, in addition, in the opinion of the three
powers, a threat arises to the armed forces of the Western allies, their
commanders have a right immediately to take respective protective measures,
including the use of arms, needed for removing this threat. You see that even 'a
serious threat of violation of the free, democratic order' is sufficient to
impose a state of emergency.

...if there was an uprising in the FRG threatening the Constitution and the
FRG's NATO membership the Americans would the very next day intervene in our
country."

(Henri Nannan, publisher, in his journal Stern, FRG, Jan 1982.)

"...including the ability to deal with a serious disturbance of public security
and order."

(From Article 5 of the "Convention On Relations Between The Three Powers And The
Federal Republic Of Germany" as amended by the Paris Agreements of October
1954.)

"In case the Federal Republic and the European Defence Community are unable to
deal with the situation which is created by... subversion of the liberal
democratic basic order, a serious disturbance of public order, or a grave threat
of any of these events, and which in the opinion of the Three Powers endangers
the security of their forces, the Three Powers may, ...proclaim a state of
emergency...

Independently of a state of emergency, any military commander may, if his forces
are imminently menaced, take such immediate action appropriate... to remove the
danger."

(From Article 5 of the original Bonn Treaty.)

"In the present situation it is certainly the internal unrest, sabotage and
civil war type conflicts, that is, local disturbances in their broadest sense,
which under certain circumstances could most of all endanger the Eastern borders
of the NATO bloc."

(W.Ritter von Schramm, Der Deutsche Soldat. Flensberg 1961.) (1)

(1)See:The Grey Book - Expansionist Policy and Neo-Nazism in West Germany.
Verlag Zeit im Bild. Dresden.

"The draft of the committee enables the executive to deploy the armed Bundeswehr
inside the country and to misuse it for internal political aims - without having
obtained the sanction of parliamentary authority. The armed forces may not only
be deployed for police tasks, but also internally 'with weapons'. The decision
rests with the federal government because if any such

action becomes topical it is always possible to say that 'the situation required
this sort of immediate action'."

(Frankfurter Rundschau, 26 April 1965.)

When discussions on ratifying the North Atlantic Treaty were held, US Secretary
of State for Foreign Affairs Dean Acheson stated that one of NATO's chief aims
was to prevent what it called aggression "by an election or a coup" or of
"conquest through persuasion." And the NATO Commander in Chief in Central Europe
in 1956 referred to NATO as a shield against the "infiltration of ideas."
Various NATO "leaks" to the press in 1970 stated that the US in Europe could
resort to sabotage and subversion and other warfare in the event of "emergency
situations" and if necessary take full power and bring any weapons onto a
country's territory, including chemical and biological weapons, use all
information available and suppress any movement "threatening US strategic
interests." A US document published in the Italian press in 1981 showed that of
over 23,000 missile targets only about 2,500 were in Warsaw Pact countries. (1)

Soon after Marshall Aid was agreed by the US Congress, Britain and the US had
secret talks on NATO in the Pentagon in 1949. These discussions were only made
public in 1979. In the documents of these discussions NATO's class war policy is
clearly stated that:

"The Parties will consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the
territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the Parties
[ie: Capitalism B.M.] is threatened."

(From Clause 4 of the Constitution of the North Atlantic Treaty (NATO).)

Thus the European capitalist leaders have given the US and NATO the right to
intervene diplomatically, economically, and finally militarily in any "political
change favourable to an aggressor" in any NATO country. In other words, the
election or otherwise coming to power of any Socialist government or any
government committed to and actually implementing disarmament in any West
European country. (2)

And "territorial integrity" includes colonial or neo-colonial territories. The
people of the British Commonwealth territory of the tiny island of Grenada know
full well what the extent of the application of NATOs Clause 4 means.

It is also important to understand and point out that this means that it is only
necessary that the "political independence or security" of any NATO or NATO
dominated country is judged to be "threatened" not by the country concerned, but
by "any one of them".

"Article Four is even more important. This, with no regional limitations,
provides that if there is any situation anywhere which appears to affect the
security of any member, they will all consult on what action to take...

If developments in Burma, or the Malay peninsula led America, Britain or France
to feel her security was threatened, she could call a conference of Atlantic
Powers...

Should the Italian Government fear that Communist sabotage threatened its
political independence, it could call a meeting of the Atlantic Powers with the
possibility that joint action would be taken to meet the danger."

(Daily Telegraph March 23 1949.)

(1)See:Denis and Cynthia Roberts "How to Secure Peace in Europe." Harney and
Jones. London 1985.

(2)See:Cees Wiebes and Bert Zeeman "The Pentagon Negotiations March 1948: The
Launching of the North Atlantic Treaty." in International Affairs summer 1983.

There is no doubt that in the event of civil unrest in any West European country
not being able to be contained by the forces of "law and order" of that country
the US would intervene.

The domination of US world capital has given itself as NATO the right to be the
world anti-Communist policeman.

A group of wealthy and powerful people which has such fears and responds to them
with such contingency plans is already on the slippery slope to a repetition of
the rise of Fascism in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s and committed to
intolerance and world domination.

Chapter 40

A NEW SOCIALIST EUROPE IS FORMED.
It is a dangerous and provocative lie to suggest, as most bourgeois historians
do, followed by some in the peace movement, that the Red Army imposed socialist
revolutions on the countries of Eastern Europe at the end of the war; and the
consequent misleading referral to these countries as "Soviet satellite states".
These countries are not "satellites" of anybody. They are equal members of CMEA
(Council for Mutual Economic Assistance - known in the West as Comecon). The
CMEA is a socialist equivalent of the West European EEC. These countries are no
more "satellites" of the Soviet Union than Britain is of France or West Germany.

Some of these countries had socialist revolutions long after the Red Army had
left them. The Red Army had left Czechoslovakia in 1945 and the communists took
power there in 1948.

Regarding Czechoslovakia, British Labour MP Koni Zilliacus said that:

"The change of regime in Czechoslovakia was the unaided work of the Czechoslovak
Trade Unions, Communists and Socialists and there was no Russian influence of
any kind."

(British Labour MP Koni Zilliacus, in "I Choose Peace."/"Dragon's Teeth.")

"The Russians maintained reasonably correct relations with the Czechoslovak
'London Government', and never attempted to set up a rival pro-Communist
Czechoslovak Government either in Moscow or in the liberated part of
Czechoslovakia."

(British historian Alexander Werth "Russia at War 1941-1945.")

Other socialist states were brought about by popular anti-fascist and
anti-capitalist uprisings that took place in the wake of the retreating Nazis,
in some cases even before the Red Army had reached them. Even the US had to
agree that:

"The majority of Europeans regard them [the Soviet Army B.M.] as their
liberators. Even in the West the Red Army receives the major share of the
credit."

(From a memorandum on "International Communism" prepared for Truman at the
Berlin Conference.) (1)

In many of these Eastern European countries which became socialist after the war
small numbers of communists were elected to governments and as their prestige
increased more of them were elected and they became the majority, with other
parties eventually fading into insignificance, finally dropping out of
government altogether.

Even US General Clay, a noted anti-communist noted that:

"New governments in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary had Communist
participation, but were not Communist dominated. Even the Balkan States were not
under Communist control."

(US General Clay, In his book "Decision in Germany.")

In what are now new socialist countries, where the people became more class
conscious as a result of their own fascist bourgeoisie had cooperated fully with
the Nazis, capitalism was thoroughly discredited during and after the war, it
was the Communists who enjoyed mass popular support from the peoples. The war
enabled these peoples to develop mass liberation movements. The resistance and
liberation movements became the only credible patriotic authority in these
countries. They rejected capitalism and capitalist rule and formed their own
socialist governments. Then, ensured that the fascists and capitalists, external
and internal, could never return and that the people could defend themselves,
the Red Army withdrew from these countries either immediately after they had
been liberated from fascism or had achieved political stability.

(1)Foreign Relations of the United States. The Conference of Berlin. Vol.1.
p.278.

It is also another twisting of history to say that the 'superpowers' "divided"
Europe among themselves at Yalta. There was never any agreement to 'divide'
Europe. This would have been against Soviet policy anyway and they would not
have agreed to it. A socialist system is not imposed by another country. Nor is
it established by international conferences, agreements or treaties such as
Yalta. The Eastern European socialist states were not decided by the three
powers at Yalta or by the Red Army, but by the peoples of those countries. What
was decided and agreed at Yalta was that the peoples of the liberated countries
should decide their own future under the protection of the occupying Allied
Powers:

"There is much misunderstanding about the substance of the Yalta conference. Let
me state as clearly as I can: There was no agreement at that time to divide
Europe up into 'spheres of influence'. On the contrary, the powers agreed on the
principle of the common responsibility of the three Allies for all the liberated
territories."

(George Bush, in US Department of State Bulletin, 1983.) (1)

It was part of the Yalta agreement that declared:

"The establishment of order in Europe and the rebuilding of national economic
life must be achieved by processes which will enable the liberated peoples to
destroy the last vestiges of Nazism and fascism and to create democratic
institutions of their own choice."

(Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin's Joint Declaration on Liberated Europe, Yalta
Conference, Feb 1945.)

In the Balkan countries the choices for the peoples of countries like Hungary,
Bulgaria, Rumania was whether to continue to be governed by their capitalist
governments who had collaborated with Hitler or to form popular democratic
governments of their own. Presented with such a choice, it is small wonder that
the peoples of these countries opted for socialism.

In the Balkan countries the British wanted the old reactionaries back in power.
Throughout the war the British Balkan strategy, which was to offset the opening
of a second front in Western Europe, was to occupy the Balkan countries with
British and US forces before the Red Army reached them in order to reinstate the
former regimes with whom they had consulted all through the war, and who were so
discredited that they could only be maintained in power with British and US
military assistance.

Cretzianu, the Rumanian envoy who conducted negotiations for the fascist
government of Antonescu with the British in Ankara in 1943 said in his memoirs
that:

"The present Government [of Antonescu B.M.] considers itself to be in office
solely to ensure order, and that it would immediately yield the reins to a
Government approved by the British and Americans...

Rumania is not waging war against Britain and the United States. When British
and American troops arrive on the Danube, they will not be opposed by Rumanian
troops. The Rumanian troops at that moment will be on the Dniester, fighting
back the Russians"

(Alexandre Cretzianu "The Lost Opportunity.")

When Bulgaria, Hungary and Rumania withdrew from the war and popular uprisings
in these countries put progressive governments in power, the presence of the Red
Army in these countries blocked the plans of any Anglo-American occupation and
throttling of the revolutions under the pretext of establishing 'democracy'.

(1)Department of State Bulletin. The Official Monthly Record of United States
Foreign Policy. Vol. 83. No. 2080. Nov 1983.

"Democracy" to the British and Americans meant the return to power of the same
capitalists who had established fascist governments in their countries and
collaborated with Hitler and fought with the Nazis against the USSR and the
Western Allies. But the peoples in those countries did not want this bourgeois
"democracy". They had established their own popular peoples' democracies in
their countries, which the West did not like:

"Democracy to them is democracy of the left."

(The Times April 12 1945.)

After the failure of British attempts to join hands with the Nazis against the
USSR at the end of the war, Churchill tried to continue his Balkan strategy at
Potsdam; even though this meant breaking the Allied agreement at Yalta.

For the time being the British and US delegations at Potsdam refused to
recognise the new Governments of Bulgaria, Hungary and Rumania unless they were
integrated into the capitalist system:

"We cannot resume diplomatic relations with these Governments until they are
reorganised as we consider necessary."

(US President Truman, at Potsdam Conference, July 24 1945.)

The Soviet delegation's proposal of a denouncement and non-recognition of
fascism in Franco's Spain was met with Churchill's flat complaint that this
would be "interference in domestic affairs" of Spain. The West's refusal to
recognise the newly formed governments of these countries was not seen as
"interference in domestic affairs" of these countries.

The British Labour Government was just as reactionary as the Tories, and more
reactionary in some respects than Roosevelt. Blaming Roosevelt's Yalta decisions
as the cause of the loss of the new European socialist states, Attlee wrote:

"That was Roosevelt's line at Yalta. It was two to one against us. We had to
agree to many things we oughtn't to have agreed to... I don't think Roosevelt
really understood European politics. I don't think any American did...

I think if Alexander had been allowed to go into Italy, he would have joined
hands with the Yugoslavs and moved across into Czechoslovakia and perhaps right
over Germany before the Russians got there."

(British Labour Prime Minister Clement Attlee.) (1)

In other words, the Labour Prime Minister was an ardent supporter of Churchill's
wartime Balkan strategy. And what makes the "socialist" Attlee think that the
Yugoslavs would want to "join hands" with the British army?

The Americans were more realistic about the situation at the time:

"Neither our military, our economic nor our ideological power reached far enough
to determine the fate of the Balkan states."

(New York Herald Tribune March 5 1947.)

In Yugoslavia there was tremendous popularity and respect for the Soviet Union
and for the communist led resistance movement. After the war it was the Soviet
Union who gave enormous help to Yugoslavia.

(1)See:F.Williams "A Prime Minister Remembers." London 1961.

"Our sacrifices, our efforts and our faith were crowned with victory because the
mighty Soviet Union and its Red Army were on our side.

The Soviet Union was the country that helped us selflessly from the very outset,
requiring nothing in return and binding us to nothing that would clash with our
national interests."

(Edvard Kardelj, Yugoslav resistance leader, Ljubljana, June 12 1945.) (1)

In Yugoslavia extensive operations to ensure the crushing of the popular
resistance and liberation movements were carried out.

In opposition to the resistance in Yugoslavia there were the Cetniks, directed
by Mikhailovic's emigre government in London, who mostly fought against the
resistance and collaborated with the Germans. The British wanted the return of
the King and the Yugoslav emigre government in London. Even the British admitted
that:

"During the last few months Mikhailovich had been displaying little activity
against Axis forces... The partizans have undoubtedly undertaken operations
against the Axis, but at the same time fighting has occurred between their
forces and those of General Mikhailovich...

It has been decided to continue to support General Mikhailovich, since it is
felt that his organisation affords the best chances of preventing an outbreak of
anarchy and chaos in Yugoslavia on the withdrawal of the Axis forces."

(British Government memorandum to the Soviet Government, March 9 1943.)(2)

By "anarchy and chaos" the British mean socialism.

A secret British mission was sent to Bulgaria in September 1944 to plan for
Turkish troops to occupy Bulgaria, handing over to British and American troops
later.

After the Soviet army declared war on the Bulgarian fascists a Fatherland Front
Government was formed after an uprising by Bulgarian Communists and others in
September 1944 and immediately declared war on Germany and signed an armistice
with the USSR.

In Hungary after the war the fascist dictatorship of Horthy, which put Hungary's
industry and workers in the service of the German Nazis, was defeated and a
socialist government was set up. Nazi collaborators such as the big landowners,
industrialists, bankers, the church and aristocracy were convicted and
expropriated of their land and wealth by a government decree. Middle and small
peasantry kept their land; and post war socialist construction went ahead. In
the elections of August 1947 the Communist Party emerged as the largest single
party.

British strategy in Hungary was along the same lines as in Bulgaria. The
Hungarian troops who had been allies of Hitler were to hold back the Red Army
while offering no resistance to the British and Americans:

"Foreign circles feel that Hungarian troops must hold the front against the
Russians and offer no opposition to the British."

(Hungarian Chief of General Staff, to Council of Ministers of Hungary, Aug 25
1944.) (3)

"The Anglo-Saxons do not want Hungary to be occupied by the Russians. They want
the Hungarians to keep the Russians back until they themselves are able to
occupy Hungary."

(Hungarian Deputy Foreign Minister, to Council of Ministers of Hungary, Aug 25
1944.) (4)

(1)See:V.Trukhanovsky "British Foreign Policy During World War II." Progress
Publishers. Moscow 1970.

(2)See:International Affairs. No.8 1958.

(3)Quoted in:V.Trukhanovsky "British Foreign Policy During World War II."
Progress Publishers. Moscow 1970.

(4)Quoted in:V.Trukhanovsky "British Foreign Policy During World War II."
Progress Publishers. Moscow 1970.

In Czechoslovakia, even before the war had ended, in August 1944 there was a
popular uprising against the German Nazis and the Czech capitalists who had
enlisted their aid and support against the Czech and Slovak working class. There
had also been a Czech-Soviet mutual support treaty signed between progressive
Czechs and the Soviet Union in 1943.

The Slovak uprising was internationalist in character, comprising some 30
nationalities including 3,000 Soviet partizans, Czechs, Hungarians, French,
German, Poles, Yugoslavs, Greeks, Italians, Bulgarians, Belgians, Dutch,
Austrians, Americans and British. Such was the general anti-fascist feeling in
Europe.

Czechoslovakia became a Socialist Republic in 1945 after being liberated from
German and Czech fascists by the Red Army and the Czech people's Army under
Ludvik Svoboda who became the President.

#General Elections were held in May 1946. There were nine parties; and the
elections were confirmed as free and fair by British and Americans and a British
all party parliamentary delegation. The Communists took 114 seats - almost 40
percent of the votes - more than double the votes of any other party; while
their nearest rivals took only 55 seats. MPs elected to the Czech parliament
were 114 Communists, 55 Benes Socialists, 47 People's Party, 36 Social
Democrats. The votes in the Czech lands were: Communists 2,205,658, Benes
Socialists 1,298,917, People's Party 1,126,777, Social Democrats 862,494. In
Slovakia: Democrats 988,275, Communists 490,257, Freedom 67,575, Labour 49,983.

The new Czech government was faced with the choice in 1947 of accepting US
Marshall Aid and losing their economic and political independence to US capital
or of increasing their trade and relations with the Soviet Union. To the
annoyance and frustration of the capitalist world, the Czechs rejected Marshall
Aid and signed a trade agreement with the USSR.

#Right-wing members of the Czech cabinet resigned in 1948 in order to try and
provoke a constitutional crisis and prevent the communists from their predicted
victory in the next elections. But the the plot failed. The right-wing had put
themselves out of government and the communists gained an overwhelming victory.

In Poland the popular patriotic government of the Krajowa Rada Narodowa was
formed in Warsaw on January 1 1944.

After the Red Army had liberated Poland the London Polish Government in Exile
instructed its agents in Poland to liquidate the patriotic democrats who stayed
and fought in the resistance against the Germans. And the Armija Krajowa, also
controlled by the London Poles, was instructed to cease fighting the Germans and
prepare to seize power. The London Poles were as anti-Soviet as any US cold
warrior:

"An essential condition for our victory and our very existence is at least the
weakening, if not the defeat of Russia."

(Underground newspaper of the Polish government in exile Penstwo Polski, spring
1944.) (1)

"I talked to your General Anders the other day, and he seemed to entertain the
hope that after the defeat of the Germans the Allies will then beat Russia."

(Winston Churchill, to Mikolajczyk, 1944.) (2)

"The London Poles openly talk about a third world war, which they expect within
a very short time."

(Kingsley Martin, in New Statesman and Nation May 26 1945.)

The London Poles rejected a Soviet offer, which the British agreed to at Tehran,
to amend its borders - the Curzon Line - in favour of Poland with a large area
including Bialystok.

(1)See:Comment, Aug 29 1964.

(2)See:D.F. Fleming "The Cold War and its Origins." Doubleday. London 1961.

"The hearth of the Polish state and people must be situated between the
so-called Curzon Line and the line of the Oder River, including Eastern Prussia
and the Oppeln Province as part of Poland."

(Churchill, at Tehran, Dec 1 1943.) (1)

Unlike the London Poles who fled their country and left the Polish people to
their fate, and their 'friends' who collaborated with the Nazis; true patriotic
Poles formed resistance units and a Polish division named after Tadeusz
Kosciuszko. In reaction to this the London Poles formed their own underground
organisations in Poland with the intention of eventually using them against the
USSR. These organisations spent more time and energy fighting against the Polish
partizans than against the Nazis.

After the Soviet drive West after the battle of Kursk the British became more
concerned about the post-war 'Polish question'. The British Foreign Office now
urged the Poles to recognise the Curzon Line and accept Danzig (now Gdansk),
East Prussia, and the Oppeln province of Upper Silesia. Eden suggested that the
British and the London Poles recognise the Curzon Line as Poland's Eastern
frontier in exchange for the Soviet Government's cooperation with the London
Polish Government in exile with regard to the Polish resistance fighters and the
Polish division fighting on Soviet territory. Thus the British were prepared to
accept Soviet claims to original Soviet territory in Western Ukraine and
Byelorussia if the Soviets would withdraw their support for the Polish
resistance and progressive Poles and help Britain impose on them after
liberation a government of reactionary emigres who were as anti-Soviet as any
Nazi. Naturally, this was untenable.

The British Government exercised complete control over the Polish Government of
General Sikorski in exile in London during the war while backing his claims to
Soviet territory in Western Byelorussia and Western Ukraine. In the US in 1943
Sikorski outlined plans with US Assistant Secretary of State Sumner Welles of
the creation of:

"An Eastern European union running from Poland in the North down to Turkey in
the South... Poland would be the anchor in the North and Turkey the anchor in
the South."

(Polish General Sikorski, to US Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles, Jan
1943.) (2)

Sumner Welles said that:

"[this plan B.M.] could only be interpreted by the Soviet Union as a cordon
sanitaire of a purely military character directed squarely against the Soviet
Union."

(US Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles, Jan 1943.) (3)

In a visit to the US in March 1943 Eden told Roosevelt that the London Polish
Government: "has very large ambitions after the war" which were used in vicious
anti-Soviet propaganda in the Polish press in London, even to the disturbance of
the British Foreign Office and the US Government:

"Polish opposition press in London would continue to be a disturbing factor."

(Foreign Relations of the United States, 1943. Vol.III.)

(1)See:The Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam Conferences. Documents. Progress
Publishers. Moscow 1969.

(2)See:Foreign Relations of the United States, 1943. Vol.III.

(3)See:Foreign Relations of the United States, 1943. Vol.III.

The London Poles refused to accept the Tehran agreements and Churchill followed
them, now saying that the Polish question could only be settled after the war
had ended and, in an open threat to abandon plans for a second front, "would
affect the operations which all three were about to undertake." In other words,
he preferred to take advantage of any weak position that the West could put the
Soviet Union in by political-military means by the end of the war. He also
demanded that parts of Lithuania and Western Ukraine be administered by the
London Poles and that United Nations authorities take part in the administration
of the rest of Western Ukraine and Western Byelorussia. Naturally, the Soviet
Government could not agree to these outrageous proposals:

"As regards the desire to place certain Soviet territories under foreign
control, we cannot agree to discuss such encroachments, for, as we see it, the
mere posing of the question is an affront to the Soviet Union."

(Soviet Government's reply to Churchill, March 3 1944.)

"I shall soon have to make a statement... that we continue to recognisethe
Polish government with whom we have been in continuous relations since... 1939;
that we now consider all questions of territorial change must await the
armistice or peace conferences of the victorious powers; and that in the
meantime we can recognise no forcible tranferences of territory."

(Winston Churchill to Stalin, March 21 1944.)

Apart from accusing the Soviets of any "forcible" transfer of territory in 1944;
Churchill was notable silent when these territories were forcible taken from the
Soviets after the revolution.

Stalin replied:

"I was struck by the fact that both your messages and particularly Kerr's
statement bristle with threats against the Soviet Union. I should like to call
your attention to this circumstance, because threats as a method are not only
out of place in relations between Allies but also harmful... The Soviet Union's
efforts to uphold and implement the Curzon Line are referred to in one of your
messages as a policy of force, This implies that you are now trying to describe
the Curzon Line as unlawful and the struggle for it as unjust... I must point
out that at Teheran you, the President and myself were agreed that the Curzon
Line was lawful. At that time you considered the Soviet government's stand on
the issue quite correct, and said it would be crazy for representatives of the
Polish emigre government to reject the Curzon Line. But now you maintain
something to the contrary.

You say... that the problem of the Soviet-Polish frontier will have to be put
off till the armistice conference... I think there is a misunderstanding here.
The Soviet Union is not waging, nor does it intend to wage, war against Poland.
It has no conflict with the Polich people and considers itself an ally of Poland
and the Polish people... It would be strange, therefore, to speak of an
armistice between the USSR and Poland. But the Soviet is in conflict with the
Polish emigre government, which does not represent the interests of the Polish
people or express their aspirations."

(Stalin to Churchill, March 23 1944.)

As with any other country, the situation in Poland is best understood with the
knowledge of its past:

In May 1926 a military coup brought Pilsudski to power. In 1935 elections were
held. All opposition parties and 55.6 percent of the public boycotted these
'elections'. A new 'constitution' gave unlimited powers to the President
including appointing and dismissing the Cabinet, the Commander in Chief of the
army, the President of the Supreme Court, summoning and dissolving Parliament,
deciding to make war, and foreign policy. Conditions were so poor in Poland in
the 1920s and 30s that its biggest export was people in search of work. Poland
became a country to emigrate from.

As is their usual practice, the British Government wanted to keep any fascist
power, native or otherwise, in control of Poland; even the post World War One
German army. But even that failed:

#"A Polish Socialist leader in London, M.Ciolkosz, has revealed how the Allies
attempted to keep the German Army of Occupation in Eastern Poland for fear of
Bolshevism, and were seriously troubled when most of the army proceeded to go
red, elect soldiers' councils, etc, and the whole of it was disarmed and sent
home by the Poles."

(British Labour MP Koni Zilliacus, in his book "The Mirror of the Past.")

During the war the main thrust of the London Poles was to restore the old
fascist order after the war. Incidentally, as we shall see in a later chapter,
it was the London Poles who organised the disastrous Warsaw uprising towards the
end of the war largely with the effect of discrediting the Soviet Union and the
genuine Polish resistance who stayed and fought.

It was the Polish Committee for National Liberation, known as the Lublin Poles,
who remained in Poland through the war which had the respect and support of the
majority of the Polish people, especially the working class based political
organisations. Even The Times special correspondent cabled from Lublin at the
end of 1944 that:

"The demand that the Committee should assume the functions of a provisional
government is generally based on the claim that in less that six months it has
formed a Polish Army, has built up a state administration and restored economic
and social life in an area three times the size of Belgium and inhabited by more
than seven million persons. This is not to say that the Lublin administration
commands universal support... But it does mean that the Lublin authorities are
getting increasing credit for having saved the country from the spectre of
anarchy, and that on their opponents is falling the stigma of seeking to prolong
the periods of uncertainty."

(The Times Dec 28 1944.)

In the Baltic countries there had always been a strong socialist movement in the
three Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

#After the World War 1 Armistice the three Baltic states, Poland and the Ukraine
were occupied by the German army and pro-German puppet governments were set up.
The Armistice stipulated <check James Rhodes "Churchill, A Study in Failure"
p120? - whose quote?= :Koni Zilliacus "The Mirror of the Past." p226-228 Left
Book Club. 1944.): (KZ or Armistice?:) see Braithwaite p68.> "immediate
evacuation of the invaded countries of the Western front" and "immediate
withdrawal of all German troops from the occupied areas of Turkey,
Austria-Hungary and Rumania", but German troops occupying Russian territories of
the Baltic States, Eastern Poland and the Ukraine "were only to withdraw as soon
as the Allies shall think the moment suitable having regard to the internal
situation of these territories". (end of Armistice quote?) German presence
should remain there

#"with the full consent of the Allies... the Red tide could not be held by any
bulwark which any of these native races could maintain... Estonia and Latvia
were themselves permeated with the Bolshevistic poison".

(From official US report on the Baltic States. 1919.) (1)

(1)See:Koni Zilliacus "The Mirror of the Past." p226-228 Left Book Club. 1944.

After the Russian Revolution the Baltic states wanted to make peace with the
Soviets and become autonomous Soviet states themselves. But it was the Western
Allies that forced them to continue the war against Soviet Russia. Previously
these countries, with their reactionary and fascist regimes, were Churchill's
"outpost of Europe against Bolshevism." At the Paris Peace Conference after the
First World War the British Government, like their Russian Tsarist Generals and
their allies, made it quite clear that they were absolutely opposed to the
separation of the three Baltic states from Russia:

"They [the Baltic states B.M.] cannot stand by themselves absolutely independent
and sovereign states, and the Allies and associates would be physically unable
to maintain them as such states."

(The Times, Nov 5 1919.)

At a conference on September 30 1919 the Baltic states decided to open peace
negotiations with Soviet Russia. The Western Allies responded by imposing a
blockade of the three Baltic republics from October 2 1919. Despite Allied
denials of their forcing the Baltic states into submission, the three Baltic
states were forced to accede to the Allied demands:

"In spite of the various disclaimers of various members of the Government, there
is little doubt that Allied pressure has been exerted upon the Baltic states
generally... to induce them to continue the war against the Bolsheviks."

(British General Sir Hubert Gough, in a letter to the press, Jan 1920.) (1)

By early 1940 the peoples of the Baltic countries, under the burdens and threats
of fascism from without and within, were in a state of social crisis. It was
admitted privately and publicly at the time and since even by bourgeois
historians and politicians in their moments of honesty, such as Estonian
Minister for Foreign Affairs Jurimaa, that had the people freedom of political
expression these countries would easily have become "bolshevised" long before.

In late 1940, under popular pressure, parliamentary elections were held in the
three Baltic states and Soviet governments which had been abolished by the
fascists who took power there during the 1918-1919 wars of intervention, were
restored, and after plebiscites, the USSR Supreme Soviet granted their
re-admittance to the USSR as autonomous sovereign republics with their own
parliaments (Soviets.)

By 1940, the Soviets had merely regained their own territory taken by Germany
and Poland as a result of the Brest-Litovsk treaty and the armed intervention
between 1918 and 1921.

And that the Soviets had any right to re-enter this territory anyway was
intrinsic in the separate Mutual Assistance Treaties signed between the USSR and
the three Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia in September and
October 1939.

"In the Baltic States: between June 17-21, 1940, the Fascist or semi-Fascist
Governments in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania fell and Left-wing Governments were
set up. Elections by secret ballot held in these States, July 14, 1940, in which
81.6 to 95.5 per cent. of the electorates voted, resulted in the formation of
new Governments which decided to set up Socialist Soviet Republics, and on July
21, 1940, the Parliaments of these three Republics applied for incorporation
into the USSR as Constituent Republics of the Union, and were accepted by the
latter in August."

(British historians Pat and Zelda Coates, "A history of Anglo-Soviet
Relations.")

(1)See:W.P. and Z.K.Coates "Russia, Finland and the Baltic." Lawrence and
Wishart. London 1940.

To the interfering Westerners who have no business meddling in the internal
affairs of the Baltic states or any country of the Soviet Union the Soviets
reply for instance that:

"It is high time it was understood that the question of the Baltic States is an
internal Soviet matter which is none of Mr Wilkie's business. Anyone interested
in such questions should take the trouble to become acquainted with the Soviet
Constitution and with that democratic plebiscite which took place in these
Republics; and let him also remember that we know how to defend our
constitution.

As for Finland and Poland, not to mention the Balkan countries, the Soviet Union
will manage to thrash things out with them, without any assistance from Mr
Wilkie."

(Pravda, Jan 1944.)

At the 1942 talks on the post war Soviet frontiers during the drafting of the
Atlantic Charter, which was to agree a post-war settlement, Eden used as a
stalling excuse that Britain's "Dominions" would have to be consulted; while at
the same time objecting to the legitimate Soviet demands for recognition of its
1941 frontiers. The Atlantic Charter continued the West's hostile policy against
the USSR:

"I thought the Atlantic Charter was directed against those people who were
trying to establish world dominion. It now looks as if the Atlantic Charter was
directed against the USSR...

Why does the restoration of our frontiers come into conflict with the Atlantic
Charter?...

All we ask for is to restore our country to its former frontiers. We must have
these for our security and safety... I want to emphasise the point that if you
decline to do this, it looks as if you were creating a possibility for the
dismemberment of the Soviet Union."

(Stalin.)

As has been admitted by many who could not be accused of pro-Soviet sentiments,
the Soviet Union was concerned only with its own security and was rightly
suspicious of any attitudes or actions of the West:

"One of the chief aims of Soviet policy has been and no doubt still is to obtain
the maximum guarantees of Russia's security so that the Soviet Government can
work out their own social and economic experiment without danger of foreign
intervention or war."

(Lord Halifax, at US State Department, 1942.) (1)

"There is little doubt that the Soviet Government is suspicious lest our policy
of close collaboration with the United States Government will be pursued at the
expense of Russian interests and that we aim at an Anglo-American peace and
post-war world."

(British Foreign Office telegram to the US, 1942.) (2)

But the British had persisted in trying to obtain an advantage over the Soviet
Union in regards to Soviet Baltic territories all through the war.

Like the modern revanchists, Britain and the US, in their negotiations all
through the war, and the political conduct of the war, were pursued with the aim
of depriving the USSR of its rightful territory. But after the German defeat at
Moscow they found it might no longer be possible to deprive the USSR of its
rightful territory and reducing it to its 1920s or 1939 frontiers:

(1)See:Foreign Relations of the United States, 1942. Vol.III.

(2)See:Foreign Relations of the United States, 1942. Vol.III.

"We cannot be certain... that Germany's defeat may not be brought about in
principle by Russian action before our own and American war potentiality is
fully developed... It would be unsafe to gamble on Russia emerging so exhausted
after the war that she will be forced to collaborate with us without our having
to make any concessions to her."

(Foreign Relations of the United States, 1942, Vol.III.)

"It is particularly important that Great Britain make no concessions, that are
not essential to victory over the Germans, in Eastern Europe. This is true even
of the three Baltic states - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania... No one can tell
what frontiers... will be in the interests of England and most favourable to the
balance of power, because the condition of Eastern Europe as it will be at the
end of the war is unpredictable."

(The British journal "Nineteenth Century and After." 1942.) (1)

The war over; the balance of power in Europe had changed in favour of socialism.

The West then tried political and diplomatic means to limit and reverse the
strength of socialism.

Against all their plans; at the end of a war which was supposed to destroy
socialism; the balance of political and ideological power in Europe had changed
drastically in favour of socialism in the spirit of peaceful coexistence, which
even Roosevelt agreed was the only way:

"The spirit of Yalta, which he [Roosevelt B.M.] vainly fostered, was an
expression of his determination to keep the competition peaceful lest mankind
suffer the agony of a new war on the very morrow of finishing the old one."

(American historian Professor J.P.Morray "From Yalta to Disarmament, Cold War
Debate.")

But as the attempts on Hungary, Czechoslovakia, the GDR and Poland were to
reveal; as we shall see in a later chapter; they were to make further attempts
to "roll back" socialism later:

"The way to bring peace is to produce revolutions in the countries behind the
Iron Curtain."

(US General Clay, quoted in New York Times June 29 1952.)

(1)Quoted in:Labour Monthly July 1942.

Chapter 41

MARSHALL PLAN - A WAR PLAN -
BRITAIN BECOMES A US FORWARD BASE IN
AN AMERICAN POST-WAR WORLD.
"This England never did, nor never shall

Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,

Save when it first did help to wound itself."

(William Shakespeare.)

Because of our "free press", and the careful avoidance of the subject in British
history books, not many British peace movement supporters and activists are
aware of the details of how and why Britain became a US nuclear base.

The whole of British's foreign policy in backing Nazi Germany was a gamble which
led inexorably to war. If German fascism had collapsed Germany would have become
communist and led the rest of Europe to communism. To the British ruling
classes, the dangers of appeasing Hitler were far less frightening than the
danger to world capitalism if German fascism had failed and communism triumphed
in Germany and paved the way to communism in other European countries.
Supporting German fascism and directing it against the Soviet Union was a
continuation of their general anti-communiust policy.

As a result of Britain's own corruption in the years leading up to the war, and
its political conduct of the war which drew out the war unnecessarily, by the
end of the war Britain had become totally dependent on the US economically and
politically, and was forced to be drawn by the US into the possible preparations
for a Third World War. Britain and its colonies were strategically important to
US plans; and the British government's actions before the war, during the war
and in the aftermath had put Britain up for grabs:

"Do we need Britain?

The British Empire, for all its reduced power, has a valuable string of naval
bases around the world - Gibralter, Hong Kong, Malta, Suez, Aden, Singapore, to
mention the most important...

The colonies take one into the economic sphere - tin, rubber, uranium and other
raw materials...

We need Britain."

(New York Times, Jan 9 1952.)

What was Britain's position to be in the American post-war world?

"The question of leadership need hardly arise. If any permanently closer
association of the two nations is achieved, an island people of fifty millions
cannot expect to be the senior partner. The centre of gravity and the ultimate
decision must increasingly lie with America. We cannot resent this historical
development."

(The Economist Oct 19 1940.)

"Combined staffs and unified command over British, American and other Allied
contingents would at the least blur British control in such areas, and might
lead to the substitution of American for British influence in important and
extensive regions of the world."

(American historian William Hardy McNiell.) (1)

(1)William Hardy McNiell "America, Britain and Russia. Their Co-operation and
Conflict, 1941-1946." London 1953.

"Even though by our aid England should emerge from this struggle without defeat,
she will be so impoverished economically and crippled in prestige that it is
improbable that she will be able to resume or maintain the dominant

position in world affairs that she has occupied for so long. At best, England
will become a junior partner in a new Anglo-Saxon imperialism in which the
economic resources and the military and naval strength of the US will be the
centre of gravity. Southwards in our hemisphere, and westwards in the Pacific,
the path of empire takes its way, and in modern terms of economic power as well
as political prestige, the sceptre passes to the US."

#(President of the US National Industrial Conference Board Virgil Jordan, to the
Annual Convention of the Investment Bankers' Association of America, Hollywood,
Dec 10 1940.) (1)

"Whatever the outcome of the war, America has embarked on a career of
imperialism in world affairs and in every other aspect of her life... At best,
England will become a junior partner in a new Anglo-Saxon imperialism, in which
the economic resources and the military and naval strength of the United States
will be the centre of gravity.

...The sceptre passes to the United States."

(President of the National Conference Board of the USA to the Investment
Bankers' Association, Dec 10 1940.) (2)

"On 'D-day' Britain ceased to be a major power in the world, no longer able even
to shape her own ends. The new Europe would not be hers, or of her making."

(British historian R.W.Thompson, in the British official history of the Second
World War.) (2)

How did the "great" British Empire get to such a position?

"The [Conservative B.M.] leaders were known to be extremely hostile to Russia
and to be unsympathetic to the tendency towards socialism and communism in
Germany and other European countries. The Conservatives for some years after
1917 had regarded the Russian Revolution as something unstable and which must
inevitably fall within a few years; but when it had stood through years of
difficulties and was obviously becoming more and more stable they became
extremely alarmed at the prospect of the spread of the ideology of communism
through Germany and France to Great Britain itself. They were, therefore,
prepared to do almost anything to build up protection for British capitalism and
imperialism against the spread of this, to them, dangerous disease, which had
already gained a considerable hold amongst the British working class. That basic
attitude has been the determining factor in all British foreign policy since
1931...

The great enemy to British capitalism was thus the ideology of the Russian
Revolution permanently embodied in the successful Government of Soviet Russia.

To fight this ideology must mean hostility to Russia...

It must be seen that throughout this period the major factor in European
politics was the successive utilisation by Great Britain... largely as the
result of Great Britain's lead, of various fascist governments to check the
power and danger of the rise of communism or socialism... Japan was tacitly
encouraged in the east, Germany on the west of Russia and fascism was reinforced
in Italy and Spain... All this despite the evident and growing danger to British
imperialism... It was then the failure of Britain to conclude a pact with Russia
that made the Russo-German pact and war inevitable."

(Sir Stafford Cripps, Feb 1940.) (3)

#(1)See:The Commercial and Financial Chronicle, New York, Dec 21 1940.

#(2)Quoted in: V.G.Trukhanovsky "Winston Churchill." Progress. Moscow 1978.

(3)See:Eric Estorick "Stafford Cripps: Master Statesman." New York 1949.

"The war is being waged by aggressor states, which in every way infringe upon
the interests of the non-aggressive states, primarily England, France and the
USA, while the latter drew back and retreated, making concession after
concession to the aggressors... without the least attempt at resistance, and
even with a certain amount of connivance. Incredible but true!

...certain European and American politicians and newspaper writers, having lost
patience waiting for 'the march on the Soviet Ukraine,' are themselves beginning
to disclose what is really behind the policy of non-intervention. They are
saying quite openly, putting it down in black and white, that the Germans

have cruelly 'disappointed' them, for instead of marching farther east, against
the Soviet Union, they have turned west, you see, and are demanding colonies.
One might think that the districts of Czechoslovakia were yielded to Germany as
the price of an undertaking to launch war on the Soviet Union, and now the
Germans are refusing to meet their bills...

Far be it from me to moralise on the policy of non-intervention, to talk of
treason, treachery and so on. It would be naive to preach morals to people who
recognise no human morality. Politics is politics, as the old case-hardened
bourgeois diplomats say. It must be remarked, however, that the big and
dangerous political game started by the supporters of non-intervention may end
in a serious fiasco for them."

(Stalin, 18th Congress of the CPSU, Moscow, March 10 1939.)

"Britain kept hoping against hope that she could embroil Russia and Germany with
each other and thus escape scot-free herself. She got caught in her own toils
and in so doing has lost the respect and the sympathy of the world generally."

(US Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes in his diary.) (1)

"In their reckless attempts to hold a feast during the fascist plague, in their
desire to be present at the funeral repast of the first and, as they hoped, last
socialist state, these circles betrayed the interests of even their own
countries and peoples, pushing them into the abyss, to the edge of which they
wanted to propel, above all, the Soviet Union."

(Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko.) (2)

"Time will never absolve the Western leaders of responsibility for a catastrophe
that could have been averted had they not been blinded by their hatred for
Socialism."

(Mikhail Gorbachev, in a speech on the 40th anniversary of the defeat of
fascism, quoted in The Times, May 9 1985.)

"One day President Roosevelt told me that he was asking publicly for suggestions
about what the war should be called. I said at once, 'The Unnecessary War.'
There never was a war more easy to stop than World War II."

(Winston Churchill.)

"I had found it so hard to believe that our governing class were so blind and
stupid as to prefer war to shaking hands with the Soviets."

(The Dean of Canterbury, Rev. Hewlett Johnson, Nov 2 1939.) (3)

"The choice before the British ruling class becomes the choice between coming to
terms with German capital, at a price, or of coming to terms with American
capital, also at a price."

(R. Palme Dutt, "The Truth About Anglo-American Policy." New Masses, Dec 17
1940.)

The war was certainly a "serious fiasco" for British capitalists. They had sold
out Britain before the war even began. The whole world now knows the results of
British diplomatic skulduggery that led to the Second World War. Having
engineered a war it could not finish - an adventurous gamble in order to try to
destroy communism, it did not pay off. Communism was not only not destroyed, it
was stronger and more widespread. The British Government then had to sell out
Britain's independence to the US in order to survive. In order to obtain US
assistance during and after the war the British had to surrender British capital
assets in the US, make concessions to the US in foreign trade and make the
transfer of strategic British bases abroad to the US, and give the US military
bases at home. There was no other way Britain could pay for US wartime
assistance:

(1)Harold L. Ickes "The Secret Diary." Vol.2. New York 1954.

(2)"Only for Peace. Selected Speeches and Writings by A.A.Gromyko." Pergamon.
London.

(3)Hewlett Johnson "The Socialist Sixth of the World." Victor Gollancz. London
1947.

"The moment approaches when we shall no longer be able to pay cash for shipping
and other supplies... I believe that you will agree that it would be wrong in
principle... after the victory was won with our blood... and the time gained for
the United States to be fully armed... we should stand stripped to the bone."

(Churchill, in a letter to Roosevelt, Dec 8 1940.) (1)

"The British people have been wonderfully patient under the long string of
disasters and disappointments. But they are getting very tired of always losing
- and usually losing so badly. In the whole history of the war, the British Army
has not a single success of any importance to its credit... Britain is losing
the war. Hitler may be losing it too, Russia may be winning it and America may
be preparing to win it - but Britain is losing it."

(The Economist Feb 21 1942.)

After the war Britain had to accept the terms of the US Marshal Plan in order to
survive as a capitalist country. Britain had surrendered its independence to US
domination. The Marshall Plan was nothing more that a tool of Wall Street and
the US military-industrial complex to ensure US domination of the post-war
world:

"The idea of the Marshall Plan had no sooner been planted... than the shabby and
underhand work of the Wall Street and military clique got under way... a
negative programme of political and military intervention and domination... the
rebuilding of the war potential of Germany became the first requisite of
European recovery.

On March 11 the House Committee on Foreign Affairs gave millions for military
aid to the reactionary and corrupt Greek monarchy and the equally corrupt and
reactionary Chinese Government of Chiang Kai-shek.

In other words, Mr. Chairman, the passage of this so called Marshall Plan means
that a colossal hoax has been perpetrated upon the American people... This
proposal is designed to bolster political reaction throughout the world..."

(US Democrat Representative Blatnik, in Congress, March 25 1948.)

In accepting US Marshall Aid the Western European countries became dependent on
the US:

"Once these European governments had placed themselves at the mercy of the
United States, by agreeing in advance to grants and aid the terms and conditions
of which could not be but onerous, they had already surrendered a large slice of
independence."

(US historian James Allen, in his book "Marshall Plan: Recovery or War.")(2)

It was a Right Wing Labour Government which surrendered Britain's independence
to US domination, no matter what the cost to the British people.

As could be expected of them, the British Tories in opposition and their mass
media bowed to US world leadership:

"Today Americans know that they are the dominant Power in the world; they take
pride in the position, they accept the responsibility of it, and they expect the
rest of us to respect their leadership."

(Tory Lord Woolton, Sunday Times, July 16 1950.)

(1)Winston Churchill "The Second World War." London 1949.

(2)James S. Allen "Marshall Plan: Recovery or War." New Century Publishers. NY
1948.

And the Labour Government in power obediently followed:

"We British must recognise that American policy must prevail, if there is an
honest difference of opinion between us as to what to do next in the world
struggle. He who pays the piper calls the tune."

(Labour MP Commander King-Hall, National Newsletter, June 28 1951.)

Labour had already obediently followed US world leadership only two years after
the war had ended. Before the Tories had even got into any post-war government;
while the politically progressive trade unions and the politically conscious
among the British people said no to the Anglo-American agreement, the British
Labour Government of Attlee and Bevin said yes, and happily pledged Britain to
the US:

"My dear Americans, we may be short of dollars, but we are not short of will...
We won't let you down.

Britain is a great bastion in Europe. Our Western civilisation cannot go unless
Britain falls - and Britain will not fall.

Standards of life may go back. We may have to say to our miners and to our steel
workers: "We can't give you all we hoped for. We can't give you the houses we
want you to live in. We can't give you the amenities we desire to give you." But
we won't fail."

(British Labour Foreign Secretary Bevin to the American Legion, Savoy Hotel,
London, Sept 10 1947.) (1)

While they needed the Soviet Union to defeat Hitler the British Government was
restrained in its anti-Soviet propaganda. At the end of 1943, when the British
realised that the Soviet Union was winning the war against Germany, a steady
campaign to reduce and eliminate the popularity of the Soviet Union and the
swing to the left in the minds of the British people was launched. Right-wing
trade unionists and Labour joined in this anti-Soviet campaign, and the Labour
Party Executive pushed through a decision to mark organisations for
British-Soviet friendship as 'subversive'.

"But even before the war terminated, as soon as it became obvious that Nazi
Germany would be defeated, the Labour leaders, disquieted by the British
people's growing friendship for the people of the Soviet Union, began to hasten
measures to undermine these friendly feelings."

(Pravda Feb 25 1951.)

In 1948 Denis Healey as Secretary of the International Department of the British
Labour Party said:

"I don't believe we can talk peace to Russia."

(Denis Healey, as Secretary of the International Department of the British
Labour Party. April 1948.) (2)

For peace, read capitalism.

Thus, with the connivance of the Labour Party right-wing, Britain became US
capital's "great bastion in Europe" against Socialism, no matter what hardships
this would cost the British people.

But there were some sensible and responsible views in the British labour
movement:

(1)See:R. Palme Dutt "The Crisis of Britain and the British Empire." Lawrence
and Wishart. London 1953.

(2)See:George Seldes "The People Don't Know. The American Press and the Cold
War." Gaer Associates. NY 1949.

"There can be no commitment for Britain in any war... No one can commit whatever
Government is in power when the danger of war arises...

Do you mean to tell me that any responsible person in the present government
told you we were already committed to the Western Bloc?

Why, the first decision would have to be on who is the aggressor. Why do we take
it for granted that Russia will be the aggressor? Suppose it is the United
States which is the aggressor in the next war? We certainly will not side with
the aggressor!"

(Labour MP John Strachey.)

"The official view may be that we are committed to a war on the side of the West
against the East, but that is certainly not the view of either the people in the
Labour Party nor the men and women in the labour unions nor for that matter the
men and women of Great Britain...

The people right now are more concerned with food, and the increased costs of
living... They see in the Marshall Plan a relief plan; they do not see in it the
beginning of a war plan...

The people of Great Britain will not be led into a war between the East and
West. The government which proposes it will fall immediately... unfortunately
the majority do not see the war programme which is taking shape throughout
Western Europe - under American direction and pressure - I am certain that it
will be impossible to get Britain to accept the position of being America's
carrier base in the next war."

(Labour MP Tom Driberg.)

"There'll be a bloody revolt first - there'll be a revolution of the working
people...

The people of Britain do not know what is going on - any more than do the people
of America - and many other countries... But we are telling them. We are
spreading the news. We know of course that the Marshall Plan is not coming to
Europe to hand out billions of dollars for nothing. The leaders everywhere know
that in the distance there looms a coalition in a war.

If Churchill or any Conservative Government had been in power there would have
been a terrific scandal if they had done what the Labour Government has done in
keeping from the people the truth about the plans for a future war which are
being drawn up behind the curtain of the Marshall Plan...

Those who know what is being planned oppose the war plan. The working people are
for peace. When we are able to get to them with the threat of a new war I know
the reaction. No matter what party is in power, there will be a revolt against
it."

(Labour MP Koni Zilliacus.)

"Not a ton of coal will be dug if we go to war with Russia."

(Miners' leader Will Lawther.)

However, once again in history, the labour movement did not make its voice
prevail powerfully enough.

The Labour Government ensured Britain was absorbed into the Marshall Plan and
NATO. Bevin described the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty (NATO) as:

"This is an historic occasion. It is certainly one of the greatest steps towards
world peace and security... This agreement marks the opening of a new era of
co-operation and understanding."

(British Labour Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, House of Parliament, March 18
1949.)

The signing of the pre-war anti-Comintern Pact was described in similar terms by
Nazi Foreign Minister Ribbentrop in 1936:

"The signing of today's agreement is an epochal event. It is a turning point in
the struggle of all nations which love order and civilisation against the powers
of destruction... This agreement is a guarantee of peace for all the world."

(Nazi Foreign Minister Ribbentrop, November 1936.)

The Marshall Plan and NATO had about as much peaceful purpose as the
anti-Comintern Pact.

In accepting the Marshall Plan the British Labour government accepted US control
of the British economy, including control of who we trade with. The US put a
block on advantageous trade with the socialist countries:

"Mr.Paul Hoffman, ECA chief has ruled that, under the penalty of being denied
aid, the 15 Marshall Plan countries should not export to Russia... commodities
which the United States itself is not willing to send."

(Daily Herald Sept 10 1948.)

"Only a sevenfold increase of imports from Eastern Europe will enable the West
to achieve a balance of payments when the European Recovery Programme ends in
1951."

(Secretary of the European Economic Commission Gunnar Myrdal, Daily Telegraph
Sept 27 1949.)

"An active campaign for increased East-West trade in Europe has started. It
sounds innocuous... Increased East-West trade in Europe would reduce the
dependence of Western Europe on American foodstuffs, and thereby the dollar
deficit. All this sounds tempting. But if we fall for the temptation the
political result will be disastrous."

(The Observer May 22 1949.)

"It becomes increasingly possible to find elsewhere things for which during and
after the war we were absolutely dependent on America... While this policy saves
dollars... it inexorably widens the division of the Western world. If it were
driven to its logical conclusion, transatlantic trade would shrink to a trickle,
and for the rest the non-American part of the Western world would somehow make
do as if America did not exist.

This might balance the books, but it would nevertheless be a measureless
calamity... For it is doubtful whether there is any alternative source except
Russia and Eastern Europe for the massive bulk supply of grain and other staple
foods."

(The Observer July 3 1949.)

"Alternative sources of supply for Britain could, in a world buyers' market,
probably be found - but for many of them we should have to look behind the Iron
Curtain.

If the dollar crisis is regarded simply on its merits as an economic problem,
therefore, without reference to the higher needs for British-American unity, its
solution is simply a parting of the ways. But there could be no greater
political calamity."

(The Observer July 24 1949.)

"The United States' European allies are all suffering from the post-war blockade
of East-West trade. Their dependence on American economic aid is primarily a
result of the blockade. Were the barriers removed, and were European
manufactured products again to flow Eastward in return for Eastern raw material,
it is probable that Western Europe could swiftly regain its independence from
American economic aid."

(Christian Science Monitor, Jan 7 1951.)

"All informed economic opinion from all quarters has recognised the indisputable
fact that the development of East-West trade would be the most important means
for freeing Western Europe from the dollar deficit and the deficit on the
balance of payments."

(British historian R. Palme Dutt, in his book "The Crisis of Britain and the
British Empire.")

"Mr. Hoffman has decided that the only way to administar this section of the Act
is to draw up a list of prohibited exports."

(Daily Telegraph Sept 10 1948.)

Lists of prohibited exports were drawn up and added to in later years. They
became written into English law under the Board of Trade Order and the Export of
Goods Order. Thousands of categories of goods were on these lists, which were
extended further over the years. By 1950 Britain's exports to Eastern Europe
were less than half their pre-war level and continued to drop.

"From now on every East-West trade deal will be conducted in an atmosphere of
uncertainty and awareness that Mr. X is watching at the bottle-neck in
Washington."

(Economist, Aug 25 1951.)

British trading freedom was thus limited by the US. Is that sovereignty?
Freedom? Independence?

The economic and political effects of US Marshall Aid to Europe meant that the
US was able to force Europe to cut back in housing, construction, shipbuilding
and other main industries. While the US demanded "free access" to any of the
world's cheap raw materials, Europe was forced to buy raw materials and foods
from US financed countries in the third world. Regarding the cutting back on
European countries' shipbuilding programmes to the advantage of US financed
shipbuilders in the third world, US President Truman himself said that:

"The sale or temporary transfer of ships should be linked with the reductions or
deferment of the proposed shipbuilding schedules of the participating
countries."

(US President Truman, in his Message to Congress, March 12 1947.)

The US wasn't going to be afraid of any British Labour Party "socialism".

"In order that it may not appear that the United States is opposed to the
socialism of Britain, let us say, a contract should be made that, in case the
British Government takes over any industry, it will have to pay back the loans
advanced in dollars."

(New York Times Dec 11 1947.)

Regarding the US use of Britain as a forward military base, Britain may be
destroyed but the British people would have no say in a matter which made the
security of life precarious and dangerous for them.

#US General Bradley said that:

#"If the threatened war comes, one of the leading America generals said not long
ago that while London and most of Britain would be quickly destroyed, Britain
would remain useful as an aircraft carrier for American bombers; they would
still be able to use the excellent aerodromes built by Americans in East
Anglia."

#(New Statesman and Nation March 27 1948 )

Britain became about as independent from US world nuclear politics as the
inhabitants of Bikini Atoll.

The British Government assures the British people that we would be consulted
before the US used nuclear weapons.

However, Britain would have no say in the matter:

"Consultation would be a matter of a telephone call as United States planes with
atom bombs took off for targets."

(United States News and World Report, Dec 21 1951.)

The US economic domination and militarisation of post-war Europe was going to
cost the British people very dearly. Britain's acceptance of US capital as
Marshall Aid and its rearmament demanded personal sacrifice and a lower standard
of living from the British people:

"Tragic indeed is the spectacle of the might, majesty, dominion and power of the
once magnificent and still considerable British Empire having to worry and
wonder how we can pay the monthly bills. I am tortured by this thought."

(Winston Churchill, Parliament, July 30 1952.)

"We had hoped that the loan would last us well into 1949, possibly into 1950, by
which time there was a reasonable chance that we should have redeployed our
economy and been in sight of equilibrium. As things have turned out, it is now
certain that the loan will be exhausted before the end of this year."

(Prime Minister Attlee, House of Commons, Aug 6 1947.)

"We have been repeatedly told about the 'miracle of recovery' brought by the
Marshall Plan in Europe. And suddenly another European crisis is upon us."

(Newsweek Dec 3 1951.)

"I doubt whether there has been any time in the last hundred years when
overcrowding has been so grave and the slums have been so disastrous."

(Archbishop of York, House of Lords, June 21 1950.)

"There was every reason to believe that, whatever was done, it would be
difficult, if not impossible, to sustain a population as large as Britain's. We
must be prepared for a large measure of emigration."

(Labour MP Emmanuel Shinwell, June 1952.) (RPD CBE 468)

"England is faced with Hitler's choice of guns or butter. For rearmament demands
personal sacrifice as well as a lower standard of living."

(Tory MP Captain Cyril Osborne, Oct 3 1948.) (1)

"Take the British. They are down to 16 cents (1s.2d.) worth of meat a week. That
makes a mighty small package when the butcher wraps it up. They would have more
if it were not for their defence effort."

(US President Truman, in a broadcast, March 16 1952.) (2)

"Altogether the arms budget is costing about 25/- (�1.25p) a week for every
family of four... the burden will increase, not diminish, year by year until the
breaking point is reached or there is another war."

(British MP Koni Zilliacus, in his book "Dragons Teeth.")

(1)See:Koni Zilliacus "Dragons Teeth." Collets. London 1949.

(2)See:R. Palme Dutt "The Crisis of Britain and the British Empire." Lawrence
and Wishart. London 1953.

The burden continued to increase, year by year:

"At the Brussels meeting of the North Atlantic Council on December 19 the
Foreign Secretary said that in view of the urgent need to strengthen the
defences of the free world, His Majesty's Government had decided to increase and
accelerate their defence preparations still further."

(Attlee, House of Commons, Jan 29 1951.)

The US arms burden increases year by year. By 1986 compulsory participation in
the US arms race was costing the average British family some �26 every week.

The "Soviet threat" myth destroyed; this "guns or butter" ultimately is the
choice which must always be put before the British people by the peace movement.
Offered in those terms, apart from the purely moral, the British peace
movement's disarmament policy is infinitely more attractive to the people the
British peace movement is trying to convince.

A United Nations report shows that while the British people endured, and still
tolerate, rising prices, cut-backs in industrial production, and a lower house
building programme because of the US militarisation of the British economy, the
Soviet people were experiencing decreasing prices and a faster, ever increasing
rise in production:

"In the United Kingdom... the economy is showing every sign of suffering from
severe strain. Cost inflation is rampant and towards the end of the year may
well be enhanced by demand inflation flowing from the heaviest rearmament
programme in Europe...

In the Soviet Union a further decrease in prices, mainly of food products, by 10
to 20 per cent, took place on March 1 1951. It led to a substantial increase in
sales of consumer's goods (19 per cent from February to March)...

Industrial production in the first quarter of 1951 increased by 19 per cent over
the first quarter of 1950 in the six Eastern European countries for which data
are available (Poland, Rumania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and the Soviet
Zone of Germany), and by 18 per cent in the Soviet Union, against a figure of
13-14 per cent for Europe as a whole."

(United Nations Economic Commission report Economic Bulletin for Europe, First
Quarter, 1951.)

"Europe as a whole" here is misleading because it includes the higher figures of
Eastern European countries and raises the overall average figure when making any
comparison between East and West.

"No state, the Soviet state included, can develop to the utmost civilian
industry, launch great construction projects such as the hydro-electric stations
on the Volga, the Dnieper and the Amu-Darya requiring budget expenditures of
tens of thousands of millions, continue a policy of systematic reduction of
prices of consumer goods, likewise requiring budget expenditures of tens of
thousands of millions, invest hundreds of thousands of millions in the
restoration of the national economy destroyed by the German occupationists, and,
together with this, simultaneously increase its armed forces and expand war
industry. It is not difficult to understand that such a reckless policy would
lead to the bankruptcy of the state. Premier Attlee should know from his own
experience, as well as from the experience of the United States, that an
increase of the armed forces of a country and an armaments drive lead to
expansion of the war industry, to curtailment of civilian industry, to
suspension of big civilian construction projects, to an increase in taxes, to a
rise in the prices of consumer goods."

(Stalin, to British Labour Prime Minister Attlee, Feb 1951.)

While the British people by 1948 were still suffering privations under food and
other rationing, the Soviet people, who had finished with rationing, and without
a penny of Marshall Aid, were building up for themselves hundreds of billions of
rubles of industrial capital with nothing but their own labour. They built dams
which involved twice and three times the earthwork of the Suez or Panama canals;
implemented the irrigation of an area equal to the total area of Britain,
Belgium, Holland, Denmark and Switzerland, or one third of the existing total
irrigated area of the world at the time; and the afforestation of 13 million
acres in order to transform the climate of an area larger than the whole of
Western Europe.

The Soviet people continued to rebuild their country.

School and college history, economics and business studies teaching and books do
not contain any of this information.

All the material and information I have presented here is readily available to
historians, writers, journalists, teachers, educators and syllabus publishers.
Although I have spent many hundreds of hours gathering it all together, I did
not have to look very far to find any of it.

When as a trainee history lecturer, it was suggested I take the class on a trip
to the Tower of London and then set them an essay on what life was like for a
soldier in King Charles' Army centuries ago. Very useful knowledge that! A
sociology of the past perhaps? But certainly not history in its most important
sense; unless history is to mean anything old or 'interesting' that you can do
in evening classes, like antiques, flower arranging or basket weaving. When
instead I taught real history, learning from the past in order to change the
future, the collective life-experience of humanity, I was got rid of. The head
of the history department complained that the students had remarked that I made
them think; which the head of history had probably never done in a lifetime of
teaching. I ended up washing and cleaning and emptying human surgical waste in a
hospital.

Unless teachers learn to be brave and intellectually honest (difficult when they
have a mortgage and bills to pay), future historical, social and economic
education and popular 'knowledge' will also not refer to the US or British
history and continuing complicity in global plunder, exploitation, domination
and control, wars of aggrandisement and acquisition, causing the deaths and
devastation of the homes and lands of millions of people - the thousands of
children under the age of two who will die tonight through simple lack of food,
clean water, medicine and education - the untold millions of unnecessary deaths
among the overwhelming majority of humanity on this incredibly rich and abundant
and ultimately sustainable earth.

From Brian Mitchell. Evolution.

Responses and criticisms welcomed. Reply to my personal e-mail if you prefer. My
replies to criticisms will be posted.

"Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery; None but ourselves can free our
minds." (Bob Marley, Redemption song.)

"The most remarkable thing about the world is that you can understand it."
(Einstein.)

"I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set I go
into the other room and read a book." (Groucho Marx.)

"To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as night the day, that thou
canst not be false to any man." (Shakespeare. Hamlet.)

"And if we were all capable of unity to make our blows stronger and infallible
and so increase the effectiveness of all kinds of support given to the
struggling people - how great and close would the future be." (Che Guevara.)

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

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