Neocon Revisionism

Most people assume revisionist history as a liberal podium from which far left professors want to change our perceptions of the past. To change recorded history with the benefit, or blur, of hindsight along with the morals and values of a different generation is nothing new at all. Revisionist history is one of the oldest professions in the world, and one the neocons are no stranger to, despite what most people assume. Seemingly, the diplomatic debate of the intentions and legacy of Yalta is certainly nothing new for diplomatic history journals. Whoever controls the past, controls the future are some of the truest words ever spoken.

President George W. Bush’s historically oblivious remarks about the meeting of The Big Three in the Crimean city of Yalta during his visit to the Balkans earlier this month demonstrate just how entrenched and controlled by the neocons Bush actually is. I say this because I seriously doubt Bush wrote the speech that he delivered. Nor do I think Bush would have the historical knowledge to suggest such an indictment and is simply only doing what he’s told.

The assertion that FDR, along with Churchill, started the Cold War by willingly handing over Eastern Europe, allowing Stalin to assume control over already conquered lands, as well as comparing the agreements at Yalta to “the unjust tradition of Munich and the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact” is a farce of historical proportions.

It will be hard to not repeat what already has been said about how wrong Bush was, but from what I have read most experts are still missing the most important part of FDR’s diplomacy. Even so, People everywhere have been debating the accuracy of Bush’s words, and as usual the debates are as partisan as ever.

False right wing rhetoric about how FDR “sold out” Eastern Europe at Yalta can be traced all the way back to the 1950s and also has a solid link to McCarthyism. Since that time, right wing conservatives have used Yalta as defining a pattern of pacification by Democrats and liberals of things communist or socialist. The assumption is that Alger Hiss, who was convicted of perjury while being charged as a Soviet spy and was present at Yalta as an assistant to Secretary of State Stettinius, was actually the person in charge at Yalta because FDR was too ill to conduct business. Time and time again, however, those charges labeled by McCarthy have never been proven and belong on the shelf with most of what McCarthy spouted.

Bush’s comments ignore three very hard facts and realities of the time in which he should have the patriotism to admit it he was wrong.

First, the agreement at Yalta did not handover Eastern Europe to the Soviets. Eastern Europe was already in the grip of the Soviet army. And since Bush mentioned the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, Stalin already made it well known with that very pact in 1939 his intentions to take over the Baltic’s and what other lands his armies marched across. Hence, Stalin already had every intention of creating a buffer zone by occupying Poland and Eastern Europe in the name of Soviet security long before 1945. To say that FDR capitulated Eastern Europe to the Soviets is not accurate in the least bit.

Also, Bush suggesting that FDR is responsible for the tyrannical occupation by the Soviets of Eastern Europe is to blatantly ignore the other front of the war- Japan. Another agreement that came from the Yalta conference was that the Soviets, after Germany surrendered, would enter the war against Japan. Roosevelt had very little bargaining room in this matter, and to demand from Stalin that the Soviet Union, which bore the greatest burden of any country during WWII and the death of some 20 million of its citizens, should immediately return conquered lands would have ended the conference right then, and resulted in a prolonged, lone effort in the war with Japan. Those conditions were not feasible at that time. To elude that any great leader would have demanded the return of Soviet occupied land, is to completely deny that Roosevelt was by far the most savvy American politician and diplomat to lead this country.

Furthermore, Bush’s remarks ignore the most basic element of diplomatic history from World War II, and the most important part of FDR’s diplomacy (which I think is being left out of the current discussion)- a separate peace. The alliance of The Big Three was primarily and almost absolutely based on the condition that Nazi Germany would unconditionally surrender to all three allies and not evoke a separate peace with Russia like it had in WWI. There was no greater motive for keeping the alliance intact than ensuring that Germany would not be allowed to insist on a separate peace, which it tried numerous times throughout the war. A separate peace would have placed a wedge between the allies and allowed Germany to negotiate on its own terms, separately. This was the mistake of WWI that FDR and Churchill were well aware of, and tried their hardest to avoid.

FDR and Churchill were successful in understanding and learning from history and avoided a separate peace- one of the hardest feats in human history, to say the least. Suggesting a return of any land east of Berlin would have ended the conference immediately and shattered the alliance.

If we all want to second-guess the decisions of the Grand Alliance, could we all possibly imagine what a second separate peace would have given the world?

Maybe only those who truly understand the history of that era can appreciate what an achievement it was to keep the alliance intact and not allow a separate peace. It is obvious Bush has no understanding of any of it. I hope those looking back on Bush don’t make the same mistake he has, because it would be so easy to revise his great blunders in Iraq, and if anyone knows how hard it is to manage such complicated things as war and diplomacy it should be George Bush.