United Colleges - Vox Yearbook (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)

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herself from attack and making it impossible for any coalition of powers to be amassed against her. Soviet foreign policy in the 1920’s shifted frrom the early emphasis upon world revolu¬ tion to preservation of the Soviet State. A num¬ ber of leftist critics and historians suggest that the world revolution was betrayed, that Stalin consciously led the Communist party from vic¬ tory in Germany, China and elsewhere through¬ out the world. Trotsky, probably the most out¬ spoken theorist impatient for early progress of the revolution throughout the world, had not foreseen the consequences of attempts at world revolution in its initial stages -—• consequences resulting in the wholesale invasion of Russia by the Western Imperial powers and Japan. There is no doubt that if a well organized coali¬ tion of the intervening powers had been set up, the Soviet state would have been doomed. It is further highly likely that any new large scale attempt to spread the revolution would have caused a new war of intervention. Realistic Soviet policy therefore necessarily dictated a “go slow” policy in world revolution until the Russian base was secure. The Russian revolu¬ tion had been declared “permanent” even by Trotsky and Lenin but it could not be perma¬ nent for long unless Russia was re-established economically and the threat of renewed inter¬ vention was not allowed to materialize. The prospects of proletarian revolution early began to disintegrate with the emergence of social and political reforms and the emergence of stronger labor unions and reformist parties in Capitalist countries therefore necessitating a far more carefully planned and executed movement to bring about revolution in the West. With regard to China, Stalin was in fact reverting to the Marxian analysis of the emerg¬ ence of a “bourgeoisie-democratic” society first before a proletarian revolution could take place. This concept was held by the majority of the Communist leaders until the revolution was declared a success in Russia. There is certainly no real evidence to prove that Stalin abandoned the idea of world revo¬ lution but much more that he was extremely fearful lest the impatient revolutionaries, of which Trotsky was the foremost, seriously split the party while the threat of Capitalist attack hung fearfully over Russia. A bitter warning had been given to the new Russian state by the ware of intervention, a warning not lost on Stalin. “What is commonly forgotten in the West is that Soviet “totalitarianism” was not inevitable nor necessarily implicit in the Bolshevism of 1917-18 but was forced upon it, with death as the alternative, by the decisions of Russian democrats and of the Western Democracies.” 1 The emphasis was therefore placed by Stalin and his followers in the Politburo on security from attack. The Russian government once again was dependent upon power politics and the economic and armed strength of Russia for its survival, let alone the expansion of the Com¬ munist ideal. Stalin foresaw a strong possibil¬ ity of renewed war in Europe and hoped that Russia would be able to strengthen her eco¬ nomic position before it became involved in war. He and his ministers sought to break down the almost unanimous hostility of the Western countries of Europe and stave off war until she could benefit by it. In a speech made an Janu¬ ary 1925, Stalin said: “The banner of peace re¬ mains our banner as of old. But, if war begins, we shall hardly have to sit with folded arms. We shall have to come out, but we ought to be the last to come out. And we should come out in order to throw the decisive weight on the scales, the weight that should tilt the scales.” 2 Thus the overall policy of the Soviet Union in the 1920’s was conditioned by the threat of re¬ newed war and was therefore primarily based upon the need for security. 1. Frederick L. Schumann, Op. Cit., p. 127. 2. Ibid. BIBLIOGRAPHY Schuman, Frederick L., Soviet Politics At Home and Abroad, New York, Alfred A. Knoft, 1946. Deutscher, I., Stalin, New York, Oxford University Press, 1949. Beloff, Max, The Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia, 1929-1941, Vol. I, 1929-1936, Oxford University Press, 1947-49. Sayers, Michael, and Kahn, Albert E., The Great Con¬ spiracy Against Russia, New York, Boni and Gaer, Inc., Publishers, 1946. Pares, Bernard, Russia, Past and Present, New York, New York American Library, (A Mentor Book) 1943, 1949 (Revised Edition, 1951). Page Twenty-four

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lished, calling upon the British Communist Party for armed insurrection and although the Soviet charge Rakovsky declared it to be a forgery it had a pronounced effect on the elec¬ tion. The Anti-Soviet Tory Party was elected to power. After the failure of the General Strike of May, 1926, to which the Soviet trade unions donated £1,000,000, all Soviet efforts to effect a settlement were coldly rejected by the English Government. On May 26, 1927, Prime Minister Baldwin terminated the trade agreements and severed diplomatic relations. On May 30, 1929 the election of a Labor-Liberal majority to the House of Commons brought a hope of renewal of friendly relations. On October 1, 1929, diplo¬ matic relations were resumed followed by a temporary commercial treaty on April 16, 1930. Relations with the United States continued to be unfavorable despite the similarity of in¬ terests and actions pointed out earlier. Trade was carried on with the United States but Soviet representations for the opening of diplo¬ matic relations were dismissed as preposterous. In a reversal of its previous position the United States in 1922 recognized Esthonia, Latvia and Lithuania. In spite of the similar distrust of Japan in the Far East, friction continued be¬ tween the United States and the Soviet Union and reached a near crisis over the ownership and operations of the Chinese Eastern Railway. 1 Russia was invited to participate in the Pre¬ paratory Commission of the League of Nations established to prepare a general disarmament conference. Litvinov shocked the assembled delegates when, in 1927 at the fourth session in Geneva, he proposed an immediate world¬ wide agreement to abolish all military forces, fighting equipment, armaments, war materials and war preparations of any kind. When his proposals were rejected he offered a second plan for partial and gradual disarmament on a quota basis which suffered the same fate. To the Commission Litvinov issued a prophetic warning: “May those who believe that they have in¬ definite time at their disposal not receive a rude shock one day.” 2 1. On May 31, 1924, a Sino-Soviet agreement renounced all Russian privileges, concessions and rights of extra-territoriali¬ ty in China and provided for joint control of the Chinese Eastern Railway. Frederick L. Schuman, Op. Cit., p. 228. 2. Ibid, p. 30. 3. Ibid, p. 230. Facing the realization that it would be highly unlikely to establish iron-clad agreements of mutual aid, Russian strategists attempted to neutralize her neighbours and the great powers against participation in a war aimed against Russia. “The Narkomindel had meanwhile woven an impressive web of peace pacts. Through the use of the then popular panacea for preserving peace by outlawing war, the objective of Mos¬ cow was to thwart any combination of Powers against the U.S.S.R.” 3 The Locarno Treaty of Mutual Guarantee, October 16, 1925, providing a joint Anglo-French-German-Italian and Bel¬ gian guarantee of the German-French and Ger- man-Belgian frontiers and the supplementary treaties between Germany, on the one hand, and France, Belgium, Czechoslovakia and Po¬ land on the other, added fuel to the fires of Russian distrust that an armed coalition was being prepared against her. In 1925, Turkey and the U.S.S.R. concluded a treaty of neutrality in the event of a war in¬ volving either power and pledged themselves not to attack one another nor to enter into any blocks or coalitions against one another. A new Soviet-German treaty was produced in 1926 re¬ affirming the Rapallo agreement and providing for: neutrality in any war in which either party was involved, abstention from economic or financial boycotts of each other and the Ger¬ man government was pledged to oppose anti- Soviet moves at Geneva. Similar non-aggres¬ sion and neutrality pacts were signed with Lithuania (September 28, 1926), Afganistan (August 31, 1926), Iran (October 1, 1927), Es¬ thonia (May 2, 1932), Latvia (February 5, 1932), Finland (January 21, 1932), Poland (July 25, 1932), and finally with France (November 29, 1932). On February 9, 1929, the “Litvinov Protocal” was signed by representatives of the U.S.S.R., Poland, Roumania, Esthonia and Lat¬ via. Lithuania signed on April 1, Danzig on April 30 and Iran on July 4, 1929. This “proto¬ cal” was based on the Kellog-Briand Pact of Paris of August 27, 1928, signed by Russia (the first power to ratify it) on August 31. The Kel¬ log-Briand Pact renounced war as an instru¬ ment of national policy and pledged the signa¬ tories to settle disputes peacefully. The Soviet government, concerned with the threat of a war directed against her, aimed at neutralizing Page Twenty-three

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The Nature of Mae By JOE FRY I THINK it is no exaggeration to say that in considering the nature of man we are grap¬ pling with one of the most fundamental prob¬ lems of our age. Unless we have a valid under¬ standing of man, we are lost, for we fail to understand our actions and the actions of others in the complex relationship of life. We can only stand then at the mercy of the titanic forces of history which demand absolute obedience from man under the guise of glossy pretensions. It is utterly imperative, therefore, that we see the truth about ourselves in order to find the mean¬ ing of our existence. I think a word of caution is in order, though. In dealing with the nature of man we are not dealing with some vague nebulous humanity. We are dealing with the essential nature of men and women in concrete historical situations. Therefore our thinking must be existential if it is to be meaningful. You, with all the complex modes of an historical being, are the subject under consideration. Standing in a world of crisis, we are called to do some really tough thinking. Vain sentimen¬ talism, Christian or otherwise, cannot stand against the piercing light of the Marxist an¬ alysis. The Marxist position stands as a judge¬ ment upon our civilization and all others which refuse to face the inadequacies of their own socio-economic structure. Many thinkers have seen Marxism as a Christian heresy for it is the position of a half truth carrying both the profound insights and extreme dangers that a half truth does. The Christian faith asserts that man is cre¬ ated in the image of God, and by that it means that man stands in a structural relationship with God in which he and God are united. I use the word structural to indicate that this relationship with God has a definite and essen¬ tial character. In this relationship God stands at the very centre of man’s life and thus truly lives because he is united with the source of life itself. But all men stand in this relationship and in this relationship they are bound together in true community. Here man realizes his des¬ tiny. Here and here only is man a true human being. The very substance of this relationship is one of love, in which God declares that the life of every human personality is sacred. The sacredness of human personality is thus not a human demand; it is a divine claim. Needless to say, such is not the world that you and I live in. Wherever we look we see man mercilessly exploiting his fellows. Human personality is not regarded as sacred but rather as an object among things; something to be used for the self-aggrandizement of other men, an economic system, a class or a state. Men are subject to the brutality of the will-to-power of other men and are dehumanized. We live in a world of hatred and divisibility where men are in conflict with their fellow men and at war within themselves. Man no longer has any abiding meaning in his life, his creative capa¬ cities are shattered, the brotherhood of man stands as a hollow mockery, and men are estranged from men and seem alienated from their true humanity. This is the world we know best! What has happened to the world that God created and affirmed was good? In seeking to understand and articulate the meaning of evil the Christian faith speaks of the fall of man. This is not, as is commonly assumed, an objec¬ tive incident which took place in two historical people at the dawn of history, but rather the Bible seeks to describe in mythological terms an experience which belongs to every man. You and I in the most profound sense are the char¬ acters in that drama of the fall. We are Adam and Eve. The Christian faith affirms that man is a sinner but it does not speak of sin in any moral¬ istic sense. The Christian concept of sin is man’s rebellion against the will of God. Man refuses to remain in that structural relationship in which God is the centre. He seeks to transcend his own creatureliness and make himself the Page Twenty-five