The Fascist Challenge and the Policy of Appeasement. George Allen and Unwin. Lnd. 1983. XII - + 436 p.

The aggression of fascist states and the policy of "appeasement" constantly remain in the field of view of bourgeois historiography. Proof of this can be found in the proceedings of an international conference held in London in May 1980 under the auspices of the Institute of German History (London). The preface to the collection was prepared by the director of the Institute of German History V. Mommsen (Germany). The book was edited by W. Mommsen and L. Kettenaker.

The authors focus on the foreign policy of fascist Germany, the policy of" appeasement " of Britain and France, the role of the military departments of the Western powers in developing a course of agreement with the aggressors, and the foreign policy activities of the Soviet state.

The multi-aspect nature of the problems presented has determined the structure of the collection: 28 articles are grouped into four parts, each of which, according to the authors and editors, is designed to solve completely independent, but subordinate to the general plan of the task. In justifying this construction, Mommsen notes that "the British policy of appeasement should not be considered in isolation, but in its own international context" (p. X).

Introductory article by Prof. D. K. Watt of the London School of Economics and Political Science, which represents the official direction of English historiography, interprets the international situation in pre-war Europe as a kind of "civil war" within the boundaries of a "transnational political society", in which economic, social and other macrostructures often came into conflict with the interests of the nations involved in this war (p. 5, 17). The application of the structuralist method emasculates the class content of imperialist politics in the period between the world Wars. Watt's use of elite concepts - " generational groups "(p. 6) - in the spirit of R. Michels ' concept of "circulation of elites", which accumulated the views of such right-wing socialist and bourgeois ideologists as E. Bernstein, K. Kautsky, and M. Weber, inevitably leads to the conclusion that the events of 1933 - 1939 were fatal and that there was no alternative to the policy of "appeasement", since "instinctively, generational groups were striving... avoid conflict within the existing system" (p. 16). For Watt, Europe is a single organism without significant class differences, and the very concept of " class "is absent, it is replaced by an arbitrary one - "generation group". Naturally, the author does not see a fundamental difference between Soviet foreign policy and the diplomacy of the imperialist Powers. This approach is nothing more than a veiled falsification of the main problems of international relations on the eve of the Second World War.

This conclusion is shared by M. Vass (France) and Prof. University of Salt Lake City (USA) R. Smelzer (p. 42, 234). By arbitrarily interpreting collective security, the latter, like R. Parker, a researcher at Oxford University, places England in the category of sincere and consistent champions of peace in Europe (pp. 27, 42). This is the interpretation of bri-

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Tang politics originates from the official version of the country's ruling circles, which R. MacDonald, S. Baldwin, N. Chamberlain and their cabinet members persistently propagated throughout the 1930s. The apology for the policy of "appeasement" is also expressed in the fact that Parker portrays the foreign policy course of the British ruling circles as a natural result of the" failure of collective security " (p.22), ignoring the fact that England was directly involved in the failure of the Soviet Union's efforts to maintain peace. The conclusion about the fatal inevitability of the events of 1933-1939 fits perfectly into the narrow-class schemes of bourgeois science, which denies the objective basis, the social determinism of the processes of social development.

The analysis of the foreign policy of fascist Germany, conducted by V. Mikhalka, an employee of the Institute of History of the Higher Technical School of Darmstadt (Germany), does not go beyond the limited framework of moderate historians in the bourgeois historiography of Germany. Speaking about the aggressiveness of Nazism and anti-Soviet fascist expansion, the author defends the untenable thesis about the opposition to the Nazis led by K. Neurath, which allegedly existed in the apparatus of the German Foreign Ministry (p. 50, 52). Classifying Schacht and the magnates of German heavy industry as" oppositionists " (p.53, 55) is intended to absolve them of responsibility for preparing and unleashing World War II.

Michalka's desire to place the sole blame on Hitler for Germany's aggressive foreign policy, to set the Nazi Fuhrer against not only "national conservative circles", but also other functionaries of his party (p.55) serves reactionary political goals. Refusal to analyze fascism as a phenomenon generated by imperialism, ignoring socio-economic conditions, and personification of the policy of" appeasement " are more or less inherent in all the authors of the collection. Thus, Smelser treats Nazism as a force beyond the control of human reason (p. 32). This leads to the reactionary conclusion of the American historian that monopoly capital was "not involved" in the Nazi dictatorship and its program of unrestrained expansion. The artificial restriction of the framework of the "pacification" of 1937-1938 by Smelser and R. Douglas (England), as well as the identification of this policy with the activities of the British Prime Minister Chamberlain, seems untenable (pp. 40-43, 79-88).

Marxist-Leninist historiography has convincingly proved that the ruling circles of the Western powers, since Hitler came to power in Germany, have set out to reach an agreement with the fascist states. The policy of" appeasement " was an attempt to solve economic, political and strategic problems by revising the treaties of the Versailles system, the interests of small European countries and the USSR. The escalation of fascist aggression provoked a step-by-step response from the governments of Britain, France and the United States, a kind of escalation of the policy of "appeasement". Therefore, it is wrong to consider the latter as a static phenomenon, breaking the continuity between its individual interdependent links. The formation of the four-Power pact in 1933, the Anglo-German naval agreement of 1935, the policy of "non - intervention" during the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939, the encouragement of fascist aggression against Ethiopia, Austria, and Czechoslovakia - these and other actions to "pacify" the aggressors were the stages of preparation for World War II by international imperialism.

The authors of the collection pay much attention to determining the nature and target orientation of the "appeasement" policy. American historian R. Shay, Jr., Professor of Political Science at the University of Bochum (Germany) G. Schmidt and Prof. Wendt argues against the conservative historiography's underestimation of the impact of the economic situation in England on the position of the governments of this country in relation to Germany, emphasizing the huge role of the financial and industrial groups of the City of London in the pre-war years. 92, 107, 109, 159, 165). The statement of this fact is not supported, however, by the necessary analysis of the activities of big business; there is no mention in the book of the "Cliveden clique" - a group of reactionary, pro-Fascist-minded English politicians who exerted considerable influence on the governments of England. Such

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the omission is characteristic in general of the bourgeois historiography of pre-war international relations.

G. Schmidt, Wendt, and R. Meyers of the University of Bonn (pp. 103, 157, 161, 340) give an assessment of "appeasement" as a preventive diplomacy designed for the peaceful solution of disputed problems, which leads away from the analysis of the class essence and anti-Soviet orientation of this policy. The subjectivism of the authors in the study of international relations is also manifested in the fact that Wendt considers "appeasement" as a derivative of incorrect assessments by the British ruling circles of the nature and ultimate goals of the Nazi regime (p.170). Meanwhile, these assessments of the external expansion program of German fascism, which took place in the military and political circles of Great Britain, were not accidental. They were dictated by the general mood of the British ruling circles for a "broad agreement" with Germany at the expense of concessions in economic and political issues in order to channel fascist aggression to the East, against the Soviet Union.

In the section on French foreign policy prepared by R. Giraud and R. Frankenstein (both French), moderate criticism of the French leadership, which put forward the slogan "Better Hitler than the Popular Front", is intertwined with attempts to "justify" the government's capitulatory course by referring to internal difficulties and France's dependence on England (pp. 209, 220, 236, 240). Giraud only casually mentions the "political and social upheavals of the Popular Front", the instability of the internal situation in France (p. 217), while ignoring the fact that the French financial oligarchy, through its policy of sabotaging the Popular Front program, aggravated the economic situation of the country and pushed France to a national catastrophe.

A. Adamthwaite, a representative of the English liberal-critical school, argues with French historians. He opposes the traditional bourgeois historiography of absolutizing the dependence of the "appeasement" policy pursued by France on British foreign policy, which serves to justify the pernicious foreign policy of the French ruling circles. "The leaders of France," he rightly notes, " were by no means passive partners in the British - inspired enterprise (the policy of rapprochement with Germany-L. A.), but were "convinced peacemakers" (p. 246). The reasons for the policy of "appeasement", in the opinion of the English historian, are quite diverse, including "fear of the ruling circles before a social revolution", the desire to establish "order" in France, torn apart by acute class conflicts (p.248). Nevertheless, Adamthwaite brings to the fore the purely subjective aspects borrowed from the conservatives 'arsenal: the" rejection of war " by the French leadership and "its lack of political will" (p. 247). Inconsistency and inconsistency in judgments and assessments, perversity of methodological constructions do not allow the author to give an objective analysis of French foreign policy in the pre-war period.

Most of the authors of the collection are silent, and the conservative historian M. Beloff (England) and prof. Mannheim University (Germany) G. Nidhardt unfounded deny the fact that the anti-Sovietism of the ruling circles of the West was the basis of the policy of "appeasement" (p. 285, 288, 291). At the same time, the latter refers to public speeches of British leaders, without taking into account the documents of the Foreign Office and the Cabinet of Ministers of Great Britain, which indicate the opposite. From openly reactionary, anti-Soviet positions, Beloff postulates the goals and objectives of Soviet foreign policy. Clearly designed in the spirit of the "cold war" and completely false is his statement about the desire of the USSR to ensure its security by any means, including the agreement with nazi Germany, to which the efforts of Soviet diplomacy were allegedly directed in the 30s (p. 284).

Beloff ignores the well-known facts presented in numerous publications, which indicate that on the eve of World War II, the USSR persistently and consistently sought to create a collective security system as the only possible measure to prevent fascist aggression. However, the ruling circles of Britain, France and the United States, blinded by anti-Sovietism, did not want such cooperation with the USSR, preferring it to be detrimental to the cause of peace and security.-

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pace is heading for an agreement with aggressors. Timid attempts by some officials of the British diplomatic department, for example, the head of the Northern Department of the Foreign Office, L. Collier, and the Permanent Deputy Foreign Secretary of Great Britain, R. Vansittart, to establish more normal relations with the USSR were torpedoed by the government, the military and the leadership of the Foreign Ministry. This, in particular, is confirmed by the materials prepared by D. Hendon, an employee of the University of Georgia (USA) (pp. 297, 305). A significant drawback of these materials is the author's uncritical perception of erroneous assessments by the leadership of the British establishment of the defense potential of the USSR (p. 302, 304, 306). These estimates did not reflect the true state of affairs. However, the author is silent about this.

The attempt of Hendon and Douglas to justify the policy of Great Britain in the pre - war period in general and in 1938-1939 in particular seems to be untenable. The authors believe that the position of Britain and France during the Czechoslovak crisis of 1938 was logically justified, since the USSR, "as a military factor, could not be relied upon" (p.88, 308). It is well known, however, that the Soviet Union, faithful to its obligations to Czechoslovakia, persistently sought to put an end to fascist aggression and was ready to deploy appropriate military forces for this purpose. But all the proposals of the USSR to organize a collective response to aggressors were deliberately thwarted by the governments of the Western powers and their allies. Britain and France, with the support of the United States, headed for an agreement with Germany at the expense of Czechoslovakia.

Hendon's statement that "Britain sought to secure Soviet participation in the anti-German coalition in the spring and summer of 1939" contradicts the truth and documents (p.311). Such falsifying assessments objectively lead to the false concept of a" diplomatic revolution "(the decisive turn of Britain and France from" appeasement " to confrontation with Germany), which allegedly took place after the Nazis captured Czechoslovakia in March 1939. This concept is supported by Parker (p. 27), Douglas (p.87), Wendt (p. 158), B. Bond (England) - p. 204, Giraud (p. 209), Adamthwaite (p. 251), D. Mack Smith (England) - p. 285.

The concept of a "diplomatic revolution" is refuted by the position of Britain and France in the negotiations with the USSR in 1939. Their history clearly shows that the Western powers did not change their course towards an agreement with the aggressors after Hitler captured Czechoslovakia. The essence of the "appeasement" policy remained the same. The reluctance of the ruling circles of Britain and France to conclude an effective treaty of alliance with the Soviet Union against fascist aggression led to the breakdown of negotiations. It is quite significant that the representative of English historiography, C. MacDonald, also rejects the concept of"diplomatic revolution". He writes that even in 1939, the British leadership "was eager to come to an amicable agreement with Hitler rather than resist the aggressors" (p.408).

The content of the collection shows that in modern bourgeois historiography, polemics continue between representatives of various trends and schools on the main problems of the prehistory of the Second World War. The aggravation of the current international situation due to the aggressive militaristic forces of imperialism has led to the activation of conservative historians, the regeneration of anti-Soviet, anti-communist concepts, which meets the interests of the most reactionary circles of imperialist states.

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