FT: Cold War History Lessons (Revisiting Churchill's warning about Russia)

Financial TImes ^

[quesney]

By John Thornhill

Published: November 24 2006 19:41 |

Last updated: November 24 2006 19:41

A rogue Russian spy is killed in mysterious circumstances in London. Some of the Russian president’s leading domestic opponents are exiled, imprisoned or murdered. The Kremlin, in the grip of a steely former KGB colonel, destabilises unfriendly neighbouring countries, temporarily severing gas supplies to Ukraine and bullying Georgia.

Is this the start of a new cold war?

A useful point of departure is Winston Churchill’s famous speech in 1946 at Fulton, Missouri, which was widely seen as signalling the start of the real cold war. The world has changed almost beyond imagination in the intervening 60 years; but some truths that Churchill spoke that day remain as valid as ever. Speaking freely, having been voted out of office the year before, Churchill warned the world of the “expansive and proselytising tendencies” of the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin. “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent,” he told his audience, including his host, President Harry Truman.

“Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of central and eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and are all subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in many cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow,” he said.

Churchill went on to warn that the Soviet threat was not confined to Europe but was global thanks to the spread of communist fifth columns working in “complete unity and absolute obedience” to directions from the Kremlin. Strong Communist parties threatened to undermine western European countries, such as Italy and France, and exploit the turmoil in the far east, particularly in China. The west must unite and strengthen “the sinews of peace”. His speech helped spur western governments into forming the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation in 1949, which deterred the Soviet threat until the Soviet Union collapsed.

Modern-day Russia, however thuggish and brutal it may seem on occasion, bears scant resemblance to the Stalinist totalitarian regime of the 1940s. First and foremost, Russia has lost its empire after the peoples of central and eastern Europe (and even the Soviet Union’s own republics) liberated themselves from Moscow’s yoke. Almost all the capitals mentioned by Churchill now proudly fly the European Union flag. Nato will next week hold a summit in Riga, the capital of Latvia, which was forcibly incorporated into the Soviet Union at the time that Churchill spoke.

Second, militant communist ideology is dead. Russia may be growing worryingly nationalistic. But that nationalism is not exportable and holds no appeal for non-Russians in the way that communism once did. The communist economic model, which was once thought capable of burying capitalism, has proved defunct.

Moreover, Russia has long ago ceased to be totalitarian. In some senses the Russians, too, liberated themselves in 1991 when the Soviet Union fell apart. Russians today can can travel freely abroad; access the internet; buy their own property wherever they want (including Chelsea football club); and list their companies on foreign stock markets.

But if the historical circumstances have changed almost beyond recognition, the advice Churchill gave Truman about how to deal with Russia remains just as relevant today.

First, Churchill acknowledged that the Russians were a great people who should shape their own destiny and play a role in the world. The west should always extend the hand of friendship to Russians to the extent it was welcomed, he said.

However, the former British leader was realistic enough to know that appeasement of an aggressive power would only invite further intimidation.

“From what I have seen of our Russian friends and allies during the war, I am convinced that there is nothing they admire so much as strength, and there is nothing for which they have less respect than weakness,” he said. “The safety of the world requires a new unity in Europe, from which no nation should be permanently outcast.”

How should Europe respond today to a resurgent Russia?

As Churchill recommended, the west should remain open to the Russian people. Western European countries should, if anything, ease visa restrictions for Russian visitors and encourage young Russians to study abroad. EU countries should encourage mutually beneficial business, financial and cultural ties wherever possible.

However, Europe must remain united in the face of any intimidation and not allow the Kremlin to play one country off against another. EU countries should reduce their dependence on Russian energy supplies if Moscow is going to regard them as a political tool. They should continue to denounce human rights abuses in Chechnya – and elsewhere – as being incompatible with the standards of the international organisations to which Russia belongs. And Britain should be firm in prosecuting whoever is responsible for Alexander Litvinenko’s death, no matter where the investigation leads.

This is not a return of the cold war; but it may prove to be an increasingly hot peace.

The writer is the FT’s European edition editor

[quesney]

"The former British leader was realistic enough to know that appeasement of an aggressive power would only invite further intimidation. "

"Europe must remain united in the face of any intimidation and not allow the Kremlin to play one country off against another."

[nyconse]

Europe long ago gave up it's backbone. I fear it will just be a matter of my children's lifetime that Europe will fall to some kind of tyrant and the USA will have to bail their pathetic countries out again.

[GSlob]

"...Moreover, Russia has long ago ceased to be totalitarian. In some senses the Russians, too, liberated themselves in 1991 when the Soviet Union fell apart...."
In other senses they have not, and are not going to. There is a school of thought [to which I subscribe] which uses a bit unorthodox definitions and claims that Russia has always been communistic, and does not want [or knows how] to be anything else: In my sociological analysis of Russia I follow Alexander Zinoviev, since his analysis happens to square with my life experiences there to an uncanny degree. Briefly, Zinoviev [and I after him] considers communism as a way of life which is characterized [like every other way of life] by how people relate to one another and to their groups [ultimately to their society, which is merely the largest and most powerful of these groups] in socially important situations. The best description of this way of life is to be found in a Russian proverb: "Ty nachal'nik - ya der'mo, ya nachal'nik - ty der'mo" [If you're the boss, then I'm a turd, and if I'm the boss, then you are a turd]. Pretty similar to a very bad Western workplace with a petty boss whose authority has gone to his head, but writ large over the whole society. Just as capitalism is defined by "monetary/property relationships", so communism is defined by the power relationships of subordination, coordination and domination. While these phenomena could be found in every and any society [money - in the form of coins - is known since about 600 BC, and bosses and subordinates have been around for even longer], in a capitalistic society monetary/property relationships become [for the first time and at the limit, in the abstract] all-important and all-defining; and similarly in communist societies the power relationships - the exercise of naked arbitrary power and the absence of any protection for an individual against it - become all-defining and all-important. Lenin expressed it in his formula "kto kogo" - who is going [or able] to do what to whom. In this sense communism has absolutely nothing to do with any economic system [since it is a phenomenon in sociological, not economical, sphere] nor with any particular slogans, symbols like red banners or any particular ideology, albeit one could state that developed communist societies do need ideological systems. If so defined, communism [or elements thereof] has been with us since Stone Age, was not invented by Marx and surely predates 1917 revolution in Russia. Within this framework one could see that mafia families are [distorted] examples of communist type societies, that our own clintons are [or behave like, which is the same] communists, and that such tin-pot places like Idi Amin's Uganda are communist places about as much as North Korea or Cuba. Communist society is normally characterized by very weak or nonexistent forms of social self-defense [rule of law, property rights, publicity - civil society in general]. Historically, none of these were able to take serious root in Russia, which, together with the traditions of brownnosing [to the state] Orthodox church and millenia-old tradition of terroristic and despotic state, make for Russia being a communist or a protocommunist society since at least the times of Ivan the Terrible [16th century, and I would go for the 14th]. More, right now it remains about as communist as ever, with some cosmetical changes. As an aside, in mid-19 century Karl Marx characterized [tsarist] Russia as "asiatic despotism". As the history has shown us, post-tsarist Russia has been as "asiatic" and as "despotic" as ever, and frequently worse than ever. Marx simply mistook the salient features of a real [?-proto-?]communistic society already in existence under his very nose for some peculiarities of Russia. Later we saw the same "asiatic despotism" manifesting itself in Red China, Cuba, occupied Eastern Europe, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe and so on - in and out of Asia. What is claimed is that this "asiatic despotism" is the definition and the essence of what any real communist society is and looks like.

[tkathy]

The world needs another Churchill who can articulate the enormous threat facing the world. All we've got are nevillechamberlain wussie appeasers.

[Nailbiter]

ping

[lizol]

Eastern European ping list

---

FRmail me to be added or removed from this Eastern European ping list

[MelonFarmerJ]

.....the traditions of brownnosing [to the state] Orthodox church and millenia-old tradition of terroristic and despotic state, make for Russia being a communist or a protocommunist society since at least the times of Ivan the Terrible.....

Yours is an an excellent analysis. In the great scheme of things, societies founded upon the equality of man, property rights, rule of law, etc. etc. may be nothing more than transient abberations rather than the developing norm. There will always be bosses, and there will always be those willing to be bossed......

[VOA]

The world needs another Churchill who can articulate the enormous threat
facing the world.

And a generation of history teachers that actually teach history.

To do this we'd have to raze just about every "School of Education"
and History Departments at our major universities.

[uncbob]

Europe was a straw military propped up by US might

They are exposed for hat they are neutered weenies

The USA after the last election is perceived as being in full retreat

Enemies all over the world are emboldened

Europe is going to find out real fast what the hate America policy has wrought

[uncbob]

I fear it will just be a matter of my children's lifetime that Europe will fall to some kind of tyrant and the USA will have to bail their pathetic countries out again.

You ain't going to have to wait for your childrens it is going to happen in yours and we are lucky if we bail OURSELVES out

[kronos77]

Chruchill was two-faced bastards- he and he alone approoved transfer of jet-engine technology to USSR. In korean war, Russian and Chineese MiG-15s were powered by licence-build Rollce-Rpyce Nene engines (VK-1).

[jn25b]

Churchill - the sleazy fraud.

We got "Unconditional Surrender", when the Germans were themselves willing to deliver to us Hitler in a box, in return for a reasonable peace treaty with Germany.

http://www.culturewars.com/CultureWars/Archives/cw_recent/warcrime.html

Which means that WW-2 was fought to put Stalin in Berlin.
Watta cause to die for. (helping the Brits get rid of an economic competitor.)

[Grzegorz 246]

Joke ?

[vbmoneyspender]

I don't know what has happened to this cite lately. There are just alot of strange postings.

[Bonaparte]

"Russia may be growing worryingly nationalistic."

Won't matter. Russia is dying. Can't reproduce. Males aren't surviving past middle age. Almost 3 out of 4 pregnancies terminate in abortion. HIV and treatment resistant TB are taking a huge and increasing toll. Population falling like a rock.

Putin is not a national leader, he leads a gang of former spooks and aperatchiks. The "free" elections are a joke. In 20 years, 30 at most, there will no longer be a Russia. The eastern territory will belong to China, the western to muslims. The Putin gang will simply move their operations to other countries. Count on it. In the interim, Putin and his henchmen will do what all criminal rackateers do -- rob and kill.

[MarMema]

Europe must remain united in the face of any intimidation and not allow the Kremlin to play one country off against another. EU countries should reduce their dependence on Russian energy supplies if Moscow is going to regard them as a political tool.

And it so heartening to see the support Georgia has received from Lithuania, Latvia, Poland and even Ukraine in the last few weeks.

[MarMema]

You ain't going to have to wait for your childrens it is going to happen in yours and we are lucky if we bail OURSELVES out

What you said.

[M. Espinola]

"The world needs another Churchill who can articulate the enormous threat facing the world. All we've got are nevillechamberlain wussie appeasers.

Spot on!

[M. Espinola]

Neo-Soviet police inspecting the smallest 'enemies of the state'.

[MarMema]

Is that from the school checks they were running in Moscow?

[MarMema]

new /old pres in South Ossetia

This won't help. I detest this slimebag.

[Thunder90]

But, Russia and China are our allies /sarc

[M. Espinola]

"Is that from the school checks they were running in Moscow?"

Yes, it looks like kindergarten or first graders are being questioned for swift deportation. Incredible!

[okie01]

Thanks for the insights.

Very helpful toward my understanding.

[M. Espinola]

Everything happens for a reason.

Check this out regarding Eduard Kokoity and his master.

Kokoity and Bagapsh in Discussions with Putin September 30th, 2006

Eduard Kokoity

[MarMema]

the Civil Georgia report notes that in his public remarks Putin made use of terms such as “joint economic complex”, that were last used during the Soviet era.

Interesting. I feel sick sometimes when I read stuff like this.

[M. Espinola]

It's as though the late 30's in both Germany and Russia are happening again and the world's Western 'leaders' either won't act or refuse - until a Blitz situation forces them.

[MarMema]

Exactly. You nailed it. I feel like I am living a time that I didn't live the first time it happened.

[M. Espinola]

When one grows up hearing various personal stories of grandparents and parents being in World War II either overseas or on the home-front, coupled with reviewing the root causes leading up to the Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland.

The alarming similarities, in terms of the West's appeasement to obvious state sponsored evil is uncanny, but then again history does repeat itself.

[GSlob]

Sorry for the lack of paragraphs. I copied this text from one of my former FRmails [I keep it there and re-post on suitable occasions], but in the process of copying and pasting I forgot the paragraphs. Then again, since the text requires contemplative reading, and the absence of formatting tends to slow the reader down, it might have been not so bad a thing.

[MarMema]

interesting news from this morning

"Counterfeiting is not the only headache for us if you're talking about criminality in South Ossetia," Ekaterine Zguladze, Georgia's deputy interior minister, told the Post. "You also have drug trafficking, weapons trafficking, robbery, kidnapping. And our opportunity to fight criminals in there is very limited."

But let one Georgian police or military step foot in South Ossetia and the Russians are whining to the press that a war is on the way.