Intellectuals and Russsia
Mills, C. Wright & Howe, Irving
1. Intellectuals and Russia The following letter has been written as a reply to a review by Irving Howe of C. Wright Mills' The Causes of World War Three, which appeared in the last DISSENT. A...
...both are full of truths...
...And I've read the richly detailed report in DISSENT (Autumn 1958) based on official Communist sources, which shows how Chinese intellectuals were beaten down after the 100 Flowers...
...That, in a word, is what I urge in my opposition to "moral coexistence...
...My objection implies, first of all, as I wrote in my review, the realization that "there can be no secure peace or genuine relaxation as long as totalitarianism flourishes" (does Mills disagree...
...But I find profoundly distasteful—it offends my view of polemic as an art form—a Pecksniffian strategy that can begin with "dear Irving" and end with a death notice...
...Why do you not really take stock of where you stand, and try to make a new beginning...
...This is the heart of the matter, and he cannot evade it by airy references to "tired slogans" or to his dislike of "black and white" formulas...
...But what do you think are the most significant differences and parallels...
...The innocence that a sophisticated man can force himself into...
...Just now—in fact for about two years now—I've been organizing materials-of-fact about each of the world's regions...
...This difficulty, I suspect from your review, you are too ready to ignore by old slogans rooted in old political emotions...
...In the Wall Street Journal, William H. Chamberlain wrote—as expected...
...I enjoy open and forthright polemics, and don't mind being roughed up a little: one must expect to take as well as give...
...WAR IS UNTHINKABLE...
...Sometimes, however, a phrase will reveal a spirit...
...Could it be that you have set your mind in terms of what-was-what some time ago...
...This means for example that if one were to visit Poland today one would instinctively solidarize oneself with the defeated and harassed "revisionists"— the dissenters of the east—rather than with, say, a "cultural spokesman" for Gomulka...
...I had thought that an editor of DISSENT would have taken due note of differences, and then gone on to build a new left, taking into account the changed state of the world and the sorry condition of U. S. foreign policy...
...and in DISSENT, you wrote—unexpectedly...
...Simply to cry "coexistence, period" is to abandon the right to political judgment...
...I had thought that you had abandoned the foot-dragging mood of the Cold War and were trying to make a new beginning...
...I wish neither to excuse the brutal facts of Soviet cultural tyranny, nor to celebrate the formal freedom of cultural workmen in the West...
...In the meantime, I am coming to believe that the Soviet Bloc is changing very fast indeed, that some of these changes are "liberalizing" in a firm sense of the word, that there are signs that these are going to continue, and that what we do will affect their chances to be more fully realized...
...If he says "no," then his program is not to be taken seriously...
...Does Mills agree with this or not...
...Indeed there are: The greatest is World War III...
...I don't think the strategic causes now making for World War III are to be found in some magic key...
...I am very much at work on it these days...
...In The Causes—as well as elsewhere (see the BBC's Listener, 12 March, 16 March, 2 April 1959)—I have drawn many parallels between the USA and the USSR...
...That there have been important changes, some due to an inner stabilization of totalitarian society, others to a desire by the rulers to lead more relaxed lives, still others to fear of pressures from long-suffering peoples (to mention only a few possible causes)—all this is quite 'familiar and has been discussed frequently in DISSENT...
...Why waste time with lib-lab apologists and fanatical anti-Communists...
...But you take the curiously expedient view that amoral co-existence is OK, necessary, etc...
...For the last time I heard something like that it was 20 years ago, when certain intellectuals were denouncing "slander factories" in Riga...
...Second answer: Wait a while...
...my concern is that we confront it carefully with full awareness of the meaning of World War III...
...Now Americans have a notorious incapacity for remembering, but are the lessons of Hungary and the intense responses they aroused to be dismissed as "old political emotions...
...But no...
...Nothing is more characteristic of mass culture in America than maintaining a surface of "friendliness" in order to leak out a dribble of innuendo...
...and that anyone, especially an intellectual, who values freedom must continue to be a principled moral-political opponent of these regimes...
...The crucial fact remains, however, that the Communist states are still monolithic one-party dictatorships which deprive their people of the most elementary rights...
...Does that make me "an Old Futilitarian of the Dead American left...
...I find it all quite different than it was when you probably last looked at it closely— which I suppose to have been sometime in the forties...
...And that it has little or no effect of public consequence...
...morally" you do not want to co-exist with it...
...You no longer take as seriously as I do the Iack of new beginnings and the disuse of formal freedom in the USA since World War Two...
...The Western powers, tied to the interests and outlooks of capitalism, have usually shown themselves unable to cope politically with the Communist thrust...
...Yours truly, C. WRIGHT MILLS Let me confess that I have small appetite for answering Mills' "letter...
...they are for intellectuals...
...Surely there is enough such celebration of self and denunciation of enemy...
...I do not believe the Soviet system is absolutely evil...
...wrote—as expected...
...Do you believe that the Soviet Bloc and the Soviet Union itself is a monolithic and unchanging piece of evil...
...but let us not learn to find virtues in their vices...
...From these, by the way, I do not draw optimistic conclusions...
...Well, let me say that I've read a good deal about the recent "liberalizing" of Tibet...
...Can he not see that the whole agonizing political problem is how to "coexist with commas, semi-colons and dashes," that is, how to shape the terms of coexistence, which can vary from catastrophic rigidity to catastrophic appeasement...
...But when Mills writes in his book as he does about Hungary, when he systematically does minimize the differences between totalitarian and democratic societies (differences that extend far beyond the bounds of "culture"), and when in his "letter" he writes about Soviet society in terms that I find distressing and shall note in a moment—then it is a new Mills...
...totalitarianism," "capitalism vs...
...There is obviously an inner conflict here, and one can only hope for a fruitful resolution...
...In my own reflection I certainly do not make the curiously expedient distinction which you suggest between moral and political co-existence, I am for co-existing, period...
...but he has not troubled to answer this question...
...So far as program goes, all you say is: Matters are very complex...
...But how about you...
...It may be necessary for the U. S. government to recognize the Pankow regime...
...The Causes is not an attempt to draw up an overall balance of blame...
...Anyone with political sensitiveness will have no trouble in recognizing the nature, the bent, the tone of that question...
...I suspect that you take a more or less standard view...
...If you believe it is not, then: What do you think are the major causes...
...it is not inconceivable that they will...
...Recently you have written of a collapse of "cold war moods...
...The answer is: No, the kinds and forms of totalitarian Communism have changed...
...So be it...
...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...
...Yes, the essential disagreement concerns the Communist dictatorships...
...But more: there are many signs of good in the Communist countries...
...What disturbs you most is my attitude towards the Soviet Bloc and the balance of blame I try to draw between Russian and American policies and practices...
...1959 issue) ever so much more politically intelligent than your weary hesitations...
...I"ve tried to cut beneath such tired slogans...
...Probably these are the real issues between us...
...This is the dilemma and tragedy of our moment (which cannot even be apprehended, let alone met, through the neat list of 18 points which Mills drew up in his book and of which, like a middle-aged man come late to pleasurable vices, he is so proud...
...Also I am against subordinating morality to "politics" or political policy to "military strategy...
...You say nothing that intellectually or politically breaks through what you acknowledge to be the "sterility" of cold war ideology...
...there are great risks...
...The Polish "revisionists," largely silenced by Gomulka, are good...
...but let us not, as independent intellectuals, behave like American businessmen when they are introduced to Mikoyan or American tourists on a guided journey...
...Given the means of violence and the facts of their distribution, this is only to say that I am for living and against dying...
...the cold war they wage—the New Statesman has recently observed—is primarily "a conflict of hypocrisies...
...But you are supposed to be in some way or another "left...
...but never mind...
...Just how do your proposals differ from those that I have offered...
...If not, what are the five or six most significant changes in the Soviet Union since the death of Stalin...
...I As for your gimcrackery about causation: I think you have missed the political strategy of my essay...
...I am not dogmatic about it: persuade me...
...Don't you alternate between intake and output...
...I suppose there are differences, but just how far do they extend...
...The formal freedom of the West rests upon cultural traditions of great force...
...the disingenuous questions, really "questions," advanced with a sort of TV abundance (is he really so incapable of intel lectual distinctions as to be unable to tell the difference between me and "Dulles-Adenauer...
...What are the most hopeful...
...what you call my "description of the mechanics of the cold war," I think a statement of its strategic causes...
...He wants "coexistence, period...
...How old is old, anyway...
...On this point, the balance of blame is very difficult to draw up...
...What, if anything, do you propose that leftward intellectuals in the USA now do...
...11 In your comments about the parallel developments of the U. S. and the USSR, you ask: Why, then, haven't they become "harmonious partners...
...Here we are before a crucial problem: Berlin...
...A rejoinder by Howe follows.—EDITORS...
...You don't seem to understand that to seek causes is to seek those factors that are at once strategic to the course of events and possibly open to our political will—or at least to our political demands...
...Everything in the totalitarian world which helps to crumble the party's monopoly of power and thereby disintegrate the rule of the regime, is good...
...The Hungarian revolutionists who proclaimed the idea of a free socialist society and now rot in jail under the "liberalizing" dispensation, are good...
...it has been and it is immensely valuable...
...Therefore: I state differences, but I stress parallels...
...Until you do, I'll stick to the assessments and proposals I've outlined in my essay and continue to elaborate them with the help of those who have not vet joined The Old Futilitarians of the dead American left...
...Is he then prepared to urge a unilateral withdrawal from Berlin, leaving its two million people to the mercies of the "liberalizing" Khrushchev...
...First answer: What a curious expectation...
...The truth is I've not yet worked out an assessment that really satisfies me...
...But must we not now ask to what extent the continuation of this freedom today is due to the fact that it is not being exercised...
...But the regime itself is evil...
...III You do seem to feel that the Soviet Union is absolutely evil...
...It seems these "factories" were spreading rumors that there was slave labor in Russia...
...Mills wishes to know whether my objection to "moral coexistence" implies a preference for amoral coexistence: a question that shows he hasn't begun to function seriously as a political man...
...Milovan Djilas is good...
...The major questions with which your review leaves me are: Just how does your basic view of the world confrontation today differ from the line expressed by the work of Dulles-Adenauer...
...Is "the Soviet Bloc and the Soviet Union itself . . . a monolithic and unchanging piece of evil...
...In the meantime, I do not "assimilate" the U. S. and the USSR "into one category...
...Both are full of lies...
...Let us assume, just for the moment, that my main "political emotion" in regard to the Russian regime is the consequence of its bloody suppression of the Hungarian revolution...
...As FOR His rhetorical compost—the American executive, a Cyrus Eaton of the intellectuals, who in an expansive belly-patting mood lets us in on his Methods of Work (and the big revelation?—that he alternates between "intake and output"—which, if you translate it into English, means between reading and writing...
...What have you recently read—apart from rumors filed from Hong Kong—about China...
...I do not believe the Soviet Bloc is a total lie, and the American alliance a half-truth...
...Because that is the dilemma and tragedy of our moment, we must accept the co existence of the two power blocs...
...if he says "yes," then it is all too serious...
...So I feel the need to make a few points and to ask you a few questions...
...I have also noted that I do not "wish to minimize the important differences between the establishment of culture, and of cultural workmen, in the Soviet Union and in the United States...
...As Dwight Macdonald remarked in a recent DISSENT: "'Brother is used by Americans to express hostility and contempt...
...On the contrary: probably I have overstated them, both in analysis and in program...
...Our supreme task is to continue to speak and fight for freedom: which means, among other things, to oppose the Communist dictatorships...
...What you seem to want by way of a general statement of causes you indicate by stereotypes: "imperialist rivalries," "democracy vs...
...In both of these systems the one big lie that concerns me in this book is the military: the lie that war is still a means of any conceivably human policy...
...communism," etc...
...1. Intellectuals and Russia The following letter has been written as a reply to a review by Irving Howe of C. Wright Mills' The Causes of World War Three, which appeared in the last DISSENT...
...and his new role of the one-man political sect, beguiled at having his "program," though ready, in his largeness of spirit, to allow one to make modifications in it —all this I find tedious...
...I wish you'd try to break out of the weary old beliefs you seem to hold about it and help me, and others, formulate a fresh view...
...I, for one, choose to remember: everything...
...Better an `old Futilitarian of the dead American left" than a surf-rider on the Wave of the Future...
...That is why I find so altogether curious your assertion that I understate "the significance of political ideas and ideologies...
...Dear Irving: No doubt there are others, but I have seen only three "negative" U. S. reviews of my essay, The Causes of World War Three...
...and second, that, no matter what arrangements are or have to be made by the power blocs, the intellectuals, though not they alone, must continue their fundamental opposition to and criticism of Communist totalitarianism...
...I think probably what you may need—if you'll forgive my saying so—is a big dose of new fact...
...And only by ceaselessly attacking it—in our ways, the ways of democrats and socialists— can we give some little aid to our comrades, known and unknown, in the east...
...What," asks Mills, "have you recently read—apart from rumors filed from Hong Kong—about China...
...An intellectual should have a memory lasting a bit longer than two and a half years...
...Why don't you take the risk of nuclear war seriously enough to pick up from this essay what you agree with and go on from there to set forth alternative programs for the USA, and for intellectuals of the "democratic left...
...What do you want the United States government to do, tomorrow, next week, next year...
...At one point in his book he advocates that the government "abandon all military bases and installations outside the continental domain of the United States...
...You write like the cold warriors...
...In my essay I have tried to answer such questions, positively...
...In my review I asked Mills what his program and his points signify in regard to Berlin...
...It would be a welcome relief from the general "sterility"—the boredom and the "balance"— of DISSENTS recent pages having to do with the world scene...
...As most literate reviewers have understood, my statement of causes rests upon the theory of history-making outlined in part one of The Causes, elaborated from The Power Elite...
...That means, to quote a few words from my review of Mills' book, "that negotiations are necessary, and where there are negotiations there may have to be concessions...
...Certainly in America today there is much more celebration and 'defense' of civil liberties than insurgent and effective use of them...
...in the N. Y. Post, Arthur Schlesinger Jr...
...There may be no choice but to put up with (that's what coexist means) societies that systematically suppress freedom...
...When Mills quotes himself as not wishing "to excuse the brutal facts of Soviet cultural tyranny," I recognize the man I have known through many years of intellectual and personal association: the man, if I may say so, who learned something, though perhaps not enough, from "the Old Futilitarians of the dead American left...
...Why not give yourself a big dose of new fact...
...he should remember the purges and the slave camps and the terror, not merely out of piety toward their victims, though that too, but because the kind of society that made these possible still flourishes...
...That some of these changes have resulted in an easing of the immediate living conditions of the people subjected to Communist regimes, is also familiar to everyone...
...In any case, what does all of it—the "coexistence, period," the "program," the "18 points"—come to in practice...
...Nor do you see that I have always made clear for whom the programs and demands outlined are intended: they are for you and me...
...Mills, however, seems impatient with these qualifications...
...It is about war and the arms race...
...The parallel developments of western industrial nations have not seemed to make them "har monious partners...
...My view of the state of the world is not so black-and-white...
...Words like good and evil may not be the most satisfactory categories for analyzing political phenomena...
...We differ, I suppose, in two evaluations: You do not take as seriously as I do the new beginnings in the Soviet Bloc since the death of Stalin...
...Anyway: what do you think is the function of "ideologies" in the world confrontation today...
...But Irving, as regards foreign policy, from what, tell me, do you dissent...
...That happened only two and a half years ago...
...Do you deny that...
...Nor is it a full-scale book of ideals...
...in your review, however, you do not display much of this "collapse...
...it is very real—this freedom...
...Is it, in any case, to beliefs like these that Mills refers when he speaks of "old slogans rooted in old political emotions...
...By the way, don't you think Stuart Hughes' review of my essay in Commentary (Feb...
...There isn't much political sense in talking to people who can't be "reached...
...And so too are the Chinese "right deviationist" intellectuals...
...the patronizing chutzpah with which he asks whether I don't agree that Stuart Hughes is politically more intelligent than I am (let me inform Mills that Hughes and I, as good friends, have discussed this problem at some length and have come to a definitive answer...
...The most depressing...
...To dissent is lovely...
...I don't...
...One writes in a context in which the two are regularly presented as polar opposites, one good, the other evil...
...Moreover, I have tried to do so in terms open to intellectuals...
...let us not be careless...
...But this apart, I am struck by the echoes that Mills' question raises...
...You seem to recognize this yourself, in your com ments on "soft-headed liberals...
...So too is Boris Pasternak...
...I do...
Vol. 6 • July 1959 • No. 3
