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Letters to the Editor
To the Editor:
Although Todd Bennett's discussion of Mission to Moscow (September
2001 JAH) expresses a desire to illuminate "the elusive linkages
between culture and power," his article may too readily succumb to the
power and culture of the Cold War. The film Mission to Moscow
represented a crucial controversy over our foreign policy as, in the
interest of winning Soviet trust and cooperation, the Roosevelt administration
challenged a powerful anti-Soviet tradition. Bennett slights the importance
and promise of that challenge while simply endorsing the wisdom of the
anti-Soviet rationale that replaced it. He even attributes such a rationale
to Franklin D. Roosevelt by asserting that the film's "unintentional
provision of ideological support to the Stalinist regime . . . exposed
a weakness in Roosevelt's approach." But did Roosevelt himself consider
this a weakness? Or was he, unlike his successor, prepared to cultivate
and fully accept the friendship and legitimacy of the Soviet government?
If Roosevelt's utilization of Mission to Moscow was not "as 'naïve'
as critics have claimed" because it initiated a cultural penetration
of the Soviet Union, is this because Roosevelt assumed a two-way street
that would build understanding and even some imitation in both directions?
Such flexibility did not survive Roosevelt's death. While Roosevelt
had resisted the strongly anti-Soviet urgings of Winston Churchill,
George Kennan, and Averell Harriman, they all found an eager follower
in Harry S. Truman, who was soon praised by those who had denounced
both the film and Roosevelt's foreign policy.
Objections could be raised to a variety of Bennett's Cold War assumptions,
including his conception of a "totalitarian coalition," but let us focus
upon one: Joseph Stalin's supposed attempt to reach a separate peace
with Adolf Hitler in 1943. This particular demonization of Stalin reached
full expression in an article published by Vojtech Mastny in 1972. Lacking
firm evidence of any such peace effort, Mastny did display an uncanny
ability to speculate on the possible meaning of possible occurrences
and to twist Soviet actions or words into something either nefarious
or contrary to their apparent meaning. Because the Soviets reacted to
this accusation in 1947 by pointing out that one of the named participants
was in Australia at the time he was supposed to be meeting Nazi representatives
in Sweden, Mastny concluded that "Russian sensitivity about the subject
enhances rather than reduces the possibility" of such an effort. Recognizing
the weakness of his case, he also expressed regret that "conclusive
evidence from the Moscow archives may not be available for some time
to come." In the thirty subsequent years, no such evidence has emerged,
and as Robert H. McNeal, no Soviet sympathizer, concluded in 1988, "it
is unlikely that Stalin was seriously interested in negotiations at
this time." Certainly such Allied fears existed, but they were reflective
of anti-communist prejudice and, perhaps, Allied embarrassment rather
than Soviet treachery. Up to that time, not only had the Soviet Union
borne the brunt of the war, but commitments to launch a second front
had not been met in 1942 and 1943 and convoys to Murmansk had been halted
three times, the last during the decisive Battle of Stalingrad no less.
As for Roosevelt, rather than being motivated by anti-communist suspicions,
he deplored them and remained primarily concerned with enhancing the
vital war and postwar role of the Soviet Union. In pursuit of that end
he desired to utilize Mission to Moscow to build a lasting friendship,
and it is of some significance that the reception of that film (despite
its cultural penetration) was overwhelmingly favorable in the Soviet
Union, while it was being widely denounced in the United States.
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Otto H. Olsen
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Gainesville, Florida
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Ephraim Schulman
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Valdosta, Georgia
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