SOVIET INTENTIONS
Fischer, George
Soviet Intentions CRACKS IN THE KREMLIN WALL, by Edward Crankshaw. The Viking Press. 279 pp. $3.50. Reviewed by George Fischer EDWARD CRANKSHAW'S Cracks in the Kremlin Wall, despite its glib...
...All this perforce applies to Crankshaw, an author far more sophisticated and cautious than most in his field...
...One is a sharp criticism of the view currently so widespread in this country that Stalin's major actions are as a rule part of a long-predetermined scheme...
...In both books, one wishes that the author had thought out and defined more clearly his explorations into this ever-risky although certainly important area, the area of generalizations on national character...
...It is because of these possibilities—brought out with considerable skill in Crankshaw's Cracks in the Kremlin Wall—that America urgently needs both a governmental policy and a public frame of mind which will welcome as well as originate imaginative world-wide alternatives to the presently near-unbearable tension of Cold War...
...Since that year he has been the Soviet specialist of the highly respected London Observer...
...But the evidence he marshals as to basic Soviet unpre-paredness is impressive...
...Specifically, Crankshaw makes two important basic points...
...But it is probably no less important that the United States keep in mind the following possibilities: World War III may not occur soon...
...Reviewed by George Fischer EDWARD CRANKSHAW'S Cracks in the Kremlin Wall, despite its glib title and occasionally glib style, appears to me to be one of the most thoughtful recent books on the whole Soviet question...
...II These two major points in Cracks in the Kremlin Wall seem to call but for one conclusion: World War III is not so inevitable or, at least, not so near as many in America have thought...
...It would, of course, be vast folly to abandon daily vigilance and preparedness against such a world conflict...
...at present is neither economically nor militarily ready to engage in World War III, and that in all probability Stalin is well aware of this...
...Not least as a counterweight to the prevailing counsel of despair, the United States will do well not to put all of its economic, military, and emotional eggs into one basket (i.e., probable early World War III...
...On the positive side, Crankshaw's Cracks in the Kremlin Wall overflows with ideas, insights, and individual points which together form a unique commentary on contemporary Soviet affairs...
...Therefore, to explain figures such as Stalin, Hitler — or Sen...
...Crankshaw does not for a minute contend that the present-day Soviet unprepared-ness is at all a sure guarantee that a "police action" like Korea may not explode any day into World War II...
...Crankshaw argues forcefully that it is far too superficial and unhistorical to presume that any national leader—even Stalin, the world's most absolute modern despot—actually functions in accordance with a rigid, unchangeable blueprint...
...As in his earlier book, Russia and the Russians (1948), Crankshaw devotes much attention (and some of his most wordy prose) to the nature of the "Russian character...
...There is, alas, no simple, obvious alternative...
...and over the years the Soviet regime may evolve and change (as it has continuously over its past 34 years...
...At a time when so much foolish stuff is published on the "American character," the "German mind," and the "Russian soul," it seems all too easy to forget how recently mankind began to understand its individual group actions...
...McCarthy — by some generalization on a whole nationality is a method which is highly questionable and intellectually unworthy...
...That fact in itself may well explain the unquestionable popularity in this country of this dogmatism, and of its worst excesses at home (the "loyalty" mania) and in foreign policy ("go it alone" adventurism...
...The same central problem— Soviet intentions and the free world's response—is dealt with in Crankshaw's second basic point...
...This dogmatism is based on quite understandable despair about Soviet intransigence and brutality, but it is probably far from a valid assessment of the facts...
...Crankshaw's contention leads to a significant corollary: the Soviet system, as all others in world history, has undergone basic changes already and is likely to do so in the future...
...This is that the U.S.S.R...
...The conclusions not only o£ Crankshaw but of such outstanding American specialists as George F. Kennan make this view appear increasingly as a mass dogmatism...
...Is there an alternate course of action, a policy not as concentrated on the likelihood of an early World War III as is the current American dogmatism...
...Contrary to this conclusion, however, more and more Americans have been assuming the unchangeability of the Soviet system and its military-economic readiness for World War III...
...Crankshaw is a British journalist who served in Moscow during World War II and returned there briefly in 1947...
Vol. 15 • October 1951 • No. 10
