Marshall D. Shulman
Russian Research Center
Harvard University

CAN SOVIET OBJECTIVES CHANGE?

Prepared for delivery at the
University of Virginia,
February 25, 1956

In our relations with the Soviet Union, we have followed a pattern
which, in an individual, would be called "manic-depressive." We have
careened from hope to fear to rage and back again, from self-righteousness
to self-doubt.

We have comforted ourselves with Churchill's aphorism about the Russians
being "a riddle wrapped up in a mystery, inside an enigma," but they must
surely think of us as "those inscrutable Occidentals."

This is not because we are secretive. We are, on the contrary, voluble,
but the men in the Kremlin must sometimes be reminded, if they have ever
heard of it, of Jim Thorpe's famous football play, in which ten men on the
team turned out to have false footballs sewn onto their sweaters.

The main reason, I believe, for the wild swings in our moods on this
problem is that the image of the Soviet Union we have created in our minds
is over-simple. It is as though we were using a camera with a fixed lens-
setting, and when the subject moves, the camera becomes useless, we get
frustrated and smash it in despair. In the 'Forties, we were fortunate, in
that a simplified black-and-white image worked reasonably well in guiding
us to the steps required to repair the imbalance of power that had developed.
Even then, the invocation of the threat of Soviet military power about to
be unleashed, while it gained support on the Hill for such indispensable
measures as the Marshall Plan, NATO, foreign aid programs and a higher
military budget, had its shortcomings. The rush of adrenalin into our system

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got these programs through on an emergency basis, but also led us to do
some foolish things. What is worse, it led us to underestimate the long-
term non-military elements of the challenge. Perhaps one of the necessary
requirements for a steady, rational policy on our part is to develop broad
public understanding of the nature of the challenge, in some of its complexity.

The most difficult problem we have is not how to devise policies to
meet the Soviet challenge; it is how to develop public and political support
for the policies that, in the main, would be agreed upon by most responsible
authorities. To have mature, steady and effective support for the measures
required to meet the long-term challenge of the Soviet Union and the Twentieth
Century, we have to be able to entertain in our minds a complicated and many-
faceted picture, with dimensions of depth and of change over time. The task
is certainly not a politician's delight, but it is another way of asking
whether we have the stuff to survive.

* * * * *

This question of changes in regard to the Soviet Union has often misled
us. For one thing, we use the word "change" in a number of different senses,
without always being clear about what we have in mind. That is what makes
for confusion in trying to answer such questions as these: Has there been a
change in Soviet policy? Is the "New Look" really new, and if so, when did
it begin? Can the Soviet Union ever really change? Or is it the case that
the more Soviet policy changes, the more it is the same?

The first step in thinking through these questions is to differentiate
between the different levels on which change can, and does, take place.

There is, first of all, the level of atmospherics. In an age in which
the practitioners of the art of manipulating public opinion have achieved

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great proficiency, it is increasingly difficult to distinguish between
appearance and reality. This is the case in many other aspects of our
national life, but nowhere is it more serious in its consequences than in
our relations with the Russians. The fact is--and we sometimes lose sight
of it--that the air may be charged or it may be relaxed, without much change
in the underlying situation.

Is Mr. Molotov grim and forbidding, or is he donning cowboy hats at
Cheyenne, visiting museums in New York and Chicago? Are the Soviet repre-
sentatives chilly and isolated, or are they genially mixing, posing gladly
for the photographers? Are we fascist beasts on the Moscow radio, or are
we nice but only misguided?

It is hard for us to think of these changes of manner, and the changes
of atmosphere they engender, as being manipulated, independently of the
reality, but the truth is that we help victimize ourselves. It is something
to wonder at, the way we and our press build up enormous moods without any
appreciable change in the objective situation. Our hopes and our fears
lead us to magnify each small sign of favor or of ferocity, until we lose
sight of reality.

Someone said at the San Francisco United Nations meeting last year
that every time Mr. Molotov took a second helping of ice cream, it launched
a new peace offensive.

One week, the story of Quemoy and Matsu is bubbling furiously at the
top of page one; the next week, there is nothing--without the actual situa-
tion having changed much one way or the other.

Partly this may be rooted in the practices of our press, but partly
also this is a matter of the superficial attention most of us give these affairs.

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We see a headline, or we listen with one ear to a capsule of a digest of a summary on the air, while doing the dishes, or reading or talking, and we come away with an impression that things are better or things are worse, and we either relax or get mad.

That is why it has been not too difficult for the Russians to create an atmosphere of détente—an atmosphere of relaxation of tensions—without having to address themselves to the cause of tensions.

This is not to say that atmospheric changes are not important. They are. They may be very significant as one index of the Soviet outlook at any one time. But unless they are related to something more substantive than manner, they only signify that the Soviet rulers wish to create a different atmosphere, either more militant, hostile and tense, or less so.

There is another level, somewhat more substantial, at which change takes place, and which might be called "tactical." The flexibility of tactics on which Lenin instructed his followers has led to an alternation of periods of militancy with periods of broad cooperation. In the trade, these are known as "Left" and "Right," and the accusatory forms, for comrades who missed the turn, are "Sectarian" and "Opportunist."

For example, is this a period in which the Soviet Union is joining, or is walking out of, such groups as the World Health Organization or UNESCO? Is the Soviet Union granting visas to Western citizens? Is it letting some Russian wives of foreigners out of the Soviet Union? Is the U.S. currently allowed to distribute its magazine, *Amerika*, in the Soviet Union?

More importantly, is this a period in which the foreign Communist parties are being militant, tough, purist about their revolutionary doctrine, and scornful of cooperation with the leaders of "bourgeois" groups?

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Or, is this a period in which the Communist parties are endeavoring to form United Fronts, Popular Fronts, National Fronts, or other forms of broad, collaborative action in the parliaments or in the trade union movement?

Even this requires a further refinement, in that a United Front "from above" means cooperation with the leaders of non-Communist parties or trade unions, and hence signifies a collaborative period; whereas a United Front "from below" means an effort to compete for rank and file support from the other groups, and may therefore signify a militant sectarian tactic.

Now moving one level deeper, there is a kind of change in Soviet policy which can be described as "strategic." It is never altogether clear where tactics leave off and strategy begins, but the distinction here is between the day-to-day operations in local situations and broad policy direction. In this sense, strategy chiefly reflects the Soviet estimate of the main characteristics of the period of history through which we are currently passing. Is this a period of capitalist crisis, when revolutionary possibilities seem in motion, and the time is ripe to press the advantage? Or is this a period of the "temporary stabilization of capitalism?"; a period when the world power situation is adverse?

In the former case, Soviet leaders stress the authority in Marxism-Leninism concerning the division of the world into two hostile camps; the "irreconciliability of the two systems," the "inevitability of conflict." In the latter case, authority is found for the doctrine of the "peaceful coexistence of states having different social and political systems."

One point of confusion that arises here is that the non-militant strategy is sometimes spoken of as a strategy of "retreat." This is not necessarily the case. In a time of the "temporary stabilization of capitalism," and the

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relative strengthening of the "capitalist camp," the Soviet Union may direct its energies to strategically defensive objectives--as for example, the weakening of the Western defense alliance--and this may involve a postponement of the fulfillment of affirmative Soviet objectives, but it represents a continuation of the struggle by other means.

It should be noted at this point that the three modes of change that have been mentioned--atmospheric, tactical and strategic--have all varied on a cyclical pattern in the four decades of Soviet history. An atmosphere of détente has been followed by an atmosphere of tension; a tactic of cooperation by a tactic of militancy; a strategy of defense by a strategy of offense.

It used to be said that a burned cat wouldn't even sit on a cold stove. But most of us have short memories. We bring to Soviet policy what Coleridge said we should bring to art, "the willing suspension of disbelief." The ironic thing is that it is most often the people of good will and a passion for peace who wish to forget the cyclical character of these changes, and who take each favorable turn for a permanent change.

Is there, then, no possibility of a more fundamental kind of change? Those described so far are instrumental changes, representing different ways of approaching the same ultimate objectives. Should we exclude the possibility of a change in Soviet objectives?

One approach to this problem is a utopian one. It is based upon a belief in the possibility of a sudden transformation in the situation. Before the Geneva meetings, it was frequently said: "Now we shall find out if the Russian leaders have really had a change of heart." A variant form of the question, still being asked, and still off the point, is: "Are the Soviet leaders really sincere about peace?" The reason this question is

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off the point is that even if it could be demonstrated that the Soviet leaders preferred to achieve their objectives without war, as doubtless they do, it would not follow that these objectives were compatible with the survival of our own society, or that war could be excluded as an instrument of Soviet policy if their objectives could not be achieved without war.

What the utopian image connotes is the possibility in the near future of a radical transformation in the Soviet system, involving a drastic modification in Soviet objectives, an abandonment of Marxism-Leninism, of Communist analysis and expectations, of the Soviet form of government. It envisages a situation in which Russia would have relationships of trust and confidence with other states; in which people, trade and ideas could move freely back and forth across her borders (and our own); in which the world level of armaments could be safely reduced; in which police state methods would no longer be used; in which neighboring states would be free to choose their own governments; and the anticipation of Russian Communist world hegemony would be forever put aside. Much as we may pray for this ultimate outcome, we must be grateful to Khrushchev for reminding us, as he did in speaking to the East German delegation to Moscow in September, that this will happen only "when the shrimps in the sea learn to whistle."

It is one thing to hold this kind of image in our minds as the expression of an ultimate hope, but to expect this kind of change in the foreseeable future, or to expect the Soviet rulers to accept proposals which would, in fact, presuppose this kind of drastic change in their regime, is not warranted by any observation of the Soviet system. It is delusory, and gravely disadvantageous to our cause, for it leads us to underestimate the problem, and to think irrelevantly about it.

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There is, however, a fifth sense in which the word "change" can be
used. It seems reasonable to believe that, like all other human organiza-
tions, Soviet society does not remain static, but continues to evolve. Four
decades may be a short time to historians, but it is long enough for us to
be asking ourselves what secular changes--that is, changes of a long-term,
non-cyclical character--may be taking place in Soviet society, whether
planned, unintended, or perhaps even unconscious.

We are on hypothetical ground here, and we must guard against letting
our analysis be colored by our wishes. There are some indications of a
conservative trend in Soviet society, and it is tempting to believe that
this will lead to a conservative restraint on Soviet foreign policy. But
even if we acknowledge that internal changes would necessarily affect Soviet
foreign policy, we cannot speak with certainty either as to the nature of
these changes, or as to whether their effect would necessarily be advantageous
to us. Nevertheless, this is a dimension of possible change which requires
continuous attention.

It is now more than a generation and a half, as these things are measured,
since the Revolution. The present leadership, with a few exceptions, has
not been a product of the conspiratorial pre-Revolutionary experience. From
a backward peasant society, the Soviet Union has been transformed into the
second industrial power of the world. Its urban population has increased
by 17,000,000 even within the past five years. Literacy has increased enor-
mously. It would be hard to believe that profound social changes were not
taking place in the light of these developments.

When we try to define these changes, however, and describe their effects,
we venture into an area of speculation, and of disagreement. Our information

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is thinly supported by inferences from study of the Soviet society through
the Soviet press and literature, impressions of occasional visitors to the
Soviet Union, and interviews with former Soviet citizens.

The impression that emerges most clearly is that of a maturing society.
The class strata appear to be more and more clearly defined and stabilized.
Some students of the subject refer to this as a process of stabilization;
others describe it as a condition of increasing rigidity.

Among a large number of former Soviet citizens interviewed by the Harvard
Project on the Soviet Social System, one of the most striking findings was
that the pattern of attitudes corresponded less with such factors as age,
sex, politics, arrest experience, and even nationality, than they did with
the factor of class identification. That is to say, if you knew whether an
individual thought of himself as a peasant, an unskilled laborer, a skilled
workman, or a member of the intelligentsia, you could fairly well chart out
the pattern of his responses to a variety of questions about the regime, the
society, the police, the government, family relations, living conditions,
and so on.

It appears probable that there is less mobility between the classes
than was the case twenty years ago, but whether the wide spread of income
distribution and the opportunity to pass along from one generation to the
next certain advantages is resulting in a hardening class structure is a
matter of speculation and interpretation. Such studies as we have of gen-
erational differences in the Soviet Union show a much higher degree of
matter-of-fact acceptance of the regime and its propaganda among those age
twenty than among those who are forty.

Whether these indications point to the development of a conservative
society is a question which requires further studies of the Soviet social system.

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One of the fascinating questions in this connection is the effect
which increasing industrialization and urbanization may be having on the
Soviet society. The most extreme position on this point was taken by a
British writer who argued that the rapid industrialization had already pro-
duced sufficiently widespread literacy and material well-being in the Soviet
Union as to result in a modification of the totalitarian structure, and that
a kind of social democracy was already in process of emergence.

Among American scholars there are some who believe it possible that
this kind of modification of the harsher aspects of the police state might
take place over very long periods of time. There are others, however, who
take the position that modern totalitarianism is a unique historical phenomenon,
and that there can be no smooth continuum of evolution out of the totalitarian
spiral into something which is not totalitarian. Any appreciable reduction
of the centralized power of the dictatorship, these scholars believe, could
lead only to collapse and will therefore be avoided if possible.

On a more modest range of speculation, however, it seems reasonable to
conjecture that the process of industrialization is developing a technical
intelligentsia, with some of the aspirations, tastes and demands of indus-
trial middle classes elsewhere. Two British scholars have recently had a
heated exchange over whether this did or did not mean a new bourgeoisie in
the Soviet Union, and a new Victorian Age to go with it. The irony, from a
Marxist-Leninist point of view, of having a bourgeois revolution follow a
proletarian revolution, has not escaped some non-Soviet observers.

But when it comes to the effect of these developments, if they do in
fact exist, another area of uncertainty must be traversed. It is possible
that Soviet citizens who are primarily production men, managers, technicians,

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may have, within their general loyalty to the Soviet system, somewhat separable interests from those who have come up primarily through the Party ranks. It seems likely, as interviews have suggested, that the production people press for a reduction of arbitrariness, of political interference in their operations, and that they can make a good case for increasing rationality in the Soviet system, if the high production goals are to be realized. It is also possible that, as consumers, these well-rewarded technicians—the so-called "dacha set"—may strengthen the demand for consumer goods.

This does not, however, necessarily lead to the expectation that a separate managerial class will emerge to challenge Party leadership. The Party has shown great care in absorbing into itself such separate interests as the Army and the technicians. In his report to the Twentieth Congress, Khrushchev strongly reproved Party leaders "who hold that Party work is one thing and economic and government work quite another," and who complain of "being diverted from so-called 'pure party' work and are made to study economics, technology, and agronomy and to study production." Successive Party Congresses have shown a rising level of age and educational experience among Party officials, and among the members of the present Party praesidium are men whose experience has been primarily as production experts. To the extent that a pluralism of interests may develop from the process of industrialization, it seems quite possible that these separable interests will contend with each other within the Party, and not outside or against the Party. The effect of this process, if any, might be expected to be seen in a modification of Party policies, rather than in a weakening of the Party position.

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But even if all this were to be true, it would still leave the un-
answerable question of whether these modifications in the direction of a
more rational order would soften, or merely internalize, the instrument
of terror; whether it would result in a less ideological and less expansionist
Soviet state, or a more efficient and ultimately more dangerous one. While
we hope that over a long period these changes will result in a society easier
for us to live with, we cannot with assurance exclude the possibility that
they may point instead toward 1984.

We cannot even speak with certainty of the long-term effects that indus-
trialism may be having on our own society.

In any case, these are the kinds of changes that have to be measured
in terms of decades, not of months. One comfort that an historical perspect-
ive offers is that other revolutionary movements have experienced a life
cycle in which the revolutionary impulse gradually yields to domestication.
It must be reckoned as a possibility, at least, that over a long period of
time the ideological content in Soviet motivation may diminish in force, may
become increasingly ritualistic, though the vocabulary may remain the same.
Whether the Soviet Union will follow historical precedents in this direction,
and whether there will be time for this kind of slow evolutionary develop-
ment, are questions that only time can answer. It will be difficult enough
for us to recognize such changes when and if they have, perhaps imperceptibly,
come to pass.

* * * * *

In the meantime, what are the characteristics of recent Soviet policy,
in terms of this analysis of the different levels of change?

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To get an effective picture of the Soviet problem it is necessary to create a composite image, as though we were looking through a series of slides held one behind the other. Each of these slides is a plane, on which is represented one aspect of reality. Thus, we have to take account, at the same time, of the conscious and cyclical shifts in Soviet policy—the atmospheric, tactical and strategic planes of movement; and behind this, the slow secular trends in Soviet society, insofar as we can perceive them; and finally, we must take into account the major moving forces of the Twentieth Century, as they manifest themselves in the Soviet Union and in other parts of the world.

Of the slides in the background, there is much more to be said than we shall be able to cover here. The internal changes in Soviet society merit continuous study, observation and thought, lest we find ourselves acting on the basis of a static image of the Soviet Union. For the backmost slide, we endeavor, if we are capable of so detached and planetary a view, to project the image of the Russian nation, surging into a belated national and technological development, pressing upon the rest of the world with its raw new power until a new equilibrium has established itself. In this image, the focus is more clearly upon the dynamics of national power than upon the particular Communist forms through which this power manifests itself in this instance.

But for our present purpose, which is to determine the characteristics of recent Soviet policy, we are concentrating on the slides in the foreground, representing the conscious changes in direction of Soviet efforts abroad.

A retrospective study of Soviet foreign policy since the end of the Second World War suggests that the main watershed is to be found in the 1949-50

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period, and that most of the developments since that time represent, not
new departures, but successive experimentation and refinements in doctrine
and methods.

In brief, the period from 1947 to 1949 had been one in which Soviet
policy reflected an open hostility, in an effort to maximize the advantages
of the molten power situation in the post-war world. The satellization of
Eastern Europe, the incitement of violent strikes in Western Europe, the
organization of the Cominform around the "two hostile camps" doctrine, the
seizure of Czechoslovakia, the Berlin blockade, the violent language of hos-
tility, hatred, irreconcilable conflict and revolutionary advance--these
characterized Soviet policy in the two-year period which marked the most
intense and overt phase of the so-called "cold war".

It was a period of offensive strategy and militant tactics, conducted
in an atmosphere of extreme tension.

By the period 1949-50, it had become apparent that this policy was pro-
ducing adverse effects from the Soviet point of view. The Berlin blockade
had ended in failure, with a clear indication of the willingness of the West-
ern powers to resist at the cost of war if necessary. Western Europe had
begun its economic recovery, and as a consequence had regained a degree of
political stability. Soviet hostility had driven the Western powers into
an unprecedented degree of cohesion, around United States military power.
Instead of withdrawing from Europe, as might have been anticipated, the
United States was now firmly committed to remain, and was in the process of
organizing close political, economic and military bonds with the advanced
industrial nations of Western Europe. The Brussels Pact, the Western Union,
the Marshall Plan, the Greek-Turkish Aid Program, the Mutual Defense Assist-

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ance Program, and finally the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which was beginning efforts to incorporate Western German military power in its orbit, constituted a trend which, if projected, would substantially alter the power relationships in Europe to the disadvantage of the Soviet Union. The military budgets of the United States and the Western European powers were rising to unprecedented peacetime levels, and the United States was approaching, or had reached, the capability of delivering nuclear weapons against the Soviet homeland.

All of these developments were clear reactions to the overt hostility of Soviet policy in the preceding period. In taking stock of their situation in the light of these events, the Soviet leaders were able to include two favorable developments in 1949: the triumph of the Chinese Communists, and the explosion of a Soviet atomic weapon. Each of these events had profound consequences. The rise of Mao created new possibilities and new problems in the East. The existence of Soviet atomic capabilities began to alter the mood, and consequently the political configuration of the European picture, as neutralism became a significant factor.

The attack on Korea in June, 1950, while it appeared to many at the time as another manifestation of the militant Soviet policy, may in fact have been more significant as a modest step toward exploiting the dynamism of the Asian movement as against the relatively static European situation. Since it had the effect of intensifying the Western reaction to Soviet military to an extraordinary degree, it may have hastened a re-evaluation by the Soviet Union of the effect of its previous policies, and made more urgent the introduction of alternative policies.

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What followed was a period of experimentation with policies designed to check the adverse trend, and make use of the favorable developments. There were some regressions to the old militancy in this period, which some observers relate to factional disputes within the Soviet leadership, but such presumed relationships are necessarily speculative. By the fall of 1952, however, the new policy had been developed and formulated at the Nineteenth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. With some modifications, but with considerably more flexibility and deftness in application, essentially the same policy has continued in force after the death of Stalin. The post-Stalin leadership has been more consistent, more thorough, more sensitive to the actual conditions of the outside world, and consequently more successful in creating an atmosphere of détente. It would be difficult, for example, to visualize Stalin making the trip to Belgrade to undo the Tito episode, and it is clear that Stalin's arbitrary and autocratic rule of the Party leadership was among the "obsolete ideas" which Khrushchev, at the Twentieth Congress, said the Party had resolutely swept aside, "as a brake on our forward movement." These changes of manner are of great importance, but the main lines of analysis and of policy presented in the latter days of Stalin remain in force. The modifications of doctrine presented at the Twentieth Congress, such as the non-inevitability of war, the sanctioning of different paths to socialism, and the acceptance of the possibility of Soviet socialism coming to power by parliamentary means, are significant, but mainly as the elimination of hindrances to the fuller consummation of the policy of coexistence and United Fronts.

At the strategic level, Soviet policy in this period has been defensive in character. That is to say, its primary objective appears to be the nega-

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tive one of checking and weakening the Western defense system. To do this, it is seeking to reduce United States power and influence in Europe, Africa and Asia, to unseat U.S. air bases abroad, and to encourage centrifugal tendencies in the Western alliance. Minimally, it is seeking to deny the industrial resources and military capabilities of Western Germany and Japan to the Western alliance, and optimally, it may hope for the accession of the resources of these areas to the Soviet complex. In endeavoring to create a new status of friendly neutrality for the uncommitted states, the Soviet Union is also pursuing a policy of denial, to prevent the West from consolidating its position in Africa and Asia, and consequently to weaken the colonial powers and the United States. The appeal of Communism to neutral nations and neutralists individually is likely to be enormously enhanced by the recent suppression of the symbol of Stalinism.

This strategy has been supported by non-militant tactics. The Communist movement has, in the words of Stalin at the Nineteenth Congress, raised the banner of national independence, which the bourgeoisie had dropped. That is to say, it has used nationalism as an anti-coagulant in the non-Communist world, as for example, in helping to defeat the proposed European Defense Community, and in exacerbating colonial conflicts. It has collaborated with elements of the bourgeoisie on broad front programs—united, popular or national fronts—in order to bring about changes in the national policies of individual Western countries. It has made effective use of neutralism and the peace movement, to circumscribe the freedom of action of the Western governments.

It should be noted that the primary function of the international Communist movement in this period has been, not to achieve power, but to support Soviet policy by influencing the policies of the respective countries in

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such a way as to weaken the Western alliance. It should also be borne in mind that the fall in membership of the Communist parties, or the fall in readership of the Communist newspapers, should not be taken as indices of the reduction of influence of the Communist movement abroad; this is part of the price the Communist movement consciously pays for a prolonged period of non-militancy in behalf of political objectives.

These tactics in turn have been supported by efforts to create an atmosphere of détente. The Soviet Union has abstained from unnecessary bellicosity; it has eased a number of pressure points—as for example, Turkey, Finland, Austria and Yugoslavia; and it has endeavored, by words and symbolic acts, to bring about a "reduction in international tensions" and the "peaceful coexistence of states having different social and political systems," to quote the motif of many speeches by Soviet leaders.

By stressing peaceful coexistence and reducing the fear of war, the Soviet Union helps to create a climate in which divergencies among the Western allies prosper and the will to build military strength together is weakened. Also, by encouraging the West to reduce its military expenditures, the Soviet leaders believe they are eliminating a prop which sustains the capitalist economies at their present high levels. The importance which Soviet leaders attach to their conviction regarding the inevitable coming crisis of capitalism was further demonstrated at the recent Twentieth Party Congress.

At home, meanwhile, the Soviet Union is continuing emphasis on the development of heavy industry, seeking to correct shortcomings in the fields of agriculture and transportation, supporting a modest development of Chinese industrialization, and coordinating the economic planning of the entire Communist area.

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There has been occasional speculation--sometimes expressed in quite categorical language--that economic and political weaknesses in the Soviet orbit have been determinants of Soviet foreign policy. It is evident that such problems as agricultural shortages are matters of serious concern to the Soviet leadership, and to the extent that these factors do circumscribe Soviet freedom of action in the field of Soviet foreign policy, they operate in the same direction as the external power considerations which have been mentioned. But as far as the known evidence goes, there is no indication that the problems of the Soviet system are of such a magnitude as to justify the expectation of a collapse of the regime, or a mood of desperation or surrender on the part of the leadership.

What emerges from this brief review of these familiar elements of Soviet policy is that they represent a consistent pattern of adaptation of strategy, tactics and atmospherics to the favorable and unfavorable factors currently prevailing. Though in a sense a defensive response to the strengthened Western power position of 1949-50, they represent an effort to advance toward Soviet objectives by alternative and more promising means. They indicate how the Soviet leaders may rely on the factor of time in order to attain a dominant power position in the world even without war. Finally, it should be recognized that this entire pattern, and every part of it, is still completely capable of being reversed at any time.

* * * * *

If this is a fair sketch of the situation we face, what follows from it as a reasonable course of action on our part?

What should be our aim in this relationship? Whatever may be the components of power under present conditions--subjective, objective, tangible,

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intangible, military, economic or political--it is apparent that we must endeavor to prevent if we can a dangerous increase of Soviet power relative to our own. We must endeavor to do this without resort to war. And we would desire that ultimately, one way or another, there should be an abandonment in fact of the Russian commitment to an ideology of conflict and world Communism.

The present phase of Soviet policy offers some considerable advantages in pursuing these aims. In fact, it is worth remembering that it was part of the purposes of our policies to encourage just such changes as these in Soviet behavior. We sought, by repairing the imbalance of power which had developed, to foreclose the possibility of military aggression, and to oblige the Soviet leaders to pursue their objectives by other means, and on a deferred schedule.

It should now be part of our purpose to prolong the policy which the Russians call "peaceful coexistence."

In doing so, we should be under no illusions as to what "peaceful coexistence" means to the Soviet leaders. It does not mean peace as we understand the word. It means a continuation of the struggle against us on political and economic grounds. It could mean, if we let it, an alternative route for the Soviet leaders to a dominant world power position. Also, it is acknowledged to be a temporary policy, and it could be supplanted by one of overt military aggression at any time the Soviet leaders were to believe it advantageous so to act.

Dangerous and unstable though this condition may be, it is preferable to its alternative, which is war. Until the day comes when Communist aims and Communist power are no longer irreconcilable with the continued exist-

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ence of the non-Communist world, we have no real choice but to contend with it tirelessly, and, if necessary, indefinitely.

It would be unreasonable and unrealistic to expect in the short run a dissolution of the basic conflict situation, since this is inherent in our respective systems. What may make the situation tolerable, however, is the difference between their estimate and ours as to the effect of time. Sooner or later, they anticipate that our system must collapse while they, having harnessed the industrial and nationalist revolutions in the world, will emerge triumphant. For our part, confident of the durability and adaptability of free societies, we anticipate that time may bring changes in the character of the problem, including perhaps certain long-term changes in the nature of the Soviet system.

The result is that we can, each for our own reasons, contemplate a period in which the issue is not joined in mortal combat.

Unfortunately, the terms used for this kind of relationship, which is neither war nor peace, all have their specific connotations and may be misleading--"peaceful coexistence," "temporary stabilization," "peaceful competition," and even "competitive coexistence." No doubt a more satisfactory nomenclature for this period can be found. What should be clear to us, however, is that only if we are clear about the special requirements of this somewhat muted conflict will it be advantageous for us; otherwise, it can easily mark the decline and eventual submergence of our civilization, fulfilling the Communist prophecies, "not with a bang, but a whimper."

The main requirements of the present period may be grouped under three headings. There are those that bear directly on our relationship with the Soviet Union. Secondly, there are certain requirements as to military power.

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Finally, there are certain urgencies in the relationships, both political and economic, between the nations of the non-Communist world.

One of the characteristics of the present period is that there is probably relatively little we can do directly vis à vis the Soviet Union to improve the situation radically. This does not mean that we should sit passively and wait for time to work its changes. Doubtless the Communists will continue to exploit by political manoeuvre any vulnerabilities and divergencies on our side, and there is no reason why we should not endeavor to do the same in regard to the Communist bloc. But we should not exaggerate to ourselves the probable effects under present conditions of such activities. The main impact on the Soviet Union in the present period is more likely to come from what we do or do not do in the non-Communist world.

As for our direct relations with the Soviet Union, one of the most interesting questions of the present period concerns the degree of tension between us. It is part of the proclaimed Soviet purpose to reduce the atmosphere of tension, by word and symbolic act. We do not seem to be sure whether this is good or bad, from our point of view. True, it may reduce the danger of imminent war, but it also increases the danger of the demobilization of the defenses of the non-Communist world.

Tension is rather like temperature in a patient. It is a symptom, a response to something wrong, somewhere. To reduce the atmosphere of tension without reducing the causes of tension is like taking aspirin to lessen the pain of a warning symptom.

Of course, there are some kinds of tension we can do without. Hysteria, demagogic exploitation of our anxieties, nervous braggadocio--these are self-defeating, as we are coming to realize. The question is whether we

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can develop among the American people and the people of other non-Communist nations sufficient understanding of the challenge, sufficient will to act firmly and for long periods of time, without excitement or bellicosity. Is our political process and our level of political maturity such that we will not stand guard in a matter-of-fact way, but will only come running at the cry of "Wolf!"?

Part of the answer lies in the clarity with which the people and the governments of the non-Communist nations keep in mind the actual causes of tension. The record of Soviet actions since the War is not erased by the onset of a new phase of Soviet policy. So long as Soviet power remains formidable, Communist ideology remains fundamentally hostile, and the current Soviet amicable manner is capable of reversability, there are no grounds for thinking ourselves secure, except to the degree our defense efforts warrant.

It may be, over a period of time, that some of the causes of tension will yield to negotiation, when and if the interests of each side overlap, and settlements can be worked out which trans-ose the power relationships into a lower key. Any such settlements which resulted, for example, in an actual and verified reduction of armaments and armed forces, or which satisfactorily disposed of the specific territorial issues where our respective power spheres are in contact—as for example, Germany, Korea, Formosa or Indo-China—would be major settlements, and would deserve to be given more weight in judging the fundamental relationship than such peripheral agreements as the Austrian treaty.

Our experience has taught us that we can expect such fundamental settlements, much as we may desire them, only when Soviet interests require them, and the awareness of this lesson must protect the public which looks over the shoulders of our negotiators from undue expectations.

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To protect our people from being beguiled by the atmospherics, lulled
by actions which have a synthetic symbolic significance, our leadership must
repeatedly draw our attention back from the superficial to the fundamental,
from the general to the specific, from the declarations to the concrete issues.

Among the requirements of this period, therefore, is the education of
the people of non-Communist nations by our respective leaderships, to a
mature understanding of the real dimensions of the Communist problem. This
does not make very good politics, unfortunately.

If it is in our interest to keep the Soviet leaders from lapsing back
into a policy of overt hostility, then another prime requirement of the
present period is the maintenance of sufficient military power to ensure
against this possibility.

In discussing the military confrontation, some speak of "stalemate,"
others of a military "equilibrium." Under conditions of a rapidly changing
military technology, both of these are imprecise terms. Though it may be
difficult for laymen to prescribe what is required in terms of particular
weapons and amounts, we should at least be clear about what objective we
are asking our military to fulfill. In terms of this analysis, what we
desire is a level and distribution of military power sufficient to dissuade
Soviet leaders from resorting to military solutions, local or general, now
or later. Whatever this may mean in concrete terms, and however graduated
the deterrence may be, we must accept the fact that, in the absence of an
enforceable disarmament agreement, this means a high level of expenditures,
for a long time to come, in nuclear and thermo-nuclear weapons, in the means
of delivery, in research and development of new weapons, in the kinds of
forces required to deal with local aggression, in air warning systems.

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civilian defense, and other protections for the zone of the interior. This
means high taxes, it means allies, it means military service. Again, unfor-
tunately, good policies do not make good politics.

Among the requirements of the present period, the most difficult and
perhaps the most decisive are those that have to do with the relationships
among the non-Communist nations. These are the easiest to describe in gen-
eralities, and the most complex of all to be specific about. It is here
that we have the greatest advantage over the Soviet Union, thanks to our
resources and our industrial development. And it is here that we have the
greatest disadvantage, too, for it is easier to exploit our dilemmas than
to resolve them, easier to tear down than to build up, easier to stir up
disaffection than to evoke responsibility, easier to preach orthodoxy than
pluralism.

Part of the problem for us is that we are caught in a rip-tide, as two
of the major moving forces of the Twentieth Century swirl about us in oppo-
site directions. The technological revolution is for the most part an inte-
grative force, creating as it does a technical base for ever-larger social
units. The effect of the nationalist revolution is on the other hand chiefly
disintegrative, in its current manifestations. In the eighteenth and nine-
teenth centuries, nationalism brought groups together in a common national
identity. Today, however, when the level of technology has advanced still
further, nationalism chiefly functions as a powerful force which separates
nations from each other.

The result is a basic centrifugal tendency in the non-Communist world.
For a period after the war, especially when hostile Soviet policies created
apprehensions abroad, this centrifugal tendency was counteracted by a
defensive cohesion. When the change in Soviet policy removed this external

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force, the centrifugal tendency reasserted itself. The consequence is an
increasing fragmentation of the power relationships. In place of the ex-
treme bi-polarization of power which prevailed ten years ago, we are approach-
ing a condition characterized by a series of highly-differentiated areas,
having complex interrelationships. This process is likely to be terrifyingly
accelerated if the smaller nations achieve thermo-nuclear capabilities.

The management of our interests in this complex situation requires
skill and forebearance. Our minimum interests include the continued solid-
arity of our Western European alliances, the steadiness of the structure on
which our foreign bases rest (at least until new advances in military tech-
nology make this less necessary), and the continued independence of other
nations from Communist rule.

Politically, perhaps the principal, although by no means the sole,
problem is the balancing of our European alliances with the reassertion of
our traditional support for the aspirations of the peoples of Asia and Africa
for self-government. We have a clear interest in lending our support to
peaceful, orderly and constructive change, but local conditions rarely per-
mit us an uncomplicated application of this principle. In giving due weight
to the interests of our European allies, and to our own interest in present
stability, we are obliged to give increasing consideration to the ascendent
claims of the peoples of Africa and Asia. This is a genuine dilemma, which
is to say it is not to be dispelled by easy formulations without regard to
the specific conditions in each local situation. It is no service to over-
simplify this problem, or to minimize its difficulties, which are inherent
in our position of responsibility in the world.

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Economically, assuming that we shall be able to maintain the health of our own economy, the major requirement for our policies is that they help to develop trade within the non-Communist world for the advanced industrial societies—with especial reference to Western Germany and Japan—at the same time that they advance economic development in the underdeveloped areas. These must be taken as complementary objectives, to be developed in relation to each other.

One of the main ingredients in Communist optimism about the future is their conviction that the advanced industrial areas of the West must come into increasing conflict with each other. Particularly, they hope to use the gravitational pull of trade opportunities to weaken the attachment of Western Germany and Japan to the non-Communist alliance, and optimally to add the industrial resources of these two countries to their own economic complex.

Unless we are able to develop new channels of trade, investment, and economic development between the various parts of the non-communist world, industrialized and underdeveloped, the Communist expectations in this matter will not go unfulfilled.

Again, this is a medicine that is easy to prescribe and difficult to swallow. The necessary revisions in our own foreign trade policies, and the enlargement of our foreign economic aid programs and technical assistance programs may seem to many of us self-evident requirements as policies, but doubtful as politics.

There are two reasons, however, why it is imperative for us to address ourselves imaginatively to the economic and political requirements of the non-Communist world. It is, first of all, necessary to strengthen our position

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by creating a favorable environment in the face of the challenges of the
industrial and national revolutions, and of Communist imperialism.

But this is not all. To the extent that we maintain the health of
our own economy, work out harmonious relationships between the advanced
industrial areas and the underdeveloped areas, between the former colonial
powers and the former dependencies--to this extent we shall oblige the Soviet
leaders and the Russian people to face the fundamental errors in their
ideological analysis, just as Mikoyan was obliged at the Twentieth Congress
to revise Stalin's predictions at the Nineteenth Congress regarding the
weaknesses of capitalism.

This is perhaps the most direct means open to us to encourage favorable
long-term changes in the Soviet system. If Soviet expectations regarding
our early demise remain unfulfilled over a long period of time, and the
level of our military power is sufficient to dissuade the Soviet leaders
from having recourse to violence, it is possible that a prolonged period
of "peaceful coexistence" will effect long-term modifications in Soviet
policies and the Soviet regime.

Many imponderables will enter into this equation, and events now unforeseeable. In the nature of things, we are dealing with possibilities, not certainties.

But the outcome is not wholly in the hands of fate. At least in part
it depends on whether we have enough of a national sense of responsibility
to endure painful revisions in our thinking and to sustain with patience
and vision arduous effort for a long time to come.