6
PARTISAN REVIEW
would have shaken and perhaps overthrown the bureaucracy, the
Kremlin was unable to base its foreign policy on the international
working class and had no choice except to look for support among
the capitalist governments of Europe, playing one off against an–
other in the usual manner of imperialist power politics.
This fear of the Soviet masses and the international prole·
tariat is the key to Stalin's foreign policy. Realizing the insecurity
of his regime, Stalin, like Chamberlain who also fears revolution
above all things, has one basic objective: to avoid war at all costs.
An alliance with the democracies last summer would probably have
meant that the Reichswehr, after mopping up in Poland, would
have marched against the Soviet Union. On the other hand, as is
now being demonstrated, it was possible to make common cause
with Hitler without provoking any military intervention from the
Allies. Both political and geographical considerations made Hitler
the preferable ally for a Russia which above all else wanted to
avoid war.
The swindle perpetrated on those who for years sincerely
believed in the Comintern's "collective security" policy was on a
Staviski scale. This formula for saving the world from fascism
now turns out to have been all along nothing more dignified than a
club for Stalin to use in his bargaining with Hitler-or, at best, in
case Stalin found himself finally unable to come to terms, a fire
escape. It is now clear that Krivitsky and others were right when
they charged that Stalin has been the persistent suitor and Hitler
the indifferent maiden in the long courtship that has at last achieved
success. As long as France and England, fearing war and possible
revolution more than they feared Hitler, stuck to appeasement,
Hitler had no need of Stalin either as an ally or as a friendly
"neutral," since he could get what he wanted without war.* In this
period, there were no lengths to which Stalin would not go to con·
vince the democracies that his regime was not revolutionary and
could be trusted as an ally. This policy culminated in the betrayal
of the Spanish revolution in order to signalize the respectability of
the Kremlin to the French and British foreign offices.
When Germany moved into Czechoslovakia last winter, France
and England realized that Hitler would set no bounds to the expan-
.-r'he Staliniett now claim it wu the appeasement policy of the
"M'unichmen"
which drove Stalin
into the arm• of Hitler. Actually, the situation
wu
precisely the reveree : Stalin
wu
unable to make ao
alliance
with
Hitler, despite hi8 euneet effort1, until appeasement had come to an end.
