The Kremlin's Total Imperialism
WOLIN, SIMON
The Kremlin's Total Imperialism Soviet Imperialism: Its Origin and Tactics. Ed. by Waldemar Gurian. Notre Dame. 165 pp. $3.75. Reviewed by Simon Wolin Editor, Research Program on the...
...to remold their way of life and destroy all individuality, personal and national...
...Reviewed by Simon Wolin Editor, Research Program on the USSR Imperialism is as inherent in a totalitarian state as power politics, of which it is a natural child, but the aggressive drive of a total state aims at creating a new form of imperialist domination...
...Barghoorn repudiates the idea that Russian nationalism has replaced Communism and that separatist tendencies are highly developed among Soviet minorities...
...The Chinese, who have never shown any enthusiasm for this "refined" product, are also well aware of the difference between the old Tsarist policy and the present brain-washing...
...Yet, while nobody has ever questioned the totalitarian nature of the "new order," opinion is divided on the nature of the "people's democracies," which are sometimes considered a mere product of age-old Russian imperialism...
...Totalitarianism has enriched conventional imperialism by its attempts to colonize not only the land and natural wealth but also the minds and souls of the native peoples...
...This volume is a symposium on the question, giving expression to both views...
...to extend its rule to the civilized countries of Europe, not just remote underdeveloped areas...
...He does not explain, however, by what devious means the Tartar heritage has worked on the minds of Chinese or French Communists...
...But, in the early '30s, collectivization, industrialization and the general tightening of the police regime resulted in the abolition of these privileges...
...His analysis of the development of Soviet doctrine on foreign affairs, of Bolshevik messian-ism and worship of power leads him to the conclusion that the Soviet "return to the traditional [Russian] imperialism is not simply a repetition of it...
...More important is the fact that "whatever may be the national differences among the Kremlin's subject peoples, they are overshadowed by a community of misfortune shared by Russians and non-Russians, including, at two extremes, the Czechs and the Chinese...
...Almost all mosques and religious schools are closed, and the Moslem law systems, the Shariat and Adat, are forbidden...
...In his introduction...
...Comparing Soviet and Tsarist oppression of the Moslem minority, the author comes to the conclusion that "in Communist expansion one encounters a historically new phenomenon...
...In his opinion, "the objectives of Soviet diplomacy in China remain exactly identical to those of the Tsarist Government, marked by the same imperialism," which, unlike its Western counterpart, "was not a refined product of the Modern Age...
...The opposite view is expressed in the chapters on the Ukrainian problem and on Soviet policy in China...
...But the discussion which it contains revolves around two issues: the suppression of Soviet minorities and the aggression against foreign nations...
...This subject is also discussed in an interesting analysis of "The Image of Russia in Soviet Propaganda," by Frederick C. Barghoorn, author of The Soviet Image of the United States...
...Waldemar Gurian stresses that the problem, apart from its sociological interest, is of the greatest importance for practical politics...
...This view is even more forcefully expressed in R. E. Pipes's scholarly chapter on the 30 million Soviet Moslems...
...Pipes, but the veneer of culture "is of a strictly utilitarian, pragmatic character, and it is difficult to see how, under the present regime, Russian Moslems can continue the intellectual development which began in Tsarist times...
...The "new order'' which the Nazis tried to impose on Europe and the present Soviet satellite regimes both bear the marks of this new imperialism, which is total in two respects: its scope and its territorial extent...
...The author of the latter chapter derives Soviet imperialism from Russian psychology, and Russian psychology from the Tartar heritage...
...To win their sympathy, a certain amount of cultural and religious freedom was originally granted to the Soviet Moslems...
...The level of literacy and technical skill, needed for industrialization, has grown under Soviet rule, says Mr...
...In Hitler's hands, even the traditional German Drang nach Osten acquired new traits, expressed in the avowed aim to denationalize and decivilize the new Eastern subjects of the Master Race...
...The author shows the zigzags of Soviet policy toward this minority—a policy that has always been conducted with an eye to the large Moslem populations across the border...
...In this reviewer's opinion, some confusion is bound to result from a simultaneous discussion of these two not entirely identical problems...
...Who is the enemy—Russian imperialism or Soviet Communism...
...The fact that opposed views on this subject exist among consistent anti-totalitarians shows the need for further elucidation, to which the present volume is an important contribution...
...to rewrite their history and destroy their cultural traditions...
...Coming Reviews by George Catlin, Robert M. MacIver, William O. Penrose, J. Salwyn Schapiro, Admiral Leslie Stevens, Richard L. Walker...
Vol. 37 • May 1954 • No. 21
