WHY MOLOTOV SAID NO
By G. B. THOMAS
ALL sorts of explanations are being sought for the refusal of the Soviet Government to take part in the Conference for Euro- pean Economic Co-operation. Its refusal to allow the States of Eastern Europe to attend has led to a spate of astonished criticisms. Some say it is because the Soviet Government is reluctant to sup- port in any way the United States' claim to world leadership. And it is clear that the Marshall speech is a claim to world leadership. Others say that the Russians are convinced that an economic catastrophe in the United States is imminent. They go on to argue that the Russians do not propose to tie themselves or their friends to the American economy until they are sure that it is based on solid foundations. Others, again, say that things are now improving in the Soviet Union ; harvest prospects are better, industry is hitting its production targets, and so on. The Soviet Union therefore does not want to stand in a European queue waiting for American help. Then there is the argument that, since in the present mood of Con- gress American help for the Soviet Union would hardly be forth- coming even if she had participated in the Paris Conference, the Soviet Union has avoided the risk of a rebuff by staying away. There is a host of other arguments, too, and all far more complicated than any of these.
All these reasons, it seems to me, are far too subtle. Owing to the verbiage in which Russian diplomatic moves are hidden, we have grown accustomed. to searching for all sorts of 'secret motives and reasons behind Russian action. Russian diplomacy has become a sort of international crossword puzzle in which each one of us is tempted to try his skill. In this search for obscure clues, we often overlook the more obvious ones. We have hypnotised ourselves into the belief that Russian diplomacy is skilful and even Machiavellian. And so long as we cling to that belief we are bound to look for difficult clues and to disregard the simple ones. But if we start with the assumption that the Russians' diplomacy is clumsy, short- sighted and inept, we do not find it anything like so difficult to see the reasons and the motives that inspire their policy. The dimensions of our problem are very much reduced.
Now if we judge the business that led up to the Paris Conference purely as a diplomatic game, we are bound to conclude that M. Molotov has played his hand with an ineptitude that has few parallels in the history of diplomacy. He has succeeded in putting himself so far in the wrong that both Mr. Bevin and M. Bidault are now saved the tiresome necessity of defending their policy. He has so angered the Americans that their will to do something to help Western Europe is now probably far greater than it was when Mr. Marshall made his speech. He has created almost perfect conditions for a Western bloc—a Western economic bloc whose preferential trade arrangements may well get United States support, in spite of the American attitude to " discriminatory " trade practices. He has shown, by his crude and brutal treatment of the Czechoslovak Government, that Moscow does not intend to allow the peoples of Eastern Europe to exercise their sovereign rights if there is the slightest risk that these rights may be inconvenient to the Soviet Government. In short, M. Molotov has himself established the fact—always so strenuously denied by the Soviet propaganda machine —that the foreign policy of the Governments of Eastern Europe is at the mercy of the Soviet Government. And he has established it in full view of the gallery. The old ventriloquist tricks have been exposed.
We can hardly believe that the Soviet Government is unaware of all these consequences. After all, they are apparent to even the blindest among us. So we are bound to conclude that there must have been overwhelming reasons to compel the Soviet Government into rapid action, even if that action put it so definitely and indisputably in the wrong. The Soviet Government, I submit, was caught completely off its guard by the Marshall speech and by the quick British and French reactions. to it. And it was stampeded into action. But why was it stampeded? First of all, it is untrue to say that Soviet industrial prospects are satisfactory. They are not. Industrial recovery is still lagging far behind the plans of the Government. The newspaper Pravda makes no secret of that. It is true that harvest prospects are better, but the industrial position is poor. It was M. Vyshinsky himself who said—at that notorious Press conference of his during the Moscow session of the Council of Foreign Ministers this spring—that without reparations from German current production the Soviet Government would find it very difficult to carry out the five-year programme. That is just another way of saying that Russia is in need of outside help. Now we know that the Soviet Government has tried to get help from the United States. It asked for a loan. The whole thing was tentative, but it soon became clear that the United States would not grant a loan without political conditions. The Soviet Govern- ment could not accept any political conditions, so nothing came of these preliminary negotiations. The Russians then fell back upon their second line of retreat—reparations from German current industrial output. These have also been refused. So the third Russian alternative came into play—the industrial output of Eastern Europe.
Czechoslovak and Polish output is being integrated with the Soviet economy. Indeed the industries of these two countries have a vital part to play in the fulfilment of the Soviet five-year plan. By opening the doors of world trade to the countries of Eastern Europe, the Marshall offer threatened to destroy the whole of the East-European preference system upon which the speed of Soviet recovery now depends. So when M. Molotov attended the Three- Power Conference in Paris early in July he was faced with an extraordinarily difficult position. He was being asked to surrender the tangible benefits of these preferential arrangements, in return for an assurance by Mr. Marshall—an assurance that Congress might well refuse to ratify—that American help for a general European reconstruction progranime would be forthcoming. M. Molotov also knew that Congress in its present mood could not be counted upon to do anything at all for the Soviet Union, even if he put on his best behaviour and took part in the Conference for European Economic Co-operation in Paris. No wonder that M. Molotov insisted upon finding out more about the Marshall offer before committing himself in the slightest degree to the Anglo- French programme.
As for the former German satellites, much the same arguments apply. Reparation deliveries from Finland, Hungary and Rumania are designed to help Soviet reconstruction, and to buttress the Soviet five-year plan. Now the Western Powers do not know with any accuracy what the Soviet Government is taking out of these countries. Nor has any study yet been made of the precise effects of these reparation transfers upon their economies. Such very incomplete reports as do reach London suggest that Rumania, for instance, is being bled white. If these former enemies had turned up in Paris they would have had a chance to talk freely and frankly about their difficulties. They would have been asked to produ_e a balance-sheet showing their needs and resources, and the drain upon their assets. We should have been given a pretty accurate picture of what is happening. That would not have suited the Soviet Government at all. The mere possibility of it caused a stampede in Moscow. So, without regard for any diplomatic niceties, without regard for even the normal courtesies of international relations, the Soviet Government slammed the door and slammed it quickly. There is nothing complicated about it. It was all quite inevitable from the moment that Mr. Bevin and M. Bidault took the Marshall offer seriously.
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