THE STRATEGY AND TACTICS OF WORLD

COMMUNISM

PART I-A SPECTER IS HAUNTING EUROPE

"A specter is haunting Europe." This announcement was made a hundred years ago. It was made by the Communist League, in the Manifesto written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. That specter is still haunting Europe. It has changed in character, it has gathered force, and it has won victories. Yet today as a hundred years ago it still is an unfulfilled dream. The fact that it is a hundred years old, and that its expectations are not yet fulfilled invites doubt concerning its prophecies.

But we are not living in an easy age when to doubt that others have the truth is sufficient. We are driven to affirmation, in acts if not in words or thoughts. So far as our affirmations differ from theirs, as expressed in action most of all, we need to know the differences.

If we and the Communists are working at cross-purposes in the same world it is well to look at where and how our purposes cross theirs. And when the purposes meet and cross, we must look to see whether it is their purpose or ours that is frustrated. If it is ours, we must decide what is to be done.

We have turned our backs to these problems sometimes in the past. There have been times, as at the bottom of the depression in 1932, when it was not easy to be sure that communism would fail, that we had the better case. There have been other times when the faults and weaknesses of communism, and its archaic goals, have not been apparent, and we forgot them. As a result of this we have not always been as conscious of the difference between communism and our own democracy as is necessary for clear-headed action. Today we know that 100 years have not brought the fulfillment of Communist prognostications. But they have brought a time, now, when communism cannot be disregarded.

Seventy-seven years ago Communists led a revolt that succeeded in controlling the city of Paris for several months. The strength of communism, or of elements closely allied to it, has been substantial at least since then.

Forty-four years ago Lenin split the Social-Democratic Party of Russia into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, with the Bolsheviks accepting that rule of iron discipline that the Communists call democracy. Thirty years ago Lenin engineered the seizure of power in Russia known as the October Revolution. After 4 years of civil wars Russia became consolidated as the stronghold of communism. Twentyseven years ago Communist Russia went through the depths of famine and economic collapse. Seventeen years ago again there was famine induced by the drive for collectivization. Six and a half years ago

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invasion brought once more a test close to the breaking point. That they passed the last test only with our aid should not make us underestimate what they did themselves.

The last test, with its climax at Stalingrad just 5 years ago, brought an alliance between us. The might and resourcefulness and the excesses of the Nazi threat cemented that alliance for the time. It was called at one time a "grand alliance" and later "The strange alliance." We know now it was an overrated "alliance."

Five years ago we were told the specter had been laid, that the Soviet and the Communists were friends of democracy. Cordell Hull, addressing Congress on November 18, 1943, declared:

As the provisions of the four-nation declaration are carried into effect there will no longer be need for spheres of influence, for alliances, for balance of power or any other of the special arrangements through which, in the unhappy past, the nations strove to safeguard their security or to promote their interests.

Four years ago Franklin Roosevelt, addressing the Foreign Policy Association on October 21, 1944, expressed the same hope.

The very fact that we are now at work on the organization of the peace proves that the great nations are committed to trust in each other.

Three years ago the Yalta Declaration on February 17, 1945, over the signatures of President Roosevelt, Marshall Stalin, and Prime Minister Churchill, said:

By this declaration we reaffirm our faith in the principles of the Atlantic Charter, our pledge in the declaration by the United Nations and our determination to build in cooperation with other peace-loving nations world order under law, dedicated to peace, security,freedom, and general well-being of all mankind.

Since then it has become clear, first, that Soviet tactics are not free and peaceful as we understand those terms. The reasons for this have been explored and discussed by hundreds of authors, most notably by the author who signed himself as "X" in Foreign Affairs, July 1947. These writers have reached a great variety of tentative conclusions, and have not yet brought any clear agreement concerning Communist motives and Communist action. But we need the greatest possible precision in understanding their motives, for the issue is no less than whether or not war may be necessary. Therefore, it must be accepted as a target for the American mind, to understand with the greatest exactness the motives and the directions of Soviet and Communist action. We must evaluate and measure their effect against our own flexibility and tolerance and against the minimum requirements of strategic security for our Nation and our way of life. We must judge, at risk, whether it really is possible to avoid war, and also to avoid regrettable appeasement.

Today it is clear that the leaders of the Soviet Union believe that they have a great opportunity. They hope, as they hoped at the close of the First World War, that some or all of the weakened institutions of Western Europe can be broken. They know how to increase the strains, and they have announced that they will use all means to do so. Neither they nor we know just how much they can gain by their drive for power. As long as this is so the scope of ordinary diplomacy is limited. Treaties can be made only when certain premises have been established. But the premises on which treaties can be made do not exist today, for both sides now expect great changes in the very near future.

When Vishinski in September 1947 at the United Nations Assembly said that

war psychosis, instigated by the efforts of the militarist and expansionist circles of certain countries, the United States of America occupying the foremost place among them, is continually spreading and assuming all the more menacing character

and when the Cominform Manifesto said that appeasement of America would be as dangerous as appeasement of Hitler, the basic antagonism had become clear if not before. This justified Secretary Marshall, in his Chicago speech on November 18, 1947, in saying as he did:

At that time I think it was a fact that the people of the United States had as high a regard, or I might better put it, appreciation, for the Soviet people and their sacrifices, and for the Soviet Army and its leaders, as they held for any other people in the world. But today, only 2 years later, we are charged with a definite hostility toward the Soviet Union and its people, which constitutes a complete change in our attitude since the summer of 1945.

I recognize this effect. I would not characterize it as hostile. But the important question is, what produced this tremendous change in our national feeling and attitude? The truth as I see it is that from the termination of hostilities down to the present time the Soviet Government has consistently followed a course which was bound to arouse the resentment of our people.

In the interval between that hopeful time when we considered Russia freedom loving and peace loving, and this time when we are concerned and resentful, there were many efforts to explain the Russian past. Some tried to justify the hope and faith of good behavior. There were many other efforts to explain and to qualify the developing contrast between that hope and harsh realities. Some writers pointed out that Russia had always sought expansion in certain directions, and suggested that for the Soviet Government to seek the same goals was only a continuation of older Russian motives. This would have implied that they had goals of expansion indeed, but that these were only the familiar goals of national interest. Other writers explored the historical relations between the United States and Russia in order to exhibit the absence of any fundamental conflict of interest in the past. Some took note of the learned theoretical discussions of Marxism in Moscow to explore the possibility that Russian leaders were no longer Marxist.

The abolition of the Comintern in 1943 was hailed by some as meaning the repudiation of world revolution. This was answered by others, Michael Florinsky 2 outstanding among them, with arguments that the Comintern had only become unnecessary, and that its abolition was but a smoke screen. The first signs that Russia might be an obdurate and difficult partner in the making of peace led some to explore the idea that Russia was "isolationist," and to compare the reasons for Russian isolationism with those for American isolationism at an earlier time. The difficulties in negotiation were attributed by some observers to the simple difficulties of language, and to the fact that such terms as "democracy" or "agreement in principle" do not mean exactly the same things for different peoples. Arthur Krock of the New York Times did a service when he explored this question (April 23, 1946) and pointed out the extraordinary competence displayed by Soviet diplomats in editing the English texts of their own statements.

1 Both of these documents are printed in supplement I to this report.

Of Columbia University, a leading authority on Soviet Government and politics.

An illustration of how confused American circles became in the midst of this transition was given when the Soviet paid its dues in the United Nations in March 1946 and it was taken as a reassuring sign of good faith and good intentions. Actually this sign came later than Stalin's speech of February 9, 1946, and Churchill's speech at Fulton, Mo., March 5, 1946. These announced, on the one hand, the continued adherence of the Soviet Government to its basic doctrine of world revolution, and on the other hand the dangers that this would mean for the United States.

If all of the speculations concerning Soviet-Communist motives and tactics are boiled down, we may find a certain common core. This common core must include all that is demonstrated to be significant by any one of the many lines of argument. It must include the evidence of their actions, on the simple principle that actions speak better than words, but it must include evidence of their words also, for only in their words do we find an explanation of why they do not always act the same in what appear to us to be similar circumstances. We must examine further, not only the actions of the Soviets but also the actions of Communists outside the Soviet Union. The tools and methods available to the Soviets and those available to Communist parties abroad simply afford a choice of means to the same ends. And we must examine not only the propaganda and agitation of Communists in all countries but the economic weapons used to weaken countries that are under attack, and the political tactics used to weaken the structure of free societies, and the psychological arts for confusing their opponents and attracting converts. We must take evidence from a broader range in time than any few years or we will have no guard against thinking of them as liberal and progressive as in 1935-39, or pro-Nazi as in 1939-41.

Finally, we must take note of the relation of tactics to strategy and of strategy to theory, as they themselves see these relations.

Any less comprehensive approach neglects essential evidence. The multitude of explanations for Communist policy has certain common characteristics. Each of the explanations is logical within the scope of the evidence admitted. Most of them are open to contradiction on the basis of broader evidence.

An examination of all aspects of Soviet and Communist policy and tactics leads directly to some simple conclusions.

1. The Communists have one goal-world revolution.

2. They assume that the revolution will be violent.

3. They are incapable of accepting the idea that peace can endure from now on, and they expect one more catastrophic war. 4. The Soviet Union is regarded as the main force of the revolution.

5. They fear a coalition against the Soviet Union.

6. They therefore fear reconstruction or federation in the nonCommunist world.

7. They utilize the most modern and effective means of cold warfare to strengthen their own forces and to weaken all others. 8. The Communist parties outside the Soviet Union are junior partners or auxiliaries.

9. The tactics are based upon a definite theory, and the central propositions of that theory do not change.