Evening star., 1950-12-12
War as a Way of Life

Ever since the Bolshevik revolution of 1918,
the Soviet Union has been an armed camp
Through the decades, in order to consolidate it's
internal power the Stain dictatorship has main
tanned huge forces, including the secret police
to regiment the population through periodic
purges and other campaigns of terror and op-
preston costing untold millions of Russian lives
simultaneously, in its external policy, it has
looked upon the rest of the world as an enemy
to be eventually dominated, and it has there
fore lived according to the standards of an in
tensely mllitarized economy and society.
Thus, during the past 80 years, the Russian
people have never been allowed to enjoy the
fruits and blessings of peace. Instead-ruth-
lesSly shorn of individual liberty, tyrannized
into state of dull submission completely shut
off from the free world and bombarded with a
ceaseleSs barrage of lying propaganda about
that world and about the Soviet Utopia in the
making-they have been obliged to devote most
OF their energy and productivity to the main
tenance of armed power on a gigantic scale.
AS result, with by far the greater part of their
national wealth and natural resources diverted to
military output and the support of millions of
men in uniform, their standard of living has
been and still is one of the lowest of all nations
low to the point of miserableness IN terms of
such things as housing and the availability of
consumer goods that Americans and other West
erners have in relative abundance.
In other words, and in rather literal sense
the Stain dictatorship deliberately and system
atically has established war as the normal way
OF life for the Russian people. That is to say,
peacetme standards-as enjoyed in the free
nations-do not exist in the Soviet Union nor
nave they since the revolution. An atmosphere
of crisis and struggle has been maintained
throughout all the years since 1918-an atmos-
phere in which the masses have been whipped
into line to serve as the base of what is politically
socially and economically tremendous pyramid
OF dominance-seeking militarism. At the top
OF that pyramid, in full totalitarian control sit
the twelve or thirteen men whose actions since
1945 have filled mankind with a constantly
growing sense of alarm
OF course, since it rests on base made up
OF scores OF millions of human beings who hate
the thing that tyrannizes them and VINO would
like nothing better than to be free, it may be
that the Stain dictatorship-if it started an
all-out conflict and suffered a few severe set
backs-might be blown to pieces by the smolder-
Ing volcano of the oppressed. That possibility
is not inconceivable, for even within the Soviet
Union itself-notably in the Ukraine-there is
more than little dormant pressure for liberia
tion. Nevertheless, it would be foolhardy to
bank on such an eventuality After all, where
Warllke conditions have long since been the
normal way OF hfe and where there is tremen-
dous power in being to shatter uprisings, great
numbers of people-either because of having
been hardened by struggle, blinded by lies against
the West or beaten into dumb, sheep-ke ac-
ceptance of their lot-might well struggle to
the death on the side of the tyrants
This is a factor that ought not to be under
estimated A society full of harsh conditions q
society where peacetime comforts are lacking,
a society where militarization dominates and
diSciDneS eVervhOdv'S wav of life is cocietv
whose people are likely to be hardened to ao-
versity and toughened in manner that makes
them particularly formidable in war. Here in
the Western world-especially here in America,
where our comparatively luxurious standards are
not without their softening effective have got
to go through hardening process of our own.
We have got to do that to be ready-in spirit as
well as weapons-for whatever terrible tests
may be forced upon us. Otherwise we shah be
gambling with our survival