Russian Imperialism And Communism

The other factor that is relevant to our diagnosis is Russia’s victory over her allies. Unlike the economic success of the United States, this victory is not a possibility only, but, for the time being, an accomplished fact. Starting from a position that was none too strong—a position in which Russia according to all ordinary rules of the political game might have had to accept whatever her allies thought fit to impose and to take a back seat in the new international order—she raised herself to a position of power far beyond any she ever held under the tsars, in spite of everything that England and the United States can possibly be assumed to have wished or to have fought for. And—supreme achievement!—methods peculiar to her system of government have enabled her to extend her actual power beyond her official conquests and at the same time to make it appear much smaller than it is—so that those sham concessions at danger points that satisfy escapists and appeasers never involve any real sacrifice even if they do not, as is sometimes the case, spell actual gain. 30 If the reader recalls the aims

This result first of all calls for explanation. I am afraid that those analysts of history who recognize nothing but impersonal factors—plus, perhaps, an element of chance—will not do very well at this task. The impersonal or objective factors were all against Russia. Even her huge army was not simply the product of a numerous population and a rich economy, but the work of one man who was strong enough to keep that population in abject poverty and submission and to concentrate all the forces of an undeveloped and defective industrial apparatus on the one military purpose. But this would not have been enough. Those who never understand how luck and genius intertwine, will of course point to lucky chances in that long series of events that culminated in that stupendous success. But this series of events contains as many or more desperate situations in which the bolshevist regime had every chance to perish. Political genius consists precisely in the ability to exploit favorable possibilities and to neutralize unfavorable ones so completely that, after the fact, the superficial observer sees nothing but the former. Following events from that first master stroke—the “understanding” with Germany—we behold a master’s handiwork. It is true that Stalin never encountered a man of comparable ability. But this only reinforces the case for a philosophy of history that leaves adequate room for the quality of leading personnel and for the special case of this—the quality of the leading individual. The only concession that realistic analysis can make to the “impersonal theory” is this: An autocrat is, in matters of foreign policy, unhampered by all those considerations that distract the attention of a democratic leader. 31 disposal of Russia in international bodies, and also to the subsidies and loans that the Russian government may receive; Russia would be weaker than she is if she had annexed the whole of Poland outright. 31 Some readers will observe that we are at this point brushing against an old controversy between sociologists of history and also between historians. It is therefore necessary to state that I am not preaching hero-worship or adopting the slogan: “history is made by [individual] men.” The methodology involved in the argument of our text comes to not more than this. In explaining a historical course of events, we make use of a large array of data. Among these data are climate, fertility, size, and so on of countries, but also the qualities, invariant in the short run, of their populations. And since quality of population does not determine uniquely the quality of the political personnel and this in turn does not determine uniquely the quality of leadership, these two must be listed separately. To put it differently: in a given situation, brain and nerves of the man at the helm are just as objective facts as are iron content of the country’s ore and presence or absence of molybdenum or vanadium. A Historical Sketch of Socialist Parties400 But, second, though we may understand, by attending to developments in detail, how this unbelievable situation has arisen, this does not help us to understand how it is that the world puts up with it now that it is before everyone’s eyes. The problem reduces to the attitude of the United States. For the countries of continental Europe, exhausted, starving, and exposed to Russian retaliation as they are, can certainly not be counted on for significant resistance. The only continental country really independent of Russia is Spain—a fact that Russia’s policy toward her has recently brought home to most of us. France that might be almost equally independent has the strongest Russian garrison of all, in the shape of her Communist party. 32 As regards England, there are plenty of symptoms to show that had she had her way the whole course of events since 1941 would have been quite different and that all England that counts politically views the present situation with disgust and apprehension. If, nevertheless, she does not take a strong line, this can only be due to the fact that if she did she would be taking a terrible risk, the risk of having to fight a war with Russia singlehanded. For though it is very likely that the United States would join her, it is not certain. Why?

To an observer from another planet nothing could be more obvious than that from every consideration of honor and interest this country cannot tolerate a situation in which a great part of humanity is deprived of what we consider to be elementary human rights, in which there is more cruelty and lawlessness than the war was undertaken to curb, in 32 This fact is extremely interesting. Probably there were some Americans who believed that the French people would hail their liberation in transports of joy and gratitude and that they would settle down at once to the task of rebuilding a democratic France. As a matter of fact, we find what Léon Blum euphemistically described as convalescence fatiguée or, in plain English, a universal reluctance to working the democratic method. There are the three parties of about equal numerical strength and equally incapable of producing effective government on democratic lines: the M.R.P. (mouvement républicain populaire, the Catholic and Gaullist party), the regular Socialists, and the Communists. For us three points only are relevant: first, the practically complete absence of “liberal” groups; second, the absence of any group with which the United States politician could wholeheartedly co-operate; third and most important, the strength of the Communists. Manifestly, this strength cannot be explained by a conversion to Communist principles of so large a number of Frenchmen. Many of them cannot be Communists at all in the doctrinal sense. Those who are not, are Communists ad hoc, that is to say, Communists by virtue of their conception of the national situation. But this means that they are simply pro-Russian. They look upon Russia as “the great fact of our day,” the power that (reconstruction dollars apart) really matters, the power to which il faut s’accrocher and with which, in order to be reborn, France must side, against England and the United States, in any future struggle—which, precisely thereby, is to be turned into something styled world revolution. Fascinating bunch of problems that open up at this point! But my regret at the impossibility of going into them is somewhat mitigated by the conviction that my readers would refuse to follow the argument.

which tremendous power and prestige is concentrated in the hands of a government that embodies the negation of principles that mean something to the large majority of the people of the United States. Surely it was not worth while for this people to undergo sacrifices to carry on a conflict in which untold horrors were inflicted upon millions of innocent women and children if the chief result is to free the most powerful of all dictators from the two armies that hemmed him in. Surely this is a case where a job half done is worse than nothing. Moreover, the other half would have been not only possible but relatively easy because after Japan’s surrender this country’s military forces and techniques, not to speak of her economic power to give or withhold, assured her unchallengeable superiority. But if that observer from another planet argued on these lines, we should have to reply that he does not understand political sociology. In Stalinist Russia, foreign policy is foreign policy as it was under the tsars. In the United States, foreign policy is domestic politics. There is indeed a tradition flowing from Washington’s advice. But it is essentially isolationist. There is no tradition and there are no organs for playing the complex game of any other foreign policy. When violently excited by propaganda the country may enter upon or accept an activist course of interference beyond the seas. But it soon tires of it, and tired it is now— tired of the horrors of modern warfare, of sacrifices, taxes, military service, of bureaucratic regulations, of war slogans, of world-government ideals—and very anxious to return to its habitual ways of life. Urging it on to further strenuous exertion—in the absence of any immediate danger of attack—would be bad political business for any party or pressure group that might wish to undertake it. But no such wish seems to be entertained by any party or group. Those who are actuated by a passionate hatred of Germany or of the national-socialist régime are content. With the same arguments which they used to stigmatize as escapist, they now support the policy toward Russia which they used to stigmatize as appeasement in the case of Hitlerite Germany. And if we go through the list of the interests that form the pattern of American politics, we find that they all agree, though for different reasons, in favoring appeasement. Farmers do not care much. Organized labor may or may not be significantly influenced by a genuinely pro-Russian wing and it may or may not be true that unions, or some of them, would actively obstruct any war against Russia. We need not go into this question—usually dealt with by reckless denials or reckless assertions— because all that matters for the situation as it presents itself at the moment to the politician is the fact that nobody doubts, viz., that labor

which was not pro-war in 1940 is definitely anti-war now. The most interesting observation to make, however, is that the same holds for the business class and that its attitude, though of course not pro-Russian in feeling or intention, actually is pro-Russian in effect. Radical intellectuals love to attribute to the bourgeoisie an intention to jump at the throat of the Soviet Republic. They certainly would describe a war with Russia as a war waged upon socialism by big business. Nothing can be more unrealistic. The business class, too, is tired of war slogans, of taxes, of regulations. War with Russia would stem a tide that for the moment is running in favor of business interests, and would mean still more taxation and still more regulation. It would put labor in a still stronger position. It would, moreover, not only disturb domestic business but cut off prospective business of a very alluring kind. Soviet Russia may become a very big customer. She has never yet failed to pay promptly. And many a good bourgeois’ anti-socialist convictions are being undermined by this fact. This is the way the bourgeois mind works—always will work even in sight of the hangman’s rope. But it is not difficult to rationalize away this unpleasant sight. Let Russia swallow one or two more countries, what of it? Let her be well supplied with everything she needs and she will cease to frown. After twenty years Russians will be just as democratic and pacific as are we—and think and feel just as do we. Besides, Stalin will be dead by then. 33

Once more: the purpose of this book is not to guide readers toward definite practical conclusions but to present pieces of analysis that may be useful to them in drawing their own practical conclusions. Moreover, in matters so subject to chance and to the intrusion of new and 33 The last sentences are all quotations. They are so revealing and valuable precisely because they are not answers to interview questions that the person interviewed recognizes as such. They were spontaneous utterances made without awareness of the fact that the speaker was revealing mental processes of his or, more precisely, an alogical and semiconscious attitude of his that he was trying to rationalize for himself. Excepting the third which stood alone in its naïveté, the statements, or closely similar ones, have been heard more than once. In almost every case the irrationality of the speaker’s attitude (including its inconsistency with the attitudes of 1939– 1941) has been pointed out to him. In no case was there any logically presentable reply or any reaction except (a) display of a sort of good-natured annoyance or (b) a gesture of hopelessness that seemed to admit the criticism but with some such proviso as “what’s the good?” In view of a point that has been made earlier in this section, I must, however, add that there is in fact something in the fourth escape from reality. If it be true, as I myself have held, that abilities such as those of Russia’s leader occur extremely rarely in any population, it seems in fact that the action of nature will solve many a problem in due course. Only, if it be admitted that there is something in the argument, it should also be stated that too much may be made of it. In some respects, an enemy of supreme ability is easier to deal with than is a less capable one—which is not really a paradox. Moreover, though it does require genius of the first order to build up, e.g., the Standard Oil concern, it does not require genius to run it once it has been built up. The Russian century once started may run its course almost of itself.

unexpected factors, prediction can be no more than prophecy and hence can have no scientific standing. Trusting that this is thoroughly understood, I now will nevertheless, by way of summing up this part of our argument, adopt what seems to be a reasonable inference, but for no other purpose than pour fixer les idées. To put it differently: What we are about to do is exactly what we have been doing in this book all along with reference to the great subject of socialism in general: we are extrapolating observable tendencies. The facts we have glanced at suggest that, unless Stalin makes the first mistake of his life, there will be no war in the next years and Russia will be left undisturbed to develop her resources, to rebuild her economy, and to construct by far the greatest war machine, absolutely and relatively, the world has ever seen. The proviso inserted which restricts but does not, I think, annihilate the practical value of this inference, means this: A spectacular act of aggression—an act of aggression so spectacular that even fellow travelers would have difficulty in explaining it as perfectly justified “defense”—may no doubt precipitate war at any moment. But against this possibility must be set the facts, first, that nothing in the foreign policy of the Stalïnist régime is more striking than is its cautious patience; second, that this régime has everything to gain by being patient; third, that, acting from a pinnacle of imperialist success, it can afford to be patient and to surrender outposts whenever there is a sign of real danger or whenever it faces “a firmer tone” as it had to of late. 34 The outlook will, however, materially change after a reconstruction period of, say, ten years. The war machine will be ready for use and it will become increasingly difficult not to use it. Moreover, unless England embraces bolshevism and in addition renounces all of her traditional position, the mere existence of that independent isle may prove as unbearable to Russian autocracy as it proved to be to Napoleonic autocracy—and vice versa. Perception of this fact is, of course, the essence of Churchillian warnings and the rationale of the armament race that has already started.

But in order to appreciate all this, another thing must be borne in mind. In peace and in a possible future war, still more in these intermediate 34 It should be observed, in order to illustrate the force of the argument, that none of these three facts were present in the German case such as it stood in 1939. Some readers will deny this with respect to the third fact, at least for the situation that prevailed after Munich. But this is only because our attitude toward German ambitions is quite different from that which we take at present toward Russian ambitions. The decisive point, viewed from a political angle, is that Germany had not then fully recovered her national territory, whereas the Stalinist régime has only to compromise, if at all, about positions in nationally foreign territories, which is a much easier thing to do. Moreover, “the firmer tone” mentioned in the text has so far been resorted to only in order to ward off additional encroachments

situations that are not war but dominated by the threat of war, the Communist groups and parties all over the world are naturally of the greatest importance for Russian foreign policy. 35 In consequence, there is nothing surprising in the fact that official Stalinism has of late returned to the practice of advertising an approaching struggle between capitalism and socialism—the impending world revolution—the impossibility of permanent peace so long as capitalism survives anywhere, and so on. All the more essential is it to realize that such slogans, useful or necessary though they are from the Russian standpoint, distort the real issue which is Russian imperialism 36 and has, apart from fifth-column considerations, nothing to do with socialism. The trouble with Russia is not that she is socialist but that she is Russia. As a matter of fact, the Stalinist regime is essentially a militarist autocracy which, because it rules by means of a single and strictly disciplined party and does not admit freedom of the press, partakes of one of the defining characteristics of Fascism 37 and exploits the masses in the Marxist sense. We may understand, and condole with, the American intellectual who is so circumstanced as to have to call this democratic socialism—at least in prospect—though we may resent the 35 For the purpose of the argument that is to follow it is fortunately not necessary to go into the question of how strong the Communist fifth column actually is in this country. It is, at any rate, much stronger than appears from any statistics or from any official declarations of spokesmen for labor groups, and certainly not negligible. Discussion on this point and on the possible consequences of proRussian attitudes on the efficiency of a possible war effort are, I think, rendered next to valueless not only by the prevalence of interested over- or under-statement, but also by the failure of participants to define the issue clearly. One’s attitude may be pro-Russian in effect, as we have seen, without being pro- Russian in feeling or intent. And it may be Communist without being effectively pro- Russian. All these variants—some of which are not relevant to a man’s behavior if war be actually declared—must be carefully distinguished. 36 The phrase imperialism being among the most misused ones in the whole stock of popular political theory, it is necessary to define the meaning which it is intended to carry here. For our limited purpose, however, it is not necessary to analyze the phenomenon as I attempted to do in a monograph published about thirty years ago and to adopt the definition appropriate to an elaborate analysis. Instead, the following definition will suffice though I consider it utterly inadequate (it is, however, compatible with the use we made of the term in Chapters IV and XI of this book): imperialist is a policy that aims at extending a government’s control over groups other than co-national ones against their will. This is what Russia did, before the war, in the cases of Outer Mongolia and Finland and, during and after the war, in all cases. The point is that this policy knows no inherent limit. Motivating phrases are irrelevant. 37 This is another phrase that through misuse has lost all definite meaning. Its use in United States common parlance in fact suggests the definition: Fascist is any policy, group, or country which the speaker or writer who uses the phrase does not like. In our text, however, it means, in accordance with the political theory presented in this book (Chapter XXII), the political method of monopolistic vs. competitive leadership. It will be observed that this does not amount to saying that in any or every other respect Stalinism is “the same thing” as Hitlerism or Italian Fascism.

The Consequences of the Second World War insult to our intelligence that is implied in his expectation of being believed. But the visible tendency of such a régime to extend its sway over the whole of Europe and Asia evidently cannot be simply identified with any tendency of socialism to spread. It does not even follow that the expansion of Russian rule will make for socialism in any of the more usual senses of the word. Whether it will or not depends entirely on the real and putative interests of the Russian autocracy (see last section of preceding chapter). This may be illustrated by the analogous case of the religious policy of Stalinism: so long as it suited the autocrat, religion was the opium of the people; as soon as he realized that the Orthodox Church might prove a more useful tool of foreign policy in some parts of the world than either Communism or the World Federation of Trade Unions (1945), Russia was declared to be a “Christloving nation” and in the place of the tsarist “chief procurator of the Holy Synod,” emerged, along with a new Patriarch—who immediately proved himself a zealous tourist in Eastern countries—a Communist chairman of the “council for the affairs of the Orthodox Church.” It is true that there is a strong reason for expecting nationalization of industry in all countries in which Russia is free to act without feeling hampered by tactical considerations of foreign policy: a nationalized industry is easier to manage and to exploit for a conqueror and cannot become a center of opposition. But there is no other reason. And it is impossible to say whether or not this motive will prevail over other possible ones. 38 It is even conceivable that further advance of the Russian power may eventually prove an impediment to developments in the direction of what most people think of and feel about when they utter the word Socialism.

To confuse the Russian with the socialist issue—unless it is a trick perpetrated in the service of Russia—is therefore to misconceive the social situation of the world. The Russian issue bears upon the socialist issue in two ways only. First, by virtue of the logic of their situation, the presence of Communist groups and of pro-Communist wings in non-Communist groups will tend to radicalize labor politics. This is not always so—the French Communists, e.g., voted against two important measures of 38 The reader will please notice that all the statements of fact, made or implied in the above argument, are verifiable, if need be, from official Russian sources. In fact, all that is material to our argument, especially to our diagnosis of the nature of the Russian régime, can be established without recourse to any statement of fact that could possibly be challenged. I have purposely refrained from mentioning anything, however valuable it might have seemed for further illustration of the nature of the régime, that might raise questions of fact, such as murder in the conquered or controlled countries, chain gangs in Georgia, concentration camps. Our argument would not be affected in the least if anything that could be called an atrocity were entirely absent.

A Historical Sketch of Socialist Parties406 socialization. But upon the whole, and if for no other purpose than for the purpose of disorganizing capitalist countries, that logic of the situation will be allowed to assert itself. Second, in the case of a war we shall have the social and political consequences that any war has under modern conditions—the fact that it is a war between a supposedly socialist and a supposedly capitalist country will make little difference.