Some Uses of Power

...Three of them are obvious : the necessity for self-criticism, for keeping in contact with the masses, and for the use of the theory of Marxism-Leninism not as a dogma but as a continually developing guide to action under the changing conditions of reality...

...Such men, some of whom were present at the Congress, required some sort of apologia and assurance...

...That is not true...

...It sets up protection for the individual against the unlimited power of the state, and it insures the consent of the governed through free elections at stated intervals under a system which permits organized differences of opinion...

...This circumstance disposes of the theory that industrial and technological management, as such, may be coming into control...

...The answer to that question is obviously yes, but it does not have to use unlimited power...

...It is capable of a chameleon-like adaptation and of an extraordinary flexibility...

...It does not come from the revelations of a non-existent God, but from the realities of the class struggle...

...These conclusions have stood unaltered through all the shiftings of Party line since they were first published in scores of millions of copies some seventeen years ago, and indeed have been effective since Lenin's day...

...It is not as difficult as it may seem to identify the few essentials of the nature of Bolshevik Communism out of all the welter of Marxist-Leninist verbiage...

...Nowhere have Stalin's motives or intent been condemned, only his self-aggrandizement, his comparatively minor failures to keep in contact with the masses, and the cult of the individual which is said to have led to the abuse of the innocent, mainly the Party innocent...

...For does not every state have to utilize power to bring about a good end...

...Large numbers of the Party must have known of many clear cases of the abuse of power, and many held Stalin himself responsible...

...The built-in nature of the Party's power complex becomes plain...

...But who can foretell the sufferings and trials in store for Russia before she returns to the normal course of her destiny and her place in the bosom of humanity...

...Since he lacks our heritage, the average Russian, Party member and non-member alike, does not resent this concentration of power, but only its abuses...

...The Soviet press has long made it clear that this is a continuing international guide and not just applicable to internal conditions...

...None but Party members are in positions of real power and authority in the armed forces, the police, government and all industry...

...The Party has never enjoyed a complete monopoly of power over that country or over China, and it is doubtful that the effective relationship with the true satellites, where that monopoly exists, will be greatly altered...

...The purges still continue, and the sharing of power by two or three gives no assurance that the Soviet Union has done away with abuse and traveled very far on the long path toward more civilized ways...

...therefore let us stop just talking and seize and cherish power without letting anything stand in our way...

...And This is the tenth article in our series on the evolution of Communism, launched in our June 18 issue by George F. Kennan...

...The fact that Tito was singled out for redress has been taken by some as an indication that the hold over the satellites was being weakened...

...Of course, the Party is capable of change and growth, within the limitations of its own nature, and it alters from time to time in noteworthy ways...

...Since it is the sincere anti-Communist as well as the fellow-traveler who brings this charge, it seems to me that this perennial optimism about the Soviet Union on the part of honest and intelligent people is due largely to their not full realizing the essential nature of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union...

...It would be hard to find a plainer statement of the source of the continuing difficulties of the world and of the basic intransigence of the Soviet Union vis-a-vis us and the state powers on which we depend for our freedoms and our way of life...

...Among those who were aware of Stalinist abuses were many high military officers, all Party members...

...The remaining conclusion most vitally concerns the West, as it formulates the Party's basic attitude toward the West...

...It is a philosophy, a way of life...

...Yet to speak of the Party as subject to change beyond the limits of its nature is like speaking of a spineless vertebrate...

...Within my experience...

...Even the smallest local social grouping which is not an element of power is required to include a Party representative to keep an eye on it...

...In the Soviet Union disillusionment has long been common, but when there is no perceptible alternative for one's allegiance disloyalty does not necessarily always follow...

...The basic philosophical problem underlying most of the world's present difficulties is the use of power, and the Leninist solution is the direct road to totalitarianism...

...One conclusion states the historical necessity of the one-party system, and another that of the continuing internal purge...

...But to the Russian there is no unmasking involved, for the Party has never made a secret of its monopoly of power...

...Subsequent contributors were Adolf A. Berle Jr., Edgar Ansel Mowrer, Louis J. Halle, Norman Thomas, Dwight Macdonald, Franz Borkenau, R. H. S. Crossman, Donald Harrington, Ferdinand Lundberg and Donald W. Treadgold...

...Everything that helps the Revolution is right, and everything that hinders it is wrong...

...Even to the men of good will (and some of them do still exist), the attraction of the fundamental idea is so great that disillusionment is accompanied by the eternal hope that next time things will be different...

...Our own heritage is so deep-seated that some of us have thought that the mere unmasking of the CPSU as a power complex should be enough to bring about widespread defections...

...After all, the power is used in his name, and it should be realized that almost all citizens of the Soviet Union accept their regime to a greater or less extent...

...It is this which worries some of the Western Communists who, as a result of Khrushchev's revelations, have begun to ask if there is not something about the system which inherently leads to abuse...

...Some of those who had been directly and grievously injured were mentioned by name, including Rokossovsky, whose teeth were supposedly knocked out by the secret police in the name of Communism...

...Instead of attributing Khrushchev's speech to any conflicts between the Party and other groups, or even to some struggle for power among the Party leadership (which may well he going on), it seems more reasonable to attribute it to this widespread knowledge, to the fear that the Party itself would get out of hand...

...even though desiring to do away with the Party, attributed their difficulties to the built-in power aspects of Communism...

...At the same time, it is absolutely necessary to depend upon the reliability of many thousands of individuals in order to keep intact the intricate and all-embracing network...

...The morality of the democratic state removes the very possibility...

...Twice attention was called to the fact that, in the Stalinist deportation of whole nationalities, all Communists and Komsomols were included without exception...

...We have a morality that is higher than that of the bourgeoisie...

...The fact that Asia does not have this heritage does more than anything else to make the future of Asia a special problem for the West...

...Many things have gone by the board since the Bolshevik seizure of power, but it is difficult to see anything in recent events on which to base a belief that the leopard is changing his spots...

...The universality of Party penetration and control makes it rather meaningless to talk of power struggles between the Party and other organizations such as even the Army or the police, for all potential conflicts of interest between such groups and the Party are transformed into matters of policy to be settled within the Party itself, and a primary loyalty to the Party is harshly enforced...

...The Future of Communism SOME USES OF POWER By Leslie C. Stevens EVEN the most confirmed fellow-traveler must admit nowadays that, in one way or another, the Soviet Union has long and often departed from the paths of decent civilized conduct...

...Of a certainty these lessons will not be wasted...

...They do not like the police state, but they seldom realize just what brings such a stale into being...

...Vice-Admiral Leslie C. Stevens served as U.S...

...To reply that leopards cannot change their spots except by long, slow processes of evolution, or that without their spots they cease to be leopards, is often to be charged with harmful rigidity of thought...

...Khrushchev, in his speech against Stalin, promised a revision of the Short Course, but his sole criticism was directed against the exaggerated role attributed therein to Stalin, and he laid much stress on the fact that Stalin claimed authorship of a text which was in fact a Party accomplishment...

...Long before the rise of the cult of the individual, it was accepted in the Soviet Union that people are punishable not only for what they do but for what they might do...

...To it, its guiding philosophy of Marxism-Leninism is not a dogma but a continually developing guide to action, constantly enriched with new experience under the changing conditions of reality, and the Party can well distinguish between its letter and its substance...

...Lenin saw power as the lever of all accomplishment...

...Apart from this, Stalin's entire theory and practice are specifically praised, and "tumultuous, prolonged applause ending in an ovation" greeted Khrushchev's closing words: "Long live the victorious banner of our party-Leninism...

...Lest we forget that the CPSU, which is the government of the Soviet Union, is not identical with the Soviet peoples, it may not be amiss to repeat in 1956 what Chadayev, a friend of Pushkin's and the Decembrists, said in 1840, as quoted by the French Ambassador on the eve of the March Revolution: "The Russians are one of those nations which seem to exist only to give humanity terrible lessons...

...He said in effect: "If we, the Party, desire to achieve a good end, we can do nothing without the power to achieve it...

...There are usually aspects of it which they do not like, hut even when they are badly hurt by it many are inclined to think that things have gone somehow awry...

...I have found very few who...

...Powerful as Stalin may have been, the essential nature of the Party is not due to the whims of any individual...

...The sincere Party member, the opportunist, and the large numbers who are dependent on the Party for privilege and even livelihood, in short the vast majority, are not apt to fall away from Communism in any numbers just because of what they have now learned of Stalinist abuses...

...The monopoly of power is not confined to the obvious form that it takes in political matters, but covers effectively every form of social activity...

...Yet nothing has been lost to the central Party in its new relations with Yugoslavia, and it may well be that much has been gained...

...To the Communist, the Revolution is never over until the end of the world-wide struggle with us, the "bourgeoisie...

...Khrushchev spoke at a closed session of the Party Congress, and his remarks were directed to the Party...

...It is also interesting to note the statement of Izvestia on May 26 of this year that in the Donbas coal industry one-third of all the mine directors, 40 per cent of the chief engineers, and more than half of the section heads were replaced during the past year...

...They could not help but know that Stalin's claims to military omniscience were false...

...It says: "The history of the Party teaches us, first of all, that the victory of the proletarian revolution, the victory of the dictatorship of the proletariat, is impossible without a revolutionary party of the proletariat, a party free from opportunism, irreconcilable toward compromisers and capitulators, and revolutionary in its attitude toward the bourgeoisie and its state power...

...There is not the slightest indication that the monopoly of power will be relaxed...

...The recent repudiation of Stalin is accompanied by a firm reaffirmation of Leninism, and the greatest contribution made by Lenin to the formidableness of the Party was his recognition of the uses of power...

...The ability of the Party to work with those with whom it chooses to work, its flexibility in all but the long reach of its will, should never be underestimated, and it seems more probable that its recent actions will strengthen its relations with other Communist countries, as it will be strengthened in another and Leninist sense by the falling away of individuals who may take the ultimate step of rejecting Communism...

...Perhaps that lack may be due initially to impatience in getting on with the job, but once on that road it must be continued for the simple reason that those checks would sooner or later do away with the party in power...

...The Party prides itself on not giving way to complacency and vainglory or resting on its laurels, not glossing over its mistakes but drawing lessons from them and correcting them in time...

...yet, if only the Asiatic peoples become sufficiently aware of the dangers involved, they may well find their own peculiar antidotes...

...Even though the Party is a comparatively small and select cadre for guidance and control of everything in the Soviet Union, it is not a democratic organization, for within it is no cheek on the flow of power toward the lop...

...A by-product of these departures which is useful to the Soviets is that whenever she returns to more civilized ways and does what most civilized countries do as an accepted matter of course, it is greeted by many as an indication that the leopard is changing its spots...

...The Leninist technique of power does not permit the checks on the state which we provide...

...ultimate good intent is seldom questioned...

...The Short Course in Party History summarizes the six chief lessons that are taught by its own history, and those conclusions form its final pages...

...naval attache in Moscow after the war, and described his experiences in Russian Assignment, on one occasion, after the seizure of power, he declared: "We Bolsheviks have been accused of having no morals...

...Revolution does not mean evolution, but just what it says, and opportunists, compromisers and capitulators are those who believe in anything other than temporary, tactical adjustments...

...It would be well if more of us knew it by heart, as do most Soviet citizens...

...A realization of what is involved may result in the falling away of some Communists, a process which, if extensive enough, could obviously wreck Communist parties everywhere, but which at present is certain to be no more than a drop in the bucket...

...Our checks, which obviate even the benevolent dictatorship, are of course the heritage of Western civilization, growing slowly from our past...

...Lenin, its principal formulator, has been dead for a generation, but his orientation toward the world lives on in the springs of action of the Party...

...I know of no better place to go for this than to the Party's own appraisal of itself, of what Marxism-Leninism means to it...

...Although a good dictator is certainly conceivable, the logical outcome of a power regime which sets itself above morality is Stalinism...

...He needs them for survival, and he hopes for much more than that...