The Limits of Coexistence:

...Lloyd George was accused of cynicism for his remark that one could trade even with cannibals...

...Karpovich edited and completed the late Paul Miliukov's monumental History of Russian Culture and is the author (with W. Bowden and A. P. Usher) of An Economic History of Europe Since 1750...

...It might be said that the West eagerly sought coexistence, clutching at every opportunity in that direction and sometimes even imagining opportunities which were not really there...

...It was this regime which introduced "ideology" into politics and the spirit and methods of civil war into international relations...

...So long as the Communist bloc remains armed to the teeth, the free world will have to maintain adequate defenses...

...Now, in historical perspective, it is perfectly clear that during the war the Soviet regime was already drawing up plans for subjecting Eastern Europe and the Far East to Communist dictatorship...

...From this point of view, neither the Korean nor the Indo-Chinese war conflicted with the concept of "containment," since both resulted from acts of Communist aggression...

...the free world must still master fully this essential weapon in the battle for the minds and hearts of men...

...This was the case, of course, because the correlation of forces in the world was favorable to the Soviet Union and unfavorable to the Western Allies...

...can anyone point to a single important political concession made by Soviet diplomacy since Stalin's death...

...In the first years after the Bolshevik Revolution, it is true, there was no "active" coexistence...

...it was not a question of destroying Soviet Communism, but of holding it within its present bounds--in the hope that it would one day lose its aggressive character either through evolutionary change or through revolutionary overthrow...

...This enabled diplomacy to remain ideologically and even morally neutral...

...it is even harder to forget what followed...

...Active" coexistence was in full swing...

...as a way out of the present world situation and, in that sense, accepting the idea of coexistence, I want to stress that this does not mean the end of the struggle between democracy and Communism...

...But inasmuch as an aggressive policy stems from the very nature of the Soviet regime--irrespective of whether that policy is inspired by the idea of world revolution, by "Soviet nationalism" or simply by the inner logic of totalitarianism--its peace-loving professions are worth very little...

...Michael Karpovich is the author of the classic, Imperial Russia 1801-1917, and has been professor of history at Harvard University for more than two decades...

...In the present worldwide struggle, the Communists make extensive and frequently successful use of propaganda...

...the first question that arises is whether "coexistence" is really something new...

...While categorically rejecting war...

...There were conferences and compromises and trade, as well as cultural relations to the extent permitted by the Soviet regime...

...And yet, its position does not seem so lamentable to me...

...But when they are fully mobilized--and I am firmly convinced that they can be--there will be no doubt of the final outcome of the struggle...

...There is no reason to suppose, however, that a totalitarian government is capable of creating a healthier and more durable social order than is a democratic government...

...What actually provokes aggression is Western disunity, defensive weakness, and ineffective propaganda...

...There is nothing to support the contention that Stalin's successors are following a "new course" in foreign policy...

...Wars were then waged for the attainment of concrete goals and did not aim at annihilating the enemy--or transforming him in one's own image...

...But didn't a new, more "active" phase begin in the early 1920s...

...Embassy in Moscow, the more courteous tone of Vishinsky at the UN and Molotov at the Geneva Conference, or the unwonted smiles on the faces of Soviet generals...

...But political calculations cannot be based on polite gestures and smiles alone...

...The Limits of Coexistence Although, barring a war, we must live on the same earth with the Soviets, there is little reason to expect a let-up in the ideological conflict By Michael Karpovich IN the current discussions of "coexistence...

...It is hard to forget all this...

...If, in the nineteenth or early twentieth century, someone had raised the question of whether countries with different political and socio-economic systems and different ideologies could coexist, people would simply not have understood what he was talking about...

...Any diplomatic agreement whose aim is to settle a conflict must be based on compromise...

...For a genuine and fruitful compromise, what is required, in addition to good will on the part of the participants, is a certain balance of power...

...I have no doubt that the Russian people, like all other peoples, yearns for lasting peace...

...The Kremlin unquestionably enjoys the advantage of more ruthless exploitation of the human resources at its disposal, as well as the foreign-policy advantage of the enforced unity of action of all its satellites and allies...

...Not conscious desire but force of circumstances brought about the wartime alliance between the Western democracies and the Soviet Union...

...From time to time, we hear it said that this course would provoke the Soviet Union to resort to arms...

...In peacetime, diplomacy dealt with the same concrete problems, not with ideology or the political and socio-economic reconstruction of other countries...

...in such a situation, the politically "realistic" Soviet regime has no incentive to compromise...

...Even the cold-war policy of "containing" Soviet aggression was based on the idea of coexistence...

...Until then, the task of the Western world must be to resist it as successfully as possible...

...It also made the free nations of the world fear for the foundations not only of their material but of their spiritual existence, and forced them to adopt methods of international conflict which were completely alien to their nature...

...In fact, however, he was well within the bounds of time-honored diplomatic tradition...

...Indeed, it is astonishing to see the tragi-comic intensity--dictated by the same yearning for peaceful coexistence--with which the Western press has reported such "events" as the appearance of Soviet officials and their wives at a party in the U.S...

...If this situation is to change, if coexistence is to cease being a problem and become once more simply a matter of course--in other words, if the present tension is to disappear from the world--then the pressure exerted by this totalitarian force must end...

...Recall the unjustified optimism aroused by so many temporary phases of Soviet policy: the NEP, "socialism in one country," the United Front against Fascism, the Stalin Constitution, even the purges of the 1930s (and, later, "Soviet nationalism," the "recognition" of the Church, and the dissolution of the Comintern...

...Because of this, some people go on to say that now we must have "not passive but active" coexistence--a concept signifying "trade, cultural relations, conferences and compromises...

...I am even prepared to believe that, at the present moment, the Soviet Government does not want war--whether because it is not sure of victory and cannot risk defeat, or because it must reckon with popular fear of war, or because it can gain substantial successes without war for the time being...

...Past experience, as well as everything we know about the psychology of the Soviet rulers, indicates the direct opposite...

...The initiative in the fight for peace must be torn from its hands by the democratic countries, for whom world peace is not a propaganda maneuver but the condition and goal of their existence...

...As a counterpoise to the Communist bloc, set up and administered by dictatorial means, not only the moral and political but also the organizational unity of the free nations must be expanded and strengthened...

...The Communist bloc, which is aggressive by its very nature, must not be allowed to present itself as an exponent of peace...

...This is amply clear in the last volume of Winston Churchill's war memoirs...

...And it is also clear that the Western Allies not only had little real awareness of this but failed to coordinate their military strategy with any sort of definite political goals for postwar world organization...

...And, conversely, only on the basis of a restored balance of power can a genuine compromise be achieved--a compromise which will clear the tense international atmosphere without requiring the free countries to sacrifice their vital interests or their spiritual values...

...I would go farther and say that one can even have diplomatic relations with Cannibals--provided one takes all precautions against being eaten by them...

...There could hardly have been, at a time when Soviet foreign policy was based on the expectation of immediate social revolution in the West and the Western Allies were organizing their half-hearted (hence unsuccessful) military intervention...

...conference followed conference, and there were compromises in abundance...

...The aims and even the principal methods of this struggle remain the same for the Western world...

...Needless to say, the form of coexistence we are now experiencing--coexistence accompanied by constant tension--is profoundly abnormal and difficult to bear...

...We can also conclude, from the incomplete and often unverified information reaching us from behind the Iron Curtain, that there is a state of "unstable equilibrium" within the Communist bloc...

...Compromise means mutual concessions--otherwise, what results is not compromise but capitulation by one side to the other...

...The problem of coexistence could not have arisen until a new and terrible force had appeared in the world--that of the totalitarian state, which received its most perfect and most dynamic expression in the Soviet Communist dictatorship...

...This is the essence of the matter...

...Isn't the term essentially a statement of a self-evident and incontestable fact...

...So long as Soviet Russia, with its armed forces and its international apparatus for the incitement of worldwide civil war, can seize new positions in Europe and Asia, the only possible policy for the free world is one of vigilance and strength...

...It is much more difficult for the free world to mobilize its material and spiritual resources...

...Since the war, the Western countries have made a whole series of political concessions to the Soviet Union without receiving anything equivalent in return...

...Churchill--who himself only recognized what was happening after many positions had already been lost--describes with some irritation how American political and military leaders resisted the injection of "politics" into military strategy--especially his advice to "meet the Russians" as far to the east as possible...

...For almost four decades, Soviet Communism and Western democracy have been forced to exist side by side--for the simple reason that neither has been able to put an end to the existence of its antagonist...

...An associate editor of the English-language Russian Review, he is also the editor of the Russian-language quarterly Novy Zhurnal...

...I am not oblivious to the many weaknesses of the free world in its present state or to the difficulty of the domestic and foreign-policy tasks which confront it...

...The postwar policy of the West was also based on belief in the possibility of coexistence, as was the entire concept of the United Nations...

...But again the question arises: Is there anything new here, either...

...It was not the fault of the West that this coexistence became progressively less peaceful and gradually gave way to a state of cold war...

...I believe the question is, rather: What kind of coexistence...

...This is the only possible road to peaceful coexistence...

...We know all about its "unstable equilibrium," because it is constantly discussed in the Western press...

...Since I am convinced that no Western nation will take the initiative in launching a war with the Soviet Union, the contention that we face one clear choice, "coexistence or war," seems to me meaningless...

...In present circumstances, however, normal peaceful coexistence is impossible...

...While the Western coalition partners were waging solely an armed struggle against the common foe, Stalin was also fighting another war: a political war against his own allies...

...The Western world was unquestionably more active in this coexistence than was the USSR...

...Nations with the most divergent systems and ideologies (insofar as the nations of those days had ideologies) coexisted in the same world and consorted with one another without thereby posing any problems...

...Not strength but weakness may involve the free world in war...

...It can and must be altered by efforts of will and intelligence on the part of the free world...

...Whereas in the West--and especially in America--this alliance stimulated faith in the possibility of postwar cooperation with Moscow, the Soviet regime saw in World War II an opportunity for revolutionary expansion which automatically precluded any sort of peaceful coexistence with the "capitalist countries...

...But there is nothing fatal in this state of affairs...

...Coexistence is nothing but a continuation of the cold war...

...And, for all the differences in phraseology and tactics, I see nothing essentially new in American foreign policy under the present Republican administration...

...It is excluded not only by specific Soviet actions but by the very nature of the totalitarian Communist regime...

...But these advantages, at times very telling, may well prove more than doubtful in the final analysis...

...The only change required is one in the spirit and content of Western (particularly American) propaganda...

...Western skepticism in this regard is fully justified...