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GRUESOME HARVEST The Costly Attempt To Exterminate The People of Germany By Ralph Franklin Keeling Imperialist Expansion
and World Revolution To comprehend Russia's bid for control over the
German Reich, it is necessary first to have an
understanding of the Soviet Union's more general
aims and ideas. Lack of such knowledge is primarily
responsible for the botch our leaders have made of
our relations with Moscow. Surging, aggressive Soviet Russia represents a
merger of the territorial ambitions of old Russian
imperialism and the communist program of world
revolution. The former proceeds as before on
military power and the allurements of Pan-Slavism,
to which has now been added the force of world
communism. The latter, motivated as always by the
crusading urge of ideological fanaticism, finds
itself carried along by the expansionist
imperialism of its base, Soviet Russia. Reinforcing
each other as they do, the two confront the world
with menacing power. Russian imperial expansion now as in former
years threatens British trade routes, strategic oil
reserves, and commercial opportunities. Russian
attempts to penetrate through Iran to the Persian
Gulf and through the Dardanelles and Trieste to the
Mediterranean are to Britain intolerable threats to
her lifeline to India. Equally damaging is the
actual and potential enlargement of the Soviet
Union itself, for wherever it expands it virtually
closes the door to international trade and
financial operations on which Britain thrives and
without which she starves. Through the force of
world communism the U.S.S.R., which has already
drawn into its orbit the eastern half of Europe and
important sections of Asia, actively menaces other
sectors all over the globe - in Asia, Africa,
western Europe, and even the Americas. And because we believe our own vital interests
parallel those of Britain, our reaction to Russian
expansion is similar to the British and
collaborates closely with it. World Communism, based on the teachings of Marx,
Lenin, and now Stalin, paints capitalism as a
diabolical exploitative system in which the
propertied classes rob the workers through the wage
system. In harmony with Marx's dialectical
materialism and economic teachings, Communists and
many Socialists believe that capitalism is dying by
predestined, convulsive stages involving commercial
crises, wars, and catastrophes, that the end of the
capitalist world is at hand, to be superseded by a
new world order of socialism. Communists deem it their mission to hasten by
all available means the process of capitalist
disintegration and the advent of the socialist
millennium. Following the philosophy that might
makes right, that the end justifies the means,
their every act, even when disguised as "reform,"
is calculated to hasten the revolutionary downfall
of the private property and wage
systems.[1] Communists aim to lead the
revolution and to command the new socialist world
order by having charge of the "dictatorship of the
proletariat" by which it is to be
ruled.[2] The chief instrument to carry out this mission
is the Communist Party with branches in all
countries and its headquarters now in Moscow. But
it is not a political party in the ordinary sense.
It is not intended to be a voting aggregation, to
gain power by legal means, but rather a thoroughly
trained, highly disciplined Military Staff and
vanguard of the revolutionary masses to seize power
by violence and to hold it by terror, "unlimited
power, resting on violence and not on law." In the
words of Lenin, as quoted by Stalin: The proselytizing power of the Party arises
primarily from mass discontent with the existing
order to which Communists attribute all the
annoyances and troubles of life. The Party takes
full advantage of the many admitted defects of the
present system, a large part of which are rooted in
human nature itself and would be present under any
arrangement. It thrives on such things as the
failure of classical political economy to explain
or mitigate business crises; the inadequacies and
the distortions of orthodox history; the failure of
church and other leaders to recognize and face the
great issues of our times; the universal tendency
to envy those who are better off and to blame "the
system" for personal failure and maladjustment; the
secret desire to witness, perhaps aid, the downfall
of those in superior positions gained, it is
supposed, by foul play or personal connections,
rather than merit. Finally, there is the idealistic
attraction of the slogan "from each according to
his ability and to each according to his need." The
prospect offered seems like perfect brotherhood and
altruistic interest in the welfare of one's fellow
men, which contrasts sharply with the cold,
self-regarding character of private enterprise. But
those who permit themselves to follow this lure
fail to realize what Russia has learned, though she
does not preach it, namely, that in practice
removal of incentive for superior performance
provided by personal reward in accordance with deed
causes interest and performance to fall, and
compulsion, by enslavement or worse, to follow. The first country to fall to world communism was
Russia, which since the Bolshevist Revolution of
October, 1917, has provided a powerful national
base for international communist operations. A
strong effort is now made to create the impression
that the Communist International has been
dissolved, that there is no longer any connection
between Russia and communist parties in other
countries. Stalin when recently asked, "What is
your opinion regarding the accusation that the
policies of communist parties in western Europe are
'dictated by Moscow'?" replied, "I consider the
accusation absurd and to be borrowed trom the
bankrupt arsenal of Hitler and
Goebbels."[4] Yet in his own book, PROBLEMS OF LENINISM,
currently revised by him, translated under his
authorization into all civilized languages,
distributed by communist parties everywhere, and
accepted by them as unquestionable gospel, Stalin
cries: "For what else is our country, the country
that is building socialism, if not the base of the
world revolution?"[5] Quoting Lenin, he
says: Stalin says that all but traitors to the cause
of communism must accept these views, that to deny
them "is to abandon internationalism, to abandon
Leninism."[8] In his equally widely
translated and distributed FOUNDATIONS OF LENINISM,
Stalin says: In the same work, Stalin emphasizes the
necessity of maintaining absolute uniformity of
policy in all branches of the world communist party
through iron discipline.[10] He says: This is the reason for the well-known close
conformity of the American Communist Party to
Moscow policy. And neither these realities nor the
quotations just given can be obliterated for Mr.
Stalin's present convenience as absurdities
"borrowed from the bankrupt arsenal of Hitler and
Goebbels." Lying and deception are among
communism's most useful weapons. Stalin explains
the necessity of deceiving one's bourgeois enemies,
even when serving as allies, of waging relentless
war against all bourgeois states, i.e., states
operating under the private property system, which
includes the United States of America. Quoting
Lenin, he says: Russia's wartime pretense that she had abandoned
the revolution both at home and abroad was done
merely to deceive her unstable allies of the
moment, was merely a necessary zigzag or strategic
retreat in the continuing effort to reach the
ultimate goal of destruction of private enterprise
throughout the world. In a speech to the Russian
people, February 9, 1946, Stalin made clear that
the Kremlin looks upon the Soviet Union as its own
united nations organization which it wishes to
spread all over the world ostensibly to end wars
and other difficulties among nations. He said: While assuring the Russians that under normal
conditions they are better off than any other
people, the Kremlin constantly paints the outside
world in lurid, hateful colors. It tells the people
that the diabolical capitalists are plotting to
attack them from within and from without in order
to destroy the workers paradise which threatens to
overthrow the capitalist system of exploitation.
Stalin in 1939, for example, warned the Communist
Party: A people thus stirred up to believe they are
fighting to save their national life are more
easily ruled, more willing to obey orders
unquestioningly, more willing to accept purges of
their ranks as necessary cleansings of deadly
capitalistic influences. Any Russian found
conversing with a foreigner is naturally suspected
of being an agent of free enterprise and is dealt
with accordingly. Between those who accept and those who reject
the teachings of communist ideology and the decrees
of its leaders there is and can be no compromise,
no give and take, no margin of tolerance. When they
get the upper hand, Communists root out and destroy
under a reign of terror all capitalistic elements
and influences. They believe that the workers as
they are awakened to the truth about their former
masters will welcome the new order as a vast
improvement over the old. Lenin said, as quoted by
Stalin: Communists believe that fascism is the final
state of capitalism, that when it falls, as it
must, it can be succeeded only by
communism.[15] They believe that our
attempt to democratize fascist Germany in the
western sense is as futile as to try to transform a
chicken into an egg or a butterfly into a larva.
They believe that Germany must pass through a
natural metamorphosis from nazism to communism, and
that when they help the process along they are
working in harmony with the inevitable course of
history . Walther Ulbricht, Director of the Communist
Party in Germany, whose wife was a secretary to
General Zhukov, and who was in Russia between 1933
and V-E Day, stated before a secret Berlin meeting
of the "Free German Trade Union's" 45-man executive
committee for the Soviet zone: Communism is fundamentally an attack against
private property and the propertied class. In the
Russian zone the process of stripping Germans of
their property has been accomplished by destruction
through war action, by looting, reparations,
inflation, confiscation, and by forced sales.
Meanwhile, liquidation of the property owning
classes has been completed by denazification,
forced labor, executions, and terror which has led
thousands to suicide and other thousands to turn
fugitive and thus to forfeit their holdings. We have already noted the thoroughness with
which the zone was sacked and looted, yielding
billions of dollars worth of lucre to Russia. The
other operations have been equally devastating.
Inflation, which destroys whole classes and eats
the very marrow out of the bones of any economy,
has been deliberately created. Russia's share of
the occupation marks which had been printed up in
advance by the U.S. Treasury was not enough. She
asked for the plates and after we turned them over
to her printed up and circulated untold billions
more. Finally, she opened the vaults of the
Reichsbank, its branches, and other banks and
seized their contents.[17] The resulting
inflation has yielded fabulous spoil at little or
no cost and at the same time helped to ruin and
expropriate the propertied class. The dispossessed German masses have been reduced
to prostrate, helpless, submissive proletarians.
Having lost all individual security, they are
utterly dependent upon their new masters for jobs,
food, and all other necessities. Since nothing is
supplied to critics and objectors, survivors are
submissive. Farmers, as stated before, were
stripped of equipment, tools, seeds, and livestock
during the early looting. To obtain replacements
necessary to carry on operations they must apply to
the "co-operatives" which are under communist
control and which use their monopoly to prevent
"politically unreliable" farmers from obtaining
essential supplies. Unless they submit, they must
abandon farming and give up their land. In this
fashion the way is opened wide for zonal
sovietization with minimum
interference.[18] Soviet authorities believe that the German
masses will enthusiastically accept the liquidation
of the propertied classes as liberation from
capitalistic exploitation. Carefully censored press
and radio assure them that the present painful
difficulties are only birth pains of a glorious new
order which had been blocked by the former upper
classes. In harmony with this thought, all schools
and universities that are operating teach the
Germans the advantages of communism and belittle
the western democracies as strongholds of fascism
and capitalistic exploitation, of wretched
imperialism and fomenters of imperialist wars. Such
ideas are taught the members of the Russian
sponsored, nationwide "Free Youth"
movement,[19] and thousands of children who
have been snatched from their families and placed
in special children's "Homes" for systematic
indoctrination.[20] Here is a sample of
what they are taught: The Soviets, according to their lights, are
making an effort to woo the Germans into acceptance
of communism and to minimize resentment. As already
noted, they have handled denazification with
comparative enlightenment. Scientists,
technologists, military experts, and others with
special talents have been eagerly sought after and
offered attractive inducements to render service to
the new regime. Penitent Nazis are invited to
transfer allegiance to the Communist Party and to
start working through it for German salvation.
Taking advantage of the deep resentment of the
French and Morgenthau proposals to amputate the
western Reich, Communists have taken the lead in an
intensely pro-Fatherland movement. This gives the
Germans the impression that the western democracies
who would stand in the way of "the new and greater
German Reich" are the real enemies, rather than
either nazism or communism.[22] Russian
occupation troops apparently no longer molest
frauleins, "at least not in the careless,
irresponsible way the Americans do," reports an
American correspondent.[23] It is
interesting to note in this connection that only
one man remains in the zone for every 15 women in
the 20 to 30 years of age bracket.[24] Hitler had freed the peasants of the scourge of
usurious mortgage holders; Russia goes a step
further in her bid for popular approval by breaking
up the Junker and other large estates and making
the land available in small plots of between 11 and
17 acres to approved Germans on easy
terms.[25] The operation does not increase
total production but appears to spread ownership.
The maneuver is obviously a preliminary to
collectivization similar to the procedure followed
in liquidation of the Ukrainian Kulaks. The new
"owners" are promised houses and equipment. Since
these are not available, the owners have no choice
but to band together in the existing estate
buildings, where collectivist headquarters must be
located. Collectivization can thus proceed a little
later with minimum disturbance, and the new
government can with ease slip into position to
exploit those who work the soil in place of the
former owners. All farmers are given production quotas to fill
at controlled prices. Part of any surplus, and
there rarely is one since the quotas are set so
high, may be sold in markets where those with the
money to buy, usually members of the new ruling
bureaucracy, can buy food to supplement rations,
which are nominally set at about the same level as
those in the American zone. The requisite supplies
are not always available in many places, however,
and widespread starvation has occurred.[26]
Persistent reports nevertheless tell of substantial
food exports to Russia.[27] However people
are allowed rationed brown coal for residential
heating,[28] whereas, as previously
mentioned, Berliners and those in the western zones
have had no coal to heat their homes. The industries left in the zone are all in
operation and are either managed by Russians or
"workers councils" dominated by Communists.
Although most of the product is taken as reparation
and sent to the Soviet Union, a small amount is
made available for sale to the German workers.
Correspondents permitted to tour the zone in March,
1946, reported that a long list of manufactured
products were on display, including carpenter
tools, typewriters, sewing machines, even
automobiles.[29] They reported that the
Germans they saw displayed less of an attitude of
futility and a more vigorous spirit than are
encountered in other zones.[30] Only one political party is allowed, the
Social Unity Party, representing a forced
merger of the Communist and Social Democratic
Parties, with the former completely dominant. Since
all positions carrying power, prestige, and higher
than ordinary incomes are held by Communists and
their pets, thousands of Germans have rushed into
the Party simply to gain its
perquisites.[31] The Germans are learning
spoils politics from their Red overlords on a scale
that would make a Tammany ward heeler
blush.[32] Even if Russia should be forced
to withdraw her occupation forces, with political
control returned to the Germans, the deeply
entrenched German Communists would no doubt
continue to maintain themselves in power and in all
probability provide the whole of Germany with
political leadership.[33] The way for ultimate communization of the
western areas is being assiduously prepared by
Communists in the western zones of
occupation,[34] many of whom have worked
their way into important posts in both the
occupation bureaucracies and the local governmental
establishments which have been set up to be run by
Germans under the watchful eye of the military
forces. Such communist penetration has
automatically been abetted by the Potsdam program,
by de-industrialization, de-nazification,
enslavement, repression, by the whole terrible
catastrophe. The roaming bands of vagabonds may be
a curse to the western zonal authorities, but they
afford the Communists excellent revolutionary
material. Since the institution of private property
and the propertied classes are now largely wiped
out, the way has been opened for converting the
whole Reich into a Sovietized "democracy." We have done much already to facilitate
realization of Russia's plans, and the Kremlin
expects us to do more. It wants us to accept the
Russian claim to 10 billion dollars in German
reparations, not only to produce handsome booty but
to place such a load on the crippled German economy
that it could survive only under
communization.[35] It is to Russia's
advantage to delay the signing of a peace treaty
with Germany as long as possible, for the delay
will give her plans that much longer to mature. And
if any German government is to be set up in the
meantime, Russia wants it to be a provisional,
centralized government, one that will give maximum
opportunity to the thoroughly entrenched Communists
to draw into their grasp controls over all of
Germany. The West has been slow to recognize that the
Russian ally is really no ally at all, but a
determined enemy, that behind the Kremlin's every
move lurks a sinister, dangerous motive. Our own
leaders were long caught under the influence of Mr.
Roosevelt's "great design," the strategy of trying
to cure the Soviet leaders of their suspicion,
animosity, and hatred of the West by showering them
with favors and kindness. While under the spell we
considered the truculent sons of Russia prodigals
just returning to the family of nations, and felt
it our duty to cater to their whims and
eccentricities, to overlook their insults and
stabs. We signed the Potsdam Declaration, without
suspecting that it was a Russian booby trap, that
its vague, contradictory, undefined provisions and
phrases could be applied by and yield advantage to
only a Soviet Union which thrives on human misery.
We shut our eyes to the vital difference between
our way of life and Russian communism. Because
Communists called their way "democracy," we assumed
it was somehow akin to our "democracy" and we
accepted in good faith Russia's wartime pretension
that she was finished with revolution both at home
and abroad, that her aggressions were nothing more
than moves to strengthen her "essential
security." We have had our clashes with the Russians both
in and out of Germany, have endured slaps and
humiliations such as Americans have never accepted
before. We have permitted our telephone lines
running through the Russian zone to our zone in
Berlin to be tapped. We have even put up with a
Russian refusal to supply our Berlin zone with
fresh food. We have bowed to Russian refusal to
permit us to double track our single rail line into
Berlin. We have had serious conflicts over
newspaper censorship, control of radio outlets and
programs, schools and school curricula, and a
multitude of things both important and trivial,
taking it all with a friendly smile when we had to
yield to Soviet demands. But finally we began to realize that such
tactics were impressing the Russians only as
weakness and to awaken to the menacing character of
Soviet designs. Mildly at first, but with growing
determination, we began to take a firmer stand, to
demand that our own interests be given some
attention. Our disillusionment was complete when
Mr. Molotov at Paris finally showed his hand. We
have been staggering to our senses ever since. We
must hope that the awakening has come in time to
prevent the Kremlin from absorbing the German
Reich. In the struggle we must recognize that Russia
will have certain advantages, apart from those
gained by our attempt to apply the sadistic Potsdam
decrees, including deep German resentment. The
Russian bureaucracy with its long experience in
managing economic institutions and processes has
found it relatively simple to take over control of
the German economy in its zone and is fully
prepared to extend the control over the rest of the
Reich when opportunity presents itself. On the
other hand, our own Government and especially our
military forces are notoriously incompetent in
handling economic affairs. Conditions reached
bottom early in the Russian zone, so that what
change has come has been for the better; whereas,
bad as things are in our zone, they must be
expected to become progressively worse. Germans
will not fail to note the contrast and to draw
dangerous conclusions. As stated before, the former
movement of Germans from the East to the West has
already reversed. Thousands of disillusioned,
discouraged Germans are crossing into the Russian
zone where they will enthusiastically prepare to
help drive the hateful democracies out of
Germany. We have numerous advantages, however, which, if
handled properly, should prove decisive. German
antipathy toward Russia and Bolshevism is
deepseated; in contrast, Germans have hitherto
always admired us Americans and have imitated us in
many ways, especially in economic techniques.
Russia has also compromised herself in fundamental
ways. She was behind the terrible expulsions of
Germans from the lost territories and other places.
She has been the instigator and chief beneficiary
of the slave system, having taken from three to
four times as many prisoners as all the western
powers together. Germans of all classes deeply
resent the cruel and violent liquidation of the
former upper and middle classes, especially because
it was carried out by foreigners and Communists
whose patriotism is suspect. Our task is to formulate a new and just German
peace program - one that will give effect to our
basic ideals and convictions and lead Germany
toward, not away from, us and our way of life. But
before we can take this step intelligently we must
first face certain basic facts, must disabuse our
minds of certain gross misconceptions which have
lowered us in German esteem and misled us into the
present danger. Reference Notes: |