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Book sheds light on partnership between Roosevelt and Stalin

One of the foundational myths of the far Right’s worldview is that the Cold War was a direct result of how an overly trusting president Franklin Roosevelt was taken in by the Soviet Union’s Marshal Stalin, falsely believing that they had reached an understanding for a peaceful postwar world.

One fateful consequence of Roosevelt’s delusion, this false narrative continues, was that at the critical Yalta Conference of early 1945 Roosevelt succumbed to Stalin’s wiliness by agreeing to the Soviet Union’s postwar domination of vast portions of central and eastern Europe.

Susan Butler’s excellent work deftly cuts through this fog of misrepresentation by revealing a far richer and more nuanced reality to the relationship between Roosevelt and Stalin. From studying the correspondence, conversations and meetings between them, she concludes that they had succeeded in forging a vital working partnership, not only in waging war against the Germans, but also in envisioning an effective, postwar world body intended to ward off future conflicts.

Despite the considerable history of mistrust between US and the Soviet Union, this happened because each man truly needed the other’s assistance. Stalin, for example, knew that the Soviet Union’s survival depended upon two things that only the US could provide: massive amounts of desperately needed military supplies, and the initiation of a second front on Nazi Germany’s west. For his part, Roosevelt needed the Soviet Union to remain in the war and also play a vital postwar role in maintaining the peace. He believed that World War II would permanently alter the power realities throughout greater Eurasia, allowing both the Soviet Union and China to assume critical leadership roles.

Envisioning postwar peace

The path towards forging this partnership was rocky, however. Not only did they have to overcome their reservations about each other, but they also had to deal with another key player: Prime Minister Winston Churchill of Great Britain. Churchill, who deeply disliked and mistrusted the Russians, not only was intent upon preserving the British Empire, but also sought to restrict Soviet power in the postwar world.

By the time Stalin and Roosevelt first met, the president had been working closely with Churchill for several years. With England desperately resisting repeated German bombing raids, Churchill requested financial loans and arms from the US. Roosevelt, recognizing that England’s survival was necessary if he were to have the time he needed to ready the US for a war with Germany that he regarded as unavoidable, managed to funnel military supplies and other needed provisions to her, even though the majority of Congress and the people wanted nothing to do with the war.

Nonetheless, despite subsequent US assistance, England was in dire shape by 1941 as her cargo ships and fighter planes were being destroyed faster than they could be replaced. Had Hitler persevered just a little longer, England might well have succumbed.

Instead, he made a critical blunder to invade the Soviet Union.

From the beginning, Roosevelt looked beyond the war’s end to the conundrum that his predecessor Wilson failed to solve: ensuring postwar peace. As Assistant Secretary of the Navy during World War I, Roosevelt had sadly watched the unraveling of Woodrow Wilson’s dream for a strong and united League of Nations. It was, he concluded, the US Senate’s failure to ratify the peace treaty that fatally weakened the League.

Accordingly, Roosevelt was determined that World War II’s Russian, American and British wartime alliance continue after the war, as it was the only means of preventing the grim patterns of the 1930s from reoccurring.

What were the major issues Stalin and Roosevelt confronted together? Stalin, seeking to relieve the German pressure on his troops, consistently pressed for an early invasion of France. Although Roosevelt agreed with him, he required sufficient time to get the required ships, planes and troops in place. But Churchill, in his concern over Russia’s postwar ambitions, consistently argued for delaying any invasion, countering that he preferred an attack from the south. Neither Roosevelt nor Stalin agreed with him.

At first cool to Roosevelt’s conception of a “united nations,” Stalin eventually embraced it, believing Roosevelt’s proposal that “The Big Four” must continue to work closely together to ensure the maintenance of world peace would not only allow the Soviet Union to survive and thrive, but also to be recognized as a world power. In this kind of world Russia would at last be secure.

As for the future of Germany, Stalin had two over-riding goals: to keep Germany permanently weakened so it could never again threaten Russia, and to ensure that the states on its western borders were friendly. Roosevelt was in total agreement with him about Germany, but he struggled with Stalin’s vision of a Soviet sphere of influence. Roosevelt, however, was also a realist. However much he desired more politically “free” states throughout Europe, the reality was that Soviet troops as a consequence of their relentless westward drive toward Germany already occupied those very lands. He knew that any attempt to expel them would mean war.

However, from his experience in working with Stalin, Roosevelt was confident that, over time, as they became more comfortable with their collaborative postwar partnership with the United States, the Soviet Union would come to feel less threatened about allowing an expanded range of political representation along its western borders.

Unnecessary Cold War

Furthermore, because Roosevelt wanted to be certain that the atomic bomb actually worked before divulging information about it to the Allies, he did not tell Stalin about the secret project before his own untimely death (although Stalin knew of it through his extensive spy network).

Unfortunately, Roosevelt’s death shortly after the Yalta Conference left the decision about the bomb in the hands of his uninformed, and more conservative successor, Vice-President Truman. Personally suspicious of the Russians, Truman heeded the hardline minority of his advisers and concluded that information about the bomb should not be shared. He saw it as a means of insurance against future Soviet aggression.

Stalin interpreted this decision as proof that the United States was now turning away from the partnership Roosevelt had forged with him. Other subsequent events — the halting of promised relief supplies to Russia, the Marshall Plan, and the maneuvering to “contain” the Soviet Union — only served to reinforce this conclusion. The result was the unnecessary Cold War.

Butler’s fine book reminds us that once the world had the kind of leaders who, despite having multiple reasons to suspect and distrust each other, nonetheless reached across the chasm to foster mutual understanding, determine important goals held in common, and develop cooperative agreements for implementing them. In this they not only achieved many successes, but also forged a vision for a more peaceful world.

May we see a return to those days and such leaders soon!

The author has been a college teacher of American history and political science and director of the US National Catholic Rural Life Conference.




 

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