Coexistence and Convergence
HALLE, LOUIS J.
2 Articles on the Future of Communism Coexistence & Convergence By Louis J. Halle Oliver Wendell Holmes once said that "we need to think things instead of words." The advice is apt for those of...
...the history of Islam...
...At the moment, they seem to have such confidence...
...If our Western capacity for defense and retaliation should decline, however, the use of military means might regain its appeal for the Kremlin...
...It appears to me that our evolution and the evolution of our Communist antagonists may be tending, over a long period, to reduce the difference between us...
...It was one thing in Russia in 1919...
...The Russians are traditionally cautious and defensive...
...On the other hand, the militant character of the Communist movement may be expected to lessen with the passing decades...
...By the same logic, I would not deny the right of the Communist leaders to seek the voluntary allegiance of mankind by persuasion...
...Let me suggest answers to some of these questions...
...This impels them to imitate us...
...How much difference before you can say they are different...
...He has written for Foreign Affairs, the New York Times Magazine, and many scholarly journals...
...It was not quite the same thing in Russia in 1928...
...They have probably grasped the fact that a few such bombs, the development of which Marx and Lenin had not foreseen, could also make a considerable rent in any social fabric, including their own...
...We have never disguised this, felt ashamed of it, or regarded it as sinister...
...Since we have never contemplated its achievement except by the voluntary consent of mankind, no one can properly complain of it...
...As such, it has not changed in one syllable or letter since the Communist Manifesto of 1847...
...The outlook seems hopeful to me in the degree to which these convergent changes take place more in them than in us...
...It is possible that the free world will achieve ever greater unity...
...Presumably that objective remains and will continue essentially the same...
...Such leadership may endure for a few years, perhaps even a decade or more...
...What counts is what a power does in order to achieve its objectives...
...or whether it is now or may become the Kremlin's policy to confine its methods to legitimate competition, economic or diplomatic, and persuasion--whether it does or does not intend to abide by the rules that must necessarily govern any peaceable family of nations...
...This is a mixed blessing...
...Norman Thomas, whose most recent books are The Test of Freedom and A Socialist's Faith, is Chairman of the Postwar World Council and was one of the six founding members of the Labor Committee to Release Imprisoned Trade Unionists and Democratic Socialists...
...At the same time, the Communists have found, since Stalin (probably earlier), that by appearing more liberal and peaceable to the outside world they invest their system with some of the natural appeal which ours has traditionally had...
...Time is a great moderator...
...Ultimate objectives, however, exist only in the imagination...
...I cannot quarrel with the statement that the ultimate objective of the Communist leaders is a Communist world...
...It seems dark to the extent that they take place more in us...
...The present leaders have learned for themselves how big a hole one hydrogen bomb can make...
...I share the faith that in a free market truth will ultimately have the advantage...
...but the balance of power among the leaders is too precarious, the danger each represents to the other is too great, and the consequent temptation of each to grasp any opportunity for eliminating the others is too strong...
...The common fear in which they lived for years under the tyranny of the old man may have given them a bond of comradeship for the time being...
...Stalin, one suspects, was inadequately impressed with the effect of the new weapons on warfare...
...Is it what Lenin said it was, what Trotsky said it was, what Stalin said it was, or what Khrushchev says it is...
...The chief hope, and I do not rule it out, is of a mutual accommodation--based on our own united strength, cultural and physical, and a determination of both sides to control war--that might carry us safely through the immediate future into an unknown beyond...
...But the convergence in itself is a good thing if it reduces the danger of thermonuclear war...
...All I can see, therefore, is that things will continue to change...
...whether it is still the policy of the Kremlin to promote subversion in foreign countries and engage in other conspiratorial tactics that make a truly peaceful world-order impossible...
...Communism" is a word...
...This would naturally drive them in the direction of some liberalization, since there must be room for an essential minimum of diversity and accommodation where you have a corporate leadership, especially if it represents a revulsion against terrorism...
...We cannot, perhaps, afford as much freedom for the individual...
...Perhaps the changes will not be catastrophic...
...Future contributors include Dwight Macdonald, Rev...
...Here we present two further contributions to our symposium on the evolution of Communist society and the problems it raises for democratic policy-makers...
...Is it the same in China as in Russia, in Russia as in Yugoslavia...
...I see no reason for particular concern over whether this has affected the ultimate objective of the Kremlin...
...One has the impression that hatred of Stalin and his work has, today, created a degree of unity among his successors that we had not anticipated...
...It was something else again in 1949...
...They may be as one in their present desire not to have any repetition of Stalinism...
...In addition, the pressure of the Communist challenge has made us less easy-going and therefore, in some senses, less liberal...
...The long history of government in the Soviet Union, if it proves to have a long history, might be rather similar to that of the Roman Empire...
...The historic trends of our times work on both sides...
...No modern ruler, within broad limits of sanity, prefers military means when others appear to have a good chance of gaining him his objectives...
...This suggests, accurately, that I have no great hopes for the long-range future of any present liberalizing tendencies in the Soviet Union...
...I feel quite sure that the present international situation is also unstable...
...I would expect it to be...
...This may have made military risks less attractive to them, at least for the present...
...Chacun prend a l'adversaire...
...This is not because I do not think their system false and nefarious...
...Louis J. Halle, a former member of the Policy Planning Staff of the Department of State, is the author of Civilization and Foreign Policy...
...Shortening the range of speculation and becoming more specific, I do see some changes which we should welcome...
...and Edgar Ansel Mowrer...
...Thus we have had to impose increased requirements of military service...
...If we follow Justice Holmes's advice, then we find ourselves thinking about a number of rather unstable, fluid, constantly evolving doctrines and social systems, having more or less in common, that all say they represent "Communism...
...But what is the thing itself...
...It is because I believe in applying to the power of speech, within broad limits, the principle that the power to do right necessarily embraces the power to do wrong...
...This symposium was initialed in our June 18 issue with an article by George F. Kennan, and was continued in subsequent issues by Adolf A. Berle Jr...
...Means should concern us more than ends...
...The less stable it is, the less predictable...
...I would expect a single ruler, another Stalin or an Augustus, to emerge sooner or later...
...The real questions to ask are: whether it is still the policy of the Kremlin, as it appeared to be under Stalin, to impose Communism on others even, if necessary, by military methods...
...and we have, occasionally, felt ourselves obliged to deal with the menace of internal subversion and espionage by establishing illiberal restrictions...
...Our own objective is a free and democratic world...
...How much sameness must things have before you can say they are the same...
...There has, inevitably, been a continuation of change in the Russian Communist system during the years since Stalin's death, just as before...
...The more confidence they have in their present political methods and the use to which they can put their expanding economic power abroad, the less temptation they will be under to resort to military aggression or military threats...
...The advice is apt for those of us who try to understand the evolution of Communism...
...The point is that the use of an immutable word tends to mislead us by disguising change...
...later that of Octavian, Antony and Lepidus...
...Donald Harrington and R. H. S. Crossman...
...Still, I do not think that this kind of collective leadership in an authoritarian state has any more stability than that of the two triumvirates which briefly ruled Rome in the first century b.c.: that of Caesar, Pompey and Crassus...
...To conclude: I suspect that the internal situation in the Soviet Union is less stable than it appears to be...
Vol. 39 • July 1956 • No. 28
