Moscow's Views of American Imperialism

Abstract

IN I945, Soviet Russia, the ally of the United States and Great Britain in World War II, became their partner in the newly established United Nations. For a very brief period it appeared that cooperation between the non-Communist and Communist camps had become a reality, and that efforts to modify the attitude of Soviet leaders to non-Soviet ideology had proved successful. Soon, however, the non-Communist world was shocked and puzzled by Soviet behavior. Every attempt of the democratic powers to stabilize the world was bitterly assailed by Moscow. Such projects as the Marshall Plan and the proposed federation of Europe, were denounced by Soviet representatives in the United Nations and by the Soviet press. An outstanding example of this tendency was Moscow's reaction to the Marshall Plan. Speaking at Harvard in 1947, General Marshall had defined the Plan in the following words: Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine, but against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos. Its purpose should be the revival of a working economy in the world so as to permit the emergence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist. Such assistance must not be on a piecemeal basis. Any assistance that this Government may render in the future should provide a cure rather than a mere palliative. Whereupon, a well-known Soviet historian presented the Communist views on the above plan by stating: Two camps have come to exist in the post-war world: one camp which is imperialist and anti-democratic, aiming at the establishment of world hegemony of the U.S.A., and the strangulation of democracy; the other camp which is anti-imperialist, democratic, aiming at true democracy, the uprooting of imperialism, and the liquidation of the remnants of fascism. author then went on to hurl his accusations against the United States in particular: The chief center of international reaction, and the chief pretender for world domination is at present the monopoly capitalism of the U.S.A. In exchange for the traditional American isolationism now come the doctrines of Truman