Marxist-Leninist-Stalinism

Davies, on page 47 of No Simple Victory provides an interesting description of Marxism-Leninism: ". . . Marx was not planning change through massive violence. On the contrary, as he worked away in the Reading Room of the British Museum, financed by his friend Friedrich Engels, who was a factory-owner in Manchester, Marx was thinking of socio-political processes that were maturing of their own accord and that would some day deliver the revolution 'like an apple falling from the branch'. In this light it is not unreasonable to speculate that he would have turned in his grave if he could have seen what the Bolsheviks had actually made of his theories."

"The Leninist part of Marxism-Leninism supplied the guidelines for practical political action. It told how a group of highly disciplined activists could manipulate their opponents and seize power; how they could transform their revolutionary opposition group into a dictatorial state executive; and how the organs of a one-party state could control all elements of society and all their activities. Leninists used the language of Marxism and democracy, but twisted its meaning to their own purposes. Hence 'the dictatorship of the proletariat' envisaged the dictatorship of the ruling party over the proletariat; 'socialism' meant Lenin's personal variant of socialism, i.e., Communism; 'the party' did not mean just a political party, but an all-embracing organization with monopoly powers; and democracy' meant the coercive subordination of the people to the state, i.e., tyranny."

On page 48, Davies writes, "Yet two things the Bolsheviks could not fix. One was a competent economy. The other was a firm institutional link with western Europe. They were internationalists. They believed they had a universal remedy for all nations; and they knew that their revolution in backward Russia could not survive in recognizable form unless they linked up with an advanced industrial country like Germany. So they repeatedly attempted to forge a link. In the summer of 1920 they sent the Red Army westward in the most serious such attempt. Unfortunately, to march from Russia to Germany, their forces had to cross Poland; and the Poles were not disposed to see their own new republic trampled on. At the Battle of Warsaw, the Red Army was badly beaten. Lenin's big experiment in international expansionism collapsed. The network of Communist states stretching from Moscow to Berlin, which Lenin had briefly hoped for, never came into being. Instead, a more limited Soviet Union had to be formed from just three republics: Russia, Byelorussia and Ukraine. It opened for business son 1 January 1924. But the long-term goals were never abandoned."

COMMENT:

After this, Russia reacquired the previous colonies of Tsarist Russia and then after World War II it acquired Eastern Europe. A devoted Communist would not say it that way, but the method was the same as that described above. In each of these counties a "group of highly disciplined activist" would take over the country, and while that fell short of the democratic ideals of the west, it satisfied Russia. But one should be able to understand that the Soviet expansion after World War II was found to be alarming by many in the West. Roosevelt and Truman fancied that they could understand and get along with Stalin, but Truman at last gave up on him. He naively underestimated Soviet espionage in America, but Communist expansion was plain for him to see.

Yes, I know and have encountered many anti-Americans who have turned this business upside down. It is the poor Soviets who wanted to be left alone, who were "forced" to take over Eastern Europe because of the "threat" of the evil West, etc. But this is nonsense. What the Soviet Union did was consistent with their ideology. And if we look at the "ideology" in the West we see Western Europe under an American umbrella, during the Cold War, turning to a naïve pacifism. And America was so clearly not an aggressive nation that Gorbachev engaged in perestroika with no fear that America was going to do anything aggressive against Russia. Nevertheless, the anti-Americans like American Indians of old are regular dancing around their fires, working themselves into frenzies, painting themselves with war paint and brandishing their spears and tomahawks in a threatening manner. This seems a great superstition to me: fearing something that doesn't exist.

The Afghan Syndrome

The Afghan Syndrome, the Soviet Union’s Vietnam was written by Maj Gen. Oleg Sarin & Col. Lev Dvoretsky. It was published in 1993 in English. I don’t know if it was first published in Russian.

On page xii they write, “Perestroika might have happened if there had been no Afghan war. But the Afghan tragedy made perestroika inevitable. Our return to universal humane values and ideas was by way of this war. Mikhail Gorbachev has assured the world that we have once and for all removed the subject of war and revolution from our consciousness and political doctrine. Such a statement is due in part to the bitter lesson of the Afghan experience. Because of Afghanistan, we have been able to surmount another psychological barrier and find the courage to admit that our military interventions in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 were mistakes, that there could be no moral or political justification for our attempts to reshape the destiny of other nations. Our new understanding of internationalism, Gorbachev has pointed out, is linked to our affirmation of universal human values. Thus, our call for democratization of our country rests on an understanding that authoritarianism had led to the blind alleys of the Afghan war. When we say we must help the Afgantsi, we are thinking of more than moral and material recompense to those veterans. Society owes them something else: It owes them a debt of gratitude. It was they who helped the rest of us overcome ourselves, our inertness, our mistakes; it was they who helped stir our consciences.

“The Afghan syndrome signifies not only our repentance, our wish not to repeat past mistakes or commit new ones, but our wish to live in conformity with normal laws of a civilized nation. Sadly, it is also a curse, a monster that still resides among us. It rears its head again and again when the demands of the moment seem more important than the real interests of people; when political expediency takes the upper hand over truth; when the fist becomes the sole argument and only brute force is believed capable of establishing justice. The parallels are evident: Baku and Nagorno-Karabakh, Tbilisi and South Ossetia, Lithuania and Moldova – Soviet cities and republics where troops have been used to restore order. The country’s crime rate is rising; there is demoralization in the army.”

COMMENT:

Had I not encountered the Revisionist School of Russian history I would have gone on thinking that the views of General Sarin and Colonel Dvoretsky probably prevailed in Russia. They recount that they knew of America’s war in Vietnam and had heard of the term “The Vietnam Syndrome,” but that it had no special meaning for them in Russia. It wasn’t until after their ten-year war in Afghanistan that they learned the meaning. They clearly agree with the views of Gorbachev and rejoice in having returned to universal humane values and ideas. The interventions in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 were the cause of many in Europe turning from the idea that the Soviet Union represented a Socialistic Utopia. But in Russia, just as the Revisionist Historians are doing now, they justified every such act. They justified interventions in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Have the Russian Revisionists repudiated the declarations of Gorbachev and the sentiments of Sarin and Dvoretsky? Are they melting down their Peristroika plow shares and pruning hooks and hammering them back into spears and swords? There is a lot of chest-thumping going on over there nowadays, and I’m pretty sure none of it is being done by Gorbachav, Sarin or Dvoretsky.

RE: Stalinism in the 30s.

Michael Kuznetsov sent me the following comment in regard to "Stalinism in the 30s":

Lawrence,

The West's rabid russophobia is one of the major factors that redounds greatly to our positive attitude toward Marshal Stalin.

Be advised of the fact that every day millions (sic!) of Russians have been reading via the Internet dozens of dirty articles about our country published by the West's corporate media world wide.

Those Russians who are not fluent enough in English can use a special website http://inosmi.ru which provides the readers with dozens of translations of the articles about Russia in the West.

EVERY DAY WE READ DOZENS OF SLANDEROUS WESTERN ARTICLES ABOUT OUR MOTHER RUSSIA!

If we summarize the West "message" to the common Russian man it would sound approximately as the following:

"Your mother is a dirty harlot, your father is a drunken piece of scum, and you personally are a moronic bastard. Your dictator Stalin is a bloody maniac. Your "victory" over Nazis is worth nothing. It was in fact General Frost that defeated the brave Germans. Moreover, the Mongol hordes of the Red Army raped 2,000,000 German women."

Frequently, after reading such garbage articles, I have only one desire: to push the "red button."

This given, it is no wonder that the more the Western russophobic propaganda machine would be trying to convince us Russians that Marshal Stalin was allegedly a murderous tyrant and that the life in the USSR was allegedly like hell on earth, the more supporters of Stalin would appear in modern Russia.

But this is only one side of the question.
The other side is that we Russians have got ALMOST free access to the Russian archives. We can now see that all the heinous insinuations that were fabricated by Nikita Khruschev against Marshal Stalin in 1956 appeared to be all dirty lies, lies, and lies!
You can read Grover Furr on this subject in English.

Lawrence responds:

Michael:

Are you invoking Grover Furr as an antidote to Norman Davies? I can't follow you some times. Way back when you first arrived on this blog, we both recognized that you were interested in rehabilitating Stalin; which happened to coincide with American Revisionists who were also busy rehabilitating Stalin. I think that's interesting, but it only interests me to a point. I am not terribly interested in reading these Revisionists. I am interested in the truth, whether it means that Stalin is as bad as Robert Conquest said he was or whether someone else did the evil things that Stalin was blamed for. In the absence of evidence for the latter, I shall continue to consider the historians I am reading. I have mentioned on many occasions, that Communist ideology is flawed. Some Communists have done good work at pulling off a revolution, but after that they wing it. They experiment. I quoted Davies this morning as someone who agreed with what I had written. They all do it. They purge away the enemies and then they try one thing after another. As I mentioned, I am willing to believe that Stalin (or his evil twin) caused the deaths of such people as the Kulaks and those sent to Gulags as a result of his experimenting, rather than as a deliberate desire to kill those people. Davies seems to follow Conquest in seeing their destruction as one of Stalin's objects. While that is important, it has not been my focus. I will argue about whether Communism works but I won't argue about whether Stalin is the actual perpetrator.

Professor Ludwik Kowalski, on the other hand is very interested in Stalin's career as a murderer, and since he and Grover Furr teach (or "taught" in Ludwik's case) at the same University, it isn't surprising that they disagree with each other. Ludwik Kowalski, you may recall, is the author of Hell on Earth, Brutality and Violence Under the Stalinist Regime. Rather than disagreeing with Professor Kowalski and offering his counter evidence, he calls him a liar. I have had enough exposure to Professor Kowalski to know he wouldn't lie. He might make a mistake but he wouldn't lie. Grover Furr falls into a familiar anti-American category: Attack and insult (which you seem to deplore when it is aimed at Russians) are the order of his day. Anyone who disagrees with him is fair game. .

America's purported plan to bomb Russia

Michael Kuznetsov sent the following in regard to "Britain as Superpower":

Lawrence,

I offer here a few quotes from William Engdahl, and some of my thoughts, for your possible interest:

"While still ostensible allies, during the World War II the United States started to prepare for war with the Soviet Union. In the summer of 1945, at the time of the Conference in Potsdam, the United States had secretly adopted a policy of 'striking the first blow' in a nuclear war against the Soviet Union. To that effect a secret document JCS 1496 was drafted on July 19, 1945. The first plan for nuclear attack was drafted soon afterwards by General Dwight Eisenhower at the order of President Truman.

The plan, called TOTALITY (JIC 329/1), envisioned a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union with 20 to 30 Atomic-bombs. It earmarked 20 Soviet cities for obliteration in a first strike: Moscow, Gorki, Kuibyshev, Sverdlovsk, Novosibirsk , Omsk, Saratov, Kazan, Leningrad , Baku, Tashkent, Chelyabinsk, Nizhni Tagil, Magnitogorsk, Molotov, Tbilisi, Stalinsk, Grozny, Irkutsk, and Jaroslavl. Detailed in Michio Kaku and Daniel Axelrod, To Win a Nuclear War: The Pentagon's Secret War Plans, Boston, South End Press, 1987, pp. 30-31. The secret Pentagon strategy since the end of the Cold War to use modernization of its nuclear strike force and deployment of missile defense technology is but a modern update of a policy established in 1945 — Full Spectrum Dominance of the world, via the destruction of the only power capable of resisting that dominance — Russia."

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10062

"The pressures of an increasingly desperate US foreign policy are forcing an unlikely 'coalition of the unwilling' across Eurasia. The potentials of such Eurasian cooperation between China, Kazakhstan, Iran are real enough and obvious. The missing link, however, is the military security that could make it invulnerable or nearly, to the sabre-rattling from Washington and NATO. Only one power on the face of the earth has the nuclear and military base and know-how able to provide that — Vladimir Putin's Russia. The Russian Bear sharpens its nuclear teeth . . ."

http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net/Geopolitics___Eurasia/Putin/putin.html

End of quotation.

Which is why I call my country Russia a Superpower.

As to the numbers of soldiers . . . I am convinced that what matters is not the QUANTITY but QUALITY.

For example, Israel has been successfully pitting against the innumerable Arab enemies surrounding it with the ratio 1 to 40. Imagine: ONE to FORTY! Nevertheless, the Arabs can never defeat the Jews. This is because of the Israeli soldiers' very high QUALITY. They are made of "different stuff" than their Arab adversaries.

The Russian soldier is the best in the world. We are made of different stuff than that of our potential adversaries. By my calculations we can gather an army of 30 million Russian MEN. Not women, of course! It is sheer misogyny to send women overseas to kill and be killed!

As long ago as in October 2007, as you may remember, our President said: "Why worsen the situation and bring it to a dead end by threatening sanctions or military action?" Putin asked. "Running around like a madman with a razor blade, waving it around, is not the best way to resolve the situation."

We Russians do absolutely agree with our President. To stop the madman who is approaching our throat with a razor blade we need a very good, big and reliable nuclear club.

So, I regret to say that soon all of us, the Russians and the Westerners are most likely to see with our own eyes "who is made of what stuff", including each nation's resilience and the capability to arise from the ashes after the all-out thermonuclear devastation.

We believe that with the Lord God's help we Russians shall arise again as it happened always in our long history.
We the Russian people are like a stone, like a single monolith, like one colossal organism. At the same time the West is made of individuals separated like grains of sand. Moreover, we Russians trust in God and rely upon His Divine mercy towards us, while the Westerners have sunk in their godless sins and abominations like sodomy, etc., etc., etc.

God seeth everything. We fear no one on earth but only the Lord God in heaven. Which is why Holy Russia is invincible.



Lawrence responds:

I had never heard of Engdahl, but when I read him, I discovered he uses some common anti-American terms. And what does "Totalitarian Democracy" mean? Since the words mean opposite things, I am not tempted to read Engdahl further to see what he has in mind. Also, this "smoking gun" of his, this secret TOTALITY (JIC 329/1) plan for the bombing of Russia. Why can't I find it on the internet? Where is it? If he has it and it says what he says it says, why doesn't he reference it? I have spent a lot of money buying the best historians on such matters as these. How come none of these historians knew about plans to bomb Russia. They know that General Navarre wanted to bomb the Vietnamese at Dien Bien Phu. They know that MacArthur wanted to bomb China during the Korean war. Why didn't they know that Truman and Eisenhower wanted to bomb Russia? Heck, Engdahl knew it. Why didn't the historians who get paid for being historians know it?

I question Engdahl's understanding of history. He doesn't seem familiar with the most reputable historians. He doesn't seem aware of the real grand strategy created by George Kennan and Acheson during the Truman administration. What went on back then has been scrupulously documented, and it isn't what Engdahl says it was. What he imagines as America's motives is bizarre in the extreme. Think of what America was as late as 1941, a nation opposed to getting involved in European wars. It was "isolationist," something I have written about on several occasions. It didn't think it needed to be involved in European wars. As I wrote, it took Churchill to talk American into helping Britain out. And Davies views this as of critical importance as I believe it was. Using common sense, try to imagine how this anti-war, isolationist nation could in the space of 4 years be turned into a diabolical Machiavellian demon-possessed war-machine champing at the bit to bomb Russia as soon as possible. I know Chomsky can imagine that and apparently so can Engdahl but I can't, and no reputable historian of this period could either.

Some of the rest of what you say doesn't make sense to me – it sounds as though you are trying to work yourself into a frenzy so you can go to war with the west. Not only does it make no sense, but Russia wouldn't do well in an aggressive attack against the West, unless it used nuclear weapons, but if it did that then it wouldn't do well with capital letters.

Do I believe Stalin was unjustly maligned? How can I when reputable historians examine the Russian archives and agree with the statements coming out of Russia that Stalin was indeed as bad as knowledgeable authorities have said he was. I am only interested in evidence in regard to this matter. I am willing to buy and read the best authorities available, but this is not a partisan matter. He either did the things he is accused of or he didn't. So what does the evidence say? I just started a book entitle Stalin, the First in Depth Biography based on explosive new documents from Russia's secret archives.

Oh, one more thing. Any military worth its salt has "plans" for every possible scenario. These plans are "war game." – battle mockups to test officers skills and to figure out the best possible approach to any possible scenario. They are not "plans" in the sense of plans that represent foreign or diplomatic policy. I hope Engdahl isn't referring to war-game plans. If so then he adds ignorance of military procedures to his other ignorance.

Imperialism: British, Russian, French, etc.

One forgets that Liberal Democracy was seriously challenged by the two isms, Communism and Fascism in the 20^th century. We have heard critics of the American Foreign Policy, i.e., “Containment,” asserting that everyone knew the Soviet Union was not going to be able to compete with Liberal Democracy, but that’s another case of “Monday Morning Quarterbacking.” It wasn’t known at the time. Also, the major democracies had problems with a major hypocrisy. At home they were democratic, but abroad they were Imperialistic. On page 51 of No Simple Victory, Davies writes, “One has only to look at the career of Winston Churchill. A famous parliamentarian, and the author of the finest rhetoric about freedom in the English language, he was a totally committed imperialist. He had ridden in the charge of the imperial cavalry at Omdurman, and he had served with distinction as Colonial Secretary. By the time of the Second World War, in late middle age, he had lost none of the fervor of his Victorian childhood. ‘I have not become the King’s First Minister,’ he declared in May 1940, ‘in order to preside over the demise of the British Empire.’ But he did.”

We all know about the British Empire but what about the Russians? We have read Lenin’s Imperialism, the highest stage of Capitalism, so we know that Lenin associated Imperialism with Capitalism, but did Stalin agree with Lenin on that? Was the USSR able to take the moral high-ground on this issue and assert that the Capitalistic contries were Imperialistic but they were not? On page 52, Davies writes, “Having overthrown the Russian empire, and butchered the Tsar, the Bolsheviks were loud in their denunciation of imperialism. Yet they had not hesitated to invade and re-annexe fourteen independent countries, from Ukraine to Uzbekistan, and to incorporate them as union republics. Whenever the Soviets absorbed a new territory, a delegation would be formed to tell the Supreme Soviet that the nation concerned was begging for admission to the USSR of its own free will. All this meant is that hand-picked delegates with no independent standing had been rounded up at gunpoint to do what they were told. The dual-party state, which controlled the affairs of fraternal parties abroad, was an ideal vehicle for expanding the Soviet Empire and for giving it a semblance of spontaneity.”

COMMENT:

This matter is a bit complicated; so it is good to begin with what is not imperialism. Throughout recorded history, and archeologists and geneticists have evidence that even before recorded history, peoples have migrated from one place to another. Weaker people were regularly supplanted by stronger. There is no point in deploring this fact, we have always done it. There is no place on this planet where a people can say “we and only we have lived here since our ancestors climbed down out of trees and began to walk upright.” China can claim a long history as can the Egyptians and the Indians, but archeologists have found movement even in those regions. And what of Russia? Some can claim to be 100% Russian, but what does that mean and how far back do Russians go?

The Afontova culture existed in Siberia, about 22,000-14,000 years ago, but archeologist see Mongoloid features in their skeletons? Were relatives of the Mongols ancestors of Russians? From the photos Michael Kuznetzov shows on his web site, I gather that he favors the European look over the Mongol, but the Afontovoa probably were first in the region of present-day Russia. And It is interesting to read about the Scythians who lived on the Russian Steppes and had a clever fighting technique whereby they would pretend to retreat and draw their enemy further and further on until he was tired and running out of supplies. Then they would turn and attack. Did the Russians learn that from Scythians. I mention these matters only as examples. The migration of people is not Imperialism and to call it Imperialism dilutes the term. What Britain did in India was clearly Imperialism, but what about the annexing of the “fourteen independent countries” that had been “Imperialistically owned” by Tsarist Russia? Well, we know what Ukraine and Georgia think about that matter.

And I would add that there is “hard-Imperialism” and “soft-imperialism.” Scotland, Wales and Ireland were once “independent countries,” but they were conquered by England. Setting aside Ireland from this consideration, Wales and Scotland were given adequate rights and privileges such that they came to consider themselves part of the kingdom. No doubt this imperialism was not at first soft, and it was to some extent caused by trouble on the border that had to be “put down,” but it became “soft.” Ask Scotland and Wales if they want to become “independent,” and while the vote won’t be unanimous, it won’t go for independence.

But now consider Algeria. As Alistair Horne tells us in A Savage War of Peace, Algeria 1954-1962, Algeria loved the French and after World War II wanted to be given equal rights with the French. They wanted to be for France what Scotland and Wales were for England. They wanted to be considered part of France, but the Colons and others were imperialistic in their thinking and refused to accommodate the native Algerians. While Algeria would have been content to be equal (which would have required softness on the part of the French and the French Colons), they were not willing to be subservient, second-class citizens, and so they went to war. France couldn’t help but be “hard” in its Imperialism. And I don’t mean to argue that Britain was uniformly “Soft” in its. India would not describe them as utterly soft although there seems to be a surprising lot of fondness for Britain in present-day India..

Stalinism in the 30s

On page 49 of No Simple Victory, World War II In Europe, 1939-1945, Norma Davies writes, “In the 1930s the USSR was turned into a grotesque, gargantuan laboratory of social engineering and human misery. Tens of millions toiled in indescribable deprivation to build the dams, canals, factories and new towns that the five-year plans demanded. Millions died from exhaustion, maltreatment or executions. Whole classes like the kulaks, or small landowners, were slated for elimination hen agricultural land was collectivized. Whole generations were uprooted and sent for slave labour. And whole countries, like Ukraine, which had resisted, were laid waste. Never in human history has such a gigantic spectacle of applied ideology been staged. Yet few outsiders saw it. Great care was taken to ensure that Western visitors could report only the most positive images. . . .”

“To add to the misery, Stalin mounted a campaign of state terror that makes all other forms of terrorism pale into insignificance. The scale and the audacity of the killings were unprecedented, breathtaking. Lenin had killed off most of the regime’s active opponents and undesirables. The collectivization campaign had accounted for the peasants, the largest class of non-sympathizers. But from 1934 to 1939 Stalin conceived a programme for killing a large part of the regime’s most devoted servants. He aimed to sow such fear and trembling, such mental paralysis, that no one, least of all his close associates, could even imagine dissent. He killed every single surviving member of Lenin’s original Bolshevik government. . . By 1938 he reached the point where he was ordering the shooting of citizens by random quota: 50,000 this month from this province, 30,000 next month from the next province. The OGPU (the latest incarnation of the Cheka) sweated overtime. (They too were regularly purged.) The death pits filled up. The GULag became the biggest employer of labour in the land. State officials, artists and writers, academics and soldiers were all put through the grinder. Then, in March 1939, it stopped, or at least slowed down. The Census Bureau had just enough time to put an announcement in Izvestia saying that 17 million people were missing before the census-takers themselves were shot.”

COMMENT:

The brutality and violence of Stalinism is so well document, so well attested to, that one wonders why Revisionist Historians would seek to rehabilitate the author of these excesses. I suppose that if a Russian were not to spend too much time on the details he could look just at the good things Stalin did. Revisionist historians in Germany have done that with Hitler. He improved the economy. He caused a great recovery after the “mistreatment” at the hands of France and Britain after World War One, and he sponsored many fine inventions like the Volkswagen; so he wasn’t all bad. If historians can do that with Hitler, they can do it with Stalin. Also, there were elements of the old Tsarist expansionism in Stalinism. Russians like to fancy themselves an empire, some of them still do and Stalin was definitely of their mind.

But I’ve been meaning to ask, are the Russians who criticize modern-day Georgia the same ones who admire the Georgian Stalin? Or are there myths about Stalin being secretly Russian in some way?

Britain as Superpower

On page 42 of No Simple Victory, World War II In Europe, 1939-1945, Norman Davies writes, “War is not fought by guns and logistics alone. Psychological factors need to be taken into account too. Here, Britain’s superb gamble in defying the Third Reich in 1940-41, when discretion might have favoured accommodation, had significant consequences. Not only did it give heart to all opponents of Nazism, including the oppressed populations of German-occupied countries. It also did much to undermine American isolationism, and thereby to prepare the way for the entry of the USA into the war. It did little in practical terms to weaken Hitler’s grip on Europe. But it was crucial in facilitating what was to follow. Without it, the USA would have no base from which to intervene: German industry would have been free from bombing; the USSR could have been attacked in isolation; and the final outcome could have been very different.”

COMMENT:

Davies like Bevin Alexander (How Hitler Could have Won World War II) is noting events that needed to go well for the allies for the result to have been as it turned out, that is, for the Allies rather than Hitler to have won World War II. Davies began his book by describing how each of the former allies tended in the histories that were subsequently written to thump its own chest. The truth is that all the allies needed to contribute as they did, not excluding the British-American strategic bombing, for the outcome to have resulted in allied victory in 1945.

I’m not sure that Britain has done as much chest-thumping as it is entitled to. For example, some Poles obtained the details and a mockup of the German Enigma machine. What should they do with it? Britain is holding out against the Germans. Let’s take it to Britain, and so they did. The British needed to have their own competence in the form of Alan Touring to crack the Enigma code, but they first needed to have been there defying the Germans for the Poles to have taken the trouble to get the Enigma information to them.

But getting the US into the war was among their greater coups. In a nation as large as the US you can find a great number of points of view, but “isolationism” was an extremely popular and influential one prior to World War II. George Washington urged his political descendants not to get embroiled in Foreign Wars, and that seemed like good advice to those descendants. But Churchill influenced Roosevelt who didn’t need much convincing, but he did need Churchill’s participation in the American political process; which Churchill superbly provided. Also, one of the “points of view” common in the US was a great fondness for Great Britain. A huge number of Americans could trace their ancestry back to England, Scotland, Wales, or Ireland. I am not alone in being able to trace 100% of my ancestry back to Great Britain. “Helm” in pre-Norman times (my daughter the genealogist tells me) used to be “Helme.” Could we let our “motherland” fall to the Nazis?

Great Britain is still very much an important force in the world. I must confess that it was some of the comments Michael Kuznetsov (who is 100% Russian) made on his website about Russia being a modern-day superpower that made me think of these things – or rather, what Davies wrote triggered these thoughts about Kuznetsov’s comments, but Russia, after all, has a population of only 141,000,000 with but 50,000,000 men and women fit for military service. Now consider Britain. We have not only Britain but the nations founded by Britain who feel strong ties and would, as we have seen, join with Britain in dire emergencies, regardless of how they might bicker when times are good. The following numbers are rounded off from the CIA World Factbook:

UK: pop. 61,000,000; men and women fit for military service: 23,000,000

US: pop 304,000,000; fit for military service: 119,000,000

Canada: pop 33,000,000; fit for military service: 13,000,000

Australia: pop 21,000,000; fit for military service: 8,100,000

New Zealand: pop 4,000,000; fit for military service: 1,600,000

Some argument could be made for some other additions. Would, for example, India fight on Great Britain’s side in a future hypothetical emergency. And I’m sure Russia has some non-Russian allies as well, but with just the above nations; which I would consider fairly reliable supporters, we see a total population of 423,000,000 and 164,700,000 men and women fit for military service, more than the total population of Russia. Admittedly, it would take an almost unimaginable emergency to get all these “fit for military service” people into uniform, but if Russia is a modern-day super power, why isn’t Great Britain as well?

Lest what I have written sound too warmongerish, let me hasten to add that a strong anti-war, anti-military, pacifistic point of view is very prominent in the UK and in all of the UK’s descendants not excluding the US, but I suspect something like that is true today in Russia as well. I venture to say that no nation is anxious to go to war today. Granted, several nations are hunkering down and putting out their porcupine quills (I think of North Korea and Iran here). And other nations have local conflicts that could bring them to blows (I think of India and Pakistan here), but we have no modern day Hitlers striving to take over major parts of the world. What we do have is a religious based ideology, Islamism, that would like to spread their viewpoint by military means, but they are at a severe disadvantage with all the nations of the world opposing them – at least I can’t think of a nation that is overtly Islamist today.

One more word about the concept “superpower.” America seems to have had its “unipolar moment” and didn’t fancy it much. While the exportation of Liberal Democracy was not the only reason for ousting Saddam, it was one of the reasons, and I am quite sure that no American politician is interested in doing that again anytime soon. The British Historian, Niall Ferguson in such books as Colossus, The Price of America’s Empire, has been egging us on to assume the role of Empire, and I’m sure that many in the Bush administration tried that idea on for size, but it never caught on, no more than when we actually tried empire years ago with the Philippines. Britain on the other hand is much more comfortable with being an Empire. Rather than seeing America as a “superpower,” I am inclined to see Britain engaged in Empire-lite.

Listen to Gordan Brown, for example, speaking to our American congress a few days ago as quoted in a Chinese web site: (http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-03/05/content_10944764.htm ): ‘Britain would work tirelessly with U.S. on anti-terror, Mideast peace and Iran's nuclear issue. I know that there is no power on Earth that can ever drive us apart," said Brown. Obama said Britain is one of the closest and strongest allies of the United States.

“. . . Highlighting the special Anglo-American relationship, Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Wednesday told U.S. lawmakers that his country would work "tirelessly" with the United States on anti-terror war, Mideast peace and Iran's nuclear issue.

"’Alliances can wither or be destroyed, but partnerships of purpose are indestructible. Friendships can be shaken, but our friendship is unshakable. Treaties can be broken, but our partnership is unbreakable,’ said the prime minister in a formal address to U.S. Congress in Washington.

‘I know that there is no power on Earth that can ever drive us apart,’ he added, after President Barack Obama promised the special relationship between the United States and Britain ‘will not break.’

“During his meeting with Brown on Tuesday, President Obama said the special relationship with Britain is important to the American people, and that Britain is one of the closest and strongest allies of the United States.

"’And let me, therefore, promise you our continued support to ensure that there is no hiding place for terrorists, no safe haven for terrorism," Brown told the lawmakers.

"’We will work tirelessly with you as partners for peace in the Middle East, for a two-state solution, ... that provides for nothing less than a secure Israel safe within its borders existing side by side with a viable Palestinian state,’ said Brown.

"’We will work tirelessly with you to reduce the threat of nuclear proliferation and reduce the stockpile of nuclear weapons," he said.

"’Our shared message to Iran, it is simple. We are ready for you to rejoin the international community but, first, you must cease your threats and suspend your nuclear programs,’ Brown stressed.

“Britain is one of the United States' closest allies, and its foreign policy emphasizes close coordination with the United States.’”

Well said, Mr. Prime Minister!