Memorandum to Secretary of State Dean Acheson by the International Labor Relations Committee, American Federation of Labor

Narch 9, 1949 MEMORANDUM TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE, DEAN ACHESON, BY THE INTERNATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS COMMITIEE, AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR The efforts of the free peoples to promote reconstruction, democracy, and lasting peace are approaching a critical turn. The progress of the Harshall Plan and the growing solidarity of the democratic nations have, at least in Europe, checked the expansionist offensive of the imperialist Communist dictatorship which holds totalitarian sway over Russia and its satellites. Hence, the frantic and redoubled drive of the rulers of the Cominform to prevent the restoration of west European economy, to promote social chaos in the democratic countries, and to paralyze every endeavor to secure enduring international harmony. The recent threats of the Communist leaders of France, Italy, and other countries to aid the Russian armies in the event of a war brutally confirm this. Moreover, in view of the fact that Russian policy is quite often reflected in advance in the line of the Kremlin's Communist agencies (parties) abroad, these declarations may have an even more sinister significance. The Thorez-Togliatti threats may well foreshadow a plan of the Russian imperialists to invade western Europe in the near future. These declarations are only a brazen notice to the victims-to-be that the Soviet fifth column is already at hand to stab them in the back when the Communist hordes from the East move down upon them. Under these circunstances, it is primarily up to our country to lead in international cooperation to insure the triumph of human freedom, to achieve economic well-being, and to assure world-peace founded on equitable relations among the nations. Towards the attainment of these great goals, America can contribute much more than even its vast economic prowess and enormous military potential. We are even far richer and stronger. Our people are bound together by unshatterable bonds of devotion to human liberty. We have a vibrant democratic idealism which can inspire the peoples of other lands with a firm faith and an unconquerable determination to be free and prosperous nations. In the fulfillment of these vital international responsibilities, the active participation of organized labor is absolutely neceasary. In this light, the American Federation of Labor stresses that the foreign, as well as the domestic, policies of our country must aim not merely at warding off the blows and defeating the subversive activities of Communist totalitarianism, not merely at defending ourselves successfully against the militant aggressionism and ruthless expansionism of imperialist Russia. That is why our Sixty-Seventh Annual Convention, held at Cincinnati last November, declared: "We must enable them (the E.R.P. nations) to rebuild so soundly as to defeat Communism and become a magnet of attraction, an economic example and a political hope, for the oppressed and depressed behind the Iron Curtain.' It is true that since the military defeat of Nazism, totalitarian Communism has become the most dangerous enenry of human liberty and peace. But this does not mean that Communism is the