COMMUNICATION

...What is needed is a different set of presuppositions...

...it cannot be used to promote freedom without corroding freedom itself...

...it seeks to disarm the enemy not through preventing his ability to kill, but by undermining his willingness to kill...

...Both writers accept the alternative presented by the realpolitik of power politics, and each ends by getting himself impaled on one of the horns of the dilemma...

...Yet both, in separate ways, tend to be inconclusive...

...At this point the reader feels compelled to raise the protest that this statement overlooks the fact that pacifists have long been shouting themselves hoarse that the world must come to its senses and end the power struggle by outlawing war...

...if I said "satyagraha," or the "way of the Cross," it would call for a dictionary or a concordance...

...quite consistently, they allow no differentiation between nationalism, alliances and military outlook on the one side, and collective security on the other side...

...The Left, he tells us, has clearly seen through the sham of power politics disguised as diplomacy but has been unable to offer any alternative of its "Left" is meant to be positive or negative...

...In this there is a recognition, keenly felt especially in Geltman's appeal to morality, of the fact that socialists are on the sidelines in this bewildering debate...

...These are not categories of sentiment but of profound psychological meaning, as such socialist writers as Fromm and Tillich have shown, and they have a great bearing upon theory when it is energized into policy and action...

...Trotsky relates an unconscious application of the technique in his History of the Russian Revolution—at one critical early stage in the February revolution, Cossack cavalry held formation and permitted the insurgent workers to pass unmolested through their ranks...

...It is not a bargain-basement solution...

...Sooner or later it will prove to be the sine qua non, not only of socialism, but of survival itself...

...Radicals, whatever their judgement of Rousseau's political ideas may be, agree with him that the evil in this world is in large measure created by social institutions and not by original sin...

...Here the reader is likely to object, especially if he is a pacifist, that peace can never be established until man's attitude toward war has been changed, and that the outlawing of war would be a first, but important, step in this direction...

...Also implicit but less often conceded is a concept of love and courage as the integument and dynamic of the struggle by which the social revolution advances...

...and if we probe deeply enough we will find that they lie in the ethical and ultimately religious basis of our political and economic thinking...

...If such results are obtainable accidentally, consider what might be done by a body of men equivalent to the size of the United States armed forces, trained in the morale and techniques of nonviolence...

...Pachter observes that peace is being maintained by means of a "suspended suicide pact," and rightly charges that the Left has offered as an alternative "nothing but a bundle of suggestions from an earlier age...

...The only groups he knows of on the Left which might be called radical, he says, are the unconditional pacifists, the unilateralists, and the defeatists...

...Socialism is necessarily anti-capitalist, because it stands for a higher kind of human relationship than is possible through the cas nexus...

...Instead of a threat, it poses a challenge for emulation which could finally achieve the liberation of the peoples of the Soviet empire...

...they even go further to say they ought to have no foreign policy...

...For war, however noble its professed aims may be, is an institution which rests on an utterly hopeless view of human nature...

...As long as the alternatives are posed in terms of "morality versus power," there is no realistic basis of hope...

...The alternative must not be merely the removal of the means but its transformation into that which accords with the desired goal, so that ends and results can be harmonized...

...Nonviolence is not guaranteed to be bloodless...

...I really don't know what I am scolded for...

...The preservation of peace, according to him, is a "practical question" which has nothing to do with the peace of mind of the so-called pacifists...

...I said it is a luxury because it leaves no alternatives should it fail...

...This is precisely the state of thought which I tried to describe...

...its success depends on moral fortitude rather than technological resources—on a creative courage instead of destructive gadgets...

...Self-sacrificing dedication to a just cause, the loyalty of comrades, revolutionary morale, persevering faith—without these, there would never have been a Red Guard or a Red Army...

...I also plead guilty to the earnest and desperate awareness of a dilemma which my heart would rather not recognize...

...Suppose we use the term "nonviolence," and indicate that its application can range from an individual attitude to a strategy and discipline of mass action...

...It is a revolutionary technique geared to the recognition of the brotherhood of man, and operating on the premise that goodwill in a just cause can vanquish evil in an opponent...

...Consequently the result of corrupted means is a distorted or perverted end...

...It is historically true, of course, that many radicals, acting upon the very best of intentions, have been at times guilty of unjust actions...

...Those who decide to wage it have obviously abandoned the hope that social progress can be brought about by any means short of violence...

...This is generally recognized, and such force is employed not as a good thing but as an unfortunate expedient...

...Radicalism is a moral attitude or it is nothing...

...For all this, DISSENT'S readers are grateful and we feel that Mr...

...The end result of Henry Pachter's contribution to DISSENT'S discussion of contemporary foreign policy [Spring, 1958] is to compound the confusion of an already chaotic situation...

...But it may be plausibly argued that the injustice of which they were guilty was the result of mistaken judgment, the effect of which was not clearly evident to them at the time the acts were performed...

...I would mention in passing, however, that socialists have historically tended to dig their own graves by waiting for the coilrse of history, with its recurring crises, to set the stage for action, and neglecting much spadework that needs doing in between-opportunities for kindness are deferred until the revolutionary, panaceabuilding hour, when socialists get support not from understanding but from sheer desperation...

...IF PACHTER considers himself a radical (and it is charitably assumed that he does), his radicalism is of the head rather than the heart...

...It may further be noted that, as guns and external discipline were built up and the factors of love and cour age declined, the Red Army became an increasingly suitable instrument of repression in the hands of the Stalinists...

...But in the final analysis it is a stab in the dark which does not reckon consequences...

...Military force is destructive force...

...Reduced to its simplest terms, radicalism stands fast on the proposition that human nature is basically good...

...It is not wholly clear to this reader whether his criticism of the fectly clear that he has very little sympathy for the idealistic notions of those who advocate building peace upon non-violent principles of action...

...To be morally right," he argues, "is no substitute for a [realistic] foreign policy...

...The one factor that is common to all groups on the Left is the theory of human nature which forms the foundations of the radical point of view...

...but I hope I have made it clear at least to those readers who are not determined to misunderstand: that the present age confronts us with the choice between the unwavering pursuit of Justice and the preservation of peace...

...that's what I usually use it for...

...the use of statecraft is almost by definition not non-violent, but the challenge of this age is precisely to con vert it into an instrument of co-existence...

...But Mr...

...But a policy presupposes the means of policy, and that means either power (coercion) or a universe of understanding...

...I simply wish to state that collective security is the opposite of alliances and that I was asking for a foreign policy (realistic or otherwise) which would be likely to achieve this aim...

...There is a large question of ends and means that concerns the fate of socialism, and this is not the place to discuss it at length...

...What Pachter does not understand is that radicalism has a definite content, and that this is stated in terms of moral right and wrong...

...His analysis of contemporary diplomacy puts both Khrushchev and Dulles in their proper places and reveals Kennan as the brazen grand-stander he is...

...Contrary to what I and Geltman are being accused of, we are precisely searching for an alternative to military policy...

...Unfortunately, however, Pachter could not bring himself to leave the game while he was ahead and the final paragraphs of his essay find him hopelessly lost in a semantic maze of his own creation...

...From the writers' point of view, every attitude which is not non-violence, is presumed to "sanction war...

...The radical can never compromise his principles for the sake of doctrinal expediency...

...I plead guilty to thinking with my head...

...Marginal radicals would do well to consult their hearts as well as their heads...

...In choosing to take what Emanuel Geltman calls a "moral stance" toward the problem of war, radicalism may well have opened itself to a charge of impracticality...

...One of the lessons of socialist history is that revolution and violent insurrection are not the same thing and, what is more important, the winning of a revolution hinges decisively on factors other than arms...

...In East Berlin, in Poznan, in Budapest there were sporadic instances of the same kind of response—Soviet troops refusing to fire on demonstrators, and even in some cases turning their weapons over to them...

...The most striking application of nonviolence, of course, was in the struggle for Indian independence...

...Nor can he consciously choose any means to implement his course of action that is unworthy of his professed ends...

...Even the adjective "realistic" which one writer surreptitiously insinuates into my sentence is nothing but a dirty epithet...

...It involves considerable risk, but nothing so great as nuclear annihilation...

...And hence it is impossible that any radical can willfully sanction war...

...This is demonstrated by the fact that his preoccupation with practical matters leads him to extol the virtues of the professional negotiators who "have a profound understanding of collective security and the conditions under which peace can be maintained...

...But Pachter quickly dispatches this objection to the ignominious fate he feels it deserves...

...Like all expedients, however, the means of violence takes its toll of the end it is designed to serve...

...The danger in such a view is that it takes us out on a limb of sheer hope without first transforming the dynamics of the faith by which we have, with Pachter, clung to the poisoned tree...

...But, he continues, "they deny collective security and are interested in their own salvation rather than in the survival of mankind...

...Pachter cannot by any means plead ignorance as a ground for his defense, for he is well aware of the moral implications of his position...

...At this juncture of human events, confronted with what C. G. Jung has called a "moral lag" in man's thinking, it may be that we have no choice but the revolutionary alternative of non-violence...

...George Orwell once observed that the English language "becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts...

...If hope is not vindicated, back we go to hopelessness...

...It is good to see the stirrings of conscience among socialists as evinced by the Pachter and Geltman articles in the Spring DISSENT...

...Pachter will have none of this maudlin sentimentality...

...Against his will, however, Pachter remains stuck with the balance of terror, which he is presumably content to endure until a viable alternative emerges...

...But can the Left—and here Pachter's thinking seems more pernicious than slovenly—accept the Machiavellian precepts which form the basis of this position...

...Both communications [above] agree with my contention that socialists have no foreign policy...

...The "ancient concept of outlawry," he observes, would not establish peace but would merely make legitimate the balance of power which Dulles and Khrushchev have established and hope to continue...

...Parallel with this, there is a nobler way of dealing with conflict than by killing your enemy—a necessarily anti-military way which goes beyond the negation of violence to the affirmation of human dignity...

...For one of the prime tenets of radicalism is that no political principle is acceptable if its obvious effect is to increase the level of injustice in the world...

...THE ANSWER, unfortunately, does not have a handy label—if I said "pacifism," I would almost inevitably be misunderstood...

...Pachter, it is clear, is one of those who feel that peace cannot be maintained except by employing the technique of meeting force with force...

...At first glance, Pachter's thoughts are not altogether foolish...

...Pachter has done us some service...

...what gives any of us the right to be so righteous...

...History may conceivably demonstrate that the advocates of collective security have the most practical solution to the problem of existence that is humanly possible under present international conditions...

...On the other hand, Geltman's position is virtually identical with that of the World Council of Churches, which counseled that there are risks worth taking for the sake of peace...

...Pachter's use of the English language becomes particularly slovenly when he amuses himself in the popular pastime of attaching labels to political groups...

...What is ultimately lacking in both Pachter's and Geltman's analyses is the will to seek out an alternative to military police which accords with the underlying faith of socialism...

...It is morally sound and admirable as far as it goes...

...But its integrity, at least, has been preserved...

...The present question of means, however, is not a socialist question, yet it is not less than a socialist question—it is a question embedded in the same ethical soil in which socialism takes root...

...They did not do this because they were forced to, but because they were persuaded of the moral superiority of the revolutionists' position, and this moral superiority was not obscured by armed threats but was bolstered by an evident honesty and lack of malice...

...However this may be, it is perown to the "balance of terror" as it is now maintained...

...Satyagraha is a means of coercion that under certain favorable conditions will look non-violent, but is not essentially so...

...To be morally right is no substitute for a foreign policy...

...I wish—and, believe me, I wish it with my heart—that those who courageously try to face the painful dilemma of our time, would not constantly be lectured to on their morals...

...With this kind of revolutionary alternative in mind, unilateral disarmament would not be a moral substitute for foreign policy, but a foreign policy with effective moral content...

...Underlying the Marxist interpretation of history, it is generally conceded, is an implicit faith in the brotherhood of man which argues for a society of equals to make this faith explicit...

...In this age of scientific warfare, "peace goes before conscience and even before justice...