Stalin and Our Policy

March 16, 1953

The death of Stalin opened up wide possibilities. The most hopeful, (made unlikely by the quick appointment of Malenkov) was that it might have the same sort of dramatic sequel as the death of the Mongol Khan Ogdai in 1241. That sequel has been vividly described by Winston Churchill: “The chivalry and armed power of Europe was completely shattered by the Asiatic hordes. . . . It seemed that nothing could avert doom. . . . But at the critical moment something happened—the Great Khan died. The succession was vacant and the Mongol armies and their leaders trooped back on their ponies across the 7,000 miles which separated them from their capital in order to choose a successor. They never returned till now.”

The worst possibility is that Malenkov or those around him may decide that the best way to consolidate their power at home is to launch immediate aggressions abroad and to call for more “unity and vigilance.”

The probabilities, however, are favorable. History and the nature of the Russian despotism justify the hope that the would-be successors of Stalin, like the potential successors of Lenin and Caesar, will intrigue or war against each other.

But the consequences of Stalin’s death may depend much more on what we do about it than on what immediately happens in Russia itself. We have a tremendous opportunity. Much depends on whether we know how to exploit it.

We have missed almost every such opportunity in the past. By officially recognizing Stalin’s despotism we lost far more than we gained. In the war against Germany we had one opportunity after another to impose terms and conditions on Stalin, or to extract concessions or guarantees from him in return for the immense aid we were supplying. We missed them all. We continued to act as if we were mainly dependent on Stalin when he was mainly dependent on us. We bribed him to get into the Japanese war when there was no need for such a bribe. We surrendered more principles to get him into the United Nations, when we should have done far better to keep him out. The one real act of the United Nations against aggression—in Korea—was possible only because Stalinist Russia had made the mistake of a temporary walkout.

If Stalin is gone, the Communist ideology remains. Our chief task is still to know how to combat it. Neither the Roosevelt nor the Truman Administrations gave any evidence that they knew how. They not only tried to appease Russia, but they showed constant sympathy for anticapitalistic ideas and measures both abroad and at home. At home they encouraged monetary inflation, which is the kind of heady stimulant that undermines and can eventually destroy private enterprise and the free market. Truman in effect supported Iran in its breach of contract with the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. and its seizure of the properties. He openly espoused the socialist “principle of nationalization.” He even offered American aid to Mossadegh, the weeping, pajama-clad dictator, to help him finance the oil seizure.

Our policies in recent years have rather consistently encouraged such foreign “nationalization”—i.e., expropriation with inadequate compensation or none at all. Our representatives abroad have encouraged and even demanded so-called “land reforms” that violate all the principles of private property, demoralize production, and are hardly distinguishable from Communist land seizures.

In brief, the ideology fashionable in Washington and Europe in the last twenty years has favored the doctrine that the way to combat Communism is to compromise with it or to imitate it. If this doctrine persists, even the present opportunity may be lost. We can combat the ideology of Communism only with the ideology of freedom. Right principles will dictate right policies and right tactics vis-à-vis the Communist menace. President Eisenhower, unbound by the ideology of his last two predecessors, has a golden chance to use the death of Stalin to restore hope and peace and honor in the world.