The Origins of the Free Elections Dispute in the Cold War
| Published date | 01 December 1961 |
| DOI | 10.1177/106591296101400403 |
| Date | 01 December 1961 |
| Author | Theodore P. Wright |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
850
THE
ORIGINS
OF
THE
FREE
ELECTIONS
DISPUTE
IN
THE
COLD
WAR
THEODORE
P.
WRIGHT,
JR.
Bates
College
HE
CAUSES
of
a
Great
Power
rivalry
like
the
cold
war
between
the
United
States
and
the
Soviet
Union
since
World
War
II
are
many.
JL
There
is
a
natural
tendency
for
victorious
allies
to
fall
out
over
the
divi-
sion
of
the
spoils.
The
Allies
who
finally
defeated
Napoleon
almost
went
to
war
among
themselves
during
the
Congress
of
Vienna
over
the
Polish-Saxon
question.
Without
the
common
foe
to
unite
them,
minor
irritations
are
magnified
out
of
all
proportion
as
the
policy-makers
and
opinion-leaders
on
both
sides
become
engrossed
in
the
day-to,day
struggle
with
the
new
rival.
Autocratic
Czarist
Russia
loomed
almost
as
implacably
and
dangerously
to
liberal
Britons
through-
out
the
nineteenth
century
as
Communist
Russia
does
to
us
today.
The
feud
gathers
a
momentum
of
its
own
over
the
years
until
the
participants
lose
all
detachment
and
forget
the
original
causes
of
dispute
or
else
the
causes
are
sim-
plified
into
unquestioned
formulae
suitable
only
for
propaganda
purposes.
Scholarly
objectivity
becomes
difficult
then
even
in
a
democracy.
Yet,
as
Pro-
fessor
Morgenthau
has
warned
us/
if
diplomacy
is
to
be
revived
as
an
alternative
to
war,
we
must
develop
the
ability
&dquo;to
look
at
the
political
scene
from
the
point
of
view
of
other
nations&dquo;
as
well
as
our
own.
The
most
persistent
and
publicized
of
the
Western
demands
in
the
cold
war
has
been
for
&dquo;free
and
fair
elections&dquo;
in
Eastern
Europe.
As
recently
as
the
summer
of
1960,
President
Eisenhower
extended
the
proposal
for
a
plebiscite
giving
people
the
right
to
determine
their
form
of
government
to
the
whole
world.2
My
purpose
in
this
paper
will
be
to
show
how
this
particular
goal
be-
came
a
bone
of
contention,
a
symbol
of
the
growing
ideological
and
power
con-
test
between
the
rival
superpowers.
The
origins
of
the
cold
war
are
imbedded
in
the
war
aims
of
the
preceding
world
conflict.
Herbert
Feis
has
reminded
us
that
the
three
Great
Powers
allied
against
Germany
and
Italy
in
the
second
world
war,
Great
Britain,
the
United
States,
and
the
Soviet
Union,
had
only
one
war
aim
they
shared:
the
defeat
of
Nazi
Germany.3
For
Great
Britain,
the
first
to
join
combat
with
Hitler,
it
was
a
war
of
sheer
survival.
Winston
Churchill
made
this
clear
when
he
promptly
extended
offers
of
help
to
his
old
enemies,
the
Russian
Communists,
immediately
after
the
German
attack
on
Russia
in
June
1941.
A
single-minded
concentration
on
winning
the
war
to
the
neglect
of
postwar
political
considerations
is
usually
attributed
only
to
the
Americans.
Churchill
is
applauded
for
his
foresight
in
advocating
landings
on
the
&dquo;soft
underbelly&dquo;
of
Europe
to
preclude
Soviet
occu-
pation.
Yet he
is
said
to
have
replied
to
reproaches
about
aiding
the
Yugoslav
Communist
Partisans
instead
of
the
Chetniks
in
1943:
&dquo;...
the
less
you
and
I
1
Hans
J.
Morgenthau,
Politics
Among
Nations
(New
York:
Knopf,
1949), p.
440.
2
New
York
Times,
July
27,
1960.
3
Herbert
Feis,
Churchill,
Roosevelt,
Stalin;
The
War
They
Waged
and
the
Peace
They
Sought
(Princeton:
Princeton
University
Press,
1957),
pp.
3,
7.
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