Our plans in Asia?” said Lenin on 18th February. 1920, to a correspondent of the New York Evening Journal, “Our plans in Asia? The same as in Europe: peaceful co-existence . . .” Thirty-four years later, after a hot war which entailed the refrigeration of the plans the Soviet leaders echo their predecessors words. On the face of it they should succeed this time, for they have powerful and influential echoes in Eisenhower and Churchill.
Churchill, speaking in the Commons about his recent visit to North America, said in reference to peaceful coexistence: “This far-reaching conception certainly had its part in some of our conversations at Washington. I was glad when I read after we had left that President Eisenhower had said that the hope of the world lies in peaceful co-existence." (Daily Telegraph, 13/7/54.) Earlier, on 29/6/54, Churchill and Eisenhower, in a signed declaration known to some as the Potomac Charter, had stated that they would "together and individually, continue to hold out the hand of friendship to any and all nations, which by solemn pledge and confirming deeds, show themselves desirous of participating in a just and fair peace.”
It would seem that the Big Three share a basic desire, peaceful co-existence, and the time has come for detailed discussion and co-operative action. But what is the substance of their “co-existence”; what are the confirming deeds that distinguish the nations desirous of a just and fair peace; what is this peace, just and fair?
These are legitimate questions. Churchill, talking in the Commons about the Potomac Charter referred to the “necessarily general and sometimes vague character” of its declarations. “The expression of broad and simple principles likely to command assent and not excite the dissent of vast communities must necessarily be in guarded terms.” (Daily Telegraph, 13/7/54.) Those are words typical of statesmen,.men who know the world, who know “it would not be in the public interest” if a “detailed statement” about discussions and decisions affecting millions of people was made to those millions. All the more important is it then that we examine their broad and simple principles.
In the so-called Western world the idea has been fostered that there are now two kinds of human society in being, the Freedom-loving peoples and Communism. In the Russian “sphere” the same idea has been built up. but the terms are different: “Socialism or the lasting-peace-loving peoples on the one hand, and Capitalist Imperialism on the other.
The idea is fallacious. The mass of people on both sides desire peace and freedom from the tribulations which they suffer jointly and in common. Far from either side exhibiting the symptoms of Socialist or Communist society, both practise capitalism. In principle, they have the same way of life, the same ideology. Their politicians and generals speak the same language, even to the very phrase.
The signatories to the Potomac Charter “ believe that the cause of world peace would be advanced by... drastic reduction . . . of world armaments . . .” They have resolved to “maintain the . . . military strength necessary to pursue [their] purposes effectively . . . In pursuit of this . . . we will seek every means of promoting the fuller and freer interchange among us of goods and services which will benefit all participants.” (Daily Telegraph, 30/6/54.) Can you not hear Malenkov repeating Stalin's 1939 words: “We stand for peace and the strengthening of business relations with all countries . . . as long as they make no attempt to trespass on the interests of our country.”
Bertrand Russell, whom we are told is a great thinker rather than a great statesman, has also given us his views on peace, in an article entitled “The Most Hopeful Road to Peace” (Picture Post, 24/7/54). Although he also relies on hope, as befits a thinker he goes further than Churchill, Malenkov and Co., and makes some proposals. As he sees it, there will have to be three stages to the establishment of a lasting peace. First, there must be a diminution of mutual suspicion; brought about by “eminent Indians . . . drawing up a carefully reasoned report as to the probable consequences of a World War with modern weapons”; if various governments would then signify their “acquiescence in the proposition that no Great Power can hope to achieve any of its purposes by World War” then “various governments might become persuaded that they have no reason to fear a sudden unprovoked attack.” (Our italics.)
Although there is much here to comment on, note how, in the modern fashion, he proposes that governments, all eminent men, are to be influenced by other eminent men. He ignores you and me. Quite right, too; after all we know the actual results of world war with modern weapons.
When tension has been reduced, Russell then wants conversations with a view to finding some compromise about a definite delimitation of spheres neither repugnant nor unfavourable to either side; meaning, peaceful coexistence. But as he says, “At present, each side is willing to take—but not . . . to give.”
The Russell plan concludes with a treaty, of course; and a World Authority, possessing a monopoly of all “the more important weapons of war" which would be concerned “only with what is necessary for the preservation of peace. It should not interfere with the internal affairs of nations.” With peaceful coexistence so established only “small and brief” wars will be possible and “Men (presumably including wage-earners) will enter upon a period of happiness. . . .”
If governments were to attempt to clarify their “ broad and simple principles” on peaceful co-existence they would have to follow a Russell-like plan.
The present major division in the world is a result, not of different beliefs, but of the second world war, which left Russia and America as the two biggest competitors in a world of competitors; each and all determined to hold and expand what it has. That is the background to disarmament, re-armament, and just plain armament. But the manufacture of arms is a costly, and on the whole unprofitable, business; except in wartime no government dare export such commodities on any significant scale. Further, it may be, since they have the facts, that even the rulers are a little disturbed about the hydrogen bomb; and it can be said of all governments that they do not want war, but the fruits of war.
There are good reasons then for an international search for what they call a formula and “peaceful co-existence ” is a good starting-point. The slogan embraces the dream of a world of buying and selling, of politics and' power, of competition and spheres of influence, without war and not too many armaments. It envisages the retention of capital exploiting wage-labour, of poverty and welfare, of governments and governed, of nations and signed declarations of friendship. Hence co-existence.
And if things once again go wrong, if the dream turns into a nightmare, well, as Lenin said in 1920, the obstacles to agreement are on the other side.
“Peaceful co-existence” panders to the ignorant and unthinking, but the expression by professional great men of the hopes of millions of small men will not solve problems; will not bring about a state of affairs wherein war is not merely impossible but unthought of; will not bring about conditions, to quote the Potomac Charter, “in which the prodigious nuclear forces now in human hands can be used to enrich and not to destroy mankind ”; will not bring about a community where, not Russian and American soldiers co-exist and occasionally work together to meet nature’s floods, but where men and women of all languages and colours dwell in practical cooperative harmony, every day.
Action, not hope, is required. The action of the wage-earners, the world's small men.
D. S. C.
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