the Americans. There is a distinction between anti-Russian and
anti-Communist. Communism has had few more bitter opponents than
Ernest Bevin or Herbert Morrison, two leaders in the post-war Labor
government. They represented elements of the movement which for decades
had been fighting in the unions and in the constituency parties to
prevent the Communists from winning control of the Trades Union
Congress and the Labor Party. But neither the leaders nor the led could
be called anti-Russian.
The war alliance with the Soviet Union meant far more to Britons than
the military co-operation between the Soviet Union and the United
States during the same period meant to Americans. The British attitude
was rooted in the situation of June 1941 when the Germans turned east
and attacked the Soviet Union.
The British had then been fighting the Germans and the Italians
single-handed for a year. Their cities had been bombed, their armies
and navies grievously punished in France, Norway, Libya, and Greece.
Each month the German submarines in the North Atlantic were bolder
and more numerous and the toll of shipping losses was higher. Most
Britons knew they had stout friends in the United States, but the wiser
also recognized the strength of isolationist sentiment. And, although
American industrial mobilization was gaining momentum, that would not
avert another Coventry tonight or another Dunkirk tomorrow.
Suddenly all this altered. Russia, which had sided with Germany for two
years and had gobbled up parts of Finland, Poland, and Romania as her
reward, was invaded. Overnight the British became willing to overlook
the despicable role Russia had played in the first two years of the
war. Here, at last, was an ally. An ally, moreover, that fought, that
was undergoing the same punishment Britain had known.
Naturally this warm admiration for the Russian war effort and this
sympathy for the Russian people offered an opportunity for the British
Communists, who exploited it to the utmost. Propaganda from the Soviet
Union portrayed life there in glowing terms. The British working class
was informed that this was a working-class war--a few months earlier
the Communists had been calling it a capitalist war--and that side by
side the British and Russian "brothers" would fight it to a successful
conclusion.
The propaganda would not have made much headway, however, had it not
been for the basic strain of admiration and sympathy which existed.
The decade of cold war which included the rape of Czechoslovakia, the
Berlin blockade, and the Korean war obviously altered the British
working-class attitude toward Russia. But some of the old wartime
feeling remained. It is there yet in the minds of the working class,
tucked behind the football scores and the racing tips: the Russians
didn't let us down, they went on fighting, they must be like us, they
can't want another war.
The changes in Soviet leadership and tactics since the death of Stalin
have affected the British approach to Russia and Communism. In Britain,
as elsewhere, the immediate danger has receded. The East is slowly
opening up. This means a great deal more to Britain than to the United
States.
Trade is the answer. The British want to expand their trade with the
Soviet Union and with China. Again, as in their diplomatic relations,
this does not mean that they approve of Communism in either country.
But they live by trade, and they must take it wherever they find it.
To British industrialists and British ministers the Soviet Union
and Eastern Europe represent a market for industrial products and a
possible source of raw materials. However, they are wary of Russian
methods of business. The initial approach has been circumspect. The
British do not wish to throw everything onto one market; they would
infinitely prefer an expansion of trade with the United States. Nor
will they sell to the Soviet Union one or two models of each type which
the industrious Russians can then mass-produce for themselves. Finally,
although Britain and other European nations are restive under embargo
restrictions on the sale of certain strategic goods, the Conservative
government has no intention of breaking these restrictions under the
encouragement of Mr. Khrushchev's smile.
The visits to Britain of a succession of delegations from the Soviet
government and of three top-ranking ministers--Nikita Khrushchev, First
Secretary of the Communist Party, Premier Nikolai Bulganin, and Deputy
Premier Georgi Malenkov--fanned British interest if not enthusiasm.
Much has been written about the effect of these visits on the British
public. Indeed, the faint hearts in Congress seemed to think that they
would result in the immediate establishment of a Communist regime in
Britain. But it appeared to many who had frequent contacts with "Krush
and Bulge," as the British called them, that the greatest effect
of the visit was on the Russians themselves. Like Malenkov before
them, the Communist boss and the head of the government encountered a
prosperous, vigorous democracy. To anyone accustomed to the crudity and
ugliness that express Russia's raw strength, industrial Britain was a
revelation. Here were huge, new, clean factories set in the midst of
comfortable towns enclosed by green fields and parks.
"We'll have all this one day in Russia," Khrushchev said to one of his
hosts. "But it takes time."
The British poured out to see the visitors. But it was symptomatic
of the maturity of public opinion that in London and the other great
cities, the Communists failed to generate any wild enthusiasm for the
Soviet leaders. On the contrary, they were met in most cases with
stolid, disapproving silence interspersed by volleys of boos.
Yet because the British were never so excited about the possibility
of war with the Soviet Union as were the Americans, there is and will
be in Britain greater willingness to accept the Russians at their own
valuation. Also, the British working class is far more interested in
the Soviet Union than American labor is.
To the American workingman there is nothing especially novel in
the description of huge enterprises breaking new ground in virgin
territory. Americans have been doing that sort of thing for a century.
But to the Briton, accustomed to an economy severely circumscribed by
the geographical limitations of his island, these Soviet enterprises
have the fascination of the unknown. So he marvels over the pictures
and the text in the magazines issued by the Russian and satellite
governments.
This propaganda is intended, naturally, to divert the reader's mind
from the innumerable cruelties that have accompanied the building
of the Soviet state by impressing him with a glowing account of the
results. Here, as elsewhere, the Russians underestimate their critics,
of whom the British workingman is one. People do not easily forget
cruelty, even if it has not been practiced on them.
"Certainly, I'm a trades-union man _and_ a good socialist," a printer
said to me during the Khrushchev-Bulganin visit. "That's why I 'ate
these bleeders. What they've done to the unions in Russia wants talking
abaht, chum. Know what I 'ates most about them? It's them arsing around
our country with a lot of coppers with them, the bleeders. We don't
want none of that 'ere."
Finally, we come to a factor of great importance in molding British
attitudes toward the Soviet Union. This is the large group of teachers,
writers, editors, movie-directors, and radio and television workers who
have been powerfully influenced either by Communism or by the results
of a Communist society in the Soviet Union. Proportionately, this group
is larger than its counterpart in the United States. It has never been
drastically reduced in numbers by the pressure of public opinion.
Outside of the "sensitive" departments of government, no great stigma
is attached to membership in the Communist Party in Britain.
Politically, Britain is deeply and justly concerned with the liberties
of the subject. Consequently, any discrimination by the government
against Communists evokes the wrath of politicians and public bodies
unconnected with Communism. This is true even when the government seeks
to eliminate a known Communist from a "sensitive" department. The
question is not whether Communism threatens Britain. The British know
that it does, and they are prepared to fight it. But Britain's place
in world society, it is reasoned, would be threatened even more if the
liberties of the subject were endangered. The view that only a truly
free society is capable of defeating Communism transcends party lines
in Britain.
It is important to remember that the powerful influence of Communism
on this heterogeneous group has affected it in two ways. Such people
as Malcolm Muggeridge, the editor of _Punch_, were once sympathetic to
Communism and are now among its best-informed and sharpest critics. In
Britain, as in the United States, there are apostates who have turned
from Communism and who now attack it. But their attacks, though often
brilliant, command less attention in Britain than in the United States.
This may be because the British never were so excited about the cold
war as we were in the United States (after all, they were grappling
with pressing economic problems). It may be because the British have
scant respect for those who betray causes and then make money out of it.
On the whole, however, the group influenced by the Soviet Union exerts
its influence to create friendlier relations between Britain and the
Soviet Union. In its attitude toward the United States this group is
sensitive, critical, and quite often abysmally ignorant.
The virtues and defects of the Soviet Union and the United States
thus are weighed in public by an influential group that has already
been tremendously impressed either by communism as a political creed
or by the industrial, military, or diplomatic achievements of the
Soviet state. They are receptive to news of Russia and, in many cases,
remarkably uncritical. Indeed, they are generally less skeptical and
critical in their approach to the Soviet Union than they are to the
problems of Germany or the United States. One of their favorite sayings
is "Let's try and keep an open mind about Russia."
In the battle for men's minds, this is a serious situation. It means
that a considerable proportion of what Britons read, of what young
Britons learn, of what the whole nation sees or hears through mass
communication media is prepared by people whose attitude toward Russian
claims and policies is less skeptical than it should be. On the other
hand, the danger has been exaggerated by anxious Americans.
Since 1950 these fields of endeavor have been invaded by a group of
young men and women much more favorably inclined to conservatism and
modern capitalism than the group influenced by Russia. Some of them
have been to the United States and are able to refute the anti-American
charges of the other group with first-hand knowledge. Most of them
developed intellectually in the period when the Russian danger
overshadowed Europe, and they are not prone to make excuses for the
Soviets.
Moreover, they are strongly influenced by the marked recrudescence
of national feeling in Britain. Perhaps this is a revulsion from
the internationalism of the group influenced by Russia. Perhaps it
reflects a desire to do something about Britain's waning prestige in
the world. Sometimes it indicates a new and welcome preoccupation with
the political possibilities of an enlarged Commonwealth. Whatever the
cause, it adds to the vitality of British thought. And it is healthy
for the country that its young people should be interested in British
development of nuclear energy rather than in Magnetogorsk or TVA.
The British attitude toward Communist China is unaffected by emotional
memories of a war alliance, as in the case of the Soviet Union, or the
sense of guilt regarding the conquest of China by the Communists which
affects some Americans. Chiang Kai-shek was never a public hero during
the war, as Tito and Stalin were. The London representatives of the
great Anglo-Chinese trading firms might portray Chiang as the hope of
the West in China, but the British people were not convinced.
Although the British military effort in the Korean war was considerably
larger than Anglophobes would have Americans believe, the war's effect
on the British was a good deal less. There has never been any sustained
public outcry against Britain's recognition of the Chinese government.
The danger of a Communist invasion of Formosa did not stir the British.
When such an invasion seemed likely, the Conservative government faced
a difficult situation: would the British people, in the event of war
between China and the United States, have followed the Americans into
the conflict?
The present British interest in Communist China is largely commercial.
No one entertains the happy belief that the Communist regime can
be overthrown--certainly not by Chiang and his aging forces. What
the British want from Comrade Mao is more trade. If they get it and
trade expands, the process will reflect not a national attraction to
Communism but a restatement of the familiar British position that
theirs is a trading nation which, in its present circumstances, must
find commerce where it can.
There would be no great opposition to China's entry into the United
Nations. Again, this would not reflect admiration for communism.
For many reasons the British doubt the effectiveness of the United
Nations. One reason is that a nation of over 500,000,000 people has no
representation in the UN's councils.
The relationship between the French and the British is a fascinating
one. For nearly a thousand years these two peoples have faced each
other across the channel. During that period, in Britain at least,
there has developed a curious love-hate relationship. By turns loving,
exasperated, and enraged, the British think of the French as a man
might think of an affectionate but wayward mistress.
In June of 1940, when the world between the wars was being shaken to
bits, the fall of France shocked and saddened the British as did no
other event of those terrible days. I remember that while waiting
in the Foreign Office, the morning after my return from France, I
saw an elderly official, a man with a brittle, cynical mind, walk
down the corridor with tears streaming down his face. There was no
recrimination. All he could say was: "Those poor people--God, how they
must be suffering!"
Few enemy actions during the war distressed the British as much as the
decision to attack the French fleet at Oran. Few post-war diplomatic
achievements gave them more pleasure than the re-establishment of the
old alliance with France. The rise and fall of French governments, the
convulsions of French politicians are watched in Britain sometimes with
anger and harsh words but never without an underlying sympathy.
Perhaps because of the alliance in two world wars or perhaps because
France offers such a complete change from their own islands, the
British know France very well, far better than they know the United
States or some nations of the Commonwealth. This is true of all classes
of Britons.
The elderly doctor or retired officer of the middle classes will spend
his holidays at an obscure resort on the coast of Brittany. Before the
war a Continental holiday was one of the indications of middle-class
status. Today the Continental holiday is within the financial reach of
the working class. The conductor on the bus I sometimes take to work
was full of his plans this spring for "me and the missus" to motorcycle
from Boulogne to the Riviera. Thousands like him tour France in buses
or spend vacations not in Blackpool but in a French seaside resort.
The national attitude ranges from tolerance to affection. I do not
believe, however, that the British respect the French as they do the
Germans or the Russians. The mutiny in the French Army in 1917, the
catastrophe of 1940, the Anglophobia of the Vichy government ended,
probably permanently, popular British reliance on France as a powerful
ally in world affairs. When the Suez crisis arose in 1956 and the
governments of Sir Anthony Eden and Guy Mollet hastened to reinvigorate
the alliance, their efforts awoke little response in Britain. "Now that
we're in this thing, we have to go on and win it," a friend said. "But
think of being in it with the French, especially these French--Mollet,
Pineau, and Bouges-Manoury." He made a sound more customary in Ebbets
Field than in a London club.
The British are amused by the French (the French, of course, are even
more amused by the British). Sometimes it seems that every Englishman
of a certain age and financial position has his own "secret" village
where the Hotel de la Poste provides a good dinner for five hundred
francs. Britons have great knowledge and affection for France born of
contact in two wars, but they do not rely on the French.
For other reasons the British hesitate to rely on the Germans. Two
generations of Britons have learned that the Germans are a tough,
resolute, and courageous people, characteristics admired in Britain.
But the British groups devoted to furthering friendship between the
two peoples are fighting a losing battle. There is among all classes
in Britain an underlying distaste for the Germans. This feeling is not
often expressed, but it is there, as it is in most countries in Western
Europe. The attitude is a factor in the relationship between Western
Europe and the key question facing the continent as a whole: Germany's
ultimate reunification.
The Germans, a singularly obtuse people in judging the reasons for
foreign attitudes toward Germany, are inclined to believe that British
mistrust is tied to the two world wars and the decline of British
power. This is inaccurate. British mistrust and dislike of Germany have
political rather than military roots. Both the Kaiser's imperialism of
1914 and Nazi imperialism in 1939 were seen not as overwhelming threats
to Britain alone but as dangers to the democratic system of the West
under which she had flourished. The horrors of the concentration camps,
the solemn lunacies of Hitler and his court, the death of personal and
political liberty--all these were factors more important than military
posturing. Finally, the British do not consider the Germans politically
stable, and they are suspicious--perhaps too much so--of German
ambitions and intentions.
Repeatedly this has affected British politics. The great pre-war debate
in foreign affairs was waged between those who, like Churchill, were
not willing to trust the Germans and those who, like Chamberlain,
were. Since the end of World War II the international political issue
that generated the most heat in Britain was the debate over the
rearmament of Germany. One effect of this debate was the emergence
of the Bevanites in the Labor Party as a political force. Aneurin
Bevan believed that German rearmament would unite the pacifists, old
anti-fascists, and others as no other issue could. He was correct. The
leadership of Clement Attlee was gravely endangered for a time when the
party officially supported arms for the nation's former enemies.
The State Department and other American officials have taken the
position that British opposition to German rearmament was the product
of wild-eyed agitators on the left and had no popular support. This was
an inaccurate, even a dangerous attitude. Field Marshal Lord Wavell
opposed it. So did Viscount Norwich, who as Alfred Duff Cooper had
allied himself with Churchill in the latter's long fight against the
appeasement policy of Chamberlain and Baldwin.
For the time being, the issue is dead. Germany is being rearmed. But
the excitement the issue provoked testified to the abiding British
uneasiness about Germany. This concern centers upon the prospect that
West Germany will someday succumb to Russian enticement, be united with
East Germany, and leave NATO. A permanently divided Germany may be a
danger to peace, but few Britons outside the Foreign Office see it that
way. Two wars have come out of a united Germany.
The attitude of the upper-class Englishman toward people of the same
class in Germany has altered since the war. Before World War I, and in
the long week-end between the wars, upper-class Germans and Britons
mingled a good deal. Ties of affection and respect were created. "I
can't stand this feller Hitler," you were told, "but I know old Von
Schlitz, and he's a first-rate chap. You can trust the Prussians."
But in the end Von Schlitz and his friends, with a few honorable
exceptions, threw in their lot with the Nazis. When the British see old
Von Schlitz nowadays they wonder what deceits, what cruelties, what
moral compromises he has countenanced to survive and prosper.
Seen from this background, the British acceptance of a Western policy
that rebuilt German industry into Britain's leading competitor for
export markets and created a strong state in the Federal Republic of
West Germany was a remarkable victory of the head over the heart. The
policy was accepted because the British saw that the Soviet Union under
Stalin was the greater, more immediate threat. Any relaxation of that
threat is bound to affect the British attitude toward Germany and her
ambitions.
The mutual affection of the British and the Italians was interrupted
but not broken by the second war. To a somewhat dour, unemotional
people the Italians and their land have an irresistible attraction.
Even when the war was at its worst the British regarded the Italians
with rueful perplexity: how could such an amusing, gracious people be
so deluded by Mussolini? Surely everything would be all right once
Mussolini was eliminated.
Characteristically, when he was eliminated many British objected to
the summary nature of his execution. They would not blink an eye when
military necessity required the destruction of the German city of
Kassel. But they did not like the picture of their old enemy, who had
vilified them and attacked them when it hurt the most, strung up by his
heels outside a gas station.
Now all is forgiven and almost forgotten. Each year the earnest
tourists pour southward to Rome, Florence, Venice. In the autumn they
come home to their fog-shrouded islands bringing with them memories of
long, sunny days.
The British attitude toward Italy and the Italians is symbolized by
their view of Italian Communism. They are not oblivious to the dangers
of Communism in Italy or elsewhere. But they find it difficult to
regard the Italians, communist, fascist, or republican, as serious
factors in world affairs. As only a few Italians seem to desire such a
position, and as the British are too polite to discuss the matter, all
goes well.
The traveling Briton has lost his old status in Europe. The British
tourist with his limited allowance of francs, marks, or lire is no
longer the "milord" of the nineteenth century. That role, with its
privilege of being the target for every taxi-driver's avarice, now
belongs to the Americans.
During the peak years of the cold war between 1945 and 1953, Western
Europe was threatened by military attack from Russia. The power to
whom the Europeans looked primarily was not Britain but the United
States. It is a disheartening reflection that, despite this military
dependence, successive American administrations failed to create the
reservoir of trust which would induce the nations of Western Europe to
accept our policies and follow our lead once the Russians altered their
tactics.