I - Report

October 3, 1957

I - 16

The second reality is that those ideas and conceptions which in the long range organize political forces can be transmitted world-wide. The Communists do this. The United States, or indeed any country, can do the same. The possibility of conversion of an enemy, or of an uncommitted area, is thus always present.

At the time when the former political organization of world-affairs has been fragmented, a new possibility is thus dawning: that of obtaining a world consensus; or, if not that, a consensus within the area or areas within which the United States decides to work.

V

THE COMMUNIST MOVEMENT -- THE MOST HIGHLY ORGANIZED CURRENT OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY REVOLUTION

Although the Communist movement is clearly a split-off, or resultant, from other still deeper forces, it has assumed a proportion entitling it to be separately listed in this connection. Historically it will probably rank with the spread of Islam, or of militant Catholicism under the Spanish Empire. It is the current, organized expression of one part of the world-wide economic revolution; but it has added certain philosophical premises (atheism, materialism, the expendability or at least relative unimportance of the individual mind and heart, and so forth) and the almost Oriental postulate that the greatest realization of man is his sinking himself in a collective ideal.

[L.C.]

I - Report

October 3, 1957

I - 17

Libraries have been written analyzing the Communist movement. It is enough to say here that the Communist dogma has been surrounded by an organization in the Soviet Union upon which depend organizations in countries where Communism has gained power, and also organizations (of varying degree of strength) in most parts of the world.

Until a few years ago, the movement had a single undisputed center of decision: Moscow. Since the Korean War it is evident that a second center is developing in China; the two centers still work together but it is no longer clear that Moscow can indefinitely control Chinese Communist decisions. Further, in Western Europe the movement is divided: Yugoslavia has developed a "national" Communism which apparently cannot be reliably controlled by the Soviet Union. There is evidence that other Communist-controlled countries, notably Poland, are struggling towards similar independence. Possibly, indeed, Poland intellectually is more nearly freed from Soviet Communism than Yugoslavia, despite Soviet military occupation which controls her main lines of international action. The monolithic quality of international communism is therefore changing. While it is still true that the policy of Communist parties everywhere in the world prima facie is determined by requirements of Soviet Russian foreign policy, there is some reason to believe that this may not continue.

Communism and its organization is no more immune than other organisms and movements to change, and there is evidence that its original single-

[Lc]

I - Report

October 3, 1957

I - 18 -

centered structure is changing as years go by. Certain developments are be-
ginning to be apparent. Soviet Communism is increasingly becoming the dogma
and propaganda of a Muscovite empire. Outside the Soveit Union, "nation-
alist" rather than "internationalist" Communism is beginning to appear. Exper-
ience is not sufficient to judge whether the nascent Chinese Communist empire
will develop a Communism of its own, distinct in ideas and possibly in action
from the international Communism of Lenin and Stalin; but extrinsic circum-
stances certainly indicate the possibility, if not the probability, that this
may take place. Certainly Soviet Communism increasingly approaches the
outlines of an older Russian imperialism while in West Europe countries Com-
munism increasingly is drawn towards older nationalist bases.

This is not to say the power of the centralized Communist movement in
a great many countries does not continue great. Rather it indicates that the
Communist movement by itself is somewhat less formidable today than ten
years ago. Its greatest significance currently is its ability to organize in
weak countries activist groups capable of making alliance and apparent com-
mon cause with other groups (notably extreme nationalist groups as in the
Middle East) for the primary purpose of opposing the United States and other
non-Communist powers. Thus, in Egypt, a small group of Communists un-
doubtedly have worked with the Nasser nationalists and the Soviet Union has
lent support with arms and economic assistance. It is by no means clear,
however, that the Communist dogma has had much appeal to the Middle East

[Lc]

I - Report

October 3, 1957

1 - 19

countries. Rather, the Communist movement is effective as a para-military spear-head and tool even more than as a proselyting movement. In this respect centrally-directed Communism does not seriously depart from Leninist dogma. For the purpose of disintegrating existing structures, small but highly activist groups were developed whose business was destruction; later they were supposed to rebuild Communist states from the ruin. In some areas the wrecking technique is still formidable. But its later ability to create Communist structures is an unknown factor.

Any dynamic movement of this kind is essentially a core of ideas surrounded by an organization. As the organization becomes a power-apparatus, it tends to strangle and to use the idea core for its own purposes; in time the idea core becomes little more than a set of conventional noises, while the reality is the power apparatus. This is why revolutions frequently end as military dictatorships. There is some evidence to suggest that the Communist movement in the Soviet Union is running the same course.

What it has done has been to assist in destroying the older organizations, to excite expectations, and to assert its ability to give to countries not having it, capacity to accumulate capital, to create technical industrial organization and equipment, and to organize the military capacity which America and Western European countries have enjoyed for the past two centuries. Irrespective of the future course of affairs in Soviet Russia or even in China, the desires it has excited, the belief that they can be accomplished

I - Report

October 3, 1957

I - 20

by political means, and the insistence on a more equitable distribution of
economic welfare will remain part of the structure of world ideas even when
formal Communism and Communist parties cease to be a real threat.

For the time being, nevertheless, we must reckon so much of the
Communist movement as is dominated by the Soviet Union and by China, both
within their borders and in other countries, as a force hostile to all countries
not dominated by Moscow or by China; whose primary aim (for whatever
motives) is to aid in achieving world domination for one or both of these Com-
munist powers by any means available.

This condition may not last forever. It is the situation now. The
United States and non-Communist countries can "co-exist" with Communist
countries such as Yugoslavia which do not have adequate force for aggress-
ion, and apparently with the kind of Communism beginning to develop in
Poland, which apparently has little interest in dominating the social systems
and foreign policies of other countries. Clearly "peaceful coexistence" with
Communism in the present phase of Muscovite or Chinese Communism is a
meaningless phrase: it signifies only that old-style war is for the time being
inexpedient, but that destruction of non-Communist powers will be sought by
all other available means.

This is a present condition. It is likely to continue for some period
of time; it is not, probably, permanent. Substantial evidence suggests that
the power-apparatus of the Communist movement increasingly dominates its

I - Report

October 3, 1957

I - 21.

content; the moral fervor and ideological base is increasingly declining. The military power and the organized bureaucracy appears to be ascending; and with it the relative strength of intellectual Communism appears to be waning. In end result it is probable that the intellectual theories of the Communist Party will be increasingly diffused; in many places and areas they may even be partially adopted without bringing such areas into the dispositive control of Moscow, or in another range, of Communist China. On the other hand, both the Soviet Union and Communist China, though less ideologically inspired, are likely to continue as actively expansionist and imperialist as empires have been throughout history.

There is no particular reason to believe that Soviet-Russian or Chinese Imperialism will be easier to live with, internationally, than centralized or Soviet-directed Communism. They are, however, more understandable, more limited, less likely to seek or seize power beyond their immediate periphery.

VI

THE DECLINE OF THE NATIONALIST BASE IN A WORLD OF
MODERN TECHNOLOGY AND ECONOMICS

The last of the deep currents dealt with here is, really, a vast groping towards regroupment of peoples. This is compelled by the economic and technical facts of life which are steadily rendering the old "nationalist" base of international life obsolete in two important respects.

[Lc]

I - Report

October 3, 1957

I - 22

A "sovereign nation," however well organized internally, however choate racially, however homogeneous in ideas, culture, politics, cannot now perform two functions which, until recently, have been of the very essence of sovereign nationalism. They cannot defend themselves in the sense of guaranteeing their national survival from within their own borders. And they cannot provide an economic level of life which will satisfy the demands of their people, except as a part of an international economic complex. Further, their inadequacies in both respects will probably increase rather than diminish in the readily foreseeable future.

Briefly, no country, by itself, can now guarantee to its population and the vital sectors of its economy safety from destruction by air and atomic weapons. It is possible (though unlikely) that a degree of such defense can be achieved by maintaining lines far outside the area to be defended. On the military side the United States is endeavoring to organize its first-line defense in that manner at present. As the age of the airplane moves into the age of the guided missile, the situation may change. Thus far it would seem that the first effect of guided missile development will make defense even from lines far outside the borders of any country increasingly difficult (if possible at all), and completely impossible from within the country's own borders. Ultimately, it would appear that no defense (in the sense of guaranteeing substantial immunity of a population from destruction) can be worked out except on the basis of a world-wide policing system; this, of course, is beyond the present horizon of political reality.

[1c]

I - Report

October 3, 1957

I - 23

The corrosive effect of this development obviously varies with the size of each country. The Soviet Union, the United States, perhaps Communist China, clearly stand a somewhat better chance of survival; smaller countries like Great Britain, The Netherlands, or Germany stand little, if any hope, of survival. To be "nationalist" in anything less than the largest of nation-states means virtually entrusting the fate of the people, in case of war, to the purest chance, or to the almost equal hazard of hope, in the diplomatic maneuvering, of being one of the few countries escaping scot-free as did Sweden and Switzerland in the past century. The larger countries cannot even reckon on the possibility of staying out; they are almost certain to be the primary targets in case of war. Clearly their first line of possibility is to work up regional groupings such as that worked out by the United States through the Organization of American States, NATO and so forth. But they have to reckon on the fact that they, as polarizing elements in regional accommodations can do little to guarantee the immunity or survival of their allies or associates. The first motive of any military alliance -- to secure better protection for one's own country -- thus begins to disappear; reliance has to be placed on some deeper motive.

Any condition brought about by technology may, of course, be changed by technology. This one may. Nothing has been brought to our attention, however, suggesting that a technological take-out will soon occur in the present situation though technicians are actually studying the problem of missile-

[Lc]

I - Report

October 3, 1957

I - 24'

stopping devices. Borders, either of a national state or of an alliance, for
the present will continue to be indefensible, that is, they may be crossed by
missiles with atomic warheads.

"Nationalism" and the "nation-state" thus lose one of their earliest
basic arguments. Cannon are no longer the "ultimate argument" of kings;
certainly not of any single king or state. Nor can we yet say that they are
a final argument even of any group of states -- if its opponent group includes
another nation with substantial atomic fire-power and range capacity. This
is equally true of Communist and non-Communist powers and groups.

The other force is economic. No small country, and, increasingly,
not even the largest countries can meet the expectation of their peoples
merely by developing and using their own resources. They must also trade,
exchange or plunder with or from others. Factually this must mean that they
live in a more or less developed complex of countries all of whose economic
lives complement each other's. The higher the density of population, and
the higher its standard of living, the greater the pressure.

Pressure of that kind can be hydraulic. Measure may be found in what
happens when access by any country to any other countries is substantially
cut off, as occurred when the Allied blockade in World War I substantially
cut off Germany and Austria from the rest of the world, leading to their defeat.
This happened again in the like blockade against Germany and Italy in World
War II. In peacetime the process of economic disintegration would be

[L]

I - Report

October 3, 1957

I - 25

somewhat slower but no less complete. "Autarchy" is simply not a viable
method of handling modern national economy.

Consequently, in two of its most important aspects the nation-state
is in process of modification. Increasingly "nationalism" is the business of
protection and maintenance of culture. Even to defend a culture involves
expansion either of cooperative arrangements or of new institutions for defense
and economic life which in either case limit the exercise of sovereignty,
though they do not necessarily change its juridicial form. The highly devel-
oped and experienced states moved towards and into regional groups almost
immediately after World War II: the Organization of American States, NATO,
and so forth, and on the Soviet side, the Warsaw Pact. To these were added
functional regional arrangements. These regional arrangements are separately
studied in this report; their development is one of the spectacular evolutions
in foreign affairs. Hard necessity struck the new, and commonly smaller,
nations like a blow in the face almost at the moment of their attaining inde-
pendence. Foreign exchange was lacking, yet they needed foreign imports.
Unfriendly neighbors threatened, and they bitterly needed international order
or at least defense.

Hence a turgid tide of movement. The anti-colonial movement brings
into existence new states -- say Morocco, Libya, Ghana, Pakistan, Ceylon,
Malaya or Outer Mongolia. At once such states while proclaiming the most
passionate nationalism, silently seek help of the United States, or of Soviet