C. Wright Mills' Program: Two Views

...But it is an important pamphlet because at the present moment, when there is a general and justified weariness with the sterility of the cold war and an incipient sentiment that at leaders of opinion, in rejecting Stalinism, have in effect been apologists for U.S...

...In both countries, he tells us, "politi cal struggles tend to be replaced by administrative decisions...

...At no point, however, does he trouble seriously to consider the possible consequences of such a step for, say, the political situation in Europe...

...did not become harmonious partners rather than bitter enemies...

...Lustig is not our concern...

...Now part of what Mills is saying here is surely true...

...and war is unthinkable...

...Or are we now to see it as a clash between a decadent capitalism and a vibrant new Communism...

...However, the most distinctive and potentially important points Mills makes are very specific and deal with the question how the world can be saved from nuclear war and the cold war which is the first stage of World War III...

...For the most part intellectuals have been helping the power men to fight the cold war by being its "self-coordinated technicians, hired publicists—pompous scientists who have given up the scientific ethos for the ethos of war technology—intellectual dupes of politcal patrioteers...

...And is there not some evidence —for example, in England— that "the imperialist temptation" of the capitalist countries has decreased...

...There is no other realism, no other necessity, no other need...

...It is Mills' thesis, based on his earlier studies, especially The Power Elite, that power-decision making is centralized in contemporary society...

...government should at once and unilaterally cease all further production of 'extermination' weap ons and take steps to destroy existing stocks or convert them in so far as it is technically possible to peace time uses...

...No more, I should think, than their past and present antagonisms...

...But what troubles me is a sentiment one finds these days which urges not merely this political coexistence but also a kind of "moral coexistence," by which I mean an accommodation not merely with Russia as a power but with Communist dictatorship as a form of society...

...One of the crucial questions in the field of political strategy today is whether the attack on war along some such lines as Mills suggests is the soundest and most readily available way to develop radical mass action today...

...He seems not to feel any overwhelming urge to notice that whatever arrangements may have to be made with the Russian state, there can be no secure peace or genuine relaxation as long as totalitarianism flourishes...

...In terms of values, it means underrating the role of democratic sentiments in the West...

...A rapprochement might be facilitated—though also hindered—by this "parallel development...

...One last quotation: The Soviet intervention in Hungarymight be supposed a ground forbelieving that agreements with theSoviet would be useless...

...the way the power blocs have worked each other into a paralysis of "semi-organized stalemate...

...The truth is that Khrushchev and Mikoyan suppressed the Hungarian revolution because they feared the spread of freedom to other satellite countries and to their own borders...

...Tins LAST PHRASE suggests that national policy is subject to moral standards or imperatives...

...The matter is complex, and I would not pretend that my two questions do more than indicate that Mills has borrowed from certain pseudo-Marxist sources a crude generalization which, at the very least, requires extensive qualifying...

...The pamphlet itself— it would be unfair to treat it as a book —is not a good one...

...This is regarded as "utopian" but it is now "the only adequate way to think about world politics and the human condition . . . What the powerful call utopia is now in fact the condition for human survival...

...Nor is this a quibble over phrasing, as a casual reader might assume...

...But if so, Mills has twisted his way back to the view of those soft-headed liberals whom he usually dismisses: the view that if only the leaders got together and "communicated" in prolonged conversations and were willing to be reasonable...

...but that C. Wright Mills should care to lean on Lustig at so crucial a moment is extremely depressing...

...Mills argues, for example, that the government should "abandon all military bases and installations outside the continental domain of the United States...

...Most of The Causes is devoted to a description of the power mechanics of the Cold War...

...He writes impatiently of those who persist in dwelling on "the evil character of the enemy...

...Many of his specific proposals are fine, many of his specific observations valid...

...Is it due to a clash between two divergent world-outlooks, democracy and totalitarianism...

...Does his program mean, for example, that the West should now withdraw from Berlin...

...THERE ARE OTHER difficulties in Mills' approach: 1) It systematically understates the significance of political ideas and ideologies as motifs affecting the behavior of and helping to explain the differences between nations—a failing al most inevitably a consequence of his hard-boiled stress upon "power" as a dominant factor in world politics...

...It means, as Mills says, to "have feelings of equal contempt for leading types of underdeveloped cultural workmen of the overdeveloped countries" on both sides of the Iron Curtain...

...Otherwise, you succumb to the danger of arguing as if the cold war were a blight of mysterious origin that can be eliminated by urging house holders on both sides of the street to use the proper brand of weed-killer...

...Another hasty generalization that cannot bear scrutiny: Did the advanced state of Russian industrialization keep Khrushchev and Mikoyan from "brutal conquest" in Hungary...

...Mills restates this familiar description with his characteristic forcefulness, though also with some serious faults...

...In a word, then, the theory of "mass society," be it right or wrong, tells us very little about the causes of World War III...

...Perhaps, however, like some of us in DISSENT, he tries to approach the problem piece-meal, without elaborate theories...

...that in their encounter we witness their parallel development...

...It is possible to put the finger on the men who do in fact make decisions and therefore presumably determine whether World War III will or will not icome...

...That differences still exist between Russia and the U.S., Mills recognizes...

...That this central fact of our time should escape Mr...

...Let me begin by placing on the record my opinion that Mills has written a sound, brilliant and most timely political tract...

...But it is clear that, for Mills, American action in this respect should not be contingent upon Russian acceptance of our "invitation...

...he merely fails to take it into vital con sideration...

...This is the stark, ultimate fact of life now...

...Surely there are few things we need more than a sharply-articulated proposal for a democratic foreign policy that can be counterposed to the Dulles stance...

...Political wisdom does not consist simply in taking one's pick or contriving a synthesis...

...That means that negotiations are necessary, and where there are negotiations there may have to be concessions...

...There are no missile bases in Titoist Yugoslavia: why should there have been in a free Hungary...

...foreign policy and its war machine or at best ineffective critics of it is a major tragedy...

...hence, it follows, almost everything now depends on the good-will and intelligence of a handful of men...

...In the two superstates...

...are now made by small groups of powerful men...

...In terms of analysis, this leads to an underrating of the role of Communist ideology...

...not at all...

...Both superstates exist...

...and Russia into one category which is close to, if not actually the heart of Mills' argument...

...Within which political-intellectual framework does he wish to present his argument...

...and also'peace parties,' men who do not wantwar . . . Most of those who consciouslywant war and accept it, and so help create its 'inevitability,' want it in order toshift the locus of their problems' [theirproblems, that is, as members of the U.S...

...Should it be regarded mainly in terms of conflicting national interests...

...3) Mills' approach to the war danger focuses upon the "irresponsibility" of the leaders on both sides...

...A polarization of power has taken place in the world, so that today there are only two effective power centers...

...almost any cost a deal must be worked out with the Russians,-it expresses certain views and moods...

...power elite having to deal with an intractable world.—I.H.1 Twelve pages later: "Do the Russianelite recognize that World War III wouldnot be to Russia's advantage...

...It requires only sanity...

...Were he writing about a particular issue like the Berlin crisis or the mid-East, this might be satisfactory...

...One choice, he goes on, is to acquiesce, which is called "prac tical politics...

...That this remains a tendency is partly shown by our ability still to protest against it...

...but if we wish to consider the operative causes of the cold war, or of its possible ending, we must inquire into other factors which have to do with social, economic and ideological differentiations between the two superstates...

...One might suppose that such questions would be confronted in a somewhat sustained way...

...For if the "parallel development" and increasingly bureaucratic structures of the two superstates were really crucial, one might wonder why Russia and the U.S...

...Mills writes that "the only realistic military view is the view that war, and not Russia, is now the enemy...

...and sometimes he unac countably minimizes its importance...

...The reverse is the case with capitalist imperialism...

...These are possibilities...

...Naturally, I concur...

...But if one is going to talk about the causes of World War III, it would seem necessary to say something substantial about these, or other, ways of dealing with the problem...

...Thus he proposes that "the U.S...

...Now in the U.S., it is true, political struggles of "articulate publics" (to use Mills' ex cellent phrase) have tended to be re placed by administrative decisions...

...But more important, the idea of- freedom is sometimes ambiguous in the U.S.: in some ways respected, in some ways not...

...I suppose there can be argument as to the extent to which intellectuls are themselves caught and whether anything politically useful can be expected from them, but that many have defaulted and that they have some responsibility seems to me indisputable...

...facilities of violence are absolute...

...Mills writes that "as the Soviet economy is further industrialized, this kind of imperialist temptation [the temptation to "brutal conquest"] loses its strength...

...It is a procedure that may stir some readers —generally those already prepared for such responses—to emotions of indignant certitude...

...THERE REMAINS an 18 point program which climaxes The Causes...

...Again, I concur...

...The alternative is to retain the ideals, advance them and work for them in such ways as may be available, until, hopefully, organ ized forces are built up...

...I do not mean that he should provide a full-scale academic or Marxist thesis...

...but I doubt that it will contribute to their political education...

...but at a number of points he comes uncomfortably close to it...

...the way the accumulation of armaments has led to the "idiot's strategy" of amassing weapons powerful enough to destroy humanity...

...That both ecclesiastical and secular 2. Irving Howe That The Causes of World War III has been written by C. Wright Mills, author of Power Elite and a man who in recent years has made a notable contribution to democratic radicalism in America, is reason enough for taking it seriously...

...There is a crucial difference between America, a democratic country that shows some signs of drifting toward authoritarianism, and Russia, which for decades has been something considerably worse...

...war machine and are actually willing to sponsor such startingly unorthodox views as Mills here put forth, this would really be something...

...But if one is writing a book called The Causes of World War III, there is really some obligation to offer generalized statements about—the causes...

...poli tically each of them is increasingly a closed world...

...My point is not so much that I disagree with a few of Mills' 18 points, but that his book is guilty of a high-handed carelessness as to the possible consequences of their adoption...

...They have permitted the current powers which have a "political monopoly" also to have a "monopoly of ideas...

...To say, as some scientists and others do, that if they do not undertake certain war jobs, others will, "is less an argument than the mannerism of the irresponsible...

...Unilateral action may be required...

...and in the U.S.S.R...

...And if Mills is right, then he unexpectedly does offer new comfort for this kind of approach.* WHAT I FIND most disturbing in The Causes is a certain notion it approaches concerning coexistence...

...If the book meets with the response from Mills' fellow-intellectuals and from the physical scientists which I think it merits, it may prove a major turning point in that struggle...

...that communication should be established with such people— yes, of course...

...But where in Russia dur ing the past three decades have there been any free or open "political strug gles" involving "articulate publics" that have then "tended to be replaced by administrative decisions...

...the democratic process, even when relatively genuine, affects mainly "middle-level" (that is, not crucial) issues...

...It may be that a Secretary of State, negotiating with the Rus * Mills is somewhat less than clear as to what he believes the attitudes of the two power elites are toward war...

...2) valid radical proposals (a high percentage of our national income should go to economic aid to underdeveloped countries...

...Mills' second highly important proposal is his unequivocal call to intellectuals in in general and the scientists specifically to become "conscientious objectors...

...Thirdly, in tackling the question of means for influencing public policy Mills recognizes that a movement or party is needed and does not now exist here...

...These two proposals relating to unilateral action and assumption of personal responsibility spell revolu tionary pacifism...

...Mills is aware of this difference...

...war parties,' men who want war...

...yet "so similar are the bureaucratic facts of their industrialization...

...It is a mixture of 1) ideas that any decent person would accept (the U.S...

...The theory of "mass society" is indispensable, though not sufficient, for an understanding of the modern world...

...That there are people in Russia and the satellite countries who yearn for freedom...

...To see this and proclaim it is not to go soft about Communism or Soviet diplomacy and militarism...

...And "if truly independent ideas are not even formulated, if we do not set forth alternatives, then we are foolishly trapped by the difficulties those now at the top hove got us into...

...3) notions so doubtful that they require both prolonged debate and separate presentation if they are not to endanger the popularization of the previous two groups of points...

...Well, it is really a question of the character of Russian society—though I think it also important to remember that Khrushchev and Mikoyan have committed many evil acts that, to put it mildly, do call their characters into question...

...But I think it is this very sense of urgency, which all intelligent men share, that has led to the analytic carelessness and moral disequilibrium of Mill's pamphlet...

...THE Causes, to be sure, does have an intellectual framework, but a framework that by its very nature cannot yield an answer to the questions I have raised...

...If they do not mean these things, necessity and need and realism are merely the desperate slogans of the morally crippled...

...On page 88: "I assume that there have been and are in the U.S.A...

...it is the power elites that manage the cold war...

...Thus "this disgraceful cold war is surely a war in which we as intellectuals ought at once to become conscientious objectors...

...At another place he nails down the point asserting that it is less "realistic" to "spend more money on arms than to stop at once—and if need be uni laterally—all preparation for World War III...

...they can at present be removed only through war...

...Finally, I think Mills is correct in charging that an important reason for the bankruptcy of U.S...

...the only realistic military (and political) view is that both the Russian regime and war are enemies, and that ways should be found to limit the power of the first while preventing the outbreak of the second...

...Decisions in Russia and the U.S...

...And this Mills does not do...

...One would expect a sociologist as expert as Mills to specify which social or intellectual strata he is referring to...

...are instances of a world-wide drift toward "the mass society...

...Secondly, intellectuals in general and the physical scientists in particular have defaulted...

...Within each industrialized nation there is a similar centralization...

...This proposal, like others of its kind, is put forward as a unilateral one, though there later appears an afterthought that the Russians should be "invited and reinvited to join in each of these efforts...

...surely it is hazardous to assume that there exists a common attitude toward freedom shared by all groups within each society...

...with the unambiguous unfreedom of Russia...

...Something can perhaps be said for unilateral disarmament or for unilateral withdrawal from Europe...

...In the first place, Mills recognizes that sitting "in continuous session with the Soviets till a disarmament agreement is achieved" may not, very likely will not, be enough to break the stalemate...

...Surely the trend toward a parallel "massification" of the two societies cannot have been the decisive cause of so sharp and deep-going a conflict...

...It would tempt me in my declining years to exclaim: "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace...

...It is characterized by a relentless thrust of assertion and a bludgeoning style, neither of which is much affected by complexity of argument or thoroughness of evidence...

...But it is distressing to see a man like Mills advance these highly problematic notions in tidy little paragraphs without a serious and sustained discussion of possible repercussions, which is to say, their extreme riskiness...

...Mills advances the idea that both Russia and the U.S...

...Incidentally, one speculates on the implications of the fact that the essential contents of this book were first given a year ago in the national capital as Sidney Hillman Award Lectures...

...foreign policy and the dolorous state of society in general is that a good many of the best of our intellectuals allowed "themselves to be trapped by the politics of anti-Stalinism, which has been a main passageway from the political thirties to the intellectual default of the apolitical fifties...

...2) In the name of a long-range and necessarily speculative analysis of one tendency in modern society, Mills severely minimizes the differences in nature and quality between the Western world and the Communist countries...

...the way both sides, through stupidity, fear and callousness, help perpetuate this stalemate...

...It reveals the resolution of one human being to take at least his own fate into his own hands...

...In this context Mills correctly calls attention to the fact that "the first significant cracks in the intellectual cold war came in the Communist world after the death of Stalin"—in Poland, Hungary and Yugoslavia, and that the enemy now is not Russia or the United States, as the case may be, but war...

...Theanswer is yes every bit as much for theRussian elite as it is for the American elite...

...A little too conveniently for the Russians, Harry Lustig (whoever he might be) raises the spectre of American missiles in Hungary—neither a genuine option nor a necessary consequence of the wish of the Hungarian people to achieve national freedom...

...But what needs first to be noticed is that such a description does not answer the question implicitly posed in this title: what are the causes of World War III...

...But I fail to see anything ambiguous about the attitude of the Soviet state or its ruling party toward the idea of freedom: they simply deny what any serious person would regard as human freedom...

...sians, cannot always heed this distinction: all the more reason for intellectuals of the democratic left to stress it...

...it involves that crucial assimilation of the U.S...

...But to note that Russia and the U.S...

...trade unions who are dubious about the tie-in of the labor movement with the Eisenhower-Dulles-Truman-Acheson foreign policy and the U.S...

...are both examples of a drift toward the mass society cannot be regarded as an answer—good or bad—to the questions raised earlier concerning the causes of the cold war...

...But surely this does not sanction so dubious a step as aligning either logically or morally the ambiguous freedom of the U.S...

...there are others...

...And if tomorrow there were to be a rapprochment between the two superstates, resting perhaps upon a tacit division of the world into spheres of influence, would that be the result of a "parallel development" of the two societies...

...There is of course no moral excuse for the Russian intervention, but there is a political explanation: given thearmaments race, Harry Lustig hassuggested, "the Russians felt theycould not afford to let Hungarybecome at best neutral and at worst another base for American bombers and missiles...

...That an American sociologist of Mills' standing who is also an unusually well informed and sophisticated analyst of political events should publish such a book is an event in the world struggle against war...

...To refuse such work "is an act affirming yourself as a moral center of responsible decision...

...Both may be headed in the same direction...

...But a writer of his sophistication ought to distinguish between a description of the present state of the cold war and an analysis of the historical causes that have led us to this state...

...Is the cold war primarily the result of traditional imperialist rivalries...

...are now quite ambiguous in the new societies of the United States and of the Soviet Union...

...should abolish fingerprinting of aliens...

...If this be explanation, then one need hardly worry about excuses...

...they are not...

...Mills, to be sure, does not write as a spokesman for "moral coexistence...

...In using the latter term I do not mean to put it into a minor category but to praise it as being in a great tradition of books which are of high intellectual quality but which also propose a program and sound a call for action...

...but one's political-moral response is largely determined by a measurement of how far they are from the alleged goal, at what rate they are travelling, and what conditions of life they permit for the human beings forced to take these journeys...

...If the intellectuals and scientists have a rebuttal, let them present it...

...and in all these spheres their bureaucracies areworld-wide...

...Again, "the government should abandon all military bases and installations outside the con tinental domain of the U.S...

...Again: "The ideas of freedom and rationality...

...And it is upon this last notion that Mills places his main stress...

...but the mode or style of thought to which he has recently turned seems to me unacceptable for the democratic left...

...Now in one obvious but important sense, coexistence is indispensable...

...If by any chance this means that there are people in the top echelons of one or more big U.S...