CHAPTER 17
Stalin’s Choices and the Future of Europe
In his most optimistic moments, Stalin had envisioned Sovietization, “stretched out” over time, of all the European states, even those far to the West.1 He had been especially interested in making progress in France and Italy, which had strong Communist constituencies. However, the inability of their Moscow-oriented parties to move ahead did nothing but presage political stalemate. The voting majorities in European democracies were making their voices heard, and they did not want their nations run by Communists. The West gradually found good reason to step in and help. Indeed, President Truman seemed ready to take the lead. However, while he made several attempts to identify himself as a friend of democratic Europe, he was not quite able to hit the right note. Everything changed when the president, in a stroke of genius or good luck, named General George C. Marshall as his secretary of state.
STALIN’S OFFENSIVE AND TRUMAN’S REACTIONS
As we saw earlier, Truman first met Molotov in 1945. Wanting to avoid appearing weak, he asked the commissar just when the Soviet Union was going to start living up to its agreements. His question, with its sharp tone, was magnified into an international incident, and he soon beat a hasty retreat. The pattern repeated itself in 1946. The president quietly encouraged Churchill’s “iron curtain” speech, then disavowed it when journalists accused the prime minister of warmongering. In March 1947 the president sounded ready to challenge the Soviets with the Truman Doctrine, but no one took him seriously, least of all the Kremlin.
In 1945, when he led the country to victory, Truman was popular; a year later his approval ratings fell to 32 percent. He was trying to play tough with Moscow, but the message was not working. In the congressional elections in 1946, he heeded the advice of Democrats and made no campaign appearances. The Republicans won both houses by claiming, among other things, that the president, far from being hard on Communism, was actually too soft. Chastised by the election results, Truman kept a low profile and left for a vacation in Florida. On his return, he was almost resigned to being a one-term president and to doing the best job possible in the meantime.
In his State of the Union address in January 1947, however, the president had big positives to report. The nation was at peace and wealthier than ever, and it had full employment. He promised policies to improve the quality of life, to keep a balanced budget, and to establish international economic cooperation.2 Not many presidents before or since could deliver such a welcome message.
Truman also gave his administration a new face or two. Among them was General Marshall, who had become U.S. Army chief of staff on the day the war broke out in 1939 and held the position until victory.3 Marshall was so revered in Washington that when Truman named him as secretary of state Republican Senate leader Arthur Vandenberg waived the rules on appointments. In his case, there were no hearings; he was confirmed by unanimous vote the same day. That expression of confidence added to Marshall’s stature and conveyed the impression that the Truman administration might do great things after all.4
Marshall’s first direct experience in dealing with the Soviet Union as secretary of state was at the Council of Foreign Ministers meeting in Moscow, scheduled to begin on March 10, 1947. He prudently waited to see how things were going before requesting a courtesy call at the Kremlin. On April 18, Stalin, who seemed relaxed, received him. No one could have guessed that the dictator’s country was desperately struggling to cope with war damages and in the midst of a famine. He advised Marshall not to be discouraged by the lack of progress in the talks and to think of them as a long battle in which combatants fight until they are exhausted and finally ready to compromise.5
The “compromise,” need it be said, would be in favor of the more determined combatant, the one who could hold out longer. Stalin clearly saw himself as having what it took to outlast any opponent. Was that not what he was doing at that very moment? As Marshall could see for himself, the West more or less stood idly by as the Soviet dictator put Communists into power across Eastern Europe. Also in Moscow with Marshall was the British foreign secretary Ernest Bevin, a longtime Labor politician. He sensed, rightly, that the “Russians” were waiting for the Americans to lose interest and give in or go home. He also knew that all of Europe was in desperate condition, with no end in sight.6
Indeed, hunger was everywhere on the continent. Britain was still on wartime rations and in June 1947, for the first time in its history, had to ration bread. Italy and France were not doing much better, and Germany was worse again. Eastern Europe got by only because the Kremlin sent some food, but the USSR had its own drought and harvest failure in 1946, then a famine that took more than one million lives.7
The French foreign minister Georges Bidault noticed the signs of social distress on his way to Moscow for the talks. Bidault had been a Catholic teacher who played a leading role in the resistance and helped found the MRP. He had been to Moscow before, but this time he traveled by rail. Two things struck him about the trip:
The first was that, going from West to East, the train went slower and slower with each country we crossed and the second was that people’s faces got progressively sadder and more expressionless as we journeyed towards the East. Germany was still in ruins and I wondered how its cities, particularly Berlin, would ever be rebuilt. All that was left of German factories were a few vast chimney stacks still standing here and there. East Germany was already perceptibly sadder than West Germany. Poland, where Warsaw was not yet rebuilt, was sadder than East Germany. And Russia was saddest of all.8
On March 4, 1947, just before leaving for Moscow, Bidault had signed the Dunkirk Treaty with Great Britain. Although he hoped to avoid a breach between East and West, he recalled that “every exhausting and fruitless conference with the Soviet Union made me less certain of success.”9 The Anglo-French alliance was symbolic; it showed that concerns about the Soviet Union were not merely a figment of Washington’s imagination. Stalin had taken half the Continent already, and the other half felt deeply threatened. Europe was thus seriously divided, well before there was any mention of a Marshall Plan.10
Charles Bohlen, the veteran State Department expert who had translated for President Roosevelt at the wartime conferences, went with the new secretary to Moscow. Bohlen recalled that Marshall was taken aback when Stalin, seemingly indifferent to what was going on in Germany, appeared to think that “the best way to advance Soviet interests was to let matters drift.” Bohlen was particularly struck that “all the way back to Washington Marshall talked of the importance of finding some initiative to prevent the complete breakdown of Western Europe.”11
On April 28 the secretary of state gave a radio report on his trip, mentioned Stalin’s assurances about future cooperation, and said something had to be done and soon. “We cannot ignore the factor of time involved here. The recovery of Europe has been far slower than had been expected. Disintegrating forces are becoming evident. The patient is sinking while the doctors deliberate. So I believe that action cannot await compromise through exhaustion. New issues arise daily. Whatever action is possible to meet these pressing problems must be taken without delay.”12