OPEN UNIVERSITY APRIL 9, 2007
-
Read Later
READ LATERAvailable only to subscribers. SUBSCRIBE TODAY
-
Listen
ARTICLE AUDIO
- Font Size
by Ron RadoshTwo years ago, TNR's Peter Beinart argued in his book The Good Fight, that a vibrant
liberal tradition advocating a tough but realistic foreign policy was the heart of a
mainstream liberal foreign policy. As reviewer James A. Lindsay explained in The
Washington Post Book World, "In the years following World War II, it was
Democrat Harry S. Truman who developed a coherent and compelling vision of
national greatness in the dangerous world. The Cold War liberalism--a term Beinart
takes as a compliment, not a slur--of Truman's Democratic Party unified the nation
and provided a blueprint for promoting U.S. security and prosperity that lasted nearly
half a century."
Now, a series of important documents and two new books provide more proof
for Beinart's assertion. Alan Johnson, editor of an online magazine,
Democraitya, has published recently
released British Cabinet memos written by Labor's foreign minister, Ernest Bevin, in
1948. Bevin called for Europeans to take the lead in creating an anti-communist
foreign policy that he argued had to be both progressive and reformist. As Johnson
writes in his introduction to the documents, it was an attempt by Labor "to insert a
social democratic component into the emerging cold war structures," which Johnson calls a "Third Force" path between
totalitarianism and laissez-faire capitalism."
The Bevin memos make
fascinating reading in today's world, as we face a new totalitarian threat. Bevin
understood, as did Truman, that world communism threatened "the whole fabric of
Western civilization," and had to be opposed by support to democratic elements the
world over. In conjunction with the United States, Benin argued, the policy could
eventually lead, as it did, to victory.
In the realm of Truman scholarship, a major book of historical analysis has
been published by Cambridge University Press. Written by Wilson D. Miscamble,
C.S.C. of Notre Dame University, From Roosevelt to Truman: Potsdam, Hiroshima,
and the Cold War, the author shows how the Truman administration
slowly but
firmly
moved away from the policies espoused by Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had hoped
that cooperation with the Soviets could continue in the postwar world. Miscamble,
basing his argument on extensive and impressive research in scores of archives,
shows how Harry S. Truman, the accidental president, developed a new conceptual
role of America's international role. The new policy was based, as he writes, "on a
desire to preserve the security of the noncommunist world from Soviet
expansionism." In the process, Miscamble skewers and effectively demolishes the old
arguments of the so-called "Cold War revisionists," who argued that the cold war was
caused by American militarism and imperialism, and could have been avoided had the
United State pursed an accomodationist foreign policy.
Miscamble's book should be read in conjunction with an important reevaluation
of Truman, Elizabeth Edwards Spalding's The First Cold Warrior: Harry Truman,
Containment, and the Remaking of Liberal Internationalism (The
University Press of Kentucky). Spalding's contribution is to show how it was Truman
himself who made
the decisions and formulated the policy that led to containment. It was Truman, she
reveals, who formulated the policy of developing a "strategic military component" as
part of the Kennan containment policy, thereby broadening and moving away from
George F. Kennan's own conception of how containment should be implemented. It
was "freedom, justice, and order," Spalding argues, espoused by Truman, that
became the basis upon which a durable peace could be attained. Like Bevin, Truman
saw the conflict with the Soviets as a fight between liberal democracy and
totalitarianism. Both books complement each other, and both authors show how we
in today's world live in the shadow of the policies created and implemented by
Harry S. Truman.
For those who live in the Washington, D.C. area, both authors will appear, along
with other scholars to discuss the new Truman scholarship at a forum on April 24,
sponsored by the Cold War International History Project at the Woodrow Wilson
Center for Scholars. Those who want to attend should r.s.v.p. to the address here.
6 comments
There is a certain fashionable dismissal of Social Democracy, that is "the formal movement" in American intellectual circles. The European SD Parties may advocate "social democracy" but are, in fact, very junior partners in a vast capitalist civilization. Social Democracy is envisioned as a sluggish dim-witted "variant of capitalism" or perhaps "capitalism with a human face." What this overlooks is that the civilian populations, at the end of WWII, were seeking a way out of misery. fear and regimentation. Winston Churchill, after all, was defeated by C. Attlee. It was not at all certain that free market economics could provide the way forward on its own strength in war devistated Europe. The SD parties spoke the political language of the times: out of poverty, fear and privation. The "Third Force" concept is derided as a utopian fantasy. The fact remains, the SDs were a potent electoral force in post war Europe and skillful anti-totalitarians. English social democracy especially has deep roots in its native soil; it thinks of itself as an "ethical socialism" and the rightful inspiration of the "socialist movement." What better antagonists were there within the labor movement to Communist influence? The labor philosophy of S. Gompers never made it in Europe. Mostly, the European labor movement was "pink" or "red" in inspiration. The Christian Democrats, a major force, counterbalancing the power of the Left, also with trade union following. Union membership and organization was quite substantial in post war Europe. Bevin was a product of the labor movement. The labor movement played a crucial role in the economic future of the post WWII Europe. Socialist opposition to Communism needed to be reliable and "real." The anti-communists required a unifying theme and direction. Bevin inspired the NATO alliance and spoke the "patios" of militant labor: i. e. "social democracy." Were the Laborites really "disoriented capitalists" or "capitalists in self-denial?" The ideological battle against barbarism required a successful "social democracy" in Europe, at least. It is delightful to read the Memos of a "social democratic" foreign secretary.
- LawrenceGulotta
April 9, 2007 at 8:00pm
Roosevelt's New Deal was an essentially social democratic politics, and it was looked at closely abroad. After WW2 there was a kind of liberal Euro-American understanding in the post-war era that part of the strategy of rolling back Soviet influence had to be the opening of a road out of capitalist dysfunction that didn't involve a communist takeover. Hence many European social democrats (both individuals and parties) were convinced supporters of the U.S., sometimes even during the Viet Nam war (although that was where it began to come apart). From 1945-1965 the U.S. represented for many the modern and egalitarian alternative to the moribund class-fixated traditions of European conservatism. In a Cold War context, the Marshall Plan was something like an international social democratic policy.
- ironyroad
April 9, 2007 at 10:19pm
There is a certain fashionable dismissal of Social Democracy, that is "the formal movement" in American intellectual circles today. The European SD Parties may advocate "social democracy" but are, in fact, very junior partners in a vast capitalist civilization, it is argued. Social Democracy is envisioned as a sluggish dim-witted "variant of capitalism" or perhaps "capitalism with a human face." What this viewpoint overlooks is that the civilian populations, at the end of WWII, were seeking a way out of misery, fear and regimentation. Winston Churchill, after all, was defeated by C. Attlee. It was not at all certain that free market economics could provide the way forward on their own strength in war devastated Europe. The SD parties spoke the political language of the times: out of poverty, fear and privation. The "Third Force" concept is derided as a utopian fantasy. The fact remains, the SDs were a potent electoral force in post war Europe and skillful anti-totalitarians. English social democracy especially has deep roots in its native soil; it thinks of itself as an "ethical socialism" and the rightful inspiration of the "socialist movement." What better antagonists were there within the labor movement to Communist influence? The labor philosophy of S. Gompers never made it in Europe. Mostly, the European labor movement was "pink" or "red" in inspiration. The Christian Democrats, a major force, counterbalancing the power of the Left, also with trade union following. Union membership and organization was quite substantial in post war Europe. Bevin was a product of the labor movement. The labor movement played a crucial role in the economic future of the post WWII Europe. Socialist opposition to Communism needed to be reliable and "real." The anti-communists required a unifying theme and direction. Bevin inspired the NATO alliance and spoke the "patios" of militant labor: i. e. "social democracy." Were the Laborites really "disoriented capitalists" or "capitalists in self-denial?" The ideological battle against barbarism required a successful "social democracy" in Europe, at least. It is delightful to read the Memos of a "social democratic" foreign secretary.
- LawrenceGulotta
April 10, 2007 at 10:07am
"Two years ago, TNR's Peter Beinart argued in his book The Good Fight..." My sarcastic nickname for Peter Beinart is "Mr. Page 188." The dude's work conveniently focussed on the distant past. He only spent part of one page discussing the craziness of today's Democratic Party. It's OK if you wish to discuss Harry Truman or even Hubert Humphrey. However, both of these gentlemen have been dead for decades. George McGovern is now the clear victor. When is more time going to be spent on the here and now?
- thomsondavid
April 10, 2007 at 10:52am
Thanks to the eroding position of working people in Europe and North America, Social democracy's had a rough time on both sides of the Atlantic in the last generation. The British endured Thatcher, and came out the better for it, but it was a rough ride; the French socialists have done more privatizing and deregulating than even Thatcher did, and yet have not seriously improved French economic performance or addressed the main sources of French economic anxiety; Germany's only now emerging from its 15-year recession. Before we get nostalgic for Truman or the Cold War, we might ask ourselves what role social democracy and social democrats expect to play in the era of triumphant global capitalism. Also, what if anything is the relation between same and our strategic approach to the foreign policy theater that really matters, east and south Asia.
- teplukhin
April 10, 2007 at 3:38pm
Frankly, the Truman stuff isn't really relevant anymore. Scanning the Cold War for clues to our current situation won't really help us. First, the jihadist threat from within (Europe) is nearly as strong as the threat from without. Second, we don't have anything like the economic clout we had in 1950. We're a debtor nation now, are extremely vulnerable to the Asians. Third, it's an Asia-centric world today. The Atlantic Alliance simply doesn't matter much, let alone dominate our policy. Long past time we figured out a more classic, conservative, balance-of-power approach to those Asian security and economic issues that will have the greatest impact on our safety and prosperity in this century.
- teplukhin
April 10, 2007 at 3:51pm