Should they open a Soviet parcel labelled ‘Utopia’?

Press, 1 February 1986, Page 19

Should they open a Soviet parcel labelled ‘Utopia’?

The London “Observer” columnist, NEAL ASCHERSON, takes a look at the Soviet Union’s latest offer to fill the world with peace and harmony. He believes it is an offer that the United States of Ronald Reagan will refuse.

Twice since the war, the Soviet Union has delivered to the West an enormous, gift-wrapped parcel whose label read “Utopia.” Twice, the leaders of the West have stood round the parcel, nervously fingering the ribbons and bows, wondering whether the act-of cutting the string and opening the lid will fill the world with peace and harmony — or detonate a booby trap. The first time was in March, 1952, when Stalin produced a famous Note on the German question. In it, he offered the reunification of Germany in return for the withdrawal of all foreign troops and neutral status. That time, the West, and especi-

ally Chancellor Adenauer of West Germany, decided to send the parcel back unopened.

The second time is now. The Gorbachev proposal for a step-by-step abolition of all nuclear weapons is astonishing, universal in scale. It offers concessions which the Soviet Union has refused to make in the past: for example, Britain and France would retain their nuclear arsenals for a transition period, and Gorbachev would permit on-site inspection of Soviet missile bases.

There ' are some obscurities, some things missing. But if the idea worked out, our children in the twenty-first century would

live in a world free of the nuclear threat, in which even the superpowers would have no nuclear weapons. Should we open this parcel? It is the Americans who will decide. Gorbachev has set the condition that President Reagan’s plans for an anti-mis-sile shield in space — or "star wars,” the Strategic Defence Initiative — must not be put into practice, although he does not ask for a ban on S.D.I. research. A flat American refusal to touch this offer might hand Gorbachev a propaganda triumph, and drive European alarm over Reagan’s policies to a new height. The question in 1986 is really the same as it was in 1952. It is a double question. Does Gorbachev mean it? And, even if. he does, do we want it?

By coincidence, West Germany is arguing passionately over a new book about the Stalin Note of 1952. The historian, Rolf Steininger, in his book “A Missed Chance,” insists that Stalin was

in earnest. If his offer had been accepted by the West, the East German State would have been liquidated. Out of an international agreement would have emerged “a reunited Germany free of the military blocs.” Two things are certain, whether we believe Steininger or not. One is that the rejection of the Note finally confirmed the destiny of West Germany as an integrated member of the N.A.T.O. alliance, and ended — maybe for ever — the possibility of a united Germany between the Rhine and the Oder. « It comes down to what you think the Allied war aims were. The answer may seem obvious: they fought to smash Hitler and the Nazis, so that they could 4 never revive. But' it has always seemed tome that, as the war approached its end, the Allies became • half-consciously possessed by another aim. The German Reich, the State which had existed since 1871, had proved impossible to live with. Its size and power unbal-

anced the continent. Its aggressive wars had bled Europe white. Its position “in the middle” had allowed it to play off Russia and the western democracies against one another and to make a European security system impossible. I

The Allies meant to destroy hot only Nazi fascism but the German Reich itself. And they did. Germany is divided, and divided it will remain until — or unless — a Europe can be constructed which - is strong enough to contain it. That, really, is why the West refused to open the 1952 parcel. Anthony Eden slimmed it up when he asked, who .would be able to keep a neutral Germany disarmed -— and 'who would be able to keep a .dlsarihed Germany neutral. But the Germans, ever since, have been obsessed by. the other question: did Stalin mean it, or was his offer just a final propaganda trick to stave off West Germany’s entry into N.A.T.0.? Some, like Steininger, talk of

the "Missed Chance.” Others talk sceptically about the “Legend of the Missed Chance.” Without the Soviet files, Rolf Steininger cannot prove that Stalin was in earnest. All he produces is an anecdote: Otto Grotewohl, the East German Premier, told an Italian politician some years later that in 1952 Stalin had wished to put the East German communists in “a new situation, •and we did not know what would happentous.”,, : , i It does ’ hot much * 'matter whether the chance was real or mythical. The West did not care s about Stalin’s motives. It was the label on the parcel they dicLnot like. ’. j <s j Now comes the Gorbachev offer: West’ — abov& airi‘*' West Germany — is plainly fasci-, nated, and much more approach- ; able than in 1952. Perhaps this is just a manoeuvre to delay ,“star wars,” and perhaps, if they’ achieved that much, the Russians would cheat on the rest of the package. On the'other hand,’ this may be the last and greatest

chance to end the arms race, and our descendants will curse us for missing it as they die in a radioactive twilight. Recently, in southern Germany, I talked to Erhard Eppler, a leading Social Democrat whose voice is respected by the peace movement and by the Greens. “It’s very logical,” . he said.“Reagan says to Gorbachev: ‘We will build star wars, then offer it 'to you, and then we can scrap the weapons.’' Gorbachev > is retorting: ‘Why.go such a long way round?- Why : don’t we just start scrapping the . nuclear arsenal now?’ ” Just as Stalin in 1952 smoked out those who did hot want a reunified ' Germany, so’' Gorbachevls'beginning - to - smoke out * those who actually do, not want to see nuclear weapons abolished. The “New York. Times” now writes , openly that'a world in which the superpowers did not have such weapons would be a worse world. “No sane Soviet or American leader would give up weapons that simultaneously

keep the peace and assure his nation’s pre-eminence.” So should we open the parcel and agree to explore the Soviet plan? It is a matter of two Utopias which confront one another:'. -, • For Reagan, it is the “dream of invulnerability” through defence in space; he reminds Erhard Eppler of the aggressive Siegfried who fancied that he was invulnerable because he had / been dipped in dragon’s, blood. . • For Gorbachev,, it is-the Utopia of total nuclear disarmament, which does hot tell us how these weapons would be taken away from China, or how their use by '• J Libya or Israel would be prevented; Kr. • : 1 .- -lAbelieve-that- we the string — but I do not believe that -we. will. The Americans under Reagan will not - * ’give up “star wars.” ’ ' The best that the rest of us can hope for is to keep the parcel intact, on the table, until the climate in America has changed. Copyright — London Observer