FROMM'S APPROACH TO FOREIGN POLICY
Williams, William A.
Fromm's Approach To Foreign Policy May Man Prevail? an inquiry into the facts and fictions of foreign policy, by Erich Fromm. Doubleday. 252 pp. |4.75 cloth; 95 cents paper. Reviewed by William...
...Such a modus vivcndi would provide a framework within which the advanced and the poor countries could evolve their own systems...
...On this foundation, Fromm then defines and explores two sets of alternatives: One—Either the United States can continue and intensify the Cold War with the strong probability that nuclear war will follow upon the triumph of the extremists in China and then in Russia...
...The first of these is not true...
...Fromm first argues that Soviet Russia "is a conservative, state-controlled, industrial managerial, not a revolutionary system...
...Despite its non-Western and non-liberal features, there is no persuasive evidence that China considers territorial expansion as the key to its strategy...
...she is interested in law and order and anxious to defend herself against the onslaught of the revolution of the 'have-not' nations...
...The second, despite the evidence to the contrary, may be correct, but we can never know unless we make a serious, sustained effort to negotiate such an agreement...
...In a final, ironic sense, Fromm's strategy depends upon the political triumph of sophisticated and quietly confident conservatives in the United States...
...This depends upon mustering our courage to abandon various myths and cliches, upon disciplining ourselves to think sanely by distinguishing between possibilities arid probabilities, and upon acting on the resulting attitudes and policies...
...Our present thinking is a symptom of a deep-seated, though unconscious defeatism, of a lack of faith in the very values which we proclaim...
...It is slightly ridiculous to talk about a new left or a reinvigor-ated liberalism: the one is just aborning, and the other is still living in the 1930s...
...Reviewed by William A. Williams While it does not offer much that " is novel, this is a deeply moral and truly radical book...
...The Berlin crises provide one illustration of this...
...they are largely the result of Soviet desire and determination to consolidate the status quo in Europe...
...or it can reach a political and psychological accommodation with the Soviets based upon a "mutual agreement not to change the existing political balance of power between the two blocs...
...Thus we are hesitant to enter upon the competition inherent in disarmament and co-existence...
...Given a lessening of tension between the United States and Russia, there is therefore "a very reasonable chance that China will revert to its earlier policy of competitive co-existence which was in effect until 1958...
...Fromm is probably correct in arguing that the Soviets have seen more clearly, and have exhibited more willingness to operate upon, the logic of a general accommodation than have the Americans...
...He boldly reminds us that if this outlook is mistaken, then "we would be taking a course of action that no human being with some sense of responsibility and duty could dare to recommend...
...The latter possibility depends for realization in large measure upon the appearance of a more mature and confident American policy...
...Such criticism is based on combining two things: the assumption that the United States has sought such a modus vivcndi and the assertion that the Russians have refused it time and again...
...Chinese Communism, he continues, is a revolutionary totalist religion blended from Mandarin and Confucian traditions, the Enlightenment, and Marxism...
...His moral act is to restate and act upon the axiom that "we have the intellectual and moral obligation to question the correctness of these premises again and again...
...The acceptance of limits without giving up on either democracy or creativity is the challenge and the opportunity that we can no longer run away from—at least not and stay sane or alive...
...Fromm's analysis of the American reluctance to reach such an accommodation is penetrating...
...It is time to stop evading that issue by calling in the weary, dreary ghost of isolationism...
...The question is not whether we should have relations with the world, but rather what kind of relations we will develop...
...In developing this theme, Fromm is particularly good on the meaning and significance of the decline of terror in Russia, and on Soviet behavior at the end of, and just after, World War II...
...Two—The new, poor countries are ollered a choice between following the lead provided by Russia and China or being helped by the United States and the United Nations to evolve a democratic form of socialism that is appropriate to their needs and outlook...
...It is written by a man of fine intelligence and deep sensibility who understands that we must adapt to new conditions "by anticipating the necessary changes...
...And his radicalism lies in digging down to the roots of these premises, analyzing them, and then proposing an alternate set of basic assumptions...
...As far as that goes, we have done rather well in erecting the central columns of a garrison state under the name of liberal internationalism...
...The Chinese state is a have-not nation using this totalist religion to industrialize...
...Many old radicals, new liberals, and ordinary conservatives will argue that Fromm is naive or unrealistic on the grounds that the Russians do not want such an accommodation...
...Though it has ideological and political ties with Russia, it has many important differences and tensions with Moscow...
...Only such conservatives can make the short-run policy modifications, and then go on to provide a stable framework for a renewed debate about the essentials of a new-political economy for the United States...
...Fromm accurately describes the underlying conviction of American policy makers as a belief that the Sino-Soviet bloc "is a revolutionary-imperialist movement out to conquer the world by force or subversion," and that it can be restrained only by the threat of nuclear devastation...
...In a real sense, therefore, Fromm's hopes hinge upon whether or not the Kennedy Administration and its successor can accept the fact that the only really new frontier is the one right here at home...
...The acceptance of limits is neither acquiescence in being a second-class power nor the first step toward some unspeakable domestic tyranny...
Vol. 26 • March 1962 • No. 3
