Co-Existence,Neutralism or Third Force

...This analysis serves admirably to point up the painfulness as well as the illogicality of the position in which the German people, a short decade ago disarmed "forever" by the victors of World War II, now find themselves as they start rearming...

...But sharply critical things were also said about Communism and about Communist China, a conference member...

...How much of an economic sacrifice, if any, the "in between" nations would actually have to make, depends largely on the extent to which they would cooperate among themselves...

...Here only a few remarks are possible...

...Its collective power will be moral and political rather than physical...

...There is Nehru, whose abhorrence of violence and love of freedom does not keep him from very friendly relations with the Chinese and Russian regimes or from relying ultimately on military weapons in his dealings with Pakistan...

...May 22, 1955) One of the clearest statements of the matter was made by Sir John Kotelawala, premier of Ceylon, at the Bandung Conference...

...There are only two atomic powers in the world...

...He can give his loyalty to neither side if he is a man of principle...

...This does not, however, deter leaders on both sides from feverish efforts to "perfect" their weapons...

...They would lay themselves open to what they are bent on averting—the atomic terror...

...In the June 1955 Fortune he points out that "practical" reasons have been cogent in the past when weapons certainly appeared to be capable of vast destruction...

...all this fits into the pattern we are describing...

...There is no occasion for "acting uppity," as New Englanders used to say, toward the socialists of the West because of what has happened to the movement...

...But the journey of the Russian Communist chiefs to Belgrade, which might be likened to a visit by the Pope to the Archbishop of Canterbury or Methodist Bishop Oxnam for the purpose of discussing the re-union of Christendom...

...Whatever Nehru's intention was, the effect would have been to give the meeting an anti-western slant and in a way to give the impression that the global power conflict, and conflict of ideologies, was not so serious or urgent that it needed to be faced...

...The approach which won out was a different one, namely that there are two kinds of power regimes and both are dangerous...

...1 This comment on the international situation and plea that politically conscious Americans, especially non-Stalinists, should give more support to the development of a Third Camp starts with several assumptions...

...If the uncommitted peoples adhere firmly to the course of independence from both dominant powers, which has already forced both powers to pay attention and moderate their course, why should this expose them to attack by those powers...

...As the crucial political issues dividing East and West remain unresolved and the race in super-weapons continues, the peoples "in between" will be forced to continue resistance to the polarization of power and to seek to keep out of both orbits...

...What Tito represents is not a firm Third Camp orientation...

...He recalled that "not one country in this whole region manufactures nuclear weapons" and reminded them that we "come to the conference table weak and relatively unarmed, with no thermonuclear bombs in our pockets, no weapons of chemical or bacteriological warfare up our sleeves, no plans for armament factories or blueprints for ever more deadly methods of genocide in our brief cases...

...The factor just mentioned is, however, not the only one in the decline of the socialist movement of the West...

...Ultimately people are not likely to believe that the Russian arsenal is a force for peace and the American for war, or vice versa, and they will become immunized to the peace talk from both sides...

...Everybody has to talk about "neutralism" or a "third solution" because the peoples "in between" have suddenly taken on a new significance and may hold the key to the future...

...II Let us, then, glance at the political situation...

...These smaller powers, as Lippmann pointed out, have no defense at all against atomic war and therefore cannot be induced to take seriously, as a good many people in the United States and no doubt Russia still do, the idea that the "defenses" may "work" fairly well...

...One of the worst results of this nationalistic development is the cleavage between the Socialist parties of the West and those of Asia, as illustrated by the separate organization of the Asian Socialist Congress...

...the invitation to Tito that he come back and the admission, at least for the immediate purpose, that Titoism is a version of genuine Leninism...

...But where does the loyalty lie of a German patriot who has lived through these political vicissitudes...

...Moreover, the needs of mankind in the atomic age cannot be adequately served by either of these systems or the worldoutlook associated with them...

...The Bandung Conference was chiefly notable because something like a "third position" began to emerge...

...For the realization of such objectives a Third Camp ideology and movement are essential...

...The existence of such a movement would also solve the personal problem of men and women of principle who now have no political home, as R. H. S. Crossman pointed out in The New Statesman and Nation (July 31, 1954) . He was discussing various theories about the defection of Dr...

...For the moment there is a stalemate in power-relationships which is reflected in a series of "truces" in Korea, Indo-China, the Formosan waters, and Germany...

...Professor John von Neumann, the famous scientist who is now a member of the Atomic Energy Commission, recently disposed of the argument that because nuclear war spells mutual annihilation the case against war is now "practical" and not merely ethical or idealistic...

...Germany is another illustration...

...Crossman concludes: "Today the patriotic German who is truly opposed to Nazism is The Man Between...

...One result is that just as the more conservative elements in the Socialist parties are subject to a pull toward collaboration with nonsocialist forces, so the more "radical" socialists can in critical times often be drawn toward a "united front" with the Communists...

...Our intellectual work should, it seems to me, be political rather than detached or academic...

...And occasionally some nations "in between" persuade themselves that neutrality, equival ent to security, will be bestowed upon them by the dominant powers because the latter "need" neutral corridors to keep them apart...

...This behavior may be described as "dynamic neutralism...

...The deeper explanation is in two parts which are, however, very closely intertwined...

...To plead for such thinking which is severely analytical but also architectonic in the realm of social organization and capable of evoking visions of liberation and new life, is not synonymous with indulging a fantasy that a mass democratic socialist or Third Camp movement is a possibility in the United States in the near future...

...two kinds of colonialism and both bad...

...Furthermore, because of what we have already gone through, we shall simply be unable to stomach it...

...Russia and the United States will consequently continue to feel uncertain about the "loyalty" and dependability of their allies and satellites, and their suspicions will be amply justified...

...The smaller powers appear to be militarily dependent upon the big ones, yet they are not at all helpless and the withdrawal of their support has exerted a marked influence on "the cold war...

...It is in this ability to say no, in the slowing down and perhaps drying up of recruiting by the big powers for atomic war, that the strength of the "in between" peoples resides...

...The failure of the Asian-African nations to invite Israel to Bandung because of the Israeli-Arab clash, the pre-occupation of India with its conflict with Pakistan over Kashmir, are illustrations that might be multiplied...

...It will be like one of the bitter fights between union factions in the New York garment trades twenty years ago...

...In his column of May 24, 1955 Walter Lippmann wrote, "The contest, we must not allow ourselves to forget, is for the support of the masses of the people who are mortally afraid of atomic war—who have themselves no atomic weapons, who have no defense against atomic weapons...

...We have, accordingly, any number of instances of inconsistent behavior...

...I have heard it said by econ omists that in terms of resources the present Communist bloc, the bloc headed by the United States, and a group of nations that might include Western Europe, parts of Asia, and Africa would be approximately equal —though, obviously, this equality might not for some time be realized in the utilization of their resources...

...Both of the major power-blocs apply economic pressure in order to keep the smaller nations in line...

...M. S. Handler, in The New York Times of May 8, 1955, observed that the German people never speak of the "defeat" but always of the "collapse" of 1945...

...The more radical elements among European socialists, the Bevanites in Great Britain, for example, are prevented from developing a sound and distinctive program because of their apparent conviction that Communism is in some important respects "progressive"—if not in Russia, then in China—and that it is in any case the "lesser evil" in comparison with U. S., if not British, capitalism...

...The dominant powers have both found that their allies or satellites are undependable and have refused to be driven beyond a certain point...

...If we move toward ever more fantastic modes of warfare, the cleavage between Russia and the United States may come to be less decisive than that which places these two Colossi on one side and most of the rest of the world on the other...

...It is this course which has already given the uncommitted nations power, though not of the atomic and military sort...

...DISSENT has, I think, rendered an important service by publishing articles by G. D. H. Cole and Asoka Mehta, as well as others, dealing with this problem...

...They are inclined to look hopefully to such figures as Tito as allies, though now that Tito has been assured by the Russians that he is indeed a comrade, it will be interesting to see what the Bevanite reaction will be...

...the latter increasingly tolerate Nehru and even Krishna Menon while deeply resenting them, because the strategy of forcing everybody to be "friendly" to this side or that has run up against a stone wall...

...They are in a sense forced to look toward an essentially non-military basis for their security and development...

...In the following article A. J. Muste, one of Americas bestknown pacifists, offers an analysis of the current international situation from the perspective of pacifist socialism...

...But more, the NehruChou En-lai strategy was to have the conference concentrate on the things the delegates agreed on, such as rejection of western imperialism, and to eliminate "controversial" discussion...

...There are nations practicing what might be called the neutralism of weakness, hoping that the big powers will leave them alone while they spin rationalizations about the peaceful intentions of one or the other of them...

...One of them is that the United States and the Soviet Union have not ceased to be heavily armed power-states engaged in a global powerstruggle...

...The Communist strategists advocate a "neutral belt" in Europe and the idea is seriously entertained by policy-makers in non-Communist countries including the United States...

...Since the Geneva conference, attention has been largely concentrated on the Big Four, and especially the Big Two, who met there...

...Secondly, realism compels the recognition that this involves us in the East-West struggle...

...Fourthly, if war comes, we shall be militarily impotent...

...There is naturally the question: granted that the nations "in between" cannot find security by some kind of non-atomic military strength, is it not also true that, Iacking such strength, they will be exposed to the pressure of the big powers, to the risk of being deprived of their independence, to occupation and devastation if atomic war does come...

...Nor am I denying that these statesmen are in a certain sense sincere and also feel a dread of nuclear war...

...Obviously, the argument that small countries attempting to achieve true independence might suffer from the loss of economic aid poses a very serious problem...

...IV The second basic explanation for the failure of the "in between" nations to develop into a genuine Third Force is that their peoples, including the laborites, Socialists and liberals cannot make up their minds about what constitutes security in the atomic age...

...Thirdly, realism also compels the admission that we can no longer cast a decisive or even a very weighty military vote and that we are not purchasing durable security...

...111 In spite of all this, no third grouping with a consistent program exists today, and to a great extent those governments which "have" to seek a third position fail to reach it, either ending up as reluctant or deluded satellites or oscillating between attempts to appease now one and now another of the blocs...

...The nature of the new weapons requires a vast amount of preparation for any large-scale war and may even lead to "agreements" not to use them in the future, agreements which will quite possibly be kept in the early stages of a war, but which would not be respected when resort to such weapons appeared the one remaining resource against catastrophic defeat...

...This is different from a simple neutralism which wants to keep free of involvement and avoid taking sides...

...But Russian policy makers face a not dissimilar situation...

...Secondly, the conflict between the "capitalist" and Communist economic systems has not undergone any abatement, much less entered the road to liquidation...

...Even if they acquired atomic weapons it would be as satellites of a big power...

...The mere fact that both kinds of speeches were made from the same platform and were listened to by all the participants, suggested that a new factor was being introduced into international politics...

...If we are realistic, I think we shall conclude that one very important reason why ''nobody wants war" just now is that the military have not had time to work out the strategy of nuclear war and are, furthermore, in the very midst of experimentation with new types of weapons which, each side hopes, may prove of decisive advantage...

...We hope in the coming period to print a variety of socialist opinions, though not necessarily those alone, on the problems raised by Mr...

...For the neutralist bloc is by definition independent, putting no faith in alliances, owing nothing to collective or regional security...

...His conclusion that we have to look to "the resolution of international problems" rather than "balance of terror" fantasies seems thoroughly sound...

...It is as if they said to themselves: "First, we must have an army, since this is an attribute of sovereignty and we will be given this status by the United States only if we contribute divisions to the Western alliance...

...Within the limits of its space, DISSENT welcomes comments on Mr...

...As it is, the aid which Asian Socialists derive from the West is negligible...

...And there is even the possibility that if a war got under way, the big powers would, before they themselves had suffered irreparable losses, negotiate a settlement at the expense of the smaller ones...

...Not being atomically armed it can call upon those who are to disarm...

...Even in contemplation of this extreme case one would assume that the peoples we are talking about might prefer to have been involved in a promising effort to avert the catastrophe—and pending that event free from the burden of armaments —rather than having been accomplices in bringing about the apocalypse...

...Any competent observer asked to pick out the outstanding political events of the spring of 1955 would be sure to include the Bandung Conference of Asian-African nations and the journey of top flight Soviet rulers to Belgrade...

...The nations not solidly in one of the alliances might be "neutral" but definitely "neutral against" one or another power-bloc...

...He makes this observation while suggesting that the next stage in scientific advance may be in climate control and that "the most constructive schemes for climate control would have to be based on insights and techniques that would also lend themselves to forms of climatic warfare as yet unimagined...

...Tito, for example, having received very substantial military aid from the United States, which presumably rendered him "independent" of Russia, is nevertheless irked because the American State Department will not let him manufacture jet planes for himself...

...we, Asian and African peoples, have to resist both, not by military might which we do not possess, but by following an essentially independent course...

...If they let it be known that they are not prepared to do so, they make the job of purchasing their conformity a relatively inexpensive one, and since this, in turn, contributes to the process of polarization and intensified world struggle, the price they themselves may eventually have to pay is that of involvement in a catastrophic war...

...The international scene since the close of World War II has been dominated by the polarization of power in two great nations and their de facto, though not always de jure, satellites...

...It is also different from the conventional neutralism which takes sides, but covertly...

...He asserted that "the argument of physical force must yield to the argument of spiritual power" and went on to say that the strength of the AsianAfrican nations derived precisely from the fact that they lacked physical force and were therefore driven to generate a different kind of power...

...There is the pathetic and often undignified behavior of France which can no longer support a modern military establishment yet strives to be treated as a big power...

...American policy makers will certainly make a colossal blunder if they think that in a showdown any other nations are going to go along with a policy based on the view advocated even by such intelligent people as Elmer Davis that the extinction of the race would be preferable to "submission to Communist rule...

...And there is no question that internal conditions in both Russia and the west, as well as the spectre of atomic suicide, have a bearing upon current international developments...

...It is true that sharp things were said at Bandung about the United States and the western colonial powers, as was inevitable at an AsianAfrican gathering...

...But essentially this is not so much an explanation as a phenomenon itself calling for explanation...

...The contagion of their example is bound to spread...

...John "be loyal to the Americans and to the 'democratic' Republic of Dr...

...The program of the right and center wings in the Socialist parties of the West is essentially to keep for the workers the benefits of the Welfare State or increase them moderately, and to conserve such liberties as can be conserved in a world largely on a war footing...

...Each side persistently accused the other of being liars and crooks, and it ended with the workers believing them both and walking out on them...

...What I am here pleading for is that this kind of thinking should go ahead in a certain mood and with a certain objective...

...But in the months preceding Geneva it was the nations "in between," the satellites of the big powers and the "uncommitted" nations, which held the spotlight...

...Muste's article...

...It is the power of corporate non-violence, which is not the same thing as personal pacifism or conscientious objection to war...

...One reason such nations fail to achieve real independence is that they have their own ideas of national interest as well as emotional conflicts among themselves...

...Whenever things become critical, ground must be given—the masses are no longer sustained by a vision which renders defeat stimulating rather than depressing—and support has to be sought on the right among capitalists who have also accepted the Welfare State...

...As Hanson Baldwin, the brilliant military analyst of The New York Times, has pointed out: As of today this third force of neutralist or independent states cannot compare in physical power with either the Communist states or the antiCommunist group...

...Thirdly, I do not believe that "the balance of terror" produced by equal stockpiles of H-bombs is going to deliver mankind from the scourge of global war...

...If they managed to devise a democratic socialism adapted to the needs of the contemporary world, this socio-economic regime would, I think, exert a great drawing power on large numbers in both the Communist and anti-Communist worlds...

...This is not to say that the awful potentialities of nuclear and biological weapons have not at last impressed the imagination of masses throughout the world, so that statesmen have to engage in intensive psychological war over their repute for being men of peace...

...How different the world scene would look today if labor and Socialist organizers from the West, not bound to the service of capitalist interests, were anywhere near as plentiful as Moscow-trained organizers are, and if there were an international movement devoted to building a world socialist society...

...He is accordingly tempted by a Kremlin proposition to let him manufacture MIGs which presumably will make Yugoslavia "independent" of the United States...

...There are the Bevanites, who can be extremely eloquent about the "subservience" of British Tories and non-Bevanite Laborites to Washington but who never clearly demand that U. S. occupation of atomic bases in Britain should be abolished...

...A simple way to formulate our first point is to say that in this period there is no conscious and effective movement for building a democratic socialist society...

...They would thus contribute to the polarization of power which they want to slow down and eventually remove...

...But this is the extreme case...

...The latter would certainly have to be ready to make some economic sacrifice for the sake of independence of action...

...Don't expect this non-atomic army to fight in the great atomic war...

...But it is obvious that the CP with its Russian and Chinese bases is always bound to dominate such a "front" and no independent democratic socialist force is going to grow out of it...

...In the final analysis the great advantage of such a Third Force derives, as Sir John Kotelawala stated, from the fact that its power is political and moral in nature, and therefore the Third Force can perform the function of mediator and reconciler...

...We have cases of nations and politicians alleging that the formation of military blocs is the great evil of our time, but themselves accepting substantial military support from one of the big powers and entering into military alliances with neighboring states...

...But the crucial fact remains that the big powers have changed their minds because they had to...

...I cannot figure how the independent countries would not be more likely to escape—unless the world is literally destroyed, in which case, by definition, nobody survives...

...Certainly one of the important reasons for its decline is the difficulty of formulating concretely a democratic and socialist program fitted to the realities of the atomic era and capable both of attracting substantial popular support and of meeting human needs...

...Not having yielded to the irrational temptation to join the arms race, it can call the great who have gone mad back to sanity...

...In some respects the Western parties may even add to their burdens...

...True, this time the danger of destruction seems to be real rather than apparent, but there is no guarantee that a real danger can control human actions better than a convincing appearance of danger...

...But it may well be, as the example of Marx himself and of other figures in the early days of the socialist movement suggests, that such thinking is one of the indispensable elements in the creation of a movement...

...Otto John, the West German secret service chief, to the East, and concluded that John had probably moved on his own volition: "A German with no principles whatsoever can loyally serve, first, the Weimar Republic, then the Third Reich, next an Anglo-American Occupation pledged to extirpate militarism and Nazism, and, finally, a West German Government rapidly coming under Nazi control...

...I am assuming that for the readers of DISSENT I do not need to argue the point that the Communist movement is not going to develop from within into a democratic and socialist one, though I do not regard it as completely static...

...Especially if, as we suggested a moment ago, they learn to bargain collectively, they can exercise influence on economic developments through their control of strategic materials...

...Here the factor of "H-bomb terror" does play an important part...

...They begin with mortal terror of the atomic war likely to result from the struggle between the two Leviathans...

...This is not new in the history of power conflicts...

...It is unlikely that it can ever be compared in physi cal terms...

...There is consequently no compelling social vision which would furnish the masses an alternative to "prosperity" under a modified capitalism or "security" under Communism...

...Actually, the present position is this: the basic reason why the global power struggle and the atomic arms race have not continued to mount in intensity is that there are peoples, weak in a military sense, that have refused to join in...

...Should a person like Dr...

...It is sometimes argued that the leaders of the big powers are now cultivating the uncommitted nations because they have changed their minds...

...In "good" or quiet times the allegiance of trade unionists and some intellectuals can be retained on this basis, especially if there are jobs for the latter in the civil service or "the movement...

...Its possibilities for beneficent penetration and nonviolent subversion are limitless...

...We should consider how to act as responsible political persons...

...Then he made the striking statement that there is strength in Asia's and Africa's weakness: "the ability which our very defenselessness confers to offer ourselves as mediators in the dispute between the giants of communism and anticommunism...

...One obviously has to admit that if atomic war takes place, there is no guarantee that any nation will go unscathed...

...No decisive steps to liquidate that conflict, which would entail something like a revolutionary transformation in both regimes, including their economies and spiritual outlooks, have yet been taken...

...V If a third grouping is to achieve independence, it will have to follow the logic of its position and find an essentially non-military basis for organizing its life...

...But I cannot for the life of me see how the uncommitted nations are less safe than if they were allied with one or other big power and had its bases and troops on their soil...

...I shall not attempt to argue their validity, save in very cursory fashion...

...It is interesting that in commenting on Geneva the London New Statesman and Nation recalled the late Ernest Bevin's assumption that if the Big Two "gang up, there will be nothing left for anyone else...

...Their safety lies precisely in continuing to follow the program and build on the kind of power which has given them a strategic position on the world scene and in building a free and cooperative society...

...Nevertheless," he continues, "the Germans will send their sons to the new army—with the inner hope that they are placing their cherished ones on the international bargaining counter to produce the rebirth of a national German state...

...To draw the logical conclusion from the military technology of the atomic age would, however, represent a revolutionary departure from the conventional behavior of nations...

...Globke and General von Gahlen...

...Reports from the fourth Congress of the Socialist International held in London in July indicate not only that Hugh Gaitskell's speech could have been delivered without alteration by Anthony Eden but that the debate between the French and German SP delegates was practically identical with a debate between any group of French and German political figures, other than Communists or extreme rightists...

...One of the most serious and depressing is that these parties no longer have their being in international socialism...

...Finally, the economic factor, like the military, cuts both ways...

...In each country they adopt the national and governmental attitudes and causes...

...But then he makes the statement with which most experienced observers in Western Europe agree—and which in essence also applies to the rest of Western Europe: "Were the West Germans ever convinced that German rearmament meant another contest on the battlefield with the Russians, they would resist the draft in the streets of their cities, towns and villages...

...The Communist movement in the Orient derives an incalculable advantage from this situation...

...It is essentially economic, political, moral power...

...Men are limited to a choice of highly mechanized and centralized regimes far removed from anything that might be called workers' democracy...

...It will have to devote its energies to the development of a saner human society than it is possible for the atomic powers to achieve...

...At this point it seemed to a good many delegates and observers," writes G. L. Arnold in The New Leader, "that international Socialism had finally given up the ghost...