Political Ideology vs Racial Theory in explaining 20th century conflict.

Two recent samplings of 20^th century history have provided and interesting discussion when taken in combination. I have watched Niall Ferguson's five part series “The War of the World” whilst at the same time reading John Lewis Gaddis' “The Cold War.” Individually each is a fine work that posits a strong explanation for the primary events of the century, together they become fascinating as a study in two different viewpoints.

Gaddis (the revered revisionist then post-revisionist Cold War historian who wrote the ground-breaking “We Now Know” in the early 90's using the recently opened Soviet records to place the entire blame for the Cold War firmly on Stalin's shoulders) finally performs almost full circle and presents the Orthodox history of the centuries conflict. In his presentation it is a matter of ideology that drove the 20^th century. Most notably all conflict since 1917 can be considered as a consequence of Authoritarianism struggling with Democracy and Communism verses Capitalism. In this fundamental clash of ideology the world flowed between the poles of Moscow and Washington because each represented the epicentre of their respective political cause.

In Gaddis' view the responsibility for the many conflicts and deaths of the century can be explained by the failure of one ideology (Communism) to survive in comparison to the other.

Ferguson, in comparison, presents a genuinely exciting break with the Orthodox. His homage to H.G Wells in his title is intentional as his theory rests on the ability of mankind to view others as “Alien.” In fact he goes so far as to call Well's “War of the Worlds” as a work of stunning prescience, predicting the conflicts to come. The central struggle, in Ferguson's view, is not one of ideology but of race. In his perception the 20^th century has been a matter of racial differences producing fault-lines and fissures. The battle is not between Capitalist and Communist; but more fundamentally race against race and East against West.

The nationalist movements encouraged by President Wilson after WW1 lead to a savage movement of ethnic cleansing. Even inside Russia there is evidence that much of the most brutal repression was organised on racial grounds. WW2 is easily seen as the result of Japan's ability to see the Chinese as untermensch and likewise Germany's dismissal of Slavic willingness to resist Barbarossa. (Ferguson highlights Hitler's low opinion of the American people as an explanation for his rapid, and usually seen as cataclysmic, declaration of war on the USA in 1941.) The Cold War is equally seen as the result of cultural and racial differences being played out on a grand scale.

And that is where the two theories are neatly able to dovetail of course. The Cold War is often seen in post-revisionist historian's like myself (and I eagerly await the post-post-revisionist historian's who will denounce me as wrong with some wholly new theory) as the result of continued failures to properly understand, emphasise and respect the motivations and rational of the other side. A fifty-five year saga of colossal mis-communication and poor interpretation of intelligence. For Gaddis the explanation lies in the powerful ideologies each side used to translate the actions of the other. In 1946 George F. Kennan, then a minor diplomat in the US embassy to Moscow, sent his famous “long telegram” (it was 8000 words) explaining Soviet policy. This became the backbone of USA behaviour to the USSR for the majority of the Cold War. Kennan was the product of a western capitalist ideology that made it almost impossible for him to ever really understand the Soviet mind; but equally could it be that as an American raised in the USA who was unequipped culturally and racially to understand the Russian people's motivations?