[introduction.]

p Analysis of the events which climaxed in the Second World War is more often than not reduced to a mere recounting of the foreign policy actions and diplomatic activities of different countries in the period between the two great wars. Significantly, the problems of internal policy are merely touched upon, while those of the economy and ideology, with a few exceptions, are largely ignored. Besides, the pre-Munich part (1919-1938) of the period between the two wars is given fairly perfunctory treatment compared to the years (1938-1939) immediately 30 following the Munich agreement. This betrays a tendency to leave the .actual causes of war and the process of its gestation outside the pale of serious historical study.

Let us take a look at some assessments by bourgeois historians of the major events that took place between the two wars.

Treaty of Versailles

p Most bourgeois historiographers take a critical, albeit one-sided, view of the Treaty of Versailles. The American historian Telford Taylor sees the shortcomings of the treaty in that it was "heavy enough to block a healthy evolution of Franco-British policy toward Germany, but impotent to check the mood and muscle of the Third Reich."  [30•1  At the same time he contends that the Treaty of Versailles could have played its role if it had been "streamlined" to suit the changing situation in Europe. It was modified on the economic plane (cancelling of reparations), but in other respects-military and territorialeverything remained unchanged, which caused Hitler to take "unilateral" action. "Fearful of the consequences of relaxing them [provisions], France gradually lost the will and eventually the strength to enforce them.”  [30•2  Taylor avoids any straightforward assessment of the treaty.

p Reactionary literature in the FRG basically tries to justify Germany’s refusal to honour its commitments under the treaty. It condones the revision of this treaty by force and the aggressive policy of Nazi Germany. Heinrich Hartle contends that Germany rejected the Treaty of Versailles and took the road of remilitarisation, just because it was compelled to "strengthen its defences", ’lo "protect its frontiers" in view of the alleged "SovietFrench threat"  [30•3 

p More and more books on the Treaty of Versailles are being written in all the capitalist countries that took part in the First World War, especially in France, the FRG, Britain and the United States. The common intent of all these writings is to prove that the Treaty of Versailles was "unfair", particularly to Germany. What is the ulterior motive of this contention?

p On January 18, 1919, with pomp and circumstance and in a blaze of publicity, the victorious allies in the First World War met at Versailles to work out conditions for a postwar settlement. Present at that conference were 27 nations which had been at war with the Central Powers (Germany, Austro-Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria) or had severed diplomatic relations with Germany during the war. However, those who were actually to decide the shape of things to come were, of course, Britain, France and the United States. Germany and her former allies in the war were not allowed to the conference table, Soviet Russia was also suspended from participation, although it was Russia that had borne the brunt of the war and had virtually saved Britain and France from defeat in 1914-1916. The highest priority at the talks in Versailles was given to the so-called Russian question, i.e., the struggle against the young socialist state. The Paris Peace Conference had, to all intents and purposes, become the chief organiser of armed intervention against Soviet Russia.   [31•1 

p On June 26, 1919, the Versailles peace treaty was signed thus formally ending the First World War. The main body at the conference was the Council of Four made of President Wilson of the United States, Prime Minister Clemenceau of France, Prime Minister Lloyd George of Britain, and Prime Minister Orlando of Italy.

p The system of Versailles legally formalised the plunder, dependence, poverty and hunger of millions of people, the enslavement, as Lenin put it, of the "seven-tenths 32 of the world’s population".  [32•1  The Versailles system grew out of the desire of the victor countries to re-carve the map of Europe at the expense of defeated Germany and her allies, to gain access to new markets and raw material resources, and acquire new colonies and new spheres of influence. The main goal of that system was to replace German hegemony in Europe with Anglo-French hegemony, to tip the balance of forces in favour of Britain, France and the United States. Moreover, the victors sought to turn Germany into a tool to destroy, or at least weaken, the Soviet Russia. Thus the Versailles documents reflected also the fundamental contradictions of the general crisis of capitalism-those between the capitalist and the socialist systems. "This is no peace, but terms dictated ... by armed robbers,"  [32•2  Lenin wrote in those days.

The entire history of the treaty of Versailles, from the time it was signed down to the beginning of the Second World War, was an uninterrupted record of erosion of the Versailles system, which gradually degenerated into efforts by the Western nations to prod Germany towards aggression against the USSR.

Policy of Appeasement
the Intent and the Outcome

p Bourgeois authors spotlight certain events in the run-up to the Second World War, such as the seizure of the Rhineland by Germany, of Ethiopia by Italy, Japanese aggression in the Far East, also the civil war in Spain. But all these events were as a rule tied up with the policy of "appeasement" which, they maintain, Britain and France pursued in Europe, and the United States in the Far East.

p Let us take a look at this concept of appeasement as treated by bourgeois historians, since this is especially 33 important for understanding the causes of the Second World War.

p “Appeasement, is a technique of diplomacy. With eithei a balance of power or preponderance of power, conciliation can adjust ambitions and rivalries, compensate change, and maintain international equilibrium and harmony among states."  [33•1  The allegation that the policy of appeasement of Nazi Germany was aimed at maintaining peace is central in bourgeois historical thought which follows a definite pattern: Germany was the aggressor, unfairly cut off by the Treaty of Versailles, while Britain, France and the United States were the nations which sought to achieve peace and equilibrium in Europe. The authorship of the policy of appeasement is imputed to the British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George. "Lloyd George hoped the peace would endure long after the memories of the war had faded, and he therefore warned against a treaty of humiliation."  [33•2 

p This interpretation of appeasement is remarkable in that it reveals the purpose of the Western powers to strengthen the German Reich and conceals the counterrevolutionary, anti-Soviet nature of this policy.

p American historian Laurence Lafore begins his fundamental study of the period between the two wars with the Locarno talks in 1925 which produced the first postVersailles international treaties between the imperialist states that envisioned Germany’s aggression to the East.  [33•3  He writes, in the face of the well-known facts, that "the British aim was to extend the Locarno principle to every 34 frontier in Europe". This aim remained unrealised allegedly owing to "the erroneous assumption that Hitler regarded treaties in the same way that Simon did".  [34•1  What the author calls "depersonified" history later breaks up into a gamut of personal views and personally-motivated actions. "The execution of Barthou’s  [34•2  policy now fell into less honest hands. His successor, Pierre Laval, was unscrupulous and deeply suspicious of the Soviet Union,”  [34•3  he writes. The authors of the Appeasement of the Dictators, mentioned earlier, put a slightly different interpretation on the Locarno Pact and its consequences. "Locarno was a great illusion. The most controversial section of the Treaty of Versailles was not settled," they lament. "Locarno acknowledged the right of revision. It was a victory for Germany. Great Britain and France plainly could not agree.... France held to a strict interpretation of the Treaty of Versailles. Britain showed willingness to disregard Eastern Europe as a sphere of interest."  [34•4 

p It is easy to see that the authors are past-masters at verbal sleight-of-hand. The hopes that were placed on a German invasion of the USSR, took the form of Britain’s willingness to give up its interests in Eastern Europe. At the same time this assessment of the Locarno Pact admits the fact that British imperialism was the real instigator and in fact the brain behind Germany’s preparations for its Eastern campaign.

p The responsibility that the capitalist monopolies bore 35 for the war. preparations is carefully camouflaged and nothing is said about the activities in this direction carried out by various financial and industrial groupings which engineered military and political programmes. Defying historical facts the authors claim that "the name ’Cliveden Set’  [35•1  was misleading and there is not the slightest evidence of such’an Anglo-German conspiracy".  [35•2 

p There are many documents refuting this thesis. One of them is a fairly little known report of the German ambassador in London, which clearly shows that Hitler Germany relied on Britain as the main international force in its preparations for war. In March 1935, the German ambassador sent this message to Berlin: "Now that the Reich Government’s bold and clear-sighted policy has achieved de facto equality of rights for Germany in the sphere of armaments on land, it will be the task of German statesmanship ... to complete this great achievement... The key to a satisfactory solution is held by Britain.”  [35•3 

p Many Western historians avoid reference to such documents, since their aim is to exonerate the appeasement policy and actually to invest it with a certain positive content. Dwight E. Lee (USA), for example, claims that this policy was directed at removing the injustice of the Treaty of Versailles with regard to Germany  [35•4 . HansAdolf Jacobsen (ERG) contends that "the British and the French were trying to maintain peace at all costs".  [35•5  36 Keith Eubank (USA) who pretends to the role of a pioneer in the interpretation of the causes of the Second World War believes that the activities .of Chamberlain and his entourage "are not without merit".  [36•1  Proceeding from the fatalistic thesis that war could not be averted, Eubank puts out his version that the "appeasers" took no military sanctions against Germany because "this superiority [over Hitler’s forces] was not ... obvious to the men who had the responsibility for making decisions".  [36•2  He does not deny that the main vehicle of the policy of appeasement was Britain, but since his task is to whitewash the ruling circles responsible for this policy, its class roots do not bother him much. "Englishmen who looked with favor on the German educational system, on German industrial development, and on German social legislation became appeasement-minded. There was no one man or group of men who can be considered responsible for appeasement,"  [36•3  he writes. In the final analysis this American historian is trying to place the blame on the British and French peoples for the inaction of the British and French ruling circles in the face of the initial aggressive acts by the Germans. "It would have been an arduous-if not an impossible-task to arouse the British and French peoples to fight a war over German soldiers occupying German territory" (reference is to the capture of the Rhineland.-^M^or)  [36•4 .

p Lafore provides a rather strange explanation for the next act of the appeasement policy: the encouragement of the seizure in 1936 of Ethiopia by fascist Italy. "His [Mussolini’s] attempts to get Ethiopia led foreigners [sic] to try to outlaw him as an aggressor, and this attempt led in turn to a German-Italian understanding that undermined all future attempts to’stop Hitler’."  [36•5  The American historians question the very right of the Ethiopian people 37 to defend the territory of their country, suggesting that the war broke out over some oasis captured by the Italians several years before and situated in a godforsaken desert.  [37•1 

George W. Baer, Henderson B. Braddick (USA) and some other historians are trying to find out why the Western powers failed to achieve an amicable agreement with Italy at the expense of Ethiopia before Italy took military action. According to Baer, the true reason was Britain’s adherence to the principle of "defensive isolationism”.  [37•2  He wrote that "the British government wanted to keep Italy’s friendship.... Simon had no special love for Ethiopia, and he did not want to oppose Mussolini. He feared that British resistance would bring about the Duce’s fall and leave Italy open to the Bolsheviks".  [37•3  The "red menace" was one of the most persistent stereotypes of bourgeois historiography. Braddick adhered to a somewhat different point of view. Commenting on the Hoare-Laval compact betraying Ethiopia to the Italian aggressors in December 1935, he admits that the agreement "placed a premium on Fascist aggression in Ethiopia."  [37•4  Referring to documents and memoirs, Braddick concludes that British policy was largely responsible for Italy’s attack on Ethiopia, since Britain had "straddled" Ethiopia in violation of the agreement of 1906 which had pronounced Ethiopia an Italian sphere of influence. "By the end of 1934, the Italians believed that British influence in the country was becoming so powerful that within a few years they might virtually be forced out."  [37•5  Timid though he was in this, Braddick sought a connection between the policy of Italy’s 38 appeasement and the interests of the British monopolies. "The identity of such interests can only be the subject of speculation. But it may be noted that the International Petroleum Cartel, which had controlled roughly 75 per cent of the Italian market since 1928, would certainly be apprehensive about the upsetting effects of an oil sanction.”  [38•1 

Germany Throws Down the Gauntlet

p On March 7, 1936, Germany brought its troops into the demilitarised Phineland in contravention of the treaties of Versailles and Locarno. A 30,000-strong German army captured the area without so much as a show of resistance from the Western allies. The capture of the Rhineland was the first aggressive act by Nazi Germany carried out with the use of force and directed specifically against France.

p This aggressive act by the Nazis did not escape the attention of a single Western historian. Most of them (except for the neofascists) denounced Germany’s actions in one way or another. But their main efforts in the direction of appeasement are aimed at vindicating the policy of Britain and France in the face of German aggression, and exonerating their inaction by a desire to preserve peace and to ward off the "red menace". The Encyclopedia Americana, for example, writes that "Hitler remilitarized the Rhineland in 1936. It was a dangerous venture, for Britain and France could have overwhelmed Germany, but, resolved to keep the peace, they took no action."  [38•2  Lafore puts out essentially the same version by agreeing with the views of the French government ministers in the days of the crisis. In his words, they believed that should France have given an armed rebuff this would have "opened the prospects of both a Franco-German 39 war and a German civil war, leading perhaps to either military dictatorship or to communism."  [39•1 

p The question of correlation of forces in the period of the "Rhineland crisis" is a subject for extensive discourse. Unlike the authors of the article in The Encyclopedia Americana, Lafore, for one, claims that Chief of the French General Staff Maurice Gamelin was in possession of information that Germany had one million troops and that one-third of this number had been dispatched to the Rhineland.  [39•2  He is rather doubtful about Britain’s ability to wage war.  [39•3  Actually, Britain and France had a combined superiority over Germany in armed forces, the use or non-use of which depended on politicallymotivated decisions.

p Bourgeois historians to this day use the old fact-twisting technique of putting the blame upon the peoples and not on their governments which are truly responsible for the criminal policy of encouraging the invaders. We shall see more evidence of this later in this account. This device is often used with regard to the peoples of France and Britain whose governments ostensibly made concessions because the peoples wanted to avoid a conflict with Germany. "The majority of citizens ... feared war more than anything else, and ... thought wisdom and restraint and good intentions could avert it," writes Lafore.  [39•4  Keith Eubank puts the problem still more bluntly: "Opponents of appeasement raised the argument that war should have been started by the Western powers early in the Hitler era when Germany was not yet fully prepared. But the public in Britain and France simply would not have supported such a conflict. People were unwilling to wage war until Hitler forced it on them by attacking Poland."  [39•5  Anti-war sentiment in Britain and France was very 40 high, and the working people in these countries demanded that the aggressor be curbed. Suffice it to recall that the programme of the popular front in France sponsored by the Communist, Socialist, Radical, and Republican Socialist parties and overwhelmingly supported by the French working people, had as one of its main provisions the conclusion of a treaty of mutual assistance between states in the struggle against aggression.  [40•1 

p Most of the Western historians conclude that the occupation of the Rhineland by German troops was a crucial point on the road to the Second World War. Commenting on Britain’s refusal to honour its obligations under the treaties of Versailles and Locarno, Lafore, nevertheless, speaks approvingly of the British ruling circles who showed understanding of Hitler’s anxiety over the "encirclement by Franco-Bolshevism”  [40•2 . Many retrospective analyses by Western historians treat the Rhineiand crisis in a way that would discredit the policy of safeguarding peace in Europe which the Soviet Union was consistently pursuing at the time. They draw certain historical analogies in order to give an adverse interpretation to the process of normalisation in the Soviet Union’s relations with France, the FRG, and other European capitalist states.

p An important element in the prewar complex of events is the "Spanish problem", the Civil War in Spain in 1936-1939- However, most Western analysts, far from disclosing the organic link between the origins of the Civil War in Spain and the preparations by international imperialism for another world war, assiduously try to whitewash fascist aggression and vindicate the Western policy of non-interference. To begin with, they attribute to the instigators of the fascist coup motives that would seem to justify the actions that followed. According to Lafore, they sought to "save the proud name of Spain and the security of the privileged classes from the threat 41 of social change".  [41•1  The invasion of Spain by Nazi Germany and fascist Italy is interpreted not as the result of aggressive and counter-revolutionary plans and of the reactionary imperialist policy of these states which were encouraged by the ruling quarters of Britain, France and the USA, but as the result of Mussolini’s "mixture of impetuosity and a sort of cynicism which was as often as not based on unrealities”.  [41•2 

p This encouragement of fascist aggression is interpreted, like in the case of the seizure of the Rhineland, as the desire of Britain, France and the USA to preserve peace. "Blum (the head of the French government-Author) himself understood clearly enough the nature of the Fascist and Nazi regimes.... He believed, however, that any policy of open support for the Spanish Republic might well cause ... a general war in Europe.”  [41•3 

p Lafore draws two conclusions from the events in Spain: first, Italy and Germany gave the whole world "a show of overwhelming strength",  [41•4  secondly, it was Britain, or more precisely, the Chamberlain government that was calling the tune in European politics, since it "has made agreement with Germany one of the major points of its program".  [41•5 

p The first conclusion does not hold water, because at that time, and especially in 1936-1938, Germany and Italy were weaker, both militarily and economically, than Britain and France. As for the second conclusion, the American historian, in pointing out the leading role of the British ruling circles in endearing Hitler Germany to Britain, passes over in silence the goals that the proposed agreement was expected to achieve, and fails to mention the countries at whose expense it was to be concluded.

p Another typical feature of the interpretation of the appeasement policy by bourgeois historians is their vague 42 conclusions or even a mere listing of aggressive acts. An official account of the Second World War prepared by the Office of the Chief of Military History of the United States Army offers the following interpretation of the developments that preceded the outbreak of the Second World War; "The German annexation of Austria in March 1938 followed by the Czech crisis in September of the same year awakened the United States and the other democratic nations to the imminence of another great world conflict. The new conflict had already begun in the Far East when Japan had invaded China in 1937."  [42•1 

p The seizure of Austria by the Nazis is more often than not mentioned as a fait accompli, or as the expression of the will of the Austrian people.  [42•2  The entire history of Anschluss which had been forbidden by the Treaty of Versailles, is given but very scanty treatment even in such a highly specialised study as Appeasement of the Dictators, devoted wholly to the diplomatic aspects of the German policy of the Western powers in 1933-1938. The only passing mention on this point comes from Henderson Braddick, who says that Nazi penetration into Austria was regarded in London as a factor that "would accentuate Italian dependence on England".  [42•3 

p However, every time an attempt is made to justify the inaction of Britain, France and the United States vis-a-vis Nazi expansion, the selfsame "argument of fear" comes into play. "Europe was stunned, but no country dared risk war to compel Germany’s withdrawal,"  [42•4  reads an official American publication.

p William L. Shirer, who is more critical of the British and French position on the question of the Anschluss, 43 points out that alongside the strategic and economic dividends which the aggressors had from the seizure of Austria, "perhaps most important to Hitler was the demonstration again that neither Britain nor France would lift a finger to stop him".  [43•1  This statement, however, is misleading. Fingers were lifted, and all possible strings pulled, only it was to support fascist aggression. Here is a typical example. Soon after the seizure of Austria by Nazi Germany, the French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet met the German Ambassador Johannes von Welczeck (May 25, 1938). Georges Bonnet "emphasised that the French government highly appreciates the sincere efforts being undertaken by the German government for the benefit of peace (sic)...”.  [43•2  In those days the governments of Britain, France, Germany and Italy were, with American support, hatching a new crime against peace: the Munich collusion over the division of Czechoslovakia. That opened the way for the fascist advance on the East and the outbreak of the Second World War.

p The veil of silence over the actual goals of the policy of appeasement is raised very rarely. For example, Braddick makes the following remark to the effect that having "protected" themselves with a naval agreement with Germany  [43•3  the British ruling quarters thought that the "German dynamism" should now be channelled to the east and the southeast.  [43•4  The French historian Jean-Baptiste Duroselle writes: "Rampant anti-communism in France, the French government’s fear of losing its lesser allies in 44 the East did their job. Franco-Soviet relations were rapidly deteriorating."  [44•1 

p What should Anglo-French policy have been, according to bourgeois historians? Remarkable in this respect is Baer"s point of view on the Italo-Ethiopian conflict. He believes that Mussolini should have been appeased either "by the peaceful cession of territory in east Africa, parts of Ethiopia or British Somaliland, or by the peaceful economic penetration of Ethiopia with British and French cooperation"  [44•2 . In other words, the policy of encouragement of the fascist aggressors was quite in order. The qualified criticisms by these historians of the policy of abetment are limited to certain aspects and even these are modified by suggestions for what would have been more "rational" solutions. Whatever they write about, be it the seizure of Austria by the Nazis, or Japan’s aggression in China, or any other acts of aggression, their logic does not go beyond the interests and goals of the ruling quarters of the conflicting imperialist groupings. The d.estinies of the people seems to be the least concern of these historians. This is the first typical feature of bourgeois historiography. The second feature is its anti-Sovietism.

p There is not a single event in prewar international affairs that reactionary historians did not try to attribute to "Moscow’s scheming", and to use as a pretext for casting doubts on the efforts of the USSR to curb fascist aggression.

p For example, the SovL Union put in - a great deal of effort to safeguard the independence of Austria, which the Nazis eventually seized in March 1938- Back in the autumn of 1937, the Soviet newspaper Pravda wrote: "The preservation of Austria’s independence calls for a swift and ^united action by all countries interested in assuring European security. Only these actions can hold back the aggressor and prevent the creation of a new hotbed of war."  [44•3  The Austrian historian Wilfried Aichinger 45 claims that the Soviet Union’s efforts to prevent Austria’s annexation failed because the USSR had isolated itself in the international arena by its policy bent on "world revolution".  [45•1 

p What was the real situation? The Soviet government never recognised the seizure of Austria in whatever form. The Soviet Union was the only great power to brand with shame this act of aggression and again called for collective efforts to stem the onsjaught of German nazism, to forestall the Nazi-fostered menace of a new world war., "To-morrow it may already be late, but today there is still time for all nations, and especially the great powers, to take a firm and unequivocal stand on the problem of saving peace by collective effort," the Soviet government declared on March 17, 1938.  [45•2  Austria lost her independence at that time not because the USSR "sought to accomplish a world revolution" but because Britain, France and the United States did not heed the warning from the Soviet Union and, in fact, pretended that they did not even notice that a whole European state had vanished from the map. It was Britain, France and the United States that openly encouraged Nazi Germany to swallow up independent Austria.

The Soviet Union alerted world-wide opinion against the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, gave all possible assistance, including military, to China in its fight against the Japanese invaders, and to republican Spain in its war against the fascist insurgents and the Italo-German aggressors.

Munich Capitulation Triggers off War

p The current interpretation of the Munich agreement signed by Britain, France, Germany and Italy with American approval, is angled to make the Soviet Union seem to 46 be responsible for the capitulation of the Western "democracies". The compiler of materials of that period in a book called Munich concedes that the very word "Munich" "has apparently become firmly fixed in our vocabulary as a symbol of shameful surrender to the bullying tactics of an aggressor".  [46•1  He admits that according to a widely accepted opinion, the British and French governments "deliberately planned or plotted the Munich settlement in order to turn Hitler eastward towards Soviet Russia".  [46•2  However, most of the authors of the book disagree with this view. The arguments used by these historians are utterly untenable, and their inventions about the Soviet Union being ultimately responsible for the conclusion of the Munich deal boil down to the allegation that the Soviet government had not informed the Czechoslovak government "in time" that it was prepared to honour the Soviet-Czechoslovak treaty and to render Czechoslovakia military assistance in the event of Nazi aggression. For example, Eubank says that the Soviet government replied to President Benes on this question after the expiry of the Anglo-French ultimatum presented to Czechoslovakia.  [46•3  Duroselle takes a more critical view of the Munich deal. He writes: "The enthusiasm over the rescue of peace very soon fizzled out even in those who supported Munich.... And just as soon, the majority of the French people woke up to the fact that France had capitulated." He calls Soviet policy "enigmatic" because, in his words, "when the crisis was at its peak the Soviet position was on the whole clear, although it was still anybody’s guess as to how the Czechs could possibly be assisted."  [46•4 

p Let us recall some facts in the history of that period. The inquiry that Benes made on September 19 was studied by the Central Committee Political Bureau of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and a reply 47 message sent to BeneS in Prague the next day. The Soviet Union stated that it was prepared to render assistance to Czechoslovakia even if France defaulted on its commitments.  [47•1 

p The decisive events related to the Munich deal occurred in late September, when BeneS already knew the Soviet government’s position. "I never doubted, even for a moment, that the Soviet Union would, if necessary, give us assistance in one way or another,"  [47•2  he wrote later.

p George F. Kennan referred to the Munich pact as "the cession to Germany of ... areas of predominantly Germanspeaking population..."  [47•3  He also comes up with the version that if the USSR really wanted to help Czechoslovakia, it would have needed "approximately three months"  [47•4  to dispatch just one division. Such assessments do not hold water since by that time the Soviet aimed forces were able to airlift large and small army units over long distances.

p Loyal to its solidarity with the working people of Czechoslovakia and to its commitments under the SovietCzechoslovak treaty, the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the Soviet Government put the Soviet armed forces on full alert in order to render armed assistance to the Czechoslovak people. A large number of troops were moved to the western borders of the USSR. On September 28, four air force brigades (eight air force regiments) totalling 548 aircraft were readied for dispatch to Czechoslovakia, of which the French military attache in the USSR, Colonel Palasse, and the Czechoslovak government were duly informed. However, the BeneS-Hodza government betrayed their own people and opted for surrender to the Nazis, thus preventing the 48 Soviet Union from helping the Czechoslovak people in the hour ’of need. The Hitlerites moved into Czechoslovakia, occupied it and split the country into several parts. The Soviet troops stayed on the western border of the USSR untQ October 25, 1938, and were then returned to their permanent bases.  [48•1 

Reactionary historians are bent on absolving the Western powers of the responsibility for the anti-Soviet policy of appeasement of the fascist aggressor which led to the Second World War. Keith Eubank complains that Britain and France carried the burden of shame for the policies of those days for much too long.  [48•2  However, even falsification of the facts will not exonerate the past. It was the Munich deal that opened the road to the Second World War, and actually presented the Soviet Union with a fait accompli: there was now an anti-Soviet bloc of imperialist powers.

Expansion of Aggression in Asia

p The first and main hotbed of the Second World War was in Europe, and the second was in Asia where Japan was mounting its aggression.

p The International Military Tribunal pronounced the Japanese rulers guilty of the deliberate launching of aggressive wars, also of the mass murder of civilians and prisoners of war, and of other crimes against humanity. However, in the course of the trial in Tokyo, which lasted from May 1946 to November 1948, certain Japanese and American lawyers were trying to vindicate those responsible for starting the war, and absolve the Japanese imperialists of their crimes. This tendency continued in later years as well. Many Western historians do their utmost to conceal the fact that before the war the imperialists of the United States and Great Britain prodded Japan to move against the USSR, whereas Japanese 49 reactionary historians tried to whitewash their own monopolies and the military, who were responsible for aggression in East and Southeast Asia.

p One such effort is the 96-volume Official History of the War in Great East Asia  [49•1  published in 1966-1976 by the Department of National Defence of Japan. According to Professor Saito Takashi, Chairman of the Japanese Committee on the History of the Second World War, this book amounts to a justification of the aggressive war waged by Japan.  [49•2  The Official History describes the preparations by the Japanese General Staff for aggression against the Soviet Union as "activities directed at repulsing aggression by the Soviets".  [49•3  The falsifiers of history are trying to whitewash the Japanese armed forces which perpetrated acts of mass brutality in the occupied territories. An observer of the magazine Gunji kenkuy, Morino Hayato tries to convince the reader that the Japanese soldiers were allegedly moved by purely patriotic motives, since they believed that they were waging a sacred war and were liberating the peoples of Asia in order to make them happy and prosperous.  [49•4 

p The concept of the Japanese military historian Hattori Takushiro boils down to the idea that Japan’s plans to attack the Soviet Union were nothing but an attempt to ensure Japan’s own security against the Soviet Union from positions of strength.  [49•5  Kojima Noboru, claiming to "bring out the true meaning of the war of 19411945", tries to convince his readers that Japan was forced to take aggressive actions.  [49•6 

p Such ideas clearly show that many bourgeois ideologists in Japan are even today trying to bring back to life the old arguments and slogans of anti-communism and panAsianism. They say, among other things, that in the 1930s and 1940s the Asian peoples had some sort of spiritual and socio-political affinity which necessitated their political integration under the aegis of Japan as the most economically advanced nation in this part of the world.

p In actual fact, Japan, which had embarked upon the road of independent national development earlier than other Asian countries, was not in the least concerned about any partnership with her neighbours. "In Asia itself the conditions for the most complete development of commodity production and the freest, widest and speediest growth of capitalism have been created only in Japan, i.e., only in an independent national state," wrote Lenin in 1914. This means that Japan was "a bourgeois state, and for that reason has itself begun to oppress other nations and to enslave colonies".  [50•1 

p In Japanese plans to redivide the world by force of arms China was the prune objective. In 1931, Japan brought her troops into Manchuria and in this way turned it into a colony, and a vantage ground for further aggressive expansion into China and for preparing war against the USSR. In the summer of 1937, at the second stage of aggression, the Japanese militarists dispatched a 100,000-strong army. tb Shanghai and launched an offensive in the north of China.

p The governments of the United States, Britain and France made no attempt to curb Japan’s expansionism, since it provided an opportunity for suppressing the revolutionary movement in China and for attacking the Soviet Union. Japan’s aggression in China was supported by the American imperialists who at the same time made a show of sympathy with the struggle of the Chinese people.

p American historians make a lengthy study of U.S. policy for China. However, their interpretations of this policy 51 more often than not run counter to its substance. Dorothy Borg, for example, writes that "Americans had a deep and idealistic attachment to China which was not to be found among other peoples...”.  [51•1  To bear out this point she refers to the Nine-Power Treaty concluded in Washington in 1922 on U.S. initiative "guaranteeing China’s territorial integrity and independence, and equal commercial opportunity for all nations”.  [51•2  Borg gives the United States the most credit for the fact that this agreement was signed because "the Chinese, subjected to defeat and humiliation, were in great need of encouragement".  [51•3  The Nine-Power Treaty signed by the participants in the Washington Conference made it binding, in words at least, upon its signatories to respect the territorial and administrative integrity of China, to observe "the principle of equal opportunity for the commerce and industry of all nations throughout the territory of China...”.  [51•4  However, its true meaning was to formalise the collusion of the imperialist powers to rob China, with the United States putting itself in a position where it could crowd its imperialist rivals out of China and grab the lion’s share of the loot. This inevitably exacerbated the imperialist contradictions in Asia, especially between the United States and Japan.

p The results of the predatory policy of the United States vis-a-vis China became evident quite soon. The main silver reserves which backed the yuan (the main monetary unit in China) migrated to the United States, thus pushing the already weak Chinese economy to the brink of disaster. The policy of condoning Japan’s aggression in China, and the efforts to direct this aggression against the USSR are often misrepresented as attempts to prevent deterioration of relations between the USA 52 and Japan.  [52•1  Japan’s seizure of Manchuria and later of North China, with no protest from the United States, is interpreted as a desire of the American government to stay neutral in the conflict and follow "the moral principles of American policy". This is how Borg explains the American actions. "Hull deliberately refrained from stating which party- was the aggressor in the conflict in the Far East and insisted that he was adhering to a policy of ’strict impartiality’." In her words, these actions amounted to an effort "to avoid any situation which might result in the United States government’s having to take a stronger stand against Japan".  [52•2  Borg voices her disapproval over American policy: "The degree of passivity which the United States government maintained is the feature of our record in the Far East in the mid-1930’s that is most likely to seem astonishing in retrospect."  [52•3  And ’this thesis is shared by many American historians. But the emphasis on passivity is in itself questionable. What is clear, however, is that in its desire to use the Japanese military machine as a striking force against both the USSR and the national liberation movement in China, the United States not only supplied Japan with strategic materials but also kept increasing the volume of these deliveries. Over the first six months before the war in China the Americans stepped up their exports to Japan by 83 per cent. In 1937-1939 the United States exported 511 million dollars worth of materiel and strategic materials (70 per cent of U.S. exports to that country).  [52•4  There was obviously a certain connection between the growing American assistance to Japan and the intensity of Japan’s aggressive actions against the USSR. In 1939, Japan was allowed to buy ten times more scrap iron in the United States than in the year before. The United States sold Japan three million dollars worth of the latest machine tools for her aircraft manufacturing industry. "If anybody were to follow the Japanese armies in China, and see 53 for himself the mass of American equipment they have, he might well think it was the American army that he was following,"  [53•1  wrote the then U.S. trade attache in China. This fact and many others disclose the true meaning of the policy of isolationism and show that American policy in Asia was far from passive. It was, indeed, a very active colonial policy. American encouragement of Japanese aggression against the USSR did produce much of the expected results.

p After signing the Anti-Comintern Pact with Germany and Italy, the Japanese rulers, with the encouragement of the United States, Britain and France, carried out a military attack on the USSR in the area of Lake Hasan in 1938. A year later they repeated this act of aggression on the banks of the River Knalkhin Gol in the Mongolian People’s Republic.

p Right after the signing of an agreement on the cessation of hostilities on the Manchurian-Mongolian border, on September 1,5, 1939, the Army General Staff and the war ministry of Japan, acting jointly with the Naval General Staff and the Command of the Kwantung Army and the Japanese expeditionary corps in China, proceeded to develop a new strategic plan of war against the Soviet Union which was scheduled for 1940. The aim of this operation was "to rout the Russian army disposed in the Far East, to seize territories east of the town of Rukhlovo and the Great Khingan Mountains". After that the Japanese militarists planned to occupy areas east of Lake Baikal, also the northern part of the island of Sakhalin and the Kamchatka Peninsula.  [53•2 

p Looking back to the Japano-Soviet relations of that period some Japanese historians and statesmen try to prove that the neutrality pact which Japan concluded with the Soviet Union on April 13, 1941, was "defensive in substance".  [53•3  American historians also try to whitewash Japan’s foreign policy. In an article entitled "Japan Between Moscow and Berlin (1941-1945)" Arnold Krammer seeks to 54 prove that the Japanese government had no aggressive intentions with regard to the USSR. At the same time Krammer says nothing about the fact that Tokyo, in spite of the neutrality pact, was feverishly preparing for an attack on the USSR, and that only the rout of Nazi Germany failed this plan.  [54•1  Numerous documents that later came to light show precisely that the Tokyo rulers were intending to use this pact as a cover-up for the preparations to seize the Soviet Far East and Siberia.  [54•2  The so-called Kantokuen plan, drawn up by the Japanese General Staff soon after the beginning of the Nazi aggression against the USSR, provided for routing Soviet troops in the Maritime Region in the Far East and for capturing Khabarovsk. In the spring of the next year the Japanese troops were to continue their advance from Khabarovsk westward and northward.

p Under this plan, Japan was to start the war on August 29, 1941. On July 5, the General Staff and the war ministry prepared Directive No. 101 on mobilisation. On July 7, the Emperor sanctioned such a mobilisation. Soon after, on July 11, the High Military Command issued Directive No. 506 "On Intensification of Preparations for War Against Russia".  [54•3 

p But the developments on the Soviet-German front foiled the designs of the Japanese militarists. On September 4, 1941 the German ambassador to Tokyo, General Ott, wrote in a dispatch to Ribbentrop: "In view of the resistance put up by the Russian Army to the German Army, the Japanese General Staff is doubtful that Germany would turn the scales in the war against Russia before the onset of winter. Besides, the events of the Khalkhin Gol are still fresh in the memory of the Kwantung Army."  [54•4  These developments caused a turnabout in Japan’s military policy: priority was given to the seizure of the American colonies in the Pacific, putting off the attack on the USSR until a later date.

This is how the embers of war were being rekindled, soon to burst into a world-wide conflagration.

Could the Second World War
Have Been Averted?

p Bourgeois historians give a negative answer to this question. Marxist historians, by contrast, believe that in the years preceding the Second World War, there was real possibility to preserve peace. This they explain by a number of reasons, such as the growing political and defence capability of the USSR, its peaceful policy, also by the rising communist, revolutionary-democratic and national liberation movements in the world, by the mass actions of the working class and the wide segments of the population in defence of peace.

p The view that war was imminent and that nothing could prevent it was common back in the 1930s, especially among the petty bourgeoisie and Social-Democracy. This view which played into the hands of the forces of aggression and war was sharply criticised at the Seventh Congress of the Comintern in 1935. In his speech, the Soviet representative D.Z.Manuilsky said: "The Communists must abandon the fatalistic view that it is impossible to prevent the outbreak of war, that it is useless fighting against war preparationsa view that arose from the hitherto extremely limited dimensions of the anti-war movement."  [55•1  In his report to the Seventh Comintern Congress, which he made on behalf of the Central Committee of the Communist International, Wilhelm Pieck said: "We are convinced that war can be averted by a joint struggle for peace waged by the proletariat of the capitalist countries and the Soviet Union.”  [55•2 

p In the years preceding the Second World War, the Soviet Union was working hard to curb imperialist aggression, and warned that it could grow into a global conflict. In its political report to the 16th Party Congress (1930), the Central 56 Committee of the CPSU pointed out that the bourgeoisie was prepared to unleash a world war in order "to resolve one contradiction of capitalism or another, or all the contradictions taken together, at the expense of the USSR". The plan for collective security put forward by the CPSU in 1933 and the concerted efforts of all forces opposed to fascism could have prevented the outbreak of the war.

p The Communist Party and the Soviet Government believed that peace was indivisible and that collective effort was needed to safeguard peace. The Soviet Union believed that a system of collective security could be created, that it could preserve world peace, that this system was acceptable not only to the Soviet state, but also to those of the capitalist countries which did not want another war. In 1933-1935, the Soviet Union made a number of clear-cut proposals on disarmament, and joined the League of Nations. It also signed treaties of mutual assistance with France and Czechoslovakia, which were to become part of a broader agreement directed at strengthening peace in Europe ("The Eastern Pact"). But Britain, France and Poland blocked the conclusion of such an agreement. Nevertheless, Soviet diplomacy took every opportunity to promote the cause of peace. The government of the USSR conclu ded non-aggression pacts with a number of states. It also signed a convention with the neighbouring countries on the definition of aggression.

The Soviet Union proposed signing a Pacific regional pact that it hoped would prevent war m the Far East. President Roosevelt at first took an understanding view of the Soviet proposal. Later, however, the governments of the United States, Britain and China declined to sign such a pact. In 193.5-1939 the Soviet Union, in spite of the fact that it was surrounded by capitalist states, came out in defence of the first victims of the aggressors, the peoples of China, Ethiopia, Spain, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Albania, and carried on with its p’.-ace efforts in the diplomatic arena.