More Past Summits: THE GRAND ALLIANCE OF 194]

HITLER attacked the Soviet. Union in June, 1941, and Churchill broadcast a pledge of all possible aid to Stalin. The Communist Party in Britain at once ceased all political opposition to the Churchill Coalition Government. In “World News and Views’, July 12, 1941, Emile Burns called for more production and no strikes. Thanks to the memoirs published later, we know that neither Churchill nor Roosevelt expected the Russians to resist for more than a few weeks. munist Party, helped him to gain prestige among the workers, in return for promises which he did not expect to make good.

Even at that time, leading British and US statesmen were revealing what was in their minds. Col. MooreBrabazon, Churchill’s Minister of Aircraft Production, said on July 14, 1941: ‘If Russia and Germany do destroy each other, we shall have the dominating power in Europe.’ Churchill refused to dismiss or even rebuke him.

A few days before, Senator Harry Truman (later to be US President during the Cold War) said: ‘If we see that Germany is winning, we ought to help the Russians, and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and in that way let them kill as many as possible’.

So much for a ‘war for democracy’! When US imperialism helped Britain, Roosevelt's mind was quite made up that British imperialism would have to surrender its world positions in payment for the American arms, food and finance, without which it could not go on resisting German imperialism When Roosevelt and Churchill met in mid-Atlantic in the autumn of 1941, they discussed very material quesions. The lofty phrases of the Atlantic Charter (and the Labour and Communist leaders’ speeches) have diverted workers’ attention from asking what pressure Roosevelt put on Churchill to make the latter write into the Charter the American formulae about independence of colonial countries.

Elliot Roosevelt reports his father’s remark: ‘The British Empire is at stake. It’s something not generally known, but British bankers and German bankers have had world trade sewn up in their pockets for a long time. . . . Well, now, that’s not so good for America’s trade, is it?’

Five months later, in the Lend-Lease negotiations, Churchill had to surrender the Ottawa agreement, by which since 1932 British exporters had enjoyed special advantages in the markets of British Dominions and colonies.

Here was the thin end of the wedge which opened the City of London’s empire to American business. Here were the war-aims of US imperialism.

The Second Front When it became clear that Russia was not going to collapse, Roosevelt and Churchill based. their Second Front strategy on similar selfish calculations.

They reckoned that, if Hitler won in Russia, he could then face Britain with his strength vastly increased, and Britain would collapse even despite US aid. Saving Russia was incidental to saving Britain.

Roosevelt held out hopes of an early Second Front to Stalin in April, 1942, but it is very doubtful whether at that time he intended to open the Second Front at all. Britain at that time was negotiating the alliance with the USSR, and he feared that Britain might escape from complete dependence on USA. In that event, Roosevelt might lose the dominating position in the peace settlement which he wanted.

But, most of all, Churchill feared the effects of Soviet victories. He wrote on October 21, 1942: It would be a measureless disaster if Russian barbarism overlaid the culture and independence of the ancient states of Europe.’

The Russian victory at Stalingrad terrified Franco with the spectre of Soviet armies on the Pyrenees. But the British Ambassador to Madrid, Tory leader Sir Samuel Hoare, consoled Franco’s Foreign Minister thus: ‘There will undoubtedly Churchill’s gesture, and the real backing of the Combe great British and American ‘armies on the continent. They will be composed of fresh-line troops, whose ranks have not been devastated by years of exhausting war on the Russian front. And for ourselves I make the confident prophecy that at the moment Great Britain will be the strongest European military power.’

Had Stalin and the Communist Parties no inkling of what was being said? They had, because many such statements were made publicly, and Soviet intelligence had more intimate sources of knowledge. What did they do about it? They ‘applied pressure’.

We have seen that Churchill and Roosevelt aided the Soviet : effort not at all out of generosity or progressive sentiment, but out of cold, calculated self-interest. Consequently,- they could not have been ‘offended’ or ‘frightened off’ if the Communists in Britain had spoken out and exposed the real aims of the imperialists before the working-class.

It is true that the Communist Party campaigned for the extreme Right to be driven out of the Government, against the release of Mosley and for the Stcond Front. But Churchill suited himself, taking as much or as little notice as he wished.

None of the campaigning could bring workers into conflict with employers, or support the Trotskyist demand for Labour to break the coalition and take the power.

Quite the reverse. The CP supported Government candidates in by-elections. It opposed strikes and slandered striking workers and the Trotskyist; who helped them as ‘Hitler’s agents’.

These policies covered the Allied leaders against criticism from the Left, however much Left phrases spiced them. These policies painted up ‘the imperialists as ‘democrats’, capable of providing lasting peace by their good intentions.

The ‘Grand ‘Alliance’ and the Cold War The Soviet, British and American people made measureless sacrifices in the hope of a lasting peace to follow. These hopes have been dashed. Poisonous and depraved anti-Soviet Cold War propaganda has destroyed much of the sympathy felt by British and American workers for the Soviet people.

But the Cold War propaganda fell on ears which Com- ~ munist propaganda during the war prepared for it. Who but the Communists spread the illusion that the imperialists of Britain and America are ‘democrats’? Who continue to spread the illusion that they can bring world peace by agreement? Who spread illusions about the workers’ State in the Soviet Union being a workers’ paradise on earth?

The four who confronted each other in Paris in 1960 may yet reach agreement, but, as in the past, such agreements as they can make cannot lead to lasting peace, and serve to endanger the Soviet Union because they weaken the undersand- -ing of the masses of the world of who their real enemies are. © THE DANGERS OF GERM WARFARE Will we all die tomorrow, the next day, next week, next month or next year? Some people think it will be done by the H-bomb, some think otherwise. But few people . know of a far more deadly weapon than a million H-bombs _ —germs.

Today, Britain is far ahead of any other country in the

research and production of germs for the mass destruction of mankind. At Porton, Britain’s giant research establishment in Wiltshire, germs in powder form are being manufactured. A thimbleful of these would kill everyone in London in Jess than a day. Half a pound of this deadly dust would leave this planet as deserted as the moon, with no living creature left to observe the havoc wrought by mankind on himself.

While Eisenhower, Khrushchev, Macmillan and De Gaulle are bickering about banning the H-bomb, their scientific backroom boys have perfected this horrible menace which makes nuclear weapons as primitive as the bow and arrow.

Another feature of this bug which makes nuclear weapons seem crude, is the fact that an attacking nation would find everything intact and would merely have to bury the murdured inhabiants. Even if. they retaliated with rockets, it would be the effort of dead men. Within two days any country could be over-run—just the amount of time it takes for the bug to become harmless. No deterrent is possible for this creeping terror and no one would know until the victims cough and splutter and fell like flies.

Even if some of us escaped this terrible horror, our fate would be worse than those who died. We might live like twisted wrecks, unrecognized as human beings. The effect of these germs on the reproductory organs is such that it would be a near-miracle for these people to have children who, like themselves, would look more like insects than humans.

Where will it all end? When will the greed of capitalism be satisfied? Will they stop at nothing to fill their pockets with bloodstained riches. When will the workers of the world stand up and say ‘Enough’. And stop this mass destruction before the inevitable end.

FRANK McCABE.