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The
Errors of an Epoch
Commenting
on President Bush's Condemnation of Yalta
By Michael Whitcraft
On a recent visit to Latvia, President
Bush denounced the negotiations in Yalta, which abandoned
Eastern Europe to the Soviet Union towards the end of World
War II. He stated:
The agreement at Yalta followed in
the unjust tradition of Munich and the Molotov-Ribbentrop
Pact. Once again, when powerful governments negotiated,
the freedom of small nations was somehow expendable. Yet
this attempt to sacrifice freedom for the sake of stability
left a continent divided and unstable. The captivity of
millions in Central and Eastern Europe will be remembered
as one of the greatest wrongs of history.1
Conservatives, who have long condemned
the Yalta sellout, rallied in support of the President,
while leftist pundits found in it a platform to repeat their
invectives against a “war hungry” president
with “volatile” policies. Attempting to excuse
the handover, some have claimed that Eastern Europe was
already in Soviet hands (not entirely true). Thus, to ensure
Soviet aid in the defeat of Japan, Roosevelt and Churchill
were forced to kowtow to Stalin.
However, tactical advantages fail to excuse
the cowardice which cost millions their freedom and lives.
The Yalta Conference
This is easily understood when one
considers the European and Asian concessions made to Stalin
at Yalta. A list compiled by Phyllis Schlafly follows:
- Poland was turned over to the Soviet
Union. The United States and Britain agreed to recognize
Communist stooges as the new Polish government and to
withdraw recognition from the legitimate anti-Communist
government of Stanislaw Mikolajczyk.
- Germany was to be dismembered, its
"national wealth" removed within two years,
and several million Germans were to be sent to the Soviet
Union to work as slave laborers…
- All Russian citizens who had fled
to Germany from Communism were to be forcibly returned
to the Soviet Union (i.e., the gulag).
- The Soviet Union was allowed to keep
control of Outer Mongolia, which the Soviets had seized
from China. The southern part of Sakhalin and all the
adjacent islands were given outright to the Soviets.
- The Kurile Islands were given
outright to the Soviets, and Port Arthur was given to
the Soviets for use as a naval base. The Soviets were
given effective control of the commercial port of Dairen,
the Chinese-Eastern Railroad and the South-Manchurian
Railroad, using the subterfuge of assuring that the Soviet
Union's "pre-eminent" interests would be "safeguarded."2
The Errors of an Epoch
Such limp-wristed handovers have caused
upright souls to cringe since February of 1945 when the
summit was held. More disturbingly, Yalta ushered a world-wide
mentality of appeasement, which has shaped mentalities even
to the present.
According to Prof. Plinio Corrêa
de Oliveira, Yalta contributed to the advance of pacifism
and mediocrity. He stated:
The legitimate aspirations of
peace of this class of men [men capable of solving problems]
were led astray just after World War II, right at Yalta.
The West was thrust toward the swamp of spineless and
utopian pacifism - a pacifism that found its most precise
expression in so many forms of detente, Ostpolitik and
ecumenism.
Affirm nothing, deny nothing, cry
out for almost no right, protest against no obscenity,
in short, raise up moderation as the supreme rule of thinking
and the obligatory element in desiring, feeling and acting:
all this hurled the West into the swamp of mediocrity.3
Such an outlook, brings the debate to a
higher level, where squabbles about tactical advantages
have no place. What the West needed, then as now, was a
spirit of pugnacity, a willingness to stand up to evil and
sacrifice for the common good.
No doubt, this spirit drove those allied
troops who defeated Nazi Germany. However, the concessions
at Yalta were a direct affront to their sacrifice, since
millions who they fought to save from Nazi tyranny were
freely given into Communist slavery. Admitting this error
is a step towards rectifying it in the future.
The Return of Pugnacity
In this lies the true value of President
Bush’s statement. One must hope that it signals a
return of this decisive and pugnacious spirit which would
banish the pacifistic and mediocre errors of our epoch and
free “expendable” nations still in bondage.
Thank you President Bush for condemning
these errors, but please do not stop there. Our nation still
faces the evils of Communism in the East and 90 miles off
the coast of Florida. The threat of nuclear arms casts its
shadow on America. In face of this, we need decisiveness
and pugnacity.
Treat China, North Korea and Cuba
with the uncompromising attitude that was lacking at Yalta.
Anything less would be to fall into the same errors you
so valiantly decried in Latvia.
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