Ext 6116/46(S) 'Secret Weekly Political Intelligence Summaries, nos 356-416, August 1946-November 1947' [‎17v] (34/978)

Stafford of introducing measures calcu
lated to increase unemployment by 100,000,
in accordance with the theory of bourgeois
economists, who sometimes “‘let slip”
their interest in unemployment as a source
of cheap labour. Monopolists, it was
alleged, supported unemployment as a
means of controlling labour and safeguard
ing their profits. Labour Ministers are
carrying out this policy, it was alleged, on
behalf of monopolists but against the
interests of the working class.
Zhdanov’s Report to the Conference of
Communist Parties in Poland at which the
“ Cominform ” was launched occupied two
whole pages of Pravda on the 22nd Octo
ber. Zhdanov’s speech contains the
essence of Soviet propaganda for the past
two years and is even blunter and more
compromising than the Manifesto itself. It
should be taken as a considered statement
of Soviet foreign policy designed for
the widest circulation. The main topic
was, of course, American aggressive
imperialism, which is dealt with in all the
four sections into which the report is
divided. The report opened and closed
wdth Munich, with the U.S.A. new cast
throughout for the role of Germany in
1938. The first section, covering the post
war world situation in general, stressed
the hopes which the world imperialists,
especially in Great Britain, France and the
U.S.A., had cherished that Germany might
be strong enough to destroy the Soviet
Union and the revolutionary workers’
movement. They had concluded the
Munich Agreement in this hope, but the
course of the war had shattered it. The
U.S.A. had only entered the war when the
issue was already pre-determined and had
emerged from it stronger than ever. The
Americans were now engaged in a feverish
armaments race and search for bases
“ extremely reminiscent of the adventurist
programme of the Fascist aggressors.”
The second section, dealing with the
formation of two rival political camps
since the war, is of interest for including
Indonesia and Vietnam in the “ demo
cratic Eastern camp ” and for describing
India, Egypt and Syria as “ sym
pathisers.” During the war, according to
Zhdanov, the reactionary circles of Great
Britain and the U.S.A. had not dared to
come out openly against democracy; the
turning-point was described as the Berlin
Three Power Conference of July, 1945.
Since the war Anglo-American diplomacy
had consistently repudiated the principles
of post-War organisation proclaimed by
the Allies, e.g., in the United Nations
debates on reduction of armaments and
Greece, whereas the U.S.S.R. had engaged
in a “ systematic and persistent day-to-
day struggle for the democratic bases of
international co-operation.” Zhdanov once
again made the point that Soviet foreign
policy proceeded from the fact of the ^|-
existence ‘ ‘ for a long period of two
systems, capitalism and socialism, from
which flowed the possibility of co-operation
between the U.S.S.R. and countries of other
systems, provided the principle of reci
procity in the fulfilment of pledges was
observed. While, however, the U.S.S.R.
had always been loyal to its pledges, Great
Britain and the U.S.A. were following in
the United Nations an exactly opposite
policy of setting one people against
another and isolating the U.S.S.R. As
regards Germany, whereas the Soviet
Union was against a policy of revenge on
defeated peoples and stood for the creation
of “ an united, peace-loving demilitarised
democratic Germany,” Great Britain and
the U.S.A. were preparing to disrupt the
democratisation of Germany, to liquidate
her as an independent State and to “ solve
the question of peace separately.”
The third section on the American plan
for the enslavement of Europe attacked the
Truman and Marshall plans on familiar
lines, and made the usual charges against
the Americans of organising a Western
bloc and being engaged in military and
economic expansion. Zhdanov once more
reiterated the well-worn Soviet thesis that
the claims of the Western Powers to be
democratic because they advocated a system
of many parties and an organised opposi
tion was complete nonsense. “ In their
political ignorance ” they did not realise
that there were no longer antagonistic
classes in the U.S.S.R., and that there
could therefore be no multiplicity of
parties.
Russia’s rejection of the Marshall plan
was again explained, but Zhdanov main
tained that the Soviet Government never
objected to taking advantage of foreign
even of American credits, though such
credits must be free from enslaving condi
tions and they should never be the main
means of restoring a country. The
economic relations of the Soviet Union
with other States were described as based
on “ the principle of equality and
guaranteeing advantages for both sides.”
Her recent trade treaties with the coun
tries of Eastern Europe were illustrations
of this principle and “ Britain also could
have had a treaty of this kind if the
Labour Government had not, under