East-West Trade Trends: Mutual Defense Assistance Control Act of 1951 (the Battle Act); Fourth Report to Congress, Second Half of 1953 — John Shaqi
East-West Trade Trends: Mutual Defense Assistance Control Act of 1951 (the Battle Act); Fourth Report to Congress, Second Half of 1953United States. Foreign Operations Administration
History
East-West Trade Trends: Mutual Defense Assistance Control Act of 1951 (the Battle Act); Fourth Report to Congress, Second Half of 1953
United States. Foreign Operations Administration
Military assistance; Mutual security program, 1951-; United States -- Commercial policy
Lenin, in a statement which was reprinted in 1943, said that "every
'peace program' is a deception of the people and piece of hypocrisy
unless its principal object is to explain to the masses the need for a
revolution, and to support, aid, and develop the revolutionary struggle
of the masses that is starting everywhere...."
There is no evidence that the new Soviet regime has overnight embraced
free-world ideas about peace and warfare. To the disciples of Marx,
Lenin, and Stalin, the world is always in a state of warfare. The
warfare waged by them is three-fold: psychological, economic, and
military. Military action is a last resort, but psychological and
economic action never ceases. Stalin did not invent this concept,
though he put it into action on a large scale. Nor was it exclusively
Russian. The German military philosopher, Clausewitz, whose mid-19th
century writings were carefully noted by Lenin and Stalin, wrote:
"Disarm your enemy in peace by diplomacy and trade, if you would
conquer him more readily on the field of battle."
=A Mixture of Motives=
Hence the question arises: Can the Soviet trade offensive be explained
as a campaign of "economic warfare"?
That depends on what is meant by economic warfare.
Paradoxically, many people think of economic warfare as meaning
economic action in which economic considerations are relatively
unimportant, and the gaining of political or psychological advantage is
dominant.
If economic warfare is taken in this sense, the answer to our question
is "no". The explanation of the Soviet trade offensive is not that
simple. The Soviet Union and its satellites have economic needs. They
use foreign trade to serve those needs. We have noted in this report
how they determine what imports they want from the free world, and then
develop a program of exports to pay for the imports. They are not in
the Olympian position of being able to pick and choose these imports
and exports solely on the basis of whether the choice will help them
deceive, confuse, embarrass, or divide the capitalistic West. Therefore
it is a grave oversimplification to assume, as some people do, that
the Soviet Communist's every action in the market places of the world
inevitably brings him advantages in international politics.
On the other hand it would be an even greater mistake to assume that
economic considerations always govern; that because the Soviet-bloc
governments often use normal trading channels and devices they must
be looking upon trade through the same eyes as the businessman of
Indianapolis, Manchester, or Stockholm; and that politeness at the
bargaining table is the undoubted mark of innocently "economic"
commerce, free of ulterior motives.
The truth is: Soviet-bloc trading actions are neither purely economic
nor purely noneconomic.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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