[lit-ideas] Re: Barnett's Blueprint for Action
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 10 Sep 2006 15:26:30 -0700
Jack Sprat:
Second point first, from the book: "About the Author: John Mosier is a full
professor of English at Loyola university in New Orleans, where as chair of
the English department and associate dean of the College of Arts and
Sciences, he taught primarily European literature and film. His background
as a military historian dates from his role in developing an
interdisciplinary curriculum for the study of the two world wars, a program
funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. From 1989 to 1992, he
edited the New Orleans Review." And here is Niall Ferguson's take on
Mosier's book.
http://www.loyno.edu/newsandcalendars/loyolatoday/2001/04/mosier.html He &
Mosier seem to have used the same materials, perhaps the book of Ferguson
being referred to here is his The Pity of War, but Ferguson doesn't agree
with Mosier's assessment of the American contribution -- well of course.
As to the first, your distinction as someone who eats no fat probably
doesn't qualify you to make pronouncements ex cathedra. If you want to
identify yourself as Dr. so & so, professor of Soviet and American history
teaching at Harvard, or perhaps even some lesser distinction, I might
consider changing paying closer attention to what you say -- maybe. But as
it is I have read and have sited references which indicate something other
than you with capital-letters suggest. Also, there is a book by Tuyl
entitled Feeding the Bear (1989) which according to reviews provides detail
on what we provided to the USSR. Also, consider a review of this more
recent book [Lawrence]:
Russia's Life-Saver: Lend-Lease Aid to the U.S.S.R. in World War II
Reviewed by Michael Parrish
By Albert L. Weeks
Lexington Books, New York, 2004
A wartime cartoon in The New Yorker shows the docks of Murmansk covered with
off-loaded containers and a Soviet official having trouble finding the word
"spam" in the dictionary. Spam was one of the many food items sent to the
former Soviet Union by the United States under the Lend-Lease Program first
suggested by Winston Churchill, to which the United States contributed the
major portion. The subject has been previously covered by such books as
Hubert van Tuyll's Feeding the Bear (1989), but the present well-written
text has the advantage of access to Russian sources, which were put to good
use by Albert Weeks. The author makes a clear case that the program was a
major factor in the survival of the Soviet Union and the victory over
Nazism.
In two particular areas the help was indispensable. With major agricultural
regions of the Soviet Union under enemy occupation, and the unsatisfactory
system of distribution and transportation, to say nothing of mismanagement,
the Soviet state had more than a nodding acquaintance with famine. Without
Western aid, during the war the Soviet population would have been in danger
of sharing the fate of those trapped in Leningrad and the earlier victims of
collectivization. Even with the American aid, many Russians died from lack
of food. Equally important was Lend-Lease's contribution to transportation.
It would have been impossible for the Red Army to move the masses of troops
and supplies on the primitive roads to the front lines without American
Studebaker trucks, which also served as the launching pads for the dreaded
Soviet rocket artillery. The trucks were also used for more sinister
activities, including the deportation of the North Caucasus Muslims. Less
satisfactory for combat were the Western tanks, inferior to the German
machines and particularly disadvantaged in the open terrain of the Eastern
Front. The memoirs of General Dmitri Loza, published in English in 1996,
give us a vivid picture of how these tanks were employed by the Russians.
American aircraft, flown by Russian ferry pilots across the vast expanse of
Siberia, were put to good use by the Soviet air forces even with planes that
were less than popular with Western pilots. A case in point was the Bell
P-39 Airacobra, used both as a low-altitude fighter and as ground support.
Its odd shape gave Soviet censors fits because it was difficult to conceal
that it was the favorite mount of their second-highest-ranking ace, the
future marshal of aviation, Aleksandar I. Pokryshkin.
Besides weaponry and food, Lend-Lease provided the Soviet Union with other
resources, ranging from clothing to metals. With the start of the Cold War,
Lend-Lease became a forgotten chapter in Soviet history and was only revived
after glasnost. Now, thanks to Russian researchers and this excellent study,
the West will have access to the real story. Lend-Lease provided vital help
for the Soviet Union when the country was in desperate straits and made a
significant contribution to the final victory. It also strengthened Josef
Stalin, a fact that did not bother its chief architect, Franklin D.
Roosevelt, who saw beyond the Allied victory and looked at Stalin as a
counterbalance to the European colonial powers.
The victory over Nazi Germany was achieved through the economic power of the
United States and the lives of millions of Soviets, who for reasons that
defy logic made the ultimate sacrifice to keep in power a regime as brutal
as their Nazi enemy. What the Soviet Union needed after the war was a
peacetime version of Lend-Lease, in this case the Marshall Plan, which
Stalin rejected. Misled by the victory, the Soviet Union under Stalin and
his successors embarked on an imperial policy that would have put the tsars
to shame, and one the USSR could hardly afford. Resources were deployed on
military and space programs and every Third World thug, including those who
had jailed the local Communists or became Soviet clients. To the USSR's
eternal shame, anti-Semitism became national policy.
The "Empire of Evil" indeed had feet of clay, and its demise, unpredicted by
all savants, was inevitable. The United States, on the other hand, hardly
damaged by the war, managed to supplant the exhausted British, French and
Dutch colonials and kept its rendezvous with destiny. The roots of the
Soviet collapse, and the United States' recent attempts to make Iraq the
next Switzerland, lie in the events of 1945.
_____
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Jack Spratt
Sent: Sunday, September 10, 2006 2:47 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Barnett's Blueprint for Action
US and British aide through Vladivostok was mostly in the form of planes and
trucks. Therefore the connection to the siege of Leningrad. This had no
impact on the extraordinary victories in the south. The Soviet Union had
moved most of its manufacturing facilities east of the Urals when Moscow was
threatened earlier in the war. They were thus almost totally self sufficient
with armaments and totally self sufficient in brave soldiers.
Isn't John Mosier a film critic? I am not joking. I thought that I had heard
his name mentioned in regards to Cannes or Sundance.
J.S.
The one thing we lack is a handy utopia.
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