MORALITY, REALITY - AND PEACE
Geltman, Emanuel
Can there be a "foreign policy" for socialists? In a world not of their making or choice, have socialists anything to offer but a moral stance? Against the harsh realities of world...
...ity that is unthinkable in the modern world, or commit themselves to an immediate resolution of the conflict by arms, there will be conferences...
...Obviously not...
...Whether its proposals are motivated by sincerity or deceit, is best left to skeptical experience...
...Nor does it, regrettably, guarantee peace...
...why should he...
...In a world not of their making or choice, have socialists anything to offer but a moral stance...
...We have could we would merely face other seen nationalism at work heroically in crises, perhaps more painful...
...This is moral...
...Nor can we as citizens of the United States beg the question by incessantly pointing eastward...
...What the world waits for is a sign...
...As a matter of fact, the debate has centered about only one aspect of Kennan's position, and only a few writers have gone ahead to comment on his "surround," his military preoccupation, and that only in passing...
...The one cannot triumph over push past the impasse of the power the other without plunging the world struggle...
...But we are concerned with time in another, more important sense...
...of radioactive contamination...
...The Hungarians spoke for the Russian satellites, and with heroism and despair...
...Again, a socialist nation might refuse relations with a tyranny, and socialists attimes may demand that their governmentsnot debase a struggle for liberty by recognizing the assassins of freedom...
...There the Russian empire...
...Perhaps what we require is to face the issues as they are, and not as they have been distorted by the cold war.* What we have said about nuclear testing is morally right, if it is right at all, regardless of how it affects the • Some issues need to be reduced to size...
...That this can be subverted to undemocratic ends no more invalidates it than Jim Crow unions invalidate unionism...
...That the Poles could score a small diplomatic triumph with their proposal for a "denuclearized" zone is also indicative of how urgent is the desire to be free of threat...
...cold war...
...Russia says it is willing to discontinue testing under certain conditions of international agreement...
...There is nothing in the request that a capitalist nation cannot fulfill...
...As have other issues too—like the recognition of Peking, and the admission of Mao's representatives to the UN...
...The same may be said of nuclear bomb tests and of economic aid to underdeveloped countries...
...Integration is a factor in our international position, but we stand for integration and the complete rights of Negroes because these are, in and of themselves, and apart from any international considerations, essential human needs...
...Is it visionary to ask, to plead, that the tests be halted—and halted, if need be, unilaterally...
...Far more is involved ing spell without thereby strengthenthan nationalism, but the ingredient ing the forces of tyranny in the world...
...The audience that responded to Kennan seems to speak for many in western Europe as well...
...the other by calculated interest...
...At any given moment, time may help one or the other bloc...
...A sign of comprehension...
...like the Kennan proposal to immunize Europe...
...But this precisely points up the issue...
...monious with the outlook of socialism...
...The fact remains that many bombs were tested and stockpiled before Russia had anything to test...
...At a moment when no other defense has yet been devised against nuclear war, political morality is actually the last weapon left to mankind with which to save itself from destruction...
...By itself it would not be a deterrent to the future manufacture of bombs—fission, fusion and fission-fusion—given knowhow and productive capacity...
...There have been moments in recent history when socialists, despite their principled objection to occupying military forces, were at least obliged to doubt that unilateral military withdrawal was in the best interests of the people...
...A ism...
...Especially as socialists, we do not have one set of principles for domestic use and another for foreign entanglements...
...Yet, without it there is no socialist policy...
...A summit conference might reduce the world to prescribed areas of servitude or imperial "influence" as easily as it might temporarily reduce tensions...
...And if it ty of the world than this...
...That is why the sentiment for a cessation of nuclear bomb testing keeps growing...
...Economic aid without the fullest opportunity for unfettered national status is an empty beneficence...
...It is moral...
...We can be pacifists or not as we choose, but we cannot deny that war waged by men recomposing the elements is different...
...Above all, a morally effective sociaIist policy dictates closest attention to the fulfillment of individual independence and growth...
...At this very moment, the M, iddle socialist policy is constructed of many East and North Africa are the very solutions, attitudes and objectives, center of attention.* What happens many of them not in themselves soin this area in the next year may prove cialist...
...But the fact remains that the first atom bomb was dropped by the democratic government of the United States...
...Against the harsh realities of world politics, morality might seem to be the least effective of instruments...
...But the fact that they clutch is indicative of how they feel...
...Whether in the UN or among the powers directly, there will be talk and nego tiation of a kind...
...Coming In our next issue NORMAN BIRNBAUM discusses C. A. R. Crosland's The Future of Socialism, in the light of present Britisl~ politics KURT SHELL reviews The Labor Government and British Industry, a recent book by A. A. Rogow MICHAEL REAGAN discusses "Max Lerner's America" GEORGE WOODCOCK presents "Alexander Herzen: Ancestor in Defeat" and A SPECIAL SECTION ON THE MIDDLE EAST (Planned for the Fall: A special issue on CHINA) 114...
...This is not, however, a posture that makes moral sense in the present context of realpolitik...
...A sign of will and intelligence...
...Which is not to say that we are indifferent to other, nonnuclear wars...
...Policies in all areas of human endeavor can be related in some way to "foreign policy...
...yearning for national existence in Asia, Africa and Latin America is truly a confirmation of our faith in the self-respect of humanity...
...Whatever the merit of Kennan's proposals, here again is an opportunity to seize the initiative—to give a sign...
...Why principle...
...The slave camps, the mass murders, the decimation of peoples are hideous crimes that can never be expiated by the rulers of Russia...
...It is a moral demand, and it is very real, not least of all because it is a moral demand...
...There is, we repeat, no special socialist wisdom in this proposal...
...To see in whatever allows, say, the people of the developed nation-states of Europe Poland to help determine their own an opportunity to move forward to destiny and the people of India to union, while giving the backward na-improve their economy by democratic tions and peoples an opportunity to means-that, if not uniquely or imdevelop their nations, this is social-mediately socialist, is certainly harism...
...It is also hard political sense...
...Intercontinental missiles can reach across the world and devastate a "disengaged" Europe as finally as a Europe choked with Russian and American soldiers...
...and there are times when socialists best serve international morality by insisting that their governments refuse traffic with rulers who deny their peoples essential freedoms...
...It may well be that Kennan's proposals come too late to have any practical effect on the course of world affairs...
...And if the UN is theassembly of the present governments of the world, why Chiang and not Mao...
...The European people, given the time to pursue it, have however an opportunity to radically alter the terms of international discussion...
...It is a bloc made on the commonest level of immediate interest...
...There is actually something grotesque about Eisenhower and Khrushchev poised to pour bounty on needy nations...
...The Poles sense the desire in all Europe for, and have special reasons for wanting, a sign...
...11...
...Yet with the cold war eroding the energies and minds of nations it seems ludicrous not at least to talk...
...Time, however, also works for humanity, if it can be used for a few steps toward decency...
...For some years we have been witness to adebate in principle over the recognition of"Red China...
...On that basis alone, the tests are an outrage against every human being in the world...
...policy at the time of the Hungarian revolution...
...That is why it is our special task as socialists to respond to and * The coming issue of DISSENT will preadvance every sign, every impulse tosent an extensive discussion of the situation in the Middle East.--Editors ward peace and justice...
...We cannot escape that special responsibility no matter how virtuous our democratic institutions and high our standard of living...
...For what else is the practice of diplomacy...
...Enough is already known about strategic and tactical nuclear bombs to make the mere cessation of tests a ghastly comfort...
...That is good socialism...
...A sign of idealism, a sign of expedience...
...We, however, are right to make our demand of the democratic nations...
...Which is not to say that Kennan's proposals should be the exclusive terms of international discussion...
...What remains a socialist responsibility is to maintain a skeptical watch on the proceedings, to warn against false and naive expectations, to examine covenants secretly or openly arrived at for the callous clause and monstrous gimmirc...
...That is why the Kremlin has gained a propaganda edge with its proposal for a summit conference...
...Two years ago, after the 20th Party Congress, it seemed to be working for the West...
...But if we cannot impose our view of social justice on a world that has not yet elected it, we can and must make common cause with the many others who argue that the devastation of nuclear war far outweighs any conceivable victory...
...However, insofar as it is an issue, its resolution maybe a sign—towards time, if not peace...
...And people are waiting: in India, in Poland, in England...
...It is proof that humans can aspire to the intangible...
...We offer it as a predictionthat Mao will be formally recognized intime, and that Peking will be admittedto the UN before then...
...No issue is more fatefully linked with the peace and the ultimate sani- into unimaginable horrors...
...Conceivably a socialist nation, if there were such, could afford the posture of principle by refusing to confer with nations which hold their peoples in subjection...
...such a time was the peak of conflict in Berlin...
...The government that recognizes Khrushchev andFranco and Trujillo has little cause notto recognize Mao...
...Imbued with a socialist content, it can present the world with an entirely new balance of forces...
...There is no question but that the people of Europe wish to be rid of their "protectors...
...Do any of these assure peace...
...On the basis of past performance we have the right to be cynical about summit conferences...
...of nationalism is present...
...more important than anything we have But whatever gives people a breathso far discussed...
...Ending the detonation of nuclear bombs, and halting their production, is a sign...
...There is the clear and present danger (a good enough doctrine...
...How readily it would mitigate the crisis...
...It is an appealing idea in certain circles...
...In world affairs that defines itself as national opportunity...
...It is, of course, ridiculous to sup pose that the Kennan proposals embrace a lasting benefit for Europe or for the world...
...Can there be a "foreign policy" for socialists...
...Yet a certain kind of "close engagement" with realpolitik may prove to be a way simply of succumbing to the disasters of power, a form of crackpot realism...
...Khrushchev has skillfully focused such attention on a summit conference that the issue has acquired a mystique of its own...
...And why shouldn't it be so imbued...
...Various steps have already been taken to amalgamate certain areas of national interest, in the direction of a United States of Europe...
...As the haves we owe it to the have-nots...
...That is why George Kennan's recent proposals have occasioned so wide a debate and interest...
...It is a question of whether, let us say it, the Japanese people have faith in us...
...The one is per haps animated by humane considerations...
...But that is not the case today...
...if Eisenhower 110 can patch up pacts and shore up allies...
...For the moment it comes to about the same thing...
...We are a long way from a representative parliament of European peoples, but here is where hope lies, here is where socialists have an opportunity...
...It is not a question of whether Dulles has faith in Khrushchev...
...II We can assume that both Eisenhower and Khrushchev want peace, their conception of it anyway...
...We are not today in a position to determine immediate policies...
...We cannot easily dismiss this as a journalistic tempest...
...A Europe asserting itself economically and politically is no longer a Europe reduced to playing third fiddle...
...And it is not notably anti-capitalist...
...Socialists are not in exclusive possession of this wisdom...
...How horribly it would condemn the world...
...If India requires a half-billion dollars to assure its stability, and elevate the living standards of its people, it needs it whether our midget-brained congressmen can be persuaded that it will be one in Russia's eye or not...
...There have in the past been proposals to abate the fury of the cold war by peaceful division of the world into gigantic spheres of influence...
...no socialist can presume to be intimately influenced by national- speak for socialism qua socialism...
...It may be that these people are clutching at a straw...
...The issue is there whether the summits confer or not...
...As socialists we are committed to the democratic nations to the extent that we are committed to preserving democracy even as we strive for a radical resolution of social and human problems...
...It maywell be a principle of Knowland's career...
...A sign of what...
...it is obvious enough even to the most benighted of statesmen...
...We can only speculate on what the effects would have been had they been an instrument of the U.S...
...That is why time is so important: time to try again, time to make up for past mistakes and failures, time to reassert the idea of the human in an inhuman world...
...Today, after sputnik, it seems to be working for the rulers of Russia...
...Nevertheless, the interest that Kennan's lectures has generated is in itself revealing and important...
...But why should liberals meet it on thesame terms...
...Our voices, whether as socialists, liberals or conscience stricken scientists, are heard loudest in the democracies where we are permitted to speak...
...The irresistible (and it is that...
...Time may be said to work for each—if each can meanwhile have his own way: if Khrushchev can crush rebellions, consolidate his bloc and penetrate neutral areas...
...It cannot be said that the state of the world will be materially improved by either...
...Liberating forces are vast areas of difference among soin the Russian satellites will certainly cialists...
...II Unless the powers abjure diplomacy altogether and retreat into an insular...
...But the cold war, which is the locus of international relations, is being waged in the shadow of nuclear missiles...
...but IV we can, within the limits of our reA genuine peace is impossible in the sources, continue to point to those condition of a world divided between possibilities-practical and moral-capitalism and bureaucratic collectivwhich may lead to breakthrough, may ism...
Vol. 5 • April 1958 • No. 2
