Stalin's last project
How the Soviet leader fought against the “dictates of imperialist currencies”
The last strategic event of the Stalinist foreign policy, including foreign trade, was held on February 23 - March 4 of the year 1953. It was a conference of the UN Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (ECADO) in the capital of the Philippines, Manila. It was convened at the initiative of the USSR, supported by China, Mongolia, India, Iran, Indonesia, Burma and North Vietnam. The Soviet initiative was that it was proposed to introduce a system of intergovernmental mutual settlements in national currencies and to remove restrictions in mutual trade, that is, to move towards a free trade regime in Asia and the Pacific basin.
The idea of the USSR was supported by 20 countries, which accounted for the majority of ECADV members who signed the corresponding communiqué. The United States and its main allies — Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan — came out against it. At the same time, Australia and New Zealand, contrary to pressure from the United States, said that Moscow’s proposals are interesting and promising, therefore their study is required. By the way, the same questions remain relevant today, which is confirmed, for example, by the concluding negotiations on the free trade zone of Russia, other countries of the Customs Union - Belarus and Kazakhstan - with Norway, Switzerland, New Zealand, Vietnam, Macedonia, Iceland, Montenegro, Syria, Israel. Similar negotiations are scheduled with Egypt, Cuba, Nicaragua, Algeria, Mongolia, and Lebanon.
The named Soviet project was put forward by the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR in October 1951: “in order to establish equitable Asia-Pacific and international trade, exclude both economic discrimination, and the decisive role of individual currencies (British pound sterling and US dollar. - AB) in interstate and regional trade ... "
The USSR, moreover, proposed negotiations on this issue between the CMEA, China, Mongolia and other countries of Asia and the Pacific. The number of states that supported this idea and rejected it was then almost the same as later in 1953.
Negotiations with the states that endorsed this project were planned for mid-March - early April 1953. But already in April, 1952, at the first international economic meeting in Moscow, representatives of many countries-opponents also supported this idea, and for the whole world. In this case, I.V. Stalin in his interviews, although very rare, at the end of 1940's - early 1950's for foreign media and in conversations (also infrequent at that time) with ambassadors, for example, Argentina, Sweden, Finland, China, India, Ethiopia to the formation of the economic and political bloc of non-Western countries and on this basis - to the creation of an equal world economic order, respectively, “to abandon the dictates of imperialist currencies”. The same idea was noted in his latest book, The Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR (September 1952), so the initiative, of course, came from Stalin.
Stalin's projects found support even in the UK. Here is the information from the newspaper Sovetskaya Latvia from 23.10.1952: “A company was created in London called“ The International Joint-Stock Company of Merchants to implement the trade agreements concluded by the British delegates at the International Economic Conference held in Moscow in April 1952 ”. The first chairman of this society was Lord Boyd Orr, who led the British delegation at the International Economic Meeting. The stock company stated that its goal is to “encourage ... and facilitate the implementation of the trade agreements that were concluded in connection with the International Economic Meeting in Moscow, held in 1952, and all such agreements in the future. All income and property of this society will be used exclusively to achieve these goals. ”
The Soviet proposals of the beginning of the 1950-s were supported not only in the UK. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China, the first steps to resume trade between China and Japan were associated precisely with the holding of the Moscow International Economic Meeting 1952 of the year.
During the meeting, representatives of interested Japanese business circles met with the Chinese delegation headed by the Minister of Foreign Trade Nan Hanchen. And in early June 1952, the first Japanese-Chinese trade agreement on a barter basis for a period of six months was signed in Beijing in the post-war period. Then it was constantly extended, including at the aforementioned Manila Forum ECADW.
After April 1952, Moscow, supported by socialist (except for "Titov" Yugoslavia) and many developing countries, began to promote the draft of a new economic order in the world at the regional level. So, in January-July 1953, intergovernmental forums were planned, similar to Manila, in the Middle East (Tehran), in Africa (Addis Ababa), South America (Buenos Aires), Northern Europe (Helsinki), but opposition from the West, especially the USA, and the death of I.V. Stalin, prevented these events. After 5 in March, 1953 preferred to ignore such projects in the USSR leadership.
According to a number of archival documents of the former ministry of foreign trade, the State Committee for Foreign Economic Relations and the State Planning Committee of the USSR, from the autumn of 1952, Stalin constantly asked for foreign information about the trade plans of foreign countries, companies, banks in relation to the USSR, CMEA and China. As well as publications, books, radio commentaries on this subject in Western countries. He was also actively interested in the dynamics and assortment of industrial exports from the West to developing countries, and estimates of their demand for foreign loans, capital investments, and finished goods. One way or another, but during the Manila meeting, more than 10 countries signed contracts with the USSR for trade or for attracting Soviet investment. According to reports, the March 2 of these successes Stalin reported in detail the Soviet delegation. There was no answer. We decided to repeat 3 March - also unanswered.
It is noteworthy that the USSR Ministry of Foreign Trade did not inform the Soviet delegates in a timely manner about Stalin’s fatal illness. However, official bulletins about his health began to be published only with 4 March. 5-th and 6-th bulletins were published on the course of his illness, 6-th was informed about his death, there were responses to the death of Stalin, including in the member countries of the Manila Forum.
Thus, the first president of Indonesia, Sukarno, noted that “under Stalin, especially after the war, the role of the USSR was clearly defined not only as a military-political, but also as an economic rival of the United States. Including in the field of international trade. ”
Shah of Iran Mohammed Reza Pahlavi emphasized "historical "the role of Stalin and his policy in strengthening the authority of the USSR throughout Asia - from the Red Sea to the Pacific Ocean." A similar opinion was expressed by the founder of independent Cambodia, Norod Sihanouk.
But the assessment of the historian and publicist Sherwood Ross (Scoop, New Zealand, 8 June 2010): “... Today’s historians are only beginning to understand the complex and sophisticated personality that was Joseph Stalin, who ruled Russia for almost thirty years until his death in 1953 year. Those people who speak disdainfully about Stalin, calling him a certain paranoid and crazy, are deeply mistaken. This man was not a criminal, although he is responsible for the death of millions. He was a very hard-working and business man with simple tastes, the father of three children ... "
Here, in fact, it is stated that Stalin was eliminated: “... the main associates of Stalin had not only political, but also personal reasons for deciding that he should be eliminated. American historian Jonathan Brent claims that “Lavrenty Beria, who led the KGB secret police during the Second World War, and later was responsible for creating the Soviet nuclear bomb, and Ukraine’s leader Nikita Khrushchev, invented a way to poison Stalin at his dacha and thus get rid of him. "
Further, the publication says: “... pointing out that Stalin did not have a close friend, Brent says that Stalin’s notes (on the margins of books, articles, informational posts, draft government decisions. - A. B.) show what kind of person he was “In the quiet of his office at 4 in the morning when no one was looking at him; we see how hard his brain was constantly working. ”
... Stalin understood that he was a living symbol of that Great State that he was striving to create.
When his dissolute son Vasily terrorized his teachers and schoolmates, declaring: “I am Stalin, and you cannot punish me,” the father, who was tired of it, grabbed him by the collar and said:
“Listen, you are not Stalin. Even I am not Stalin. Stalin is the Soviet power. Stalin is what they write in newspapers, paint on portraits. ”
This shows that Stalin understood that he was “greater than himself,” and that his power was personal ”.
... So, to understand the views and thoughts of Stalin is extremely important for understanding what is happening in today's Russia. "
Perhaps, one cannot but agree with the last statement.
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