From Enigma to Enemy Paul-Henri Spaak, the Belgian Diplomatic Elite, and the Soviet Union, 1944–1945

VanPaul-Henri Alstein Spaak,theBelgian Diplomatic Elite, and the Soviet Union, 1944–1945 From Enigma to Enemy Paul-Henri Spaak, the Belgian Diplomatic Elite, and the Soviet Union, 1944–1945 ✣ Maarten Van Alstein The United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union were united in the Grand Alliance against Nazi Germany and Japan for nearly four years. From the start, however, the effort was plagued by uncertainties about each party’s intentions and motives. All of the Big Three hoped for continued cooperation not only in winning the war but also in establishing a peaceful and stable postwar order. However, from 1943 to 1945, a series of conten- tious issues emerged, including the USSR’s recognition of Pietro Badoglio’s government in Italy, Moscow’s irritation at the long delay in opening a second front, persistent disputes over Poland’s borders, and the Soviet Union’s recognition of the Lublin government in Poland. In 1943, the leaders of the Big Three had tried to iron out some of the difªculties during summits in Mos- cow and Teheran, but problems kept coming up over the next two years. The tense state of inter-Allied relations boded ill for hopes of lasting postwar cooperation. In Western capitals, uncertainty about Soviet intentions deepened as the Red Army advanced into Central and Eastern Europe and then into Ger- many. The degree of expertise in the United States and Western Europe about the Soviet Union was remarkably low at the time, hindering efforts to interpret Moscow’s motives and goals.1 During the ªnal two years of the war, uncertainty over Iosif Stalin’s intentions weighed heavily on Western policies to- ward the Soviet Union and on the prospects of continued cooperation after the war. U.S. and West European policymakers and diplomats wondered 1. See, for example, David Reynolds, “Churchill, Roosevelt, and the Stalin Enigma, 1941–1945,” in David Reynolds, From World War to Cold War: Churchill, Roosevelt, and the International History of the 1940s (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 235. Journal of Cold War Studies Vol. 13, No. 3, Summer 2011, pp. 126–148 © 2011 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 126 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/JCWS_a_00144 by guest on 28 September 2021 Paul-Henri Spaak, the Belgian Diplomatic Elite, and the Soviet Union, 1944–1945 whether they should regard Soviet leaders as their partners or instead as rivals or even future enemies. Were Soviet ofªcials to be seen as insiders, with whom the West could construct the postwar order, or as outsiders in international politics, as they had been during the interwar years? U.S. and West European efforts to answer these questions inºuenced mutual behavior and interactions among the great powers. As Ulrich Beck has argued, once policymakers start to view and interpret their foreign counter- parts as potential enemies, enemy images tend to gain immense autogenerative power and, by working as self-fulªlling prophecies, easily lead to an affec- tive state of hostility.2 During the ªnal year of the war and the immediate postwar years, it became clear that the wartime allies were increasingly deªn- ing one another as enemies. This trend accelerated the dynamic of hostile bipolarization and bloc formation.3 Scholarly research on how the political, diplomatic, and military elites in the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain interpreted one another during the ªnal years of World War II has been extensive.4 But the liter- ature on the origins of the Cold War has largely neglected to consider how the elites of small West European states dealt with these questions and, more gen- erally, how they became involved in the Cold War and, ªnally, turned into Cold Warriors.5 This article explains how Belgium’s long-time minister of for- 2. Ulrich Beck, “The Sociological Anatomy of Enemy Images,” in R. Fiebig-Von Hase and U. Lehm- kuhl, eds., Enemy Images in American History (Oxford, UK: Berghahn, 1997), pp. 76–84. Beck’s argu- ment about the autogenerative power of enemy images can be further conceptualized as an element of the hermeneutical dimension of the security dilemma in international relations. A security dilemma arises when two or more states are drawn into conºict, possibly even war, over security concerns, even though none of the states actually desires conºict. The security dilemma occurs because states feel in- secure in relation to other states and therefore start building up defensive military capabilities. Al- though none of the states involved actually wants a deterioration of relations or a war, the actions taken by each state to make itself more secure cause the other states to interpret its actions as a threat to their own security. The result is a spiral of unintended provocations, which leads to escalation of the conºict and eventually even to war. 3. Maarten Van Alstein, “The Meaning of Hostile Bipolarization: Interpreting the Origins of the Cold War,” Cold War History, Vol. 9, No. 3 (August 2009), pp. 301–319. 4. Among many others, see Melvyn P. Lefºer, “Economics, Power and National Security: Lessons of the Past,” in Klaus Larres and Ann Lane, eds., The Cold War: The Essential Readings (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2001); Melvyn P. Lefºer, “National Security and U.S. Foreign Policy,” in Melvyn P. Lefºer and David S. Painter, eds., Origins of the Cold War (London: Routledge, 2005); Frank Costigliola, “I Had Come as a Friend: Emotion, Culture, and Ambiguity in the Formation of the Cold War, 1943–45,” Cold War History, Vol. 1, No. 1 (August 2000), pp. 103–128; David Reynolds, From World War to Cold War: Churchill, Roosevelt, and the International History of the 1940s (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2006); Geoffrey Roberts, Stalin’s Wars: From World War to Cold War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006); and Vladimir Zubok and Constantine Pleshakov, In- side the Kremlin’s Cold War: From Stalin to Khrushchev (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997). 5. See David Reynolds, ed., The Origins of the Cold War in Europe (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994); Cees Wiebes and Bert Zeeman, “The Origins of Western Defense: Belgian and Dutch Perspec- 127 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/JCWS_a_00144 by guest on 28 September 2021 Van Alstein eign affairs, Paul-Henri Spaak, and the Belgian diplomatic elite interpreted Soviet behavior and intentions at the end of World War II. The Belgian case is interesting because, as in France and Italy, the left-wing orientation of Bel- gium’s foreign policy in 1947 (Spaak was a leading ªgure in the Belgian So- cialist Party) diminished in the face of the rapid bipolarization of international relations. Belgian political elites aligned themselves with the United States and joined the anti-Soviet camp—not an obvious orientation for the Belgian Socialists to follow. In 1944–1945, as the war was ending, two different interpretations of Soviet behavior and intentions emerged within the Belgian diplomatic corps. The ªrst can be labeled the “cooperation paradigm,” encompassing the hope for and promotion of continued partnership between the Allies. Initially, this paradigm characterized Belgian foreign policy and was the leading view among Belgian diplomats. But many diplomats did not share its interpretive premises. At times in a blunt manner reminiscent of the prevailing anti- Communist atmosphere of the prewar era, some ofªcials expressed a more skeptical interpretation of Soviet behavior, as well as doubts about the prospects of continued cooperation. A debate ensued within the Belgian diplomatic elite about the Soviet Union as part of a wider dispute between leftist, bourgeois diplomats and conservative aristocrats. This article examines the two paradigms through which Belgian diplomats interpreted the Soviet Union. I look at the characteristics of these paradigms, as well as the speciªc discursive techniques underlying the interpretive schemes and the broader worldviews behind them. The article explains how a small state such as Belgium became involved in the Cold War. By the end of the 1940s and the beginning of the 1950s, the cooperation paradigm was abandoned, and anti-Soviet views became ascendant among the Belgian political and diplomatic elite. Belgium turned into a loyal Atlanticist ally in the Cold War. This evolution was partly attributable to the disciplining force of great-power politics on small states and was effected through a series of policy adaptations after 1947, when Belgian and U.S. interests became more par- allel. But if we want a fuller understanding of how Belgium entered the Cold War, we also have to take into account the existence of the “skeptical paradigm” within the Belgian diplomatic service. The article shows that certain steps taken by Belgian diplomats were aimed at “othering” the USSR and pro- moting an anti-Communist worldview. tives 1940–1949,” in E. Di Nolfo, ed., The Atlantic Pact Forty Years Later: A Historical Reappraisal (Berlin: Walter De Gruyter, 1992), pp. 143–162; and Geir Lundestad, “Empire by Invitation? The United States and Western Europe, 1945–1952,” Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 23 No. 3 (September 1986), pp. 263–277. 128 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/JCWS_a_00144 by guest on 28 September 2021 Paul-Henri Spaak, the Belgian Diplomatic Elite, and the Soviet Union, 1944–1945 The “Cooperation Paradigm” In 1944–1945, the leading interpretive paradigm within the Belgian diplomatic elite regarding Soviet behavior and intentions stressed the importance and possibility of continued cooperation between the great powers. This view of the Soviet Union was actively promoted by senior ªgures such as Foreign Minister Spaak and his chef de cabinet, Edouard Le Ghait, who from July 1944 was Belgium’s ambassador to the Soviet Union.6 Advocates of this paradigm argued that Soviet behavior should be interpreted in realist terms.

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