Comrade Haldane Is Too Busy to Go on Holiday
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Those who admit the validity of the preceding paragraph may yet argue as follows. The Soviet Government hopes for revolution in socialist revolutions in the countries defeated in a war. Hence they have deliberately maneuvered France and Britain into a and Poland into a war with Germany. Their policy has been devilishly clever, but if it is a peace policy for themselves, it is a war policy for others. The idea of a peace front including Russia, like that of a popular front including communists, was merely a cunning trap designed by Stalin to lead up to such a war as this. If this argument is true Stalin is a warmonger like Hitler, only a much cleverer one. We must therefore examine it carefully.
Let us begin by comparing the positions of Stalin and Roosevelt. Roosevelt has to deal with two problems. On the one hand he has a vast army of unemployed and underemployed. On the other he must placate American capitalists who would like to see profits as high and taxes as low as in the golden days of Coolidge. Now as a matter of fact both these aims will be at least partially achieved as the result of the present war. If the arms embargo is repealed vast large numbers of Americans will be employed in making munitions. The rise in value of “war babies”, as securities in the shares in the armament and allied industries are called, shows that the American capitalists look forward to a boom. In addition American exporters will capture neutral markets from their British, French and German competitors, and even if no American ship sails to Europe, they will be freed from competition in their own hemisphere.
When it suits them, the Nazis will probably say that Roosevelt is an unscrupulous warmonger, who egged on Britain and France against Germany for the above reasons. This is of course absolutely false. Not only is Roosevelt a fundamentally decent man, but he realises two things. His country may yet be involved in the war; and the war boom is from its very nature a temporary boom followed by a peace slump, or else by lending to the war-struck nations on a scale which can only lead to a slump bankruptcy their bankruptcy and further slumps later on.
But the Soviet Union has no Similarly, war is not an unusual event for the rulers of a capitalist nation. It solves the problem of unemployment, and even if profits are restricted on the whole, certain groups of capitalists, often in very close touch with the government, amass immense fortunes.
But the Soviet Union has no unemployment, and very little foreign trade. It can export certain raw materials, such as oil and manganese ore. It needs machinery, and other raw materials such as rubber. A war between other nations cannot cure its unemployment, for it has none to cure, and is just as likely to raise the price of its imports as of its exports. And a war in which it is itself engaged, or even a mobilization, as at present, simply means a loss of labour diversion of labour from production. Thus the Soviet Union is the only nation which has can make no economic gains from war.
Politically, Stalin might be pleased enough if that Britain and France should fight Germany if he could be quite certain that the war would be localized. But this is very far from sure. On the contrary, the Soviet Union is more likely to be drawn in than the United States. And, if we take the lowest possible view of Soviet foreign policy, and suppose that Moscow aspires to be the capital of a world an empire covering the whole earth (which is nonsense, if only because the Russians have a sense of humour), it would still pay the Soviets to keep out of war for a very simple reason. Their production per man and their population are both increasing faster than those of any other country. They can afford to wait.
For this reason I believe that the Soviet Government was genui sincere in its support, first of the League, and even after Britain and France broke the covenant, of a peace alliance, provided it was an alliance of a really solid and practical character. As this was in the British Government would not form such an alliance, they signed a pact with Germany which automatically localized the war. For once Japan was the British navy did not have to face Japan, it could be concentrated in the Mediterranean, and instead of Italy cutting British communications in the event of a war, Britain could cut Italian communications. So Italy and Spain stayed out, and the threat to the British and French empires are only threatened at their centres.
Given this situation, the Soviet policy with regard to Poland followed inevitably. If the Red Army’s westward march had been delayed for a week, I, for one, should have lost my confidence in the essential sanity of confessed myself unable to understand the Soviet policy, and should almost have begun to believe that the Soviet-German pact agreement was an alliance instead of a non-aggression pact. The Soviet Red Army has occupied the Byelo-Russian and Ukrainian-speaking districts areas of Poland, and these will be incorporated with the their inhabitants will be incorporated with the into the existing Byelo-Russian and Ukrainian republics without dif much difficulty. If there is a plebiscite in these regions after the war, I do not doubt that an overwhelming majority will vote for the Soviet Union, provided the plebiscite is as free as that in the Saar district region.
But the occupation of Polish-speaking districts creates a different problem. If Stalin really proposed to partition Poland along the line of Narew, Vistula, and San, then he is would be a successor of Catherine the Great, and a century and a half behind the times. But he is well of aware of the fact that the Poles have an intense national sentiment, even if they have not always respected that of other peoples. And as a specialist in the problem of nationalities within the Soviet Union, he will doubtless pay full attention to this sentiment. The treatment of the Polish-speaking part of Poland which they are occupying will be the most searching test of Soviet policy.
The Soviets will start with one advantage. The Many of the Poles in the occupied districts will hate the Russians. But they will certainly hate the Germans worse. And although it is doubtless possible to explain the inactivity of the French and British armies on military grounds, the Pole will find it harder to comprehend the doubtless cogent reasons why there was no aerial retaliation for the bombing of Warsaw, although there certainly would have been for that of Paris or London. (Even the Pope, who by his advice to a nuncio [sic] at Warsaw in 1920 condoned Polish imperialism and is said to have supported it, may lose adherents now that this imperialism has borne its fruits.2) So the Poles may find that their Russian invaders shine, at least by comparison.
And in any case the lot of the Poles in the The contrast will soon be deepened. In the German occupied area there will be starvation, and the men will be drafted to work in Germany factories. In the Russian-occupied area this will not be so. And thus the new Poland will almost certainly start with If landlords are abolished the land is given to the peasants, as seems likely, the Russians will soon have millions of friends. And thus when if a Poland shorn of its eastern and western provinces is reconstituted, it will have a strong distinct Russophil bias, and be a considerable menace to the Third ill-disposed to the Third Reich, though not to a peaceful Germany. In fact if the Soviet policy in Poland is correct the Polish nation should become an element of peace and stability in Europe, whereas since 1919 it has been the opposite. But if this is to be done end is to be achieved, it is not idle to pretend that the task of the Russians in Poland will be easy or simple.
But it is very simple compared with Hitler’s task. But their position in Poland is at least intelligible from their own point of view. Whereas a study of Hitler’s policy convinces me that he has not read the important passage in “Alice in Wonderland” dealing with the Owl and the Panther, or if so has not been able to complete the final line.3
I believe however that the main reason why people of the left in Britain cannot comprehend Soviet Policy is this. “Why” they ask “does Moscow draw no distinction between the Western democracies and Nazi Germany! After all we are vastly We have an active labour movement. The German trade unions are abolished. The Communist party is not illegal in Britain or France, but communists are beheaded in Germany. The present Rus Soviet policy is only explicable if Stalin has a sympathy for Hitler’s methods.” The answer is simple. “What do you mean by we? Do yo
u mean Britain or the British Empire, France or the French Empire? I would sooner be a Jew in Berlin than a Kaffir in Johannesburg or a negro in French Equatorial Africa. If the Czechs are treated as an inferior race, do Indians or Annamites enjoy complete equality?”
Until the British and French Empires become Commonwealths, yo they can only expect Soviet friendship as a if they their foreign policy is a hundred percent peace policy. With their existing record they cannot expect could reasonably only expect Soviet help in a genuine peace front on Soviet [terms] in the past. But they cannot hope that, to aid them today, the Soviet Union will antagonize the German people people of Germany, who which may, when Hitler falls, become at least as democratic as England and much more so than the British Empire. The British and French people may prepare to fight their battles to under the leadership of the men of Munich, with the firm resolve to preserve their rule of over the coloured peoples of their own empires. But if so they can hardly complain that the Soviet Union remains neutral in the struggle, and occupies itself in stemming Hitler’s advance and abolishing feudalism in Eastern Europe.
It may be that the Russians Soviet troops are at present occupying some parts of Poland where the majority of the people speak Polish, feel themselves think of themselves as Poles, and would like to be unite in a once more to be members of a Polish Republic. If so these areas constitute only a small part of the occupied territory. And if they exist they will very probably be given back to a free Poland, as Vilniu has been Vilnius has been given back to Lithuania. Certainly the Soviet-occupied areas include large numbers of Poles, and many of Polish speakers, in regions where they form a minority. The treatment of this minority will be a searching test of Soviet policy.
Another group of critics complain of Soviet imperialism in the Baltic states. We must remember that in 1918-1920 large numbers of people in these states wished to remain belong to the Soviet Union on the same terms as the Georgians, Ukrainians, and other nations. And the fact that the most important man in the Soviet Union Stalin is a Georgian is a guarantee that this desire would not mean forcible Russification. Nevertheless the Soviet Union does not propose to incorporate the Baltic states. Before we join a crusade for their freedom it would be well to find out what their inhabitants think about it.
I was recently dining with a leading Lett in London. He is not a communist, and appears to be largely concerned in trying to reestablish the export of dairy produce from Latvia to Britain. He told me that he had before the war, he had asked the Soviet Minister in Raunas whether he had the Soviets would not use the port of Ventspils (Windau) which is too big for Latvian needs. “No,” said the diplomat “it would make you too rich”. In the He welcomed the pact between his country and the Soviet Union because he hoped that it would give employment in Ventspils, whose export trade has gone, and enable his country to export dairy produce through Murmansk. I expect the believe that many other Letts share his views, and now that the League of Nations is impotent, welcome Soviet protection.
APPENDIX 3
SELF-OBITUARY
Recorded at University College London on February 20, 1964, and broadcast by the BBC on December 1, 1964.
This transcript was published in The Listener.1
It is now February, 1964, and this is supposed to be my own obituary, so I hope it won’t be shown, say, until 1975, when I shall be eighty-two years old, which is perhaps old enough. However, I have just been operated on for cancer, and if the operation has not been successful, you will be seeing and hearing me a lot sooner.
I am going to begin with a boast. I believe that I am one of the most influential people living today, though I haven’t got a scrap of power. Let me explain. In 1932 I was the first person to estimate the rate of mutation of a human gene; and my estimate was not far out. A great many more have been found to mutate at about the same rate since.
Please don’t think I have done nothing but mathematical theory. I have done some animal breeding, some plant breeding, and at least worked out a few human pedigrees of various abnormalities. But beside that I have done plenty of other work. A lot of it has been physiological work on myself and my friends. I am not going to talk about the scientific details of that work, I will just give you some examples of its practical application.
In 1942, Dr. E. M. Case and I were the first people who spent forty-eight hours shut up in a miniature submarine with our own air supply. We were confident as to what would happen, because we had tested our apparatus out for six or eight hours; but the Admiralty, very properly, were a little sceptical; they wanted to be quite sure that at the end of forty-eight hours a crew of two would have some oxygen left, which we had. But we were rather uncomfortable because of two things. First of all the miniature submarine was just a little bit cramped, only one of us could stick his legs out to go to sleep at a time, the other one had to sit up on a bench; and although the carbon dioxide was absorbed, the water condensed on the sides of the submarine and ran down our necks, and we were rather stiff and cold by the end of the show. In addition, we did a lot of work on oxygen poisoning. That seems a funny thing—you do not think of oxygen as a poison, but it is a very severe poison when you breathe it at high pressures. What happens is that you get convulsions rather like epileptic fits. My wife is the only person who has ever had five such convulsions. I have had only three, but that was quite enough.
But I have been very much of a dabbler, as is obvious. I may say I have done some almost pure mathematics, and I have even ventured to push my nose into astronomy. But I am not ashamed of being a dabbler. It sometimes comes in very useful. Let me give you just one example. In 1933 there were a number of refugees from the Nazis. Some were Jews, some were liberals and socialists and communists, and so on, and I did my best to find the scientific ones jobs. Among the people who came in was a man called Chain. We talked, for an hour or two about the work he had been doing, and I said: ‘I don’t think I can help you much, but there is a man called Florey at Oxford who is certainly interested in this kind of stuff, and I would advise you to have an interview with him’. Chain did, and, as perhaps you know, Chain and Florey shared the Nobel Prize for the isolation and preparation of penicillin. As is always the case, there were innumerable people concerned. I do not claim credit for the discovery of penicillin, but even if I have half of one per cent of the credit I must have saved a good many thousand lives. So it is worthwhile, perhaps, being a dabbler and knowing a bit about what one’s colleagues are doing in various branches of science.
My main work has been on genetics, and I am often asked what I think about Lysenko. In my opinion, Lysenko is a very fine biologist and some of his ideas are right. Curiously enough, they are much more often right for bacteria, in my opinion, than they are for larger organisms such as animals and plants with which we are familiar. But again, in my opinion, some of Lysenko’s ideas are wrong and badly wrong, as, of course, some of mine or any other biologist may well prove to be. And I think it was extremely unfortunate both for Soviet agriculture and Soviet biology that he was given the powers that he got under Stalin, and that he used to suppress a lot of what I believe, and what most geneticists believe, to be valuable work, much of which has been started up again but with a considerable lag.
I was for some time a member of the Communist Party and I am still a Marxist, but it does not seem to me that Lysenko’s biological ideas follow from Marxism at all, rather the other way around. That again is only a personal opinion. But I am quite sure that if I had been made dictator of British genetics or British physiology I should have been equally disastrous, except that I do know one gets the best results from science by giving people a good deal of rope, and letting them go on with work which looks as if it were not going to be very fruitful but which sometimes is. And I do not think Lysenko quite realized that. But I do not think that any one man is big enough for the job of directing a branch of science, and that is one of my criticisms of these enormous programmes in nuclear physics, cosmical research, and so on, which i
n addition, of course, suffer from the evil of secrecy, which I have no doubt may be necessary but must slow down progress very considerably.
I am sometimes asked to whom I owe most in my scientific career, and I have no reasonable doubt about that. I owe most to my father, the late J. S. Haldane. He was, like me, only more so, a dabbler. He was, in my opinion, a great physiologist, though he certainly made mistakes, as we all do. I had been my father’s bottle-washer during the holidays for twelve years, and he always discussed his work, and I found no difficulty in starting scientific research with the science I had learned at school. I never took a degree in science at the university. I took my degree in other subjects—mathematics, and a curious Greek-Latin hotchpotch called Greats, or Literae Humaniores, which we studied at Oxford before the last war, and, as I say, I did not find any difficulty in starting scientific research, and curiously little difficulty in teaching it.
I went to India in 1957 partly because I had fallen in love with the country when I was there after being wounded in Iraq, or Mesopotamia as we called it then, in 1917. That was the first opportunity I had to visit it, or rather to settle down there, because I had made several earlier visits, after independence. It was no good my going there while I could not associate with Indian colleagues on a footing of equality as I now can. Now I am told that some of my scientific colleagues thought I was committing scientific suicide as I only had three more years to run as a professor at University College. I can only say that I regard my work in India as extremely fruitful and useful. There are enormous difficulties—you cannot get apparatus and it is very difficult to get things done, harder than here even. But there were tremendous opportunities for outdoor work, on plants, on animals, on men, and there are magnificent young men available, every bit as good as I had at Cambridge—and I was there for ten years—and probably, on an average, rather better than my post-graduate students in London during the twenty-five years or so that I was a professor in London.