Tuesday, November 27, 1945. Slinky first sold.

The legendary toy The Slinky went on sale for the first time.  Gimbels in Philadelphia offered it.

Patrick J. Hurley, attorney and career civil servant, resigned as Ambassador of China having submitted a blistering letter of resignation the day prior.

Born in Oklahoma to Irish immigrant parents, he's started off in life as a cowboy and mule driver before becoming a lawyer. His work as a mule driver started when he was only 11 years old, and he attempted to join the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry at age 15.  He graduated with a law degree from National University School of Law in 1908 and went to work in Tulsa.  He received a second law degree from George Washington University in 1913, by which time he was already a successful businessman and rising in Republican politics.  He served in the Oklahoma National Guard during the Punitive Expedition and was a Judge Advocate during World War One, as well as serving as an artillery officer, for which he received a Silver Star.  He was the Assistant Secretary of War under Hoover.  He started of World War Two as a General before going on to be a diplomat.  He'd retire to New Mexico where he'd die in 1963.

Most assessments of his role in China are not favorable.

As the Sheridan paper makes plain, the US was busy beating itself up over Pearl Harbor, even as the early rumblings of the Cold War were beginning.

He was replaced in his role by George Marshall, a role that Marshall is generally not recalled for.

Norway adopted the UN Charter.

Last edition:

Monday, November 26, 1945. Now's the Time, Wolves and War Brides, Questionable claim about Goering, Test tube babies in Virgin hospitals, Japanese social insurance, ties for Christmas.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Cartoons, Colorado, Hermann Göring, Israel, J.R. Williams, Jazz, Music, Nuremberg Trials, Pro Natalism, Science, Sex, The relationship between men and women, Wolves, Women, Yeoman's First Law of History

The Third Man - Lime's Introduction

Friday, November 16, 1945. UNESCO founded. USS Laramie decommissioned.

UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, was founded.

The Azerbaijan People's Government, a puppet of the Soviet Union, began an uprising in Iranian Azerbaijan Province.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower testified before the House Military Affairs Committee that “Nothing guides Russian policy so much as a desire for friendship with the United States.”   The NYT headline read:

Eisenhower Holds Training Essential to Safety of U.S.; General Says It Is Best Way to Avoid War, or if Sudden Blow Comes to Avert Disaster --Declares Russia Wants Amity EISENHOWER HOLDS TRAINING IS VITAL Says Russia Wants U.S. Amity Time Is of the Essence, He Says

Today In Wyoming's History: November 16: 

1945  USS Laramie decommissioned. 

 

Last edition:

Tuesday, November 13, 1945. "Man's material discoveries have outpaced his moral progress."

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Charles de Gaulle, Clement Attlee, Displaced Persons, French Third Republic, Harry S. Truman, It was because of World War Two, Palestine, the spoken word, United Kingdom, United States

Wednesday, October 1, 1975. Thrilla in Manila.

Muhammad Ali beat Joe Frazer in the "Thrilla in Manila"

Morocco and Mauritania reached a secret agreement to invade the Western Sahara and divide the territory between themselves following Spain's announcement that it would hold a referendum in the colony.

The Safeguard Program anti-ballistic missile complex became fully operational in Cavalier County, North Dakota with two radar complexes and 32 silos.  The House of Representatives voted to shut down the program the next day due to questions on its effectiveness.

Last edition:

Monday, September 29, 1975. Driving 55.

Labels: 1970s, 1975, baseball, Gerald Ford, Government, Henry Kissinger, Highways, law, The Practice of Law, Transportation, University of Wyoming, Vietnam, Vietnam War

Monday, September 3, 1945. The new Post War World.

"Japanese soldiers are shown marching through Nanking's residential section. These soldiers are still fully armed but under perfect control at all times. Photographer: Lt. Richard Loeb. 3 September, 1945."

Yeoman's Fourth Law of History.  War changes everything

This is something that somehow is repeatedly forgotten by those who advocate wars.  I'm not a pacifist by any means, but it should be remembered that wars change absolutely everything, about everything.  No nation goes into a war and comes back out the same nation.  People's views about various things change radically due to war, entire economies are dramatically changed, and of course the people who fight the war are permanently changed.

We've discussed this here from time to time in regards to specific topics, but this law is so overarching that the impact of it can hardly be exaggerated.  Every time a nation enters a war, it proposes, in essence, to permanently alter everything about itself.

On Monday, September 3, 1945, people woke up to a new world, whether they realized it or not. 

The prior day Japan, the last Axis hold out, surrendered.

May people had the day off, as it was Labor Day.

With this entry, we end our daily tracking of events 80 days in the past.  When we started tracking events 80 years ago, it was because we were coming up on the 80th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.  Events of the 1940s otherwise are not really the focus of this blog, and 80 years is an odd period to look back to retrospectively, although no odder, I suppose, than 125 years, 115, and 120 years, which this blog otherwise does, although in the context of this blog's focus, that actually is less odd.  The tacking of those other dates fills in gaps left in the focus of this blog when we started posting on the Punitive Expedition from a 100 year focus.  Just as here we failed to fill in the dates from 1939 to 1941, which were very much part of the Second World War story, we failed to fill in the dates from 1900 to 1916, which were very much part of the overall story of the event we were focusing on.

We still occasionally post events 100 years past, and 50 years past, although not all that frequently.  And we will likely catch some 80 years past when they are very significant.  Should this author make to 2030, chances are good that we'll start again with the events of the Korean War, or perhaps just three years from now with the Berlin Blockade.

For now, we're finished with the 80 years retrospectives.

We would note that things were still going on in the Second World War on this date.  The war in the Pacific sputtered to a conclusion and in a manner distinctively different from the war in Europe.  In Europe, as we have seen, there were some German formations that fought on after the German surrender, but usually because they feared being taken captive by Communist forces.  Japanese forces however were often still quite well organized in the field and had not, in many locations, been defeated.  Their surrenders were bizarrely formally orchestrated, usually featuring meetings and formal surrender instruments.  Of course, Japan had not been occupied at the time of Japan's surrender, which was not true of Germany.  

Indeed, on this day, General Tomoyuki Yamashita formally surrendered the remaining Japanese troops in the Philippines to General Jonathan M. Wainwright.  Things like this would go on for days.

Also going on for days would be the  British reoccupation of its lost colonial domain in the East.  Other nations, notably the French and the Dutch, would try the same, but they'd have to fight their way back in, and ultimately, they lost the fight.

All that is part of the story of the post war world.  Colonialism was done for.  The British would have the wisdom soon to see that, whereas the French resisted it.  

Also part of the post war world would be the rise of Communism. 

Communism had been part of the global story going back into the late 19th Century, but the Second World War boosted its fortunes, in part because it aligned itself with anti colonial movements.

The struggle between Communism and Democracy, even imperfect democracy, had already begun before the end of the war.  In some places the struggle between Communist and Anticommunist forces was long established.  The Chinese Civil War had commenced before World War Two, and it had recommenced before the Japanese surrender.  In other places, however, the end of the war brought out movements that had not been significant before.  In Vietnam, for example, the Viet Minh has declared independence prior to the Japanese surrender and were moving towards contesting the French for control of the country, something that would be interrupted by the British at first, using surrendered Japanese troops.  That a Cold War was on wasn't widely recognized to be occurring as of yet, but that it was is clear in retrospect.

The rise of the United States as a global power, something that many Americans had not wanted to occur before World War Two, had been completed by the Second World War's end.  Economically, the United States was effectively the last man standing.  1945 would usher in a post war economic world such as had not existed in modern times.  The US became the globally dominant economic power because its factories had not been destroyed, and would enjoy that status well into the 1970s.  At the same time, the US became a major military power for the first time in its history, a status which it retains.

The period from 1945 to, roughly 1973/1991, would be sort of an American golden era, albeit one with many significant problems.  The legacy of that period haunts the United States today.  From 1945 until the early 1970s nobody could contest the US economically and that meant, at home, there were always decent jobs for Americans, no matter how well educated they were, or were not.  A college education guaranteed a white collar occupation.  That began to come apart in the 1970s and by the late 1980s that was no longer true, although Americans have never accepted the change.

Indeed, that's a major problem today.  The US is controlled by those who came of age in this era, and many elderly voters cannot look back past it.  When people pine for a return of a prior era, that's the era they hope to restore.  But it was never destined to be permanent.  World War Two was so massive it destroyed the global economy, but the economy would inevitably recover, and the Cold War against the Soviet Union could never have been won by the USSR.  The economy that had come into place in the 1990s was a more natural one, and interestingly restored the global economy to the state of globalization that it had obtained prior to the First World War.

The social changes brought about by the war were likewise massive, and that's been forgotten.

Ironically, one of the most cited social claims about the war is incorrect, that being that it brought women into the workplace.  It didn't.  That had been going on for a long time, but as often noted here, it was domestic machinery that caused that change.  Having said that, the immediate post war economic boom caused a massive introduction of that machinery into homes.  People who had never owned a washing machine, for example, now suddenly did.  And with the washer and dryer coming in, trips to the laundromat, or hours spent at home working on laundry, both being "women's work", went out. They now had time to go to work. . . or school.

This, as many of the trends we noted, was something that was already occurring. The war accelerated it. Even before World War Two more women graduated from high school than men.  College education remained predominantly male, but even at that the number of female college students grew from 9,100 (21% of the total) in 1870 to 481,000 (44% of the total) by 1930, with female university attendance receiving a big boost during the 1920s.  The war, however, boosted this.  Already by the 1920s the reduction in female labor needs at home had meant that a sizable number of well off and middle class young women could attend college.  The Great Depression dampened that, but the end of the Second World War dramatically altered the situation after 1945.

Young men also began to crowd college campuses like never before.

Prior to the Second World War a small minority of men attended, let alone completed, college. In 1940 5.5% of American men had completed a bachelor's degree or higher, which was a higher percentage than women at 3.8%.  Moreover, with certain distinct exceptions, American men who attended college were part of a WASP upper class.  Indeed, the extent to which Ivy League schools were protestant institutions has been largely forgotten.  Princeton, for instance ended its Sunday chapel requirement for upperclassmen in 1935, for sophomores in 1960, and for freshmen in 1964.  Harvard, we should not, ended its chapel requirement in 1886 and Yale in 1926, but the point is that most of those who attended private universities were of a WASP heritage. This was less true, of course, of state universities, which often had a agricultural, teaching or mining focus.  

World War Two, however, changed all of this through the GI Bill, with newly discharged men heading to university.  Included in student body were Catholics, a sizable American minority, who had largely not attended university before.

The implications of this were enormous.  Women leaving homes to live on their own before marriage had really started in an appreciable degree the 1920s, although it occurred and was possible before that.  My mother's mother, had a university degree prior to that time. Large numbers of young men doing so was really new, with perhaps the only real analogy being the camps of young itinerant workers in the Great Depression.

Of course, the Great Depression had practically acclimated young men to living away from home while young, and then the Second World War certainly acclimated large numbers of them.  The new environment was large numbers of young men and young women living away from home, and from very varied backgrounds.  Co-ed students from prior to the Second World War would have found a much narrower demographic than they did after the war.

This at least arguably accelerated the blending of distinct cultures within the overall American culture, although that's always been a feature of the United States.  Having said that, the "melting pot" of American culture melted more slowly prior to World War Two.   With the war having a levelling effect on ethnic differences, they shifted notably.

Prior to World War Two, and for some time thereafter, Catholics, Jews, Blacks and Hispanics were really "others".  It's certainly the case that distinctions and prejudice remains today, but the Second World War started the process of addressing them.  Catholics fairly rapidly moved from a disdained religious minority, albeit a large minority, to part of the general American religious background, that process complete with the election of John F. Kennedy.  At the same time, however, the uniqueness and identify of many of these groups, which had heretofore been quite strong, began to dissipate.

Sudden success and sudden cultural change often has within them the seeds of their own decay and downfall.  This seems to have been much the case with the second half of the Twentieth Century as "the American Century".  Americans came to very rapidly believe that their postwar economic good fortune was due to some native genius, rather than the good luck of having been outside the range of Axis aircraft.  Rapid cultural changes that saw young Americans step right out of high school and into good paying jobs, or off to college for even better paying jobs, all while being outside of their parents homes, began to seem like a decree of nature.  Liberalization of culture yielded to libertinism of culture and an attack on traditional value.  Everything seemed headed, in the end, in one direction.

It didn't.

The destroyed nations rebuilt, and at the same time, under American influence, democracy spread.  This was a huge global success, but it also meant that the US inevitably came to a point at which it could not dominate the world's economies.  Advances in technology an globalization ultimately wiped out he heavy labor segment of the American economy while at at the same time the same developments that freed up women from domestic labor enslaved them to the office place.  The post war arrogance that bloomed in the late 60s ultimately badly damaged the existential nature of the family in ways that are still being sorted out.

The post war world started to come to an end in 1991 with the fall of the USSR.  But like a lot of things, it took and is taking a long time to play out.  We're likely in its final closing pages now, as the Boomer generation makes a desperate effort to restore a lost world, but only selectively.  Very few really want to return to the point before these developments commenced.  The ultimate question remains however if World War Two, which the country had no choice but to fight, resulted in such existential damage to the country, and the world, that much of what came before the war was not only better than what came after it, but that whether the damage of the war was so severe that it cannot be recovered.

On this day, in addition to what has already been noted, British Marines landed at Pennang.  Hirohito opened the 88th Imperial Diet.

The Red Army opened Officer's Clubs.

While we won't catalog events hence force on a day to day basis, we will look in more depth at the changes World War Two brought about, for good, and ill.

Last edition:

Sunday, September 2, 1945. Japan signs the Instrument of Surrender.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Allies, Australia, Blog Mirror, Japan, North Vietnam, United Kingdom, Vietnam, VJ Day, World War Two

Monday, August 27, 1945. The Allied Fleet enters Tokyo Bay.

The Allied fleet anchored in Tokyo Bay.

Contact is made between the Allies and the Japanese forces in the Sittang Valley, Burma. The Japanese enter into an armed truce in New Britain while in the Solomons Japanese forces fight on, unaware the war has ended.

Truman urges Congress to extend conscription by two years, which it did.  Conscription in fact continued until March, 1947.

Draft notice.

This would mean that my father's high school graduation class, 1947, was the first class since 1940 which did not graduate into conscription.  The respite would be brief, as conscription would be reinstated in 1948 due to the Cold War.

The Battle of Yinji ended in a Chinese Communist victory.

The 1945 Texas Hurricane made landfall near Seadrift, killing three.

Last edition:

Sunday, August 26, 1945. Bomber Harris announces his retirement.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Chinese Civil War, Japan, Personalities, World War Two

Monday, August 20, 1945. Wainwright liberated.

Lt. Gen. Jonathan Wainwright, Lt. Gen. Arthur Percival, and the governor-general of the Dutch East Indies, Mr. van Starkenborch Stachouwer. were rescued from being Prisoners of War by a special American parachute detail at Mukden.  The goal was to free the POWs before the area was overrun by the Red Army.

The occupation of Mukden, as well as Harbin, in fact occurred on this day.

Anti Semitic riots broke out in Cracow, Poland.

The US War Production Board removed most of its controls over manufacturing activity, setting the stage for a post war economic boom.

The US standard of living had actually increased during the war, which is not entirely surprising given that the US economy had effectively stagnated in 1929, and the US was the only major industrial power other than Canada whose industrial base hadn't been severely damaged during the war.  Ever since the war, Americans have been proud of the economics of the post war era, failing to appreciate that if every major city on two continents is bombed or otherwise destroyed, and yours aren't, your going to succeed.

Having said that, the Truman Administration's rapid normalization of the economy was very smart.  The British failed to do that to their detriment.

British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin condemned Soviet policy in Eastern Europe as "one kind of totalitarianism replaced by another."

The trial of Vidkun Quisling began in Oslo.

The Việt Minh consolidated their control of Hanoi.

Seventeen year old Tommy Brown became the youngest player in Major League Baseball to hit a home run.  Brown had joined the Dodgers at age 16.

Brown provides a good glimpse into mid 20th Century America.  Nobody would think it a good thing for a 16 year old to become a professional baseball player now.  Moreover, the next year, when Brown was 18, he was conscripted into the Army, something that likely wouldn't happen now even if conscription existed.  He returned to professional baseball after his service, and played until 1953 and thereafter worked in a Ford plant until he retired, dying this year at age 97.  Clearly baseball, which was America's biggest sport at the time, didn't pay the sort of huge sums it does now.

Last edition:

Wednesday, August 19, 1945. Bataan I and Bataan 2.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Aircraft, Battle of Sakhalin, Battle of Yongjiazhen (雍家镇战斗), Chinese Civil War, Chinese Warlord Era, Japan, Manchuria, Nationalist Chinese Army, People's Liberation Army, Philippines, Red Army

Thursday, August 16, 1945. Hirohito orders the Japanese military to lay down their arms.

Emperor Hirohito issued a decree at 4:00 p.m. local time ordering all Japanese forces to cease fire. 

The Japanese cabinet resigned.  General Prince Higashikumi became the new prime minister and formed a new government. He ordered the Imperial Army to obey the Emperor's call and lay down their arms.

His post war career was largely unsuccessful, but he lived a very long life, dying at age 102 in 1990.

Marshal Vassilevsky, commander of Soviet forces in Manchuria, called on the Japanese Kwantung Army to surrender by August 20th, to which there was no reply.  Japanese units began to surrender on their own.

Puyi, the last Emperor of  China, and then on the run from the Red Army, abdicated as Emperor of Manchukuo.  Leaving his imperial party behind, including his concubine Li Yuqin, Lady Hiro Saga, and Lady Saga's two children behind, who were thought to be in no danger, he then intended to board an airplane and make good his escape, but rather than the anticipated aircraft, a Soviet one arrived and they were taken prisoner.

Churchill first used the term "iron curtain" regarding the Communist East in a speech to the House of Commons.  This is not the famous Fulton Missouri speech of 1946.

In the House of Commons he stated, in part:

OUR duty this afternoon is to congratulate His Majesty's Government on the very great improvement in our prospects at home, which comes from the complete victory gained over Japan and the establishment of peace throughout the world. Only a month ago it was necessary to continue at full speed and at enormous cost all preparations for a long and bloody campaign in the Far East. In the first days of the Potsdam Conference President Truman and I approved the plans submitted to us by the combined Chiefs of Staff for a series of great battles and landings in Malaya, in the Netherlands East Indies and in the homeland of Japan itself. These operations involved an effort not surpassed in Europe, and no one could measure the cost in British and American life and treasure they would require. Still less could it be known how long the stamping out of the resistance of Japan in many territories she had conquered, and especially in her homeland, would last. All the while the whole process of turning the world from war to peace would be hampered and delayed. Every form of peace activity was half strangled by the over-riding priorities of war. No clear-cut decisions could be taken in the presence of this harsh dominating uncertainty.

During the last three months an element of baffling dualism has complicated every problem of policy and administration. We had to plan for peace and war at the same time. Immense armies were being demobilized; another powerful army was being prepared and despatched to the other side of the globe. All the personal stresses among millions of men eager to return to civil life, and hundreds of thousands of men who would have to be sent to new and severe campaigns in the Far East, presented themselves with growing tension. This dualism affected also every aspect of our economic and financial life. How to set people free to use their activities in reviving the life of Britain, and at the same time to meet the stern demands of the war against Japan, constituted one of the most perplexing and distressing puzzles that in a long life-time of experience I have ever faced.

I confess it was with great anxiety that I surveyed this 1 prospect a month ago. Since then I have been relieved of the burden. At the same time that burden, heavy though it still remains, has been immeasurably lightened. On 17th July there came to us at Potsdam the eagerly awaited news of the trial of the atomic bomb in the Mexican desert Success beyond all dreams crowned this sombre, magnificent venture of our American Allies. The detailed reports of the Men-can desert experiment, which were brought to us a few days later by air, could leave no doubt in the minds of the very few who were informed, that we were in the presence of a new factor in human affairs, and possessed of powers which were irresistible. Great Britain had a right to be consulted in accordance with Anglo-American agreements. The decision to use the atomic bomb was taken by President Truman and myself at Potsdam, and we approved the military plans to unchain the dread, pent-up forces.

From that moment our outlook on the future was transformed. In preparation for the results of this experiment, the statements of the President and of Mr. Stimson and my own statements, which by the courtesy of the Prime Minister was subsequently read out on the broadcast, were framed in common agreement. Marshal Stalin was informed by President Truman that we contemplated using an explosive of incomparable power against Japan, and action proceeded in the way we all now know. It is to this atomic bomb more than to any other factor that we may ascribe the sudden and speedy ending of the war against Japan.

Before using it, it was necessary first of all to send a message in the form of an ultimatum to the Japanese which would apprise them of what unconditional surrender meant This document was published on 26th July—the same day that another event, differently viewed on each side of the House, occurred. The assurances given to Japan about her future after her unconditional surrender had been made, were generous to a point. When we remember the cruel and treacherous nature of the utterly unprovoked attack made by the Japanese war lords upon the United States and GreatBritain, these assurances must be considered magnanimous in a high degree. In a nutshell, they implied "Japan for the Japanese," and even access to raw materials apart from their control, was not denied to their densely-populated homeland. We felt that in view of the new and fearful agencies of war-power about to be employed, every inducement to surrender, compatible with our declared policy, should be set before them. This we owed to our consciences before using this awful weapon.

Secondly, by repeated warnings, emphasized by heavy bombing attacks, an endeavour was made to procure the general exodus of the civil population from the threatened cities. Thus everything in human power, short of using the atomic bomb, was done to spare the civil population of Japan, though there are voices which assert that the bomb should never have been used at all. I cannot associate myself with such ideas. Six years of total war have convinced most people that had the Germans or Japanese discovered this new weapon, they would have used it upon us to our complete destruction with the utmost alacrity. I am surprised that very worthy people, but people who in most cases had no intention of proceeding to the Japanese front themselves, should adopt the position that rather than throw this bomb, we should have sacrificed a million American, and a quarter of a million British lives in the desperate battles and massacres of an invasion of Japan. Future generations will judge these dire decisions, and I believe that if they find themselves dwelling in a happier world from which war has been banished, and where freedom reigns, they will not condemn those who struggled for their benefit amid the horrors and miseries of this gruesome and ferocious epoch.

The bomb brought peace, but men alone can keep that peace, and henceforward they will keep it under penalties which threaten the survival, not only of civilization but of humanity itself. I may say that I am in entire agreement with the President that the secrets of the atomic bomb shall so far as possible not be imparted at the present time to any other country in the world. This is in no design or wish for arbitrary power but for the common safety of the world. Nothing can stop the progress of research and experiment in every country, but although research will no doubt proceed in many places, the construction of the immense plants necessary to transform theory into action cannot be improvised in any country.

For this and many other reasons the United States stand at this moment at the summit of the world. I rejoice that this should be so. Let them act up to the level of their power and their responsibility, not for themselves but for others, for all men in all lands, and then a brighter day may dawn upon human history. So far as we know, there are at least three and perhaps four years before the concrete progress made in the United States can be overtaken. In these three years we must remould the relationships of all men, wherever they dwell, in all the nations. We must remould them in such a way that these men do not wish or dare to fall upon each other for the sake of vulgar and out-dated ambitions or for passionate differences in ideology, and that international bodies of supreme authority may give peace on earth and decree justice among men. Our pilgrimage has brought us to a sublime moment in the history of the world. From the least to the greatest, all must strive to be worthy of these supreme opportunities. There is not an hour to be wasted; there is not a day to be lost.

It would in my opinion be a mistake to suggest that the Russian declaration of war upon Japan was hastened by the use of the atomic bomb. My understanding with Marshal Stalin in the talks which I had with him had been for a considerable time past, that Russia would declare war upon Japan within three months of the surrender of the German armies. The reason for the delay of three months was, of course, the need to move over the trans-Siberian Railway the large reinforcements necessary to convert the Russian-Manchurian army from a defensive to an offensive strength. Three months was the time mentioned, and the fact that the German armies surrendered on May 8th, and the Russians declared war on Japan on August 8th, is no mere coincidence but another example of the fidelity and punctuality with which Marshal Stalin and his valiant armies always keep their military engagements.

I now turn to the results of the Potsdam Conference so far as they have been made public in the agreed communique and in President Truman's very remarkable speech of a little more than a week ago. There has been general approval of the arrangements proposed for the administration of Germany by the Allied Control Commission during the provisional period of military government This regime is both transitional and indefinite. The character of Hitler's Nazi party was such as to destroy almost ail independent elements in the German people. The struggle was fought to the bitter end. The mass of the people were forced to drain the cup of defeat to the dregs. A headless Germany has fallen into the hands of the conquerors. It may be many years before any structure of German national life will be possible, and there will be plenty of time for the victors to consider how the interests of the world peace are affected thereby.

In the meanwhile, it is in my view of the utmost importance that responsibility should be effectively assumed by German local bodies for carrying on under Allied supervision all the processes of production and of administration necessary to maintain the life of a vast population. It is not possible for the Allies to bear responsibility by themselves. We cannot have the German masses lying down upon our hands and expecting to be fed, organized and educated over a period of years, by the Allies. We must do our best to help avert the tragedy of famine. But it would be in vain for us in our small island, which still needs to import half its food, to imagine that we can make any further appreciable contribution in that respect The rationing of this country cannot be made more severe, without endangering the life and physical strength of our people, all of which will be needed for the immense tasks we have to do. I, therefore, most strongly advise the encouragement of the assumption of responsibility by trustworthy German local bodies in proportion as they can be brought into existence.

The Council which was set up at Potsdam of the Foreign Secretaries of the three, four or five Powers, meeting in various combinations as occasion served, affords a new and flexible machinery for the continuous further study of the immense problems that lie before us in Europe and Asia. I am very glad that the request that I made to the Conference, and which my right hon. Friend—I may perhaps be allowed so to refer to him on this comparatively innocuous occasion—supported at the Conference, that the seat of the Council's permanent Secretariat should be London, was granted. I must say that my right hon. Friend the late Foreign Secretary, who has, over a long period, gained an increasing measure of confidence from the Foreign Secretaries of Russia and the United States, and who through the European Advisory Committee which is located in London has always gained the feeling that things could be settled in a friendly and easy way, deserves some of the credit for the fact that these great Powers willingly accorded us the seat in London for the permanent Secretariat. It is high time that the place of London, one of the controlling centres of international world affairs, should at last be recognized. It is the oldest, the largest, the most battered capital, the capital which was first in the war, and the time is certainly overdue when we should have our recognition.

I am glad also that a beginning is to be made with the evacuation of Persia by the British and Russian armed forces, in accordance with the triple treaty which we made with each other and with Persia in 1941. Although it does not appear in the communique, we have since seen it announced that the first stage in the process, namely the withdrawal of Russian and British troops from Teheran, has already begun or is about to begin. There are various other matters arising out of this Conference which should be noted as satisfactory. We should not, however, delude ourselves into supposing that the results of this first Conference of the victors were free from disappointment or anxiety, or that the most serious questions before us were brought to good solutions. Those which proved incapable of agreement at the Conference have been relegated to the Foreign Secretaries' Council which, though most capable of relieving difficulties, is essentially one gifted with less far-reaching powers. Other grave questions are left for the final peace settlement, by which time many of them may have settled themselves, not necessarily in the best way.

It would be at once wrong and impossible to conceal the divergencies of view which exist inevitably between the victors about the state of affairs in Eastern and Middle Europe. I do not at all blame the Prime Minister or the new Foreign Secretary, whose task it was to finish up the discussions which we had begun. I am sure they did their best. We have to realize that no one of the three leading Powers can impose its solutions upon others and that the only solutions possible are those which are in the nature of compromise. We British have had very early and increasingly to recognize the limitations of our own power and influence, great though it be, in the gaunt world arfeing from the ruins of this hideous war. It is not in the power of any British Government to bring home solutions which would be regarded as perfect by the great majority of Members of this House, wherever they may sit. I must put on record my own opinion that the provisional Western Frontier agreed upon for Poland, running from Stettin on the BaltiC., along the Oder and its tributary, the Western Neisse, comprising as it does one quarter of the arable land of all Germany, is not a good augury for the future map of Europe. We always had in the Coalition Government a desire that Poland should receive ample compensation in the West for the territory ceded to Russia east of the Curzon Line. But here I think a mistake has been made, in which the Provisional Government of Poland have been an ardent partner, by going far beyond what necessity or equity required. There are few virtues that the Poles do not possess—and there are few mistakes they have ever avoided.

I am particularly concerned, at this moment, with the reports reaching us of the conditions under which the expulsion and exodus of Germans from the new Poland are being carried out. Between 8,000,000 and 9,000,000 persons dwelt in those regions before the war. The Polish Government say that there are still 1,500,000 of these not yet expelled within their new frontiers. Other millions must have taken refuge behind the British and American lines, thus increasing the food stringency in our sector. But enormous numbers are utterly unaccounted for. Where are they gone, and what has been their fate? The same conditions may reproduce themselves in a more modified form in the expulsion of great numbers of Sudeten and other Germans from Czechoslovakia. Sparse and guarded accounts of what has happened and is happening have filtered through, but it is not impossible that tragedy on a prodigious scale is unfolding itself behind the iron curtain which at the moment divides Europe in twain. I should welcome any statement which the Prime Minister can make which would relieve, or at least inform us upon this very anxious and grievous matter.

There is another sphere of anxiety. I remember that a fortnight or so before the last war, the Kaiser's friend Hen Ballen, the great shipping magnate, told me that he had heard Bismarch say towards the end of his life, "If there is ever another war in Europe, it will come out of some damned silly thing in the Balkans." The murder of the Archduke at Sarajevo in 1914 set the signal for the first * world war. I cannot conceive that the elements for a new conflict exist in the Balkans to-day. I am not using the language of Bismarck, but nevertheless not many Members of the new House of Commons will be content with the new situation that prevails in those mountainous, turbulent, ill-organized and warlike regions. I do not intend to particularize. I am very glad to see the new Foreign Secretary sitting on the Front Bench opposite. I would like to say with what gratification I learned that the high hon. Gentleman had taken on this high and most profoundly difficult office, and we are sure he will do his best to preserve the great causes for which we have so long pulled together. But as I say, not many Members will be content with the situation in that region to which I have referred, for almost everywhere Communist forces have obtained, or are in process of obtaining, dictatorial powers. It does not mean that the Communist system is everywhere being established, nor does it mean that Soviet Russia seeks to reduce all those independent States to provinces of the Soviet Union. Mr. Stalin is a very wise man, and I would set no limits to the immense contributions that he and his associates have to make to the future.

In those countries, torn and convulsed by war, there may be, for some months to come, the need of authoritarian Government. The alternative would be anarchy. Therefore it would be unreasonable to ask or expect that liberal Governments—as spelt with a small "l"—and British or United States democratic conditions, should be instituted immediately. They take their politics very seriously in those countries. A friend of mine, an officer, was in Zagreb, when the results of the late General Election came in. An old lady said to him, "Poor Mr. Churchill. I suppose now he will be shot." My friend was able to reassure her. He said the sentence might be mitigated to one of the various forms of hard labor which are always open to His Majesty's subjects. Nevertheless we must know where we stand, and we must make clear where we stand in these affairs of the Balkans and of Eastern Europe, and indeed of any country which comes into this field. Our idea is government of the people by the people, for the people—the people being free without duress to express, by secret ballot without intimida- i tion, their deep-seated wish as to the form and conditions of the Government under which they are to live.

At the present time—I trust a very fleeting time—"police governments" rule over a great number of countries. It is a case of the odious 18b, carried to a horrible excess. The family is gathered round the fireside to enjoy the scanty fruits of their toil and to recruit their exhausted strength by the little food that they have been able to gather. There they sit. Suddenly there is a knock at the door and a heavily armed policeman appears. He is not, of course, one who resembles in any way those functionaries whom we honour and obey in the London streets. It may be that the father or son. or a friend sitting in the cottage is called out, and taken into the dark and no one knows whether he will ever come

back again, of what his fate has been. All they know is that they had better not inquire. There are millions of humble homes in Europe at the moment in Poland, in Czechoslovakia, in Austria, in Hungary, in Yugoslavia, in Rumania, in Bulgaria—where this fear is the main preoccupation of the family life. President Roosevelt laid down the four freedoms and these are extant in the Atlantic Charter which we agreed together. "Freedom from fear"—but this has been interpreted as if it were only freedom from fear of invasion from a foreign country. That is the least of the fears of the common man. His patriotism arms him to withstand invasion or go down fighting; but that is not the fear of the ordinary family in Europe tonight. Their fear is of the policeman's knock. It is not fear for the country, for all men can unite in comradeship for the defence of their native soil. It is for the life and liberty of the individual, for the fundamental rights of man, now menaced and precarious in so many lands that peoples tremble.

Surely we can agree in this new Parliament or the great majority of us, wherever we sit—there are naturally and rightly differences and cleavages of thought—but surely we can agree in this new Parliament, which will either fail the world or once again play a part in saving it, that it is the will of the people freely expressed by secret ballot, in universal suffrage elections as to the form of their government and as to the laws which shall prevail, which is the first solution and safeguard. Let us then, march steadily along that plain and simple line. I avow my faith in Democracy, whatever course of view it may take with individuals and parties. They may make their mistakes, and they may profit from their mistakes. Democracy is now on trial as it never was before, and in these islands we must uphold it, as we upheld it in the dark days of 1940 and 1941, with all our hearts, with all our vigilance and with all our enduring and inexhaustible strength. While the war was on and all the Allies were fighting for victory, the word "democracy," like many people, had to work overtime, but now that peace has come we must search for more precise definitions. Elections have been proposed in some of these Balkan countries where only one set of candidates is allowed to appear, and where, if other parties are to express their opinion, it has to be arranged beforehand that the governing party, armed with its political police and all its propaganda, is the only one which has the slightest chance. Chance, did I say? It is a certainty.

Now is the time for Britons to speak out. It is odious to us that governments should seek to maintain their rule otherwise than by free, unfettered elections by the mass of the people. Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, says the Constitution of the United States. This must not evaporate in swindles and lies propped up by servitude and murder. In our foreign policy let us strike continually the notes of freedom and fair play as we understand them in these islands. Then you will find there will be an overwhelming measure of agreement between us, and we shall in this House march forward on a honourable theme having within it all that invests human life with dignity and happiness. In saying all this, I have been trying to gather together and present in a direct form the things which, I believe, are dear to the great majority of us. I rejoiced to read them expressed in golden words by the President of the United States when he said:

"Our victory in Europe was more than a victory of arms. It was a victory of one way of life over another. It was a victory of an ideal founded on the right of the common man, on the dignity of the human being, and on the conception of the State as the servant, not the master, of its people."

I think there is not such great disagreement between us. Emphasis may be cast this way and that in particular incidents, but surely this is what the new Parliament on the whole means. This is what in our heart and conscience in foreign affairs and world issues we desire. Just as in the baleful glare of 1940, so now, when calmer lights shine, let us be united upon these resurgent principles and impulses of the good and generous hearts of men. Thus to all the material strength we possess and the honoured position we have acquired, we shall add those moral forces which glorify mankind and make even the weakest equals of the strong.

I am anxious to-day to evade controversial topics as far as possible, though I am under no inhibition such as cramped the style of the two hon. and gallant Gentlemen to whom we have listened. There is one question which I hope the Prime Minister will be able to answer. What precisely is Mr. Laski's authority for all the statements he is making about our foreign policy? How far do his statements involve the agreement or responsibility of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs? We know that Mr. Laski is the Chairman of the Labour Party Executive Committee—Everybody has a right to describe their own party machine as they choose. This is a very important body. I have been told—I am willing to be contradicted and to learn—that it has the power to summon Ministers before it. Let us find out whether it is true or not. Evidently it has got great power, and it has, even more evidently, a keen inclination to assert it. The House, the country and the world at large are entitled to know who are the authoritative spokesmen of His Majesty's Government.

I see that Mr. Laski said in Paris a few days ago that our policy in Greece was to be completely changed. What is the meaning of this? I thought we were agreed upon our policy towards Greece, especially after Sir Walter Citrine's and the trades unions' report. I would say to hon. Members not to speak disrespectfully of the report or they may be brought up before that body. That policy in Greece is to help Greece to decide upon its own future by plebiscite and elections according to the full, free, untrammelled will of the Greek people, and that those elections shall be held as early as practicable. The Greek Government have invited official foreign observers to be present and report, so that everyone in the world may judge whether the vote and elections are a free, fair and honest expression of the popular wish. The British, United States and French Governments have accepted this invitation. I was sorry we could not persuade Russia to come along too. Has there been any change in this question, or are we to understand, as Mr. Laski seems to suggest, that, though the Greek people may vote freely, they must only vote the way which he and those who agree with him would like.

Mr. Laski also made a declaration about France which has most important and far-reaching effects, namely, that if the French people vote Socialist at the impending election, Great Britain will renew the offer which was made in June, 1940, that Britain and France should become one nation with a common citizenship. That offer was made in the anguish and compassion which we felt at the fate of France. It is remarkable that the Cabinet of those days, when we in this island were in such dire peril, really seemed more shocked and pained at the French disaster than at our own very dangerous plight. Much has happened in the five years that have passed, and I am of opinion that the idea of France and Britain becoming one single nation with common citizenship-alliance is another question—must, at the very least, be very carefully considered by the responsible Ministers before any such proposal is made to Parliament, still less to a foreigncountry. I ask, therefore, did the Prime Minister authorise this declaration? Does the Foreign Secretary endorse it? Were the Cabinet consulted? Is the offer to France open only if a Socialist Government is elected? I hope the Prime Minister will be able to give reassuring answers on those points.

Broadly speaking, it is very much better that declarations about foreign policy should be made by Ministers of the Crown responsible to the House of Commons. I am sure the new Government will get into very great difficulties if they are not able to maintain this position firmly. Also, I consider it a great mistake for us to try to interfere in the affairs of foreign countries, except in so far as is necessary to wind up any obligations we may have contracted during the war. It is impossible to understand the domestic politics of other countries. It is hard enough to understand the domestic politics of ones' own. But Mr. Laski has spoken with great freedom about French, Spanish and United States affairs during the last fortnight. He has told the United States on the broadcast, for instance, that free enterprise is the most ingenious fallacy which American businessmen ever put over on the American people. At a time when we have vital need of the material aid of the United States, I cannot feel—and perhaps the Chancellor will agree with me—that such a remark is exceptionally helpful. To-day, we read that Mr. Laski says that the attitude of the British Government towards the United States is favourable whereas towards Russia there is "a profoundly brotherly affection." I wonder very much—and this is an extremely serious matter—whether these invidious distinctions are likely to bring about the good results which were anticipated and which are absolutely necessary.

Somebody asked about General Franco. I am coming to him. Mr. Laski appears to contemplate vehement intervention in Spain against General Franco. Anybody who has had the opportunity to read the letter which I wrote, with the full agreement of my Coalition colleagues in the War Cabinet, to General Franco some months ago, in reply to one he wrote to me—and I should be very glad to see my letter published here as it has already been practically verbatim in the United States—will see what calumny it is to suggest that I or my friends on this side are supporters, admirers or partisans of the present regime in Spain. We are proud to be the foes of tyranny in every form, whether it comes from the Right or from the Left. Before I left Potsdam, the three major Powers had agreed upon the form of the public announcement about the exclusion of Spain, while under the Franco regime, from the world organization of the United Nations. No alteration was made, as far as I am aware, by the new Prime Minister or the new Foreign Secretary in the terms of that most wounding, and deliberately calculated wounding, declaration against that regime.

It would, however, be wrong to intervene in Spain in a forcible manner or to attempt to relight the civil war in that country which has already and quite recently lost between one and two millions of its none too numerous population in a horrible internal struggle. However, if that is the policy of His Majesty's Government, it is they who ought to say so, and then we can debate the matter here in full freedom. Let me point out in leaving this unpleasant subject that I make no suggestion to the Government that they should endeavour to muzzle Mr. Laski. Anybody in a free country can say anything, however pernicious and nonsensical it may be, but it is necessary for the Government to let us know exactly where they stand with regard to him. Otherwise, I assure hon. Gentlemen opposite that their affairs will suffer and our affairs, which are mixed up inseparably with their affairs, will also suffer.

I now turn to the domestic sphere,—

Poland and the USSR signed a treaty fixing their new borders.

The Battle of Yongjiazhen (雍家镇战斗) commenced in the Yongjiazhen (雍家镇) region of central Anhui, China between Communist forces and Kuomintang forces who had allied with the Japanese.  An oddity of this, and some other battles of this period, is that collaborationist Nationalist were throwing in with Chiang Kai Shek rather desperately in order to prove their loyalty.  If they prevailed,that was to his benefit, if they were wiped out, that was too.  In this case, they were wiped out, sa they tended to be.

Japanese Admiral Takijirō Ōnishi committed suicide at age 54.

Last edition:

Wednesday, August 15, 1945. VP Day.

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