By Prof. M. Venkatarangaiya, M.A.
THE most difficult of the arts which men have to
learn is the art of living together. This requires a good deal of mutual
sympathy, understanding, and regard, and above all a spirit of compromise. One
criterion of human progress is the extent to which this art is learnt. Some
success has been achieved in this direction in the course of ages and it is
indicated by the extension of the territorial limits of States. From the tribal
States of primitive times city-States were gradually evolved. Then came
extensive kingdoms based on military conquest. They were succeeded in more
recent times by well-knit national States. Every growth in the size of a State
is an evidence of the fact that more people are made to live as peaceful
neighbours of each other. More are in that way made to learn the art of living
together.
The attempt to organise a world State is only a
further move in this direction. But this attempt has not so far succeeded. The
League of Nations was only a conference of representatives of the Sovereign
States which had membership on it. The United Nations Organisation which has
now taken its place is no better. It is also a conference of similar delegates.
It has existed for three years and its General Assembly is now sitting in Paris
for its third session. From what it did during the three previous years, there
is nothing to indicate that in its present form it will succeed in making the
different nations of the world live in peace towards each other. But all the
same the member nations have sent their delegates to it and it is expected that
it would sit for three months and carry on debates on some of the most
complicated problems with which the international world is now faced problems
which may lead not merely to regional wars but also to a third global war
unless they are solved by peaceful negotiation. Palestine, Korea, the Balkans,
the Italian Colonies, Indians in South Africa, are some of these problems.
Besides these the Assembly has to consider the reports submitted by various
commissions like the Atomic Energy Commission and the Commission on
Conventional Armaments. Everyone of these subjects raises issues of a highly
controversial character and in the tension that is now existing in the world,
and especially among the great powers, very little hope is entertained that
they will be settled on peaceful lines. There is so little of the spirit of
compromise among the great powers that it is now feared this may be the last
session of the General Assembly in its present form, and that ere long the
United Nations Organisation might be replaced by two organisations–one
dominated by the United States and her Allies and Satellites and another by
Soviet Russia and her Satellites. This is the natural sequel to the cleavage
between these two great powers that has been becoming wider and wider in recent
months.
There is no need at this stage to go into the
fundamental causes of this cleavage. It is quite enough to recognise that it
exists. In the name of security and defence both Soviet Russia and the United
States have been adopting expansionist policies. Such a policy is considered by
the Americans to be absolutely essential for their country if she is to find a
market for her goods and sound investment for her capital and if she is to
secure a steady and plentiful supply of the raw materials required by her
industries. Her capitalist economy cannot other wise last long. She is just now
doing what the colonial and the capitalist nations of Western Europe did in the
18th and 19th centuries. Free access, therefore, to the countries of Eastern
and South-Eastern Asia which supply essential raw materials like rubber and
tin, to the countries of the Middle East with their oil, and to those of
Western Europe which alongside of these other countries can afford a market for
the surplus produce of American agriculture and industry is a primary need for
the United States. And in securing this access she come to realise that Soviet
Russia is her greatest obstacle. This is partly due to the fact that Russia
also is in need of the very same essential raw materials and, in addition, she
is determined on pursuing with greater vigour the expansionist policies which
were inherited from the regime of the Czars and which are now backed up by the
Communistic ideology. There is thus no common ground between these two powers.
In the spheres of economics, politics, as well as of ideology there is a
conflict between them; and all proceedings of the United Nations Organisation,
whether in the General Assembly or the Security Council, or the Social and
Economic Councilor other organisations affiliated to the U.N.O. have been
marred by this conflict. If today there is a widespread feeling that the U.N.O.
may not survive for a long time, it is in the main due to this fundamental
cleavage between Russia and the United States. The former is bent–whatever be
the cost–in spreading Communism throughout the world as that would be conducive
to her domination, and the latter is equally bent on preventing such an
outcome.
So the General Assembly of the United Nations which
met at Paris on the 21st of September may continue to sit for three months. It
may provide a platform for leaders of different countries to deliver highly
eloquent and vigorous speeches and for the expression of praiseworthy views on
the highest ethical and moral ideals. But in the atmosphere that is now
prevailing it will not be far from truth to say that these proceedings are not
going to bring peace nearer or to put an early end to war as the instrument for
settling international disputes. Let it also be noted that it is not any defect
in the institutional organisation of the U.N.O.–the Veto power, for instance,
in the Security Council–that is the cause of all this. It is really due to the
want of will on the part of the great powers to utilise the machinery for
securing world peace. They are not interested in peace except on their own
terms.
That even the leaders of the great powers are
losing faith in the U.N.O. is best brought out by what Mr. Bevin, the British
Minister for Foreign Affairs, stated at the Assembly meeting on September 27.
He observed thus:
“After San Francisco our hopes were high and we
felt that, at last, with all the mistakes of the League of Nations behind us, a
new instrument had been created which would avoid them: that the terrible
experiences which the world had suffered would lead all statesmen to
co-operate. Perhaps we set our hopes too high. Nevertheless, it is better to
have our difficulties now than to live in a fool’s paradise, because from these
misunderstandings and difficulties we may still learn a way to provide means to
overcome them. If we cannot proceed on a world basis as we hoped, we must
proceed on a regional basis. We must agree with whom we can agree, work with
those whom we can work with, understand and trust those who are willing to
enter into trust and understanding with us. It is perhaps out of there very
regional structures that there may yet grow that World Government for which humanity
of yearns and towards which it has been striving arid struggling for so long.”
Premier Stalin seems also to be thinking on the
same lines. He had special conferences with the ministers of Hungary,
Czechoslovakia, and other Satellite States of Eastern Europe. It is now
surmised that there might not only be a walk-out from the U.N.O. by Russia and
her Satellites but that this will be followed by the formation of an ‘Eastern
United Nations Organisation,’ consisting of the States behind the Iron Curtain and
Eastern Germany. The determination of Soviet Russia to drive away the Western
powers from Berlin, which is at the back of the failure of the seven weeks’
Moscow talks, is a necessary part of this program.
The failure of the negotiations regarding Berlin is
only an indication of the impossibility of any real peace between the East and
the West. It was hoped, that, as a result of the two meetings that the Western
envoys had with Stalin in the course of August, there would be some compromise
on the Berlin question, that the Russians would agree to lift the blockade
while the Western powers would agree to the introduction of the Soviet Mark as
currency in their part of Berlin under four-power control, and that soon after
these two conditions were fulfilled there would be a conference of the four
Foreign Ministers to discuss all other questions bearing on Germany. This would
have been a compromise honorable to both parties but the Military Governors to
whom the working of the technical details were left could not arrive at any
settlement, with the result that the situation became much worse at the end of
these discussions than before they started. The Soviet now insists of the
establishment of control over transportation by air also between Berlin and the
Western. Zones and wants to place restrictions on the four-power control of
Berlin currency. All this means that the Berlin crisis cannot be solved except
by the use of force. The Western powers however do not want to have recourse to
war immediately. It may be due to the fact that they have a sincere dislike for
the use of force or to their not yet being ready to undertake military action.
They have therefore decided to refer the matter to the Security Council on the
ground, that it is one which involves threat to international peace and
security. It is not merely the continuance of the Berlin blockade to which the
Western powers are taking objection, but also the use of violence by the
Communists in the Russian Sector of Berlin against the City Assembly and the
creation of numerous disorders by them with a view to capture by force the City
Municipal Government, though the latter is one elected by the free vote of the
Berliners.
The question that arises is whether this reference
of the dispute to the Security Council will in any way improve matters. It will
not produce any such result for two reasons. The whole difficulty is due to
vital differences existing among the great powers and these differences are
bound to influence the course of discussions in the Security Council. Any
decision arrived at there will be a majority decision not supported by Soviet
Russia. It will therefore not carry any moral weight with Russia and her
Satellites. The second reason is that there is a possibility of the Russian
delegates questioning the competence of the Security Council to discuss the
matter at all and their refusing to be a party to any discussion of it. They
may walk out of the Council in protest.
This is the first occasion when some of the great
powers have brought charges against another great power. In all previous cases,
the charges were initiated by some power outside the big five. It is
circumstances like these that make one pessimistic about the future of the
U.N.O. It may also be incidentally noted that neither the General Assembly nor
the Security Council has shown any willingness to enforce military or economic
sanctions for giving effect to their decisions. Their decision regarding
Indonesia and the partition of Palestine have consequently been mere paper decisions.
The alternative therefore to war is negotiation
among the four great powers themselves. An appeal to the Security Councilor the
General Assembly, where the Anglo-American bloc can easily command a majority,
may have a propaganda value. It cannot however settle the issue.
In studying therefore the proceedings of the
present General Assembly of the U.N.O., these unfriendly relations between the
East and the West have to be kept in mind.
It is not merely the great powers that are unable
and unwilling to settle their disputes by peaceful means. It is also the case
with the other powers, though to some extent it is due to the mischief played
by the great powers for promoting their selfish interests. There are now three
illustrations of this. One is Palestine, the second is Indonesia, and the third
Indo-China. The late lamented Count Bernadotte, who met his death at the hands
of a Jewish terrorist, had worked out a plan for Palestine which ought to be
satisfactory to both the Arabs and the Jews. But both these have denounced the
plan, not on any intelligible, but purely sentimental, grounds. The plan gives
the Jews a homeland and a State–the one thing that they wanted. The Arabs
retain the rest of Palestine. They (the Arabs) should be satisfied with this, as
they must have seen from experience that by recourse to war they cannot get
more. All their boasted military strength is not enabled them to obtain victory
over the Jews and any renewal of war will not improve their position,
especially in view of the fact that there are acute differences of opinion
between Abdulla of Transjordan–the only king with an efficient army–and the
other members of the Arab League. King Abdulla has during the last few days
made it clear that and he would not recognise the Provisional Government set up
for Palestine by the Arab League. He is more anxious to get Arab Palestine for
himself and he is prepared to fight the Arab League for that purpose. Under
these circumstances is it not the part of wisdom for both parties to accept the
Bernadotte Plan and work it, especially in view of both Britain and the United,
States backing it? The subject is to be discussed by the General Assembly and,
as Bernadotte’s plan is based on that Partition which was recommended last year
by the Assembly, the latter should now have no difficulty in supporting it.
The trouble today in Indonesia is mainly the
outcome of the unwillingness of the Dutch to do the right thing by the
Indonesian of all Republic governed by nationalists who believe in Democracy and
Socialism. The Dutch have failed to carry out their war-time pledges. They did
their utmost to weaken the Government of the Republic and into to demoralise
it. The result is that the extremist elements in the country found an excuse to
rebel against the Republic. The Communists constitute the major part of these
extremists. Many prominent people eyes have joined them. There is now a civil
war between the Communists and the Republican Government. The Dutch have
offered help to our Republic but it was rightly refused. The Republican army is
striving its best to put down the Communist insurrection. It may succeed, but
all this could have been avoided if the Dutch had been prepared to shed their
colonialism and if the British and the Americans had brought pressure on them
to do this. Any Communist victory here will not only ruin the democratic forces
of the Republic, but will create a dictatorship directed by Moscow which will
prove fatal to any Dutch interests that may exist in South-East Asia.
Mr. Bevin and the Governments of the West-European
States and the United States now believe that the Communist governments in
South-East Asia are inspired by Moscow and that it is being done to distract
the attention of the Western powers from Berlin and also to prevent the flow of
the raw materials of S. E. Asia into West-European Countries, a flow so
necessary if the Marshall Aid plan is to succeed. But it is rather surprising
how these Governments do not realise that Communism, which for the time being
identifies itself with Nationalism, receives all its strength from the
reactionary colonialism of the Western Democracies.
This is also the case with France in Indo-China.
The economic condition of France is critical. There is inflation. Prices are
soaring. Strikes have become the order of the day. And there is ministerial
instability. The economic crisis can be overcome only by reducing the
expenditure on the military forces kept in Indo-China to fight the Vietnam
Republic. But this the French are not prepared to do, even though recent events
have shown that the Vietnam authorities are more than able to hold their own in
the battle-field. The result is that the economic situation in France is
growing worse. The labourers are not satisfied with the wage increases that have
been granted by the new ministry. The demand for a general election by De
Gaulle is growing stronger. Unless wiser and more honest colonial policy is
pursued, France herself is in danger of falling into the hands of De Gaulle–a
Fascist Dictator–or of the Communists. In either case she would lose her
democratic freedom.
The only country today which is free from internal
trouble is Britain. The Trade Union Congress, which met recently, accepted in
the main the economic policy of Sir Stafford Cripps and called upon the workers
to do everything needed to increase production and exports. Even on questions
of nationalisation and on foreign policy, the Congress expressed its approval
of the policy of the Labour Government. One characteristic feature of the British
is their sturdy commonsense. And this is found as much among the masses as
among the ruling classes. This is at the bottom of the speedy economic recovery
of the country, which stands in contrast with the chaos that is still found in
many of the countries of the Continent.