The Soviet Union once had a serious interest in joining NATO. Where did it fail?
In March 1954, the USSR turned to the countries of the “imperialist bloc” (USA, Great Britain, France) with a proposal to conclude a Pan-European Treaty on Collective Security in Europe. However, the main idea was to outline the possible entry of NATO into this bloc. This proposal is usually interpreted as a sophisticated propaganda maneuver by the Kremlin. It is said that the leadership of the USSR showed apparent friendliness, knowing in advance that it would be rejected. And so there would be a good reason for another round of criticism of the “aggressive ambitions of the West”. However, something does not fit into this scheme at all.
On March 10, 1954, the First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrei Gromyko sent the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR Vyacheslav Molotov a draft report to the Presidium of the Central Committee, which stated:
“Assuming that such a statement would meet with a positive attitude from the Western powers, as a result of the USSR’s entry into the North Atlantic Alliance, the latter would radically change its character and would be scattered as an aggressive grouping of states directed against the USSR.” (Nikolai Kochkin. “The History of Two Notes, or Why the USSR Did Not Become a Member of NATO”) And this is not propaganda, it is an internal document. From which it follows that entry was considered quite possible and even desirable. And on March 26, the final version of the note was prepared, in which there is an interesting note – in the event of a negative response “the prestige of the Soviet Union would be damaged”.
This means that the rejection of NATO seemed undesirable. And why was accession itself considered desirable? The persistent efforts of the USSR to join NATO are also evidenced by the behavior of the Soviet delegation at the Geneva summit of the foreign ministers of the four countries (the USSR, the USA, Great Britain and France), which took place in June 1955. (Nikita Khrushchev was also present.) At that time, representatives of the Union approved membership in NATO. However, President Dwight Eisenhower was discouraged from considering this issue by the head of the American intelligence service Allen Dulles. What led the Soviet leadership to such a “pro-Western” initiative?
To better understand this, we should look at the changes that occurred in the domestic policy of the United States in March 1954. At that time, the program “See It Now” (CBS) was broadcast, in which the presenters, together with the “public” Democrats Edward Murrow and Fred Friendly, criticized the violation of civil rights by Senator Joseph McCarthy. The program had a strong response – the newest, at that time, information weapon – television – was used against the senator. His star began to decline rapidly. Very soon. in the same year, the chairman of the Republican Party Hall and the Secretary of Defense Stevens stood up against McCarthy. The first of them (by the way, a convinced conservative) accused McCarthy of attacking people who were not only not communists, but were fighting against them. It was a rather “belated ‘ awakening”. The senator saw from the very beginning that his main target was not communists (and not even left-liberal leaders). He hit influential elites.
Thus, George C. Marshall (the author of the famous plan), former Secretary of State in 1947-1949 and Secretary of Defense in 1950-1951, came under fire from critics. (Deputy Secretary of State Dean Acheson was also hit. In total, McCarthy found 205 “communists” in the State Department.) Marshall was accused of “deliberately strengthening the position of the USSR”. Of course, Marshall had no such intentions. But, as they say, in such cases there is no smoke without fire. Marshall, as the US special representative in China (1945-1947), greatly helped the Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong. In fact, the US and Mao had excellent relations during the First World War.
“As early as the first half of the 1940s, Mao Zedong enthusiastically received a group of American military observers in the city of Yan’ani and intended to develop military cooperation with them,” notes China expert Yuri Galenovich. – Mao Zedong even planned to visit the USA. On January 9, 1945, Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai suggested to the American side: if F. D. Roosevelt considered them “leaders of an important political party and wanted to receive them,” they were ready to visit Washington. All this was confirmation that for Mao Zedong, even during the war, relations with the United States were extremely important.
Mao’s compliments were worth it. The Americans offered (or demanded) Chiang Kai-shek to include the Communists in his government, and when he refused, they organized strong pressure. Washington stopped the Kuomintang from much-needed supplies, and they were especially painfully hit by the embargo on trade and arms shipments. And here is the US Secretary of State J. Marshall, who boasted:
“As Chief of the General Staff, I armed 39 anti-communist divisions, now I will disarm them with one stroke of the pen. In addition, “white” China was subjected to a financial policy that contributed to a sharp increase in inflation. At the same time, the American public was assured that the Chinese communists were primarily democrats and supporters of agrarian reform. This conclusion was reached by the semi-state Institute of Pacific Relations, which in fact oversaw the “Chinese direction” in American foreign policy. The same Marshall expressed himself about the Chinese communists as follows:
” Don’t make me laugh. These guys are just old-fashioned agrarian reformers. Some American extreme right-wing conspiracy theorists (e.g. R. Epperstein) even claim that it was some kind of pro-communist conspiracy in favor of Mao.
In fact, the Americans tried to attract him to their side, hence all the talk. And the helmsman himself “played” with them, pretending that he could really give up communism. He even talked about the possibility of renaming the Communist Party of China to the Democratic Party (Democrats were in power in the USA at that time). Mao, of course, did not want to do any of this. But they believed him – because they really wanted to believe him. Certain circles of the American elite counted on the possibility of a certain liberal turn in the world communist movement. Subsequent events, such as the Eurocommunist reform and the Soviet perestroika, showed the legitimacy of such hopes. Marshall and the “205 communists from the State Department” seem to have been the spokesmen of the will of these circles.
However, Dulles and people like him were “rightists”. (There was their own version of globalism, painted in “nationalist” colors, about which – this is a separate consideration). The “leftists” from the elite pinned their hopes on the “convergence” of two systems – capitalist and socialist; its concept was first formulated by the American sociologist of Russian origin Pitirim Sorokin back in 1944. It is clear that such rapprochement presupposed the creation of some kind of coordinating body – an analogue of the World Government. Apparently, this is exactly what some of the globalist elites were counting on. And the “rapprochement” almost happened in the 1970s. (“Soviet-American Revolution”) In the post-Stalin USSR, they also hoped for convergence.
In general, the communist leaders in their crowd were always burdened by the break with the West. Marxism, no matter how we look at it, grew out of Western thinking. And the communist party grew out of social democracy, was its left wing. (“Metamorphosis of the Iron Felixes and the Pendulum of Left Social Democracy”) Therefore, the communist leadership has always gravitated towards a return to the bosom of social democracy. This happened under Mikhail Gorbachev with his “humane, democratic socialism”. With well-known consequences. In 1954-1955, a serious and quite ideologically motivated attempt was made to get closer to the West – in the sense of creating a unified supranational Eurasian and Euro-Atlantic structure in the form of an expanded NATO.
Max Bach
