Anglo-US strategy Weaken Russia!¶
Core Argument¶
The chapter, published in Socialist Appeal in September 1943, argues that the Anglo-American imperialist strategy is not aimed at defeating fascism as such, but at weakening both Germany and the Soviet Union to secure capitalist domination of the post-war world. The core narrative thrust is that the war, now in its fifth year, has destroyed Europe’s cities and impoverished its masses while enriching monopoly capitalism in both fascist and democratic states. The text insists that the real conflict is not between democracy and fascism, but between the ruling classes of all belligerent powers and the working class.
Key claims include the assertion that Churchill and Roosevelt deliberately withheld a second front in Europe, hoping that Germany and the Soviet Union would exhaust each other. The author cites the indiscreet remarks of Moore-Brabazon and an editorial in the Sunday Observer of 29 August 1943 as evidence that British strategy aimed at German exhaustion “at small cost… to Britain.” The chapter further argues that the Quebec Conference revealed Churchill’s intention to delay military aid to Russia until Stalin accepted Anglo-American terms for carving up Europe. The turn of Allied energy against Japan is presented as a sign that they are waiting for further Soviet weakening.
The historical context is the desperate military situation of 1943, with the Red Army having reversed the German advance at Stalingrad largely unaided, while revolution stirs in Italy and unrest spreads across Europe. The chapter draws on the Marxist analysis of the state as an instrument of class rule, equating the “democratic” regimes of Britain and America with fascist Germany in their subordination to monopoly capital. It denounces the hypocrisy of Allied slogans of “freedom for Europe” while maintaining military dictatorship in India and the colonies.
The polemic is directed against three targets: first, Churchill and Roosevelt for their class-based strategy of letting Russia bleed; second, the Stalinist bureaucracy for its policy of alliance with capitalist powers, which the text claims has helped mislead the working class; and third, the “pseudo democrats” who deny the existence of a fundamental conflict between the Soviet Union and its capitalist allies. The chapter concludes by calling for the Fourth International as the only force capable of defending the Soviet Union from both its enemies and Stalinist betrayal, and of leading the workers to independent class action.