Patience and Patronage:
ROCHE, JOHN P.
Key to U.S. Policy Patience and Patronage By John P. Roche The United States is at last in motion; the catatonic years are finally over. We are going to take up the Soviet challenge, not flee...
...And under these circumstances, I doubt if "Marxism" would be nearly as formidable an opponent as is often imagined...
...8. A high U.S...
...6. Khrushchev gleefully observes at a cocktail party that the United States is clearly opposed to freedom and is a "running dog of colonialism...
...Moreover, the leaders of these new states are not ingenuous primitives shopping around for an ideology—they have one...
...And if we are to devise a policy to check this "opportunistic" expansion effectively, we must realize the nature of the assault and its primary instruments...
...Bipolar division in the world provides an ideal fishing-ground for agile nationalist politicians...
...Planeloads of Soviet military and police experts arrive to "supervise" the defense against counter-revolution...
...The young intellectuals read Marx and Lenin because they are impressed by the power of the USSR, not because they are impressed by philosophical finesse...
...in our uncertainty, often dare to admit...
...Soviet technicians begin to arrive...
...The dream of freedom is far more compelling than we...
...Above all, we must free ourselves from the curse of colonialism—the albatross which our allies have now fastened around our neck...
...4. The nationalist leaders hold out the plate and in particular ask for arms...
...A given policy may influence the nostalgically antiAmerican intellectuals of western Europe and help them better to understand this complex country, but be a total failure in the newly emerging nations of Asia, Africa and Latin America...
...To be precise, we must engage in careful "target analysis...
...Unfortunately, however, this is no longer the world of Philip IV or Henry VII—or even of James Madison...
...When warned about the long-range menace of Communist infiltration, the nationalists invariably reply that such a threat will not exist in their case—they are too well organized, too dedicated, too clever to get mousetrapped...
...7. The nationalists sign a trade pact with the USSR and Red China...
...He adds that of course the nationalists are not Communists, nor would any one try to convert them, but they are always welcome in the "camp of peace...
...Only after confidence in the United States has been established will it be possible really to wage a "campaign of ideas...
...Nationalism is never humble...
...The characteristic pattern of modern Soviet infiltration is one which plays down Marxism or Communism in favor of a far more subtle "salami" tactic, more formally known as "the united front from above and below...
...The genius of Soviet foreign policy has been that it has filled these two conditions precisely...
...military official (see 5 above) re-emphasizes his statement that nationalists are Communists and adduces 7 as conclusive proof...
...And the Communists are not old-style patrons...
...2. The United States, allied to the colonial power, mutters something about the heritage of freedom and simultaneously gives qualified support to the ally...
...5. A high State Department official suggests economic aid, the ambassador of the former colonial power objects, another high State Department official qualifies the suggestion of aid, a high military officer says the nationalists are "Communists," and someone in Congress demands an investigation...
...This is all to the good...
...From all the evidence I have seen it is clear that the Soviet success in Africa and Latin America is not based primarily on ideological considerations...
...In other words, we should not over-rationalize the ambitions and dreams of contemporary nationalism...
...Nationalists vote in the UN for admission of Red China...
...Marxism" has still not put in an appearance...
...The ambassador of the excolonial power notes, more in sorrow than in anger, that if the U.S...
...minister is expelled...
...It is unquestionably important to launch a "democratic counter-offensive," but this must be backed with patronage and immense self-restraint...
...The U.S...
...One plane delivers translations of Das Kapital and the Communist Manifesto...
...Three CIA agents are caught organizing against the regime...
...We are going to take up the Soviet challenge, not flee from it to our complacent affluence, and we are going to wage the "War of Ideas...
...The USSR has usurped the role of protector by offering its assistance in the battle against colonialism, and it has provided eager nationalists with a vision of rapid industrialization under Russian auspices...
...But we must take care not to exaggerate the ideological aspects of Soviet activity as much as we have minimized them in the recent past...
...Our problem among the new nations is therefore not one of countering Marxism or Communism as an abstract set of theoretical propositions...
...The appeal of the USSR in these areas is based instead on a potent mixture of anti-colonialism and patronage...
...In short, depressing as it may sound to men of ideas, the fate of democracy in the newly emergent nations of Asia, Africa and Latin America may depend at base on a wise policy of patronage and patience...
...What they want are, first, guarantees against "colonial" powers in the external world and, second, the sinews of industrialization internally...
...As long as the USSR pre-empts the leadership against colonialism, we can expect Castros and Lumumbas...
...John P. Roche is Morris Hillquit Professor of Labor and Social Thought at Brandeis University...
...Just as Lenin seized power on the back of a peasantry aroused by the dream of "Peace, Bread and Land," so the USSR in our time moves forward under the banners of anti-colonialism and economic aid...
...My concern here is with these "new" states...
...Nationalists, with characteristic paranoia, cling to the Soviet alliance as the only protection in a world of enemies...
...The sequence goes roughly as follows: 1. A colonial nation frees itself from the metropole, perhaps after prolonged struggle...
...It is a commonplace that distance, which once provided insulation and time, has vanished...
...Historically speaking, nationalists have always been ready to roll drunks, manipulate patrons and assume their own invincibility...
...The Czechoslovaks, who seem to have the franchise in this area, immediately ship munitions and the USSR offers its friendship...
...From this brief summary, it will be apparent that in my view the threat of Communism is organizational rather than ideological...
...3. The USSR welcomes the new nation and affirms its support for all colonial peoples suffering under the yoke of exploitation...
...9. Communists in the new nation begin to infiltrate key positions using the patronage of the USSR as leverage...
...had supported his government in the first place, these Communists would never have gotten power...
Vol. 44 • February 1961 • No. 8
