Imperialism and the Quest for New Ideas
C., L.
Political thinking, like merchandising, has its fashions. As Detroit car producers feel that to sell cars new models must be introduced each year, so political theorists have lately felt that to...
...90% (in accord with U.S.A...
...and that sealed the fate of millions...
...Nixon warns the Indonesians against "premature" independence, it is inexcusable to deny that these acts constitute imperialist intervention in the affairs of other nations...
...25% I pushed this across to Stalin who had by then heard the translation...
...Most liberals profess to believe that one can speak only of imperialism when referring to the bad old days...
...Bulgaria Russia 75...
...Churchill wrote on a piece of paper...
...Every conceivable solution is suggested for Trieste except the simple and elementary one of allowing the people of that city to decide, by popular vote, their own destiny...
...As Detroit car producers feel that to sell cars new models must be introduced each year, so political theorists have lately felt that to understand the world and sell one's ideas there must be a regular renewal of theoretical equipment...
...But does this constitute imperialism...
...they do not hesitate to send battleships to remove legally established governments...
...When Mr...
...How refreshing, by contrast is the cynical frankness of a genuine imperialist like Winston Churchill who, in his recently published memoirs, tells of a conference with Stalin in Moscow in 1944, the very year that saw the high point of propaganda about the Four Freedoms, the Atlantic Charter and all that...
...So far as Britain and Winter 1954 • DISSENT • 7 Russia are concerned, how would it do for you to have ninety per cent predominance in Roumania, for us to have ninety per cent of the say in Greece, and go fifty-fifty about Yugoslavia...
...L.C...
...the term elicits for them an image of the marines landing in a Banana Republic or British troops lording it in India...
...That, to be sure, was in the era of the Four Freedoms...
...Theothers...
...they shore up crumbling regimes in Asia and Europe and South America...
...Take the concept of imperialism...
...One detects a kind of word magic in the writings of such liberals: banish the word and thereby abolish the thing...
...It was all settled in no more time than it takes to set down...
...Dulles attempts to influence the outcome of the German elections or when Mr...
...Every liberal and ex-radical who knows that Marxism is obsolete suddenly remembers that Lenin and Hilferding declared imperialism to be characterized by the export of capital, whereas the United States lends money to and subsidizes the nations it dominates...
...Winter 1954 • DISSENT • 9...
...When even rightist French politicians begin to discuss the advisability of calling off their colonial war in Indo-China they are sternly reminded by Dulles and Nixon that since America now pays more than half the cost it is only to be expected that every Frenchman will do his duty...
...Does all this constitute imperialism...
...When there are elections in Italy everyone knows that the real contenders are not Togliatti and de Gasperi but Stalin and Truman...
...Russia...
...There was a slight pause...
...Hungary 50-50...
...10% Yugoslavia 50-50...
...When the Italian premier Pella hesitates to push the claims of Italy with regard to Trieste he is egged on by Mrs...
...The heads of two of the three most powerful nations in the world—with the full knowledge and consent of the head of the third —disposed of the lives of subject peoples in roughly the same manner that a generation earlier the heads of the then most powerful imperialist powers carved out and distributed among themselves the African continent...
...There are, no doubt, a number of important theoretical differences between the structure of imperialism then and imperialism now, but it remains true that superpowers carve up the world and distribute zones of influence the way game wardens delimit hunting areas...
...Then he took his blue pencil and made a large tick upon it, and passed it back to us...
...There may be and are all sorts of disagreements among socialists as to what policies to adopt with regard to the current world situation...
...We may be unable to affect the course of history, but we can still control our thinking...
...Stalin made a tick...
...The sad fact is, however, that many of the old problems still remain with us...
...THE LEAST A RADICAL CAN DO in these years of the locusts is to try not to be a dupe...
...Luce, the U. S. Ambassadress, and told that he had better get into the fight...
...We have interests, missions, and agents there...
...Every liberal knows that Lenin and Hilferding...
...Writes Churchill: The moment was apt for business, so I said "Let us settle about our affairs in the Balkans...
...And since there is no imperialism, there is no need to speak out in defense of national groupings...
...we should at least avoid the double-talk and word-magic that is so popular today...
...But what about today, when the Free World is engaged in a moral crusade to deliver from slavery those whom it sold to Stalin only a few years ago...
...What retooling is to Detroit, the clamor for "new ideas" is to the higher political thinkers though in both cases there is generally a change in the trimmings, not the chassis...
...10% Greece GreatBritain...
...8 • DISSENT • Winter 1954 Meanwhile Russia deports Kalmuks and Rumanians, Hungarian Jews and Volga Germans, liquidates Czech ministers and Hungarian policemen, exploits Polish coal mines and Rumanian oil fields, starves Bulgarian peasants and Manchurian coolies, in the name, of course, of national selfdetermination...
...but there should be no disagreement as to the need for calling things by their right names...
...America now establishes bases and spheres of influence throughout the world, from Franco's Spain to Greenland, from Japan to South America...
...Theothers...
...If only we could get rid of them, how happy one would be to discard the theoretical categories pertinent to their analysis...
...It is indeed impossible to understand genuinely new problems with antiquated theoretical equipment...
...they do not hesitate to institute terror against nationalist movements...
...And of course, there could not be any other kind of imperialism....' Word magic resigns supreme: Two superpowers direct the destinies of the people of the world...
...While this was being translated I wrote out on a half-sheet of paper: Roumania Russia 90...
...Don't let us get at cross-purposes in small ways...
Vol. 1 • January 1954 • No. 1
