Kennan-Khrushchev Dialogue

...3. Japan declares that her territorial aspirations center in the area of Eastern Asia to the south of the Island Empire of Japan...

...These quotes show the formality and superficiality of the Soviet reply to Kennan's serious questions, and they are easily demolished...

...At one point, he remarks: "They expect us to believe that the Soviet Union was governed, for 40 years, by a group of men radically different from all other mortals in that they never made mistakes, never analyzed a single problem incorrectly, were never governed by any emotions other than the disinterested service of others...

...Then the antagonism between the two systems, which he calls socialism and capitalism, will be resolved through economic, scientific and cultural competition...

...For the state documents of these agreements, see Nazi-Soviet Relations, 1933-1934, United States Department of State, 1948...

...A leader of the Russian Social Democratic party, he was a member of the Executive Committee of the Socialist International from 1923 to 1940...

...While Khrushchev has made basic changes in internal Soviet policy and thereby rejected part of his inheritance from Stalin in this area, and while he has decided to tone down the Soviet Union's aggressive position, he has never once suggested that the policy he is offering is new or that he has abandoned the old one as injurious and dangerous either for the Soviet Union or for the whole world...

...This latest phase of the arms race is terribly expensive and even the richest country in the world, the U.S., in trying to balance its budget, has had to limit its military production in order to avoid dangerous fluctuations in the economy...

...A third possibility exists—the most natural, democratic and honest: to ask the captive peoples—the working class, the peasants, the intelligentsia—what kind of political and social regime they want...

...Zhilin's sophisms, therefore, will not be very convincing to an audience of enlightened Westerners, who will not only question his theories, but also his sincerity and his intentions...

...It follows that they have not abandoned Stalin's final aim—Communist domination of the world—nor the methods which brought about his greatest victories...

...What new ideas does Kennan have to offer...

...Khrushchev, therefore, returns to his idea of general and immediate disarmament...

...Let us leave aside for the moment the purely political questions connected with the change of regime...

...If he were, he might find it instructive...

...Along with the pact, however, an additional secret protocol was signed in which Hitler and Stalin agreed to partition Poland and divide all East and Southeast Europe into Soviet and Nazi spheres of influence...

...has embarked on the risky course of not developing its atomic armaments to the fullest possible extent, the USSR has stopped at nothing to surpass the U.S...

...And the consequences would be considerable—no less than a new world war...

...For this reason, it has seemed a mistake to regard Khrushchev's new policy as just a deceitful maneuver to make the U.S...

...But this grain of truth does not lie in Khrushchev's sudden turn to pacifism and political "vegetarianism," nor in his decision, in principle, to repudiate force and aggression...

...For example, when on August 23, 1939, the famous Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression pact was concluded, the Bolshevik press presented it as the best guarantee of peace...

...Zhilin is equally cavalier with Kennan's second criticism: baiting America...

...Thus, recent dispatches from Moscow speak of the growing "fastidiousness" of the Soviet citizen when he buys clothes, footwear, furniture and other consumer goods...

...If the Allies then attempted to restore communications with the beleaguered city by force, the USSR would consider this equivalent to an attack on the Soviet Union, with all the consequences that would imply...

...Instead of emphasizing this, and, in so doing, demonstrating that the Soviet Union was definitely taking a new course, Khrushchev tries to make it appear that he is simply following the old line, using slightly different methods...

...No 'anti-American campaign' is being carried on in the Soviet Union...

...Kennan's second question concerns relations between the USSR and the U.S., in particular the anti-American baiting that issues unceasingly from the Soviet press and radio...

...Similar considerations apparently dictated George Kennan's cautious attitude toward Khrushchev's ideas...

...For example, normalization of mutual relations in Central Europe does not at all mean that the Soviet Union should replace the people's democratic regimes, or allow the Western imperialists to do so...

...The agreement was supposed to remain completely confidential...

...It was Khrushchev, after all, who in his last speech in Indonesia declared that if the forthcoming May summit meeting does not reach an agreement on West Berlin satisfactory to the Soviet Union, he would conclude a peace treaty with East Germany and hand it control of all traffic to and from Berlin...

...Here, Khrushchev's new policy clashes with the policy of the conquest of space and intensive production of giant rockets and guided missiles with ranges of thousands of miles...

...Or that it allow Western imperialism to force them to do so...

...The Soviet sphere was to include Finland, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, and the northern line of partition was to run along the northern boundary of Lithuania...

...Totalitarian Fascism and totalitarian Communism had come to an imperialist agreement at the expense of other nations...

...The fact that no social group in a socialist society has a vested interest in war is the most convincing proof that the Soviet Government wants peace and normalization of international relations...

...nevertheless, answers to these "accursed questions" are provided quite clearly and precisely...

...Khrushchev's line is to take into account and to satisfy the people's material and housing needs, and to comply with their more and more insistent demand for a policy that will not lead to war...

...that is, when the working class and all other strata of society determine the government policy...

...One of the theoretical premises on which Zhilin bases his assertion that the Soviet Union is not and never could become imperialistic is: "The very nature of the social system of a socialist country makes any war policy alien to it...

...in developing intercontinental missiles...

...He has just completed a major work on the Soviet Union entitled From Socialist Utopia to Totalitarian Tyranny, 1917-1939, which reveals his profound knowledge of Russian affairs...

...Instead, disagreements should be solved through negotiations, pacts and compromises, because the use of a force which includes nuclear weapons would lead to the destruction of existing civilization and to the extermination of a considerable portion of the world's population...

...2. Italy declares that, apart from the territorial revisions in Europe to be carried out at the conclusion of the peace, her territorial aspirations center in the territories of Northern and Northeastern Africa...

...consideration for the daily needs of the mass of the Soviet people...

...But that is not all...

...This dialogue was opened by Nikita Khrushchev in an article on coexistence in the October 1959 issue of Foreign Affairs in which he develops his familiar arguments that the growing tension in international relations, which has often led to the very brink of a world war, must be relaxed by both sides renouncing force as an instrument...

...Evidently that foreign policy—which led to such a gigantic increase in Soviet territory, sphere of influence and military might—has seemed entirely satisfactory to Stalin's successors...

...In fact, such dictatorships are much more aggressive, expansionist, imperialistic than the most reactionary bourgeois regime...

...Zhilin may not be familiar with the history of World War II, except in the falsified version which Stalin and Molotov produced...

...Let Zhilin ponder the question of what legitimate interests of the Chinese working class demanded the banditry of breaching India's frontiers...

...Hence the Soviet Government must try to alleviate the hardships that it has imposed on its citizens and its industry, on the whole life of the country, in pursuit of absolute superiority in armaments...

...For Poland, the line of partition between Germany and the USSR was to run roughly along the Narew, Vistula and San...

...But to carry out this program, it is essential to shift the economy from heavy industry to the production of consumer goods and to housing construction...

...And where is Khrushchev's rejection of the use of force as an instrument to settle conflicts...

...The political aim of Kennan's article was to probe more specifically into the methods Khrushchev intends to use in his policy of peaceful coexistence, particularly concerning the possibility of a policy change toward the territories and people subjugated after the war...

...After a short period of content, they began to demand that more and more attention be paid to their needs...

...And, if it is possible to speak of the pressure of public opinion in the Soviet Union at all—in the absence of free expression of the people's will —then it manifests itself in their thirst for peace and their horror at the idea of a new war...

...At the same time, the Soviet press does not hide . . . the defects in the 'American way of life...

...The Soviet Union, of course, finds itself in a similar position, in spite of all its bragging about its gigantic production and huge natural resources...

...And Kennan reminds us that, during these years, a large number of those very leaders turned out to be traitors, betrayers and criminals, and were dealt with accordingly...

...In the following November the Axis powers suggested that the Soviet Union unite with them so that with their combined forces they could bring the war to a successful conclusion and then divide the world...

...It is simply that the capitalist system and the policy dictated by the interests of the monopolies are exposed...

...One thing alone stands out clearly from conversations with citizens in Moscow: Above all else, the citizen wants a new war to be prevented...

...This attempt to present Soviet policy as though mistakes and miscalculations had never been made is severely criticised by Kennan...

...and her allies lower their guard so that, at a given moment, the Soviet can take them unaware and endeavor to destroy them in a nuclear attack...

...Doesn't this amount to recognition of American achievements...

...For an anti-capitalist totalitarianism based on one-party dictatorship Zhilin's premise is completely incorrect...

...There is also a growing demand for housing and increasing impatience for the time when, instead of the present incredible overcrowding, with families of six living in one room, housing will at least approach that of the more advanced countries of the world...

...Dozens of articles in the Soviet press record "the good things about America which we should adopt, dozens of articles in which are shown the indices in which we want to catch up with the U.S.A...

...Basing himself on what, for him, is an indisputable fact—namely, that the Communist regimes in all the satellites were created and continue to exist by the will of the working class and without any assistance from the Soviet armies of occupation—Zhilin states categorically: "It is well-known that the peoples of the socialist countries themselves chose the path of their development and no one can make them turn off that path...

...He considers this accusation completely unfounded and unjust...

...When Stalin died, the Soviet people experienced a certain relief from their nightmare sufferings under Stalinism...

...In a letter written January 15, 1960, on his return from Russia, a friend of mine described his impressions as follows: In Moscow, police oppression has greatly decreased, but there is no obvious political change...

...4. The Soviet Union declares that its territorial aspirations center south of the national territory of the Soviet Union in the direction of the Indian Ocean...

...Evidently he was commissioned to refute, one by one, Kennan's objections and assertions...

...At the same time, in carrying out a policy of relaxing tension and of disarmament, do not imagine for a minute that the Kremlin will ever make an agreement leading to a real compromise, i.e., mutual concessions on both sides...

...In an article also in Foreign Affairs, Kennan dwells upon one strange circumstance...

...Zhilin tries to drown his answers in a sea of historical and ideological reasoning...

...Soviet citizens want better goods and in the latest styles...

...If the USSR is a socialist country, how can it possibly want war...

...Do they want their present totalitarian dictatorships, or would they prefer, for instance, to introduce democratic socialism...

...It lies, instead, in his accurate assessment of his own practical interests—in particular, the preservation of his dictatorship, which demands greater Raphael Abramovitch has been an important figure in the struggle for a democratic Russia for five decades...

...In the south, Russia was to get Bessarabia while Germany declared it had no interest in that region...

...What does Kennan want of the Soviet Union...

...The Kremlin is, nevertheless, in difficult straits: Deputy Premier Anastas Mikoyan and Khrushchev constantly insist that when an adequate pact is concluded, the United States should grant the USSR billions in credit...

...There is an important grain of truth in Khrushchev's reasoning, as there is in all such general, theoretical constructions...

...Goods are piling up unsold because of customers' growing discrimination...

...But the Kremlin, of course, would never agree because it knows very well that the verdict would go against it...

...It is quite clear that the concessions the Kremlin talks about will be minor ones on the Communist side and very important and real on the side of the free world...

...It is time it was understood that the policy of 'rolling back' and 'liberation' has become completely bankrupt...

...If such a plebiscite of the entire population were taken freely and honestly, the verdict of the people, whatever it turned out to be, should be the sole factor in deciding the argument...

...What class, then, in the Soviet Union insists on such a policy...

...The worst excesses of police brutality and lawlessness have been abolished, but the Soviet citizen, now as before, is cut off from free information about what is going on in the world and has no influence on the policies of the Kremlin...

...Collaboration between the brown and red dictatorships went much further after these various annexations marked out in the secret protocol had taken place...

...In addition, Italy, Germany and Japan concluded a further agreement regarding Turkey and the Straits to meet Soviet demands...

...It is no accident that the Soviet Union has turned for credit to the most powerful country in the world, persistently urging decadent, declining, bourgeois America to give her credit...

...Diplomat Kennan refrained from asking directly how it happens that, although Khrushchev himself, in his famous 20th Party Congress speech, exposed so many of the crimes Stalin committed in internal policies, he has never let slip a single word suggesting that there was the slightest blemish on Stalin's foreign policy...

...Zhilin asks...

...He will hardly be able to answer since Khrushchev himself did not do so and has not concealed his disapproval of Chinese Communist behavior in this matter...

...The division was formulated, again in a special secret protocol drafted on November 15, 1940, and read as follows: 1. Germany declares that, apart from the territorial revisions in Europe to be carried out at the conclusion of the peace, her territorial aspirations center in the territories of Central Africa...

...Kennan's questions were not answered by Khrushchev but by one of his aides, Yuri Zhilin (a contributor to the magazine Novoye Vremya [New Times] for a number of years, he appears in Kommunist for the first time), who published a long reply in the January issue of Kommunist, entitled "Do Not Put Obstacles in the Way of Peaceful Coexistence...

...There are no classes and social groups with a rested interest in an arms race, in aggression and the seizing of other's lands...

...And the Kremlin and all the Western powers should submit to it, whatever their own political systems...

...This premise, put forward long ago by Marxian Socialists, still has much of its original cogency, but only when a democratic socialist country is under discussion...

...And it also follows directly that this involves a substantial reduction not only in arms for the ground forces but also in the production needed for rockets and nuclear weapons...

...That it force the workers of the people's democracies to return to a capitalism...

...While the U.S...