United States Presidents from Harry Truman to the first George Bush built alliances and maintained a policy of American military preparedness as a bulwark against Soviet communist expansion. The policy of containment, never seriously questioned by mainstream politicians in either party, was a 45-year-long hallmark of bipartisan cooperation even as the two major parties squabbled over everything from Civil Rights to levels of taxation. As today, there were fringe politicians like Henry Wallace, who had been Franklin Roosevelt’s 2nd Vice President. Wallace, the Progressive Party nominee in 1948, opposed both the Marshall Plan and the Truman doctrine, instead advocating for appeasement of the Soviets in Eastern Europe.
American leaders on both sides of the aisle and even overseas like Winston Churchill framed the argument that Communism was a menace that needed to be stopped at all costs. In May of 1945, the British had gone so far as to draft a plan for forcibly expelling the Soviets from Eastern Europe.
Except Communism was never at the heart of Soviet expansionism. The threat posed by Russia precedes the Cold War, the creation of the Soviet Union, the 1917 Russian Revolution, and even the philosophy of Communism itself as espoused by Karl Marx. It harkens back to the 16th Century when Russia, declaring itself the Third Rome, began a policy of barbarous military expansion. The empire expanded as far as Manchuria to the east, Germany to the west, and they even controlled Alaska before it was sold to the United States in 1867. Ukraine and Poland suffered in particular, being invaded multiple times.
The only significant difference between the Soviet era and earlier was the Soviet’s official policy on religion – communists pushed the doctrine of Atheism. But prior to the Soviet Union, and today, the Russian Government has both co-opted and been emboldened by the Russian Orthodox Church.
Do not mistake the above delineation between Russian aggression and Communism as an endorsement of Communism on my part. Communism is a failed economic policy – evidenced by the fact that few officially Communist nations actually practice it. (Neither is pure, unregulated Capitalism a workable policy – but that’s a discussion for another time.)
It is standard among political scientists to regard Communism and Fascism as opposites. They are not opposites. The are two sides of the same tyrannical coin. The opposite of Communism is Liberal Democracy. The opposite of Fascism is also Liberal Democracy. In other words, no matter the form Tyranny takes, its opposite is Freedom. But there is a line between freedom and anarchy - and when that line is crossed, as it was in Germany in the 1920s and Russia in the 1990s, Tyranny steps in to restore "order." Both Fascist leaders like Mussolini and Hitler, and Communists like Stalin, routinely had political opponents and even ordinary critics detained and executed. Putin, currently presiding over a nation which is more fascistic than communistic, has done the same – including poisoning overseas critics with radioactive material, crashing the plane of a General who dared oppose him, and throwing those seen as less than fully loyal from windows. The only substantial difference between Putin and Hitler is that, like Stalin and Mussolini, he has been able to maintain his grip on power for a longer period of time.
One could engage in whataboutism by whining “What about the British Empire?” But one should take heed that by the time Britain had acquired nuclear weapons technology, the Empire was crumbling. It has since been transformed into a Commonwealth from which any member is free to disassociate itself at any time. It can also be argued that there is an American Empire as well, which included the acquisition by force of much of the western United States and then the territories won during the 1898 Spanish-American war. The difference is that, even during that conflict, Americans showed enough restraint that they declined the opportunity to take over the island of Cuba (which in retrospect can be argued was a mistake). Further, when the Philippines wanted independence from the United States, it was granted to them – even after American service members died liberating the archipelago during World War II. Finally, it has never been creditably proven that any American President, even Richard Nixon or Donald Trump, had political opponents and critics “offed.” Trump's recent suggestions that he may annex Canada and Greenland have been met with derision both internationally and, with the exception of his most ardent idolators, domestically.
The real culprit during the Cold War was, and is today, Russian Imperialism. It is Russia’s in general and Vladimir Putin’s in particular thirst for conquest and material resources that is driving his push into Ukraine. In 1991, as the Soviet union dissolved, Ukraine agreed to give up its nuclear arsenal (then the world’s 3rd largest) and to refrain from joining NATO in exchange for a pledge from Russia to never invade Ukraine. As they have multiple times, Russia broke that treaty in 2014. As much as I respect Barack Obama personally, his administration’s response to the 2014 invasion of the Crimea was appallingly weak. Indeed, it was John McCain who first sounded the alarms about the danger Putin represented in 2000 when he was a Presidential candidate. George W. Bush was seen smirking contemptuously during that discussion. Later, President Bush claimed to have looked into Putin’s eyes and seen the soul of a fellow Christian, apparently forgetting that Hitler also called himself a Christian and claimed he was carrying out Christ’s mission by “cleansing” Germany of Jews, Roma, homosexuals, and political opponents. Following Bush, neither Obama nor Trump did anything substantial to stem Putin’s acquisition of personal power or Russian military aggression. Only Joe Biden showed the fortitude to stand up to Putin when he invaded Ukraine. For that he was rewarded by a Russian driven propaganda campaign that included the cooperation of those on the far left and right, including Jill Stein, Tulsi Gabbard, Tucker Carlson, and Donald Trump himself – one of the oddest amalgamations in American history.
Henry Wallace’s philosophical equivalent today would be Jill Stein, except that Stein has never held a significant government position (in addition to being Vice President, Wallace had been Secretary of Agriculture and Secretary of Commerce under FDR).
By throwing Ukraine under the bus and sabotaging relations with American allies in Europe and North America, Donald Trump, who has been creditably accused of being recruited by the KGB in 1987, has committed the grossest act of appeasement in American history. Whether or not Trump will face consequences in his lifetime, history will remember how his actions condemned millions of people to the enslavement of Tyranny.
