Word: rearmaments
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...that Russia's offer may really be genuine. Most European Socialists belong to this school. So does Walter Lippmann. "We must not .consider the Russian note simply an instrument of propaganda," said Schuman. "It may mark a change of Russian policy towards Germany." The argument: fearing West German rearmament, Russia may be willing to surrender its hold on East Germany in return for a unified Germany outside the Western defense system...
Socialists: Sent British Labor's Hugh Dalton, once Chancellor of the Exchequer, scurrying to Paris to agree with French Socialists that Russia's offer ought to be considered, and that German rearmament in the West's defense must not happen. Then they decided to meet with German Socialists who feel the same...
Communists: Badly shaken up, had to about-face without warning-and in public. For seven years they had warned of the horrors of German rearmament; now Russia promised Germany an army of its own. For seven years they had denounced ex-Nazis; now the Russians specifically invited ex-Nazis into a German army. French Communists were particularly embarrassed. It was the hardest thing to swallow obediently since Stalin drank a toast to Hitler...
...These things," said Group Captain Ward, "are a matter of life & death for every one of us." The sense of urgency and peril convinced Tories and Socialists alike. In the tense debate that followed, not even the Bevanites, who oppose the scope of rearmament, questioned the urgent need to increase R.A.F. appropriations by 33%. The biggest air force estimates in Britain's peacetime history passed the House of Commons without a division...
...patch up their difference-or open the rift irrevocably. For once, Party Leader Clement Attlee had thrown his native caution to the winds. He came to the meeting armed with a resolution demanding that the rebel Bevanites come to heel, without reservation. They must support, among other things, rearmament. Bevan himself, in a speech in his own constituency of Ebbw Vale, had all but threatened to withdraw from the party if such a resolution were pressed...