World Politics 1918-1936

WORLD POLITICS R. PALME DUTT RANDOM HOUSE NEW YORK TO S. CONTENTS Chapter I. The New World Situation page II. The Problem of World Politics 15 1. The Central Problem of World Politics 16 2. World Unity and World Antagonism 25 3. The General Crisis of Imperialism 31 III. The Balance Sheet of Two Decades 38 1. The Outcome of the War 38 2. The Unstable Equilibrium of Revolution and Counter-Revolution 43 3. The New Power-Relations After the War 53 4. The Post-War Settlements 56 5. Stabilisation and its Breakdown 64 6. The Liquidation of the Post-War Settle ments 72 IV. The Rising Antagonisms of Capitalist World Economy 78 1. The Myth of International Capitalism 86 2. The War of the Monopolist Blocs and the Restriction of Production and Trade 93 3. The Currency War Sterling Dollar-Gold 100 4. The Economics of War and Rearmament 107 V. Attempts at World Organisation 115 1. The Question of the World State 116 2. The League of Nations 128 3. World Pacts and Regional Pacts 150 4. Collective Security 160 vii vlii CONTENTS VI. The Issue of the New Division of the World 170 1. The Theory of the Haves and the Have-Nots 171 2. Proposals for the Peaceful Re-division of Colonies or of Colonial Raw Materials 183 VII. Main Areas of Conflict 204 1. Japan, Britain and the United States in the Far East 205 2. The United States and the Future of the British Empire 229 3. The Fascist Revisionist Offensive i Italy 241 4. The Fascist Revisionist Offensive ii Nazi Germany 249 VIIL The Soviet Union and the World 271 1. The Victory of Socialism in the Soviet Union 272 2. The Fascist Imperialist Crusade Against the Soviet Union 285 3. The Peace Policy of the Soviet Union 305 IX. The Fight for Peace and the Futureof World Organisation 317 1. The Fight for Peace 318 2. Towards the Future World Society 341 Index 357 VORLD POLITICS 1918-1936 Chapter I THE NEW WORLD SITUATION Since the war the manifest forces of Satan have been been more conspicuously at large RT. HON. STANLEY BALDWIN, addressing a Wesleyan Methodist meet ing, The Times, February 22nd, 1926 THE PRESENT DAY, in the midst of lowering international clouds on all sides, it is not necessary to emphasise the urgency of the problems of world politics. It is sufficiently clear to all that we are faced with questions which this generation must solve on pain of destruction. In every sphere, economic and political, antagonisms and conflicts are advancing to bursting point. The whole world situation since 1914 is so profoundly new in every respect, the whole balance of forces is so completely changed from what existed before 1914, and is daily further changing, that we need, without illusions, without facile pre conceptions, to take stock afresh of the issues of our epoch as they are developing to-day. The eighteen years since the Armistice are no closed period every division is of necessity arbitrary, and every period is one of greater or less transition and change. The old pre-war issues have not vanished, but are merged and transformed into the post-war, and these in turn into those of to-day. Nevertheless, on a survey of the broad outlines of the world situation in 1936, it is increasingly evident that all the issues of our epoch, which have been accumulating for nearly two decades since the ending of the war, are coming to a head in the period that is now opening. 11 12 WORLD POLITICS 1918-1936 The settlements that followed the war havecrumbled. Wash ington has gone Locarno has gone the greater part of Ver sailles has gone, except for the territorial and colonial settle ments, and these are now the object of attack from the revisionist offensive. World economic stabilisation has dissolved since the world economic crisis. The League of Nations has re vealed its weakness once anew over the Italo-Abyssinian war, following its demonstration of impotence before the war of Japan for the conquest of North China...