The Grand Failure

...Economic convergence, once widely heralded as inevitable, is in fact occurring, but only in one direction, away from socialism and toward the market...

...As a scholar, Zbigniew Brzezinski is best known as one of a small group of specialists who identified Communism's totalitarian features as the motor behind the Soviet Union's internal repression and global expansionism...

...Economic interdependence with the West, inherently subversive in nonmarket economies, is destined to grow over the next decade, a development that will impose massive changes throughout Communist societies...

...Furthermore, unlike most Western experts, Brzezinski dismisses out of hand the Gorbachevian plan of economic modernization, insisting rather that the Soviet economy will never become sucArch Puddington is the author of Failed Utopias: Methods of Coercion in Communist Regimes, published by ICS Press...

...Or, as Leszek Kolakowski has suggested, will Communism "continue to decay in a way that is painful and difficult for the people [living in these societies...

...Nikita Khrushchev's boast that the Soviet Union was poised to "secure for our peoples the highest living standards in the world" sounds ludicrous today, especially to a Soviet leadership that admits an inability to feed or house its people properly...

...Consider the Sandinistas, whose dominant position appears unassailable despite extreme shortages and hyperinflation...

...The result is that Communist parties enjoy a powerful advantage over opposition groups weakened almost from the beginning by inexperience, confusion, and, inevitably, disunity...

...policy will "strengthen" Gorbachev's position...

...The President was urged to rid himself of his in-househardliner by such diverse voices as West German officials and Averell Harriman...

...The forces that have compelled unprecedented changes in Hungary and Poland are already eating away at party control throughout the bloc...

...And as we are now beginning to understand, the singleness of purpose that marks all successful Communist movements is crucial both in seizing power and in maintaining control even under conditions of semi-pluralism...

...some critics went so far as to imply that his judgment was clouded by his Polish heritage...

...44 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JULY 1989...

...In this atmosphere, Brzezinski's argument may strike some as little more than a reformulation of the prevailing conventional wisdom...

...Nor is it likely that other Communist parties in the region can maintain regimes of censorship, visa denials, religious persecution, and command economies while their neighbors are moving toward Western-style pluralism...

...Furthermore, it is becoming increasingly clear that the genius of the Leninist model lies not merely in its reliance on terror, police intimidation, and an elaborate apparatus of control...

...Gorbachev's dilemma is partially ideological...

...Yet even if Communist parties are successful in undermining and manipulating the democratic opposition and thus, for a time, forestalling political defeat, Brzezinski's prediction of the system's eventual collapse seems sound...

...It is, interestingly, the Soviets who have paid the most serious attention to Brzezinski's views, and who have labored painstakingly to refute his contention of Communism's irrelevance as an economic and political idea...

...Consequently, Brzezinski became a pariah to the de'tentist camp...

...In these countries, at least, the leadership has been compelled to tolerate an independent press, widespread religious freedom, a greatly expanded private sector, free trade unions, and independent associations that, if current promises are kept, will function as the nucleus of non-Communist political parties...

...Perhaps the most convincing evidence of failure is the acknowledgement by Communists themselves that they have lost the struggle with the West, both economically and politically...

...stance in our relations with Moscow, arguing that Soviet global aggression was eroding American power and prestige...

...Forty years of monolithic party control have stimulated mass social amnesia, a condition that afflicts even those societies with traditions of political and cultural pluralism...

...This shabby treatment culminated at the 1980 Democratic National Convention, where Brzezinski was roundly jeered by the delegates, effectively ending his career with the party...

...cessful or competitive unless its bizarre model of socialism is abandoned altogether...

...As President Carter's national security adviser, Brzezinski consistently advocated a more forceful U.S...

...Furthermore, even when postulating the decay of Leninist ideology and Soviet economic backwardness, he has consistently backed a strong, assertive America...

...Hardly a day passes without a commentator announcing the demise of Communism, the inevitability of Soviet decline, or the bankruptcy of Marxist theory...

...He works for Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty in New York...

...Universally praised outside the Soviet Union for his reformist initiatives, Gorbachev has nevertheless failed to reverse his own people's waning faith in the system...

...In contrast to his pessimistic evaluation of the Soviet future, Brzezinski isaltogether hopeful for democratic change in Eastern Europe...

...The devolution of economic power, for example, will increase the autonomy of the republics, which may further embolden national patriotic movements whose anti-Soviet and anti-Russian feelings are already at fever pitch...

...Most recently, Brzezinski has been among the most vocal critics of a U.S.-Soviet second Yalta to "manage" the pace of change in Eastern Europe...

...Another dilemma is the prospects for democracy under conditions of economic crisis...

...If Marxism has failed in its promise of economic abundance and universal freedom, Leninist political tactics have proved wildly successful in enabling unrepresentative minorities to gain and hold power in the face of overwhelming popular opposition...

...If at times he seems to be stretching a bit for the new and innovative idea, he can never be called boring, and his predictions about Communism have generally held up well...

...He is quite straightforward on this score: the opening paragraph of The Grand Failure speaks of a "terminal crisis," of "irreversible historical decline," and of a doctrine that "will be remembered as the twentieth century's most extraordinary political and intellectual aberration...

...They see, correctly, that his thesis subverts their strategy of enticing Western support for the Kremlin's economic and geopolitical objectives...

...The Grand Failure is, nonetheless, an important book, partly because of Brzezinski's skill in explaining the intellectual, as well as the economic, sources of the Communist crisis...

...For East Europeans, then, the question of what comes after Communism is perhaps more complicated than Brzezinski suggests...

...Communism, he believes, has ceased to exist in its traditional form in Hungary and Poland...

...Brzezinski's insistence on the unreformability of Communism is a needed antidote to the tortured debate over whether this or that U.S...

...In ordinary times, so sweeping and unequivocal a prediction would have evoked noisy and contentious debate...

...A way THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JULY 1989 43 that could be dangerous for the world...

...Ironically, while many Western academics and politicians came to reject the "totalitarian model," with glasnost a number of Soviet and East European commentators have used the word totalitarian to describe their own societies...

...There is the issue of the current generation of party leaders, whose willingness tosurrender the trappings of power is open to serious question...

...Brzezinski was also among the first to raise serious questions about the future of the Soviet economy, citing Communism's rigid centralization as an inevitable barrier to reform...

...Based I on the most recent developments within the Soviet Empire, one might easily conclude that it is premature to ring the system's death knell...

...Thus the difficulties currently encountered by opposition groups like Solidarity, which find the transition from protest movement to political party much more difficult than anticipated...

...N o discussion of The Grand Failure would be complete without a word about the author, a controversial figure in American political life...

...Brzezinski, however, has suffered a fate common to Western Sovietologists who saw their work overtaken by developments within the Communist world...

...Even more telling is the admission that, in Brzezinski's words, the phrase "democratic communism is an oxymoron...

...19.95 Arch Puddington H aving earned a reputation through his writings on the nature of Communism, Zbigniew Brzezinski now announces Communism's impending death...

...A temporary victory here or there, however gratifying to party leaders, will do nothing to resolve the system's incapacity to compete with the modern economies of the democratic world...

...T s Brzezinski over-optimistic...

...While Brzezinski does not set down a laundry list of proposals for Western policymakers, his theme implies profound skepticism about perestroika's fate and, for that matter, Gorbachev's future...

...As a writer, Brzezinski has gained a reputation for grand theorizing...

...Will functioning democracies take root, as Brzezinski seems to think, relatively smoothly...

...Each reform, moreover, contains the seeds of further trouble...

...Especially in the current period of ferment and uncertainty, Communist parties benefit from what may prove to be totalitarianism's most enduring legacy: the long-term, near-total suppression of normal political life...

...If indeed we are approaching the moment when the free world can claim victory in the Cold War, Brzezinski can be credited with having played a praiseworthy role in that triumph...

...His economic policies are widely dismissed as too little, too late, while glasnost has had the unintended effect of revealing Communism as built on a foundation of lies, terror, and irrationality...