The shattered monolith

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Part of Panorama

Title: The shattered monolith
Creator: Crankshaw, Edward
Language: English
Source: Panorama Volume XV (No.9) September 1963
Year: 1963
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Fulltext: ■ Is it: Prosperity for the Soviet Union first — and good luck to the rest of the comrades? THE SHATTERED MONOLITH Edward Crankshaw Fifteen years ago the West-decade and a half, em World deployed itself to meet "a very real menace. This was the menace of Rus sia under Stalin, byt it was called, confusingly, the Com munist challenge. When Stalin died, in 1953, that menace died with him — but it has taken 10 years for this fact to be brought home to us. Three years later Stalin and Stalinism were denounced by Khrush chev, who, at the same time, rejected Lenin’s teaching about the inevitability of war and violent revolution. At that point the interna tional Communist movement, which had been held together only by Muscovite singlemindedness, began to fall apart at the seams. The idea of the Commu nist monolith was always a simplification. It distorted, perhaps stultified, political thinking in the West for a Now we show every sign of oversim plifying the Sino-Soviet quar rel as we once oversimplified the Communist menace it self. Already people who, until a few-months ago, re fused to believe that there was a rupture of any kind are busily dividing the Com munist world into pro-Russian and pro-Chinese fac tions, and totting up the scores: the French Commu nists, we are told, are 100 per cent pro-Russians; the Ma layans, 100 per cent pro-Chi nese, the Brazilians, all 50,000 of them, 50 per cent pro-Chinese, and 50 per cent pro-Russian. And so on. Private aims The assumption under lying these statistics appears to be that the pro-Russian and pro-Chinese parties, or factions, are being used as passive instruments for the 35 furtherance of the aims of Moscow and Peking. In fact, long before the Sino-Soviet quarrel began, at least some of the fraternal parties were using Moscow to further their own private aims; now they are using both Moscow and Peking. One simple example, to set the tone. The Rumanian comrades have lately been making inviting gestures in the direction of China, which is a long way, and de fiant gestures in the direction of Russia, which is just across the border. Nobody in his senses would believe for one moment that Mr. Gheorghiu Dej and his colleagues, des perately trying to make the Rumanian economy work, are eager to join with the Chinese in a militant revolu tionary crusade, conducted in the teeth of Soviet disap proval, to shatter the last bastions of imperialism and capture Asia, Africa, Latin America for the cause. Like all Eastern or Cen tral European Communists, the Rumanians want, and need, a quiet life, not a nu clear holocaust. They are not interested in the outer world, except as an outlet for trade. Their object in appearing to flirt with -Peking has no other purpose than to warn the Russians of the present limits of Moscow’s authority. The Communist world, they are saying in effect, is not what it was. This is no time for you, Nikita Sergeievich, to start bulldozing our legitimate national aspi rations.- .You could do this once upon a time because you had all power; we lay in your shadow, and there was nowhere else for us to go. Now there is somewhere else for us to go. Moscow lost its virtue as the headquarters of a cohe rent and disciplined inter national movement when, with the death of Stalin, it lost the will and the strength to conduct itself imperially. When it comes to imposing an alien system on weak neighbors, there is no stable halfway house between ruth less discipline and chaos. The public defection of_ Chi na from the Muscovite cause (in which she was never se riously joined) merely high lights chaos. The first thing the West has to do is to start looking 36 Panorama at the world as it is and to think of it in terms of peo ples, races, nations (ancient and newly emergent) instead of in terms of blocs. Com munism means one thing in Italy, another in East Ger many, another in Poland, another in Sweden; some thing quite else in Indonesia, in Venezuela, in Syria. Stalin ruled by rigid disci pline. In the interests of the Soviet Union, Russian power and Russian gold were used to subvert idealists, rebels and intellectual thugs all over the world and to disci pline them into fifth colum nists active in the cause of Moscow. Those who queried Stalin’s orders or produced ideas of their own were ex pelled from the brotherhood, killed. 6f course the idea of in ternational Communism, of the dynamic of world revo lution, existed. It burned with a smoky flame in innu merable souls, some noble, some envious, some power seeking, some merely des tructive, all conspiratorial by nature. Some of these were Russians, a rapidly decreas ing band; but Stalin and his functionaries were not among them. This is not to say that their way of thinking was not heavily conditioned Joy ideas received from Lenin. It was. But the ends to which they applied this way of thinking were not Leninist ends; their assumption of absolute power inside the Soviet Union was facilitated by the almost schizoid dualism of Russian people. Lenin himself was driven by dreams of international brotherhood — until, with t h e responsibilities and harassments of power upon him, he was forced increas ingly to identify himself with Russian ends and to adapt himself to Russian, as distinct from Marxist, met hods. But the dream was real enough, and for a long time it had nothing to do with natonialism or Russian power All the peoples of the world were to advance on lines evposed in a clearcut his torical formula, involving vio lent revolution and the tem porary dictatorship of the proletariat After that (here the vision was hazy, but oil the more exciting for it) they were to dwell together in September 1963 37 concord, according to their different national habits, each for each and all for all. In this dream, which did not last long in the Soviet Union, there was indeed a Commu nist menace — not a Russian menace as later, under Stalin, but a world-wide series of linked internal menaces to the then ruling classes of all lands. Seamier side The Leninist dream still lingers on in some quarters (not Russia; not, one would say, China; and not notice ably among the leading cad res of the 89 fraternal par ties), but it does not cut much ice. The remarkable thing is that it survived Sta in at all. K h r u s hchev discourses upon it with warmth, enthusiam and, sometimes, wit. “We shall bury you!” he cheerfully exclaims. But this prophecy is full of semantic pitfalls. Who are “we”? And who are "you”? If by “you” Khrushchev means a whole range of enterpreneurs, from the late Mr. Rachman up to quite a height, symbol izing the seamier side of what we optimistically call the capitalist system, then how right he is: but then "we” includes all the rest of us. If by "we” he means the Soviet bloc — the Warsaw Pact Powers — and "you” the Western Alliance, then he is asking for trouble and he knows it. But if he means by "we” Moscow Commu nism and by "you” every thing against it, then the West has an imposing new comrade in arms disposing of 650 million souls, increas ing at the rate of 30 million a year. It is more to the point to ask what Khrushchev means by Communism, and only he can supply- the answer. His statements, as so far deliver ed do not take us very far. Lenin's apocalyptic dream appears in his mind to have been reduced to the quest for material abundance, leisure, and culture to fill in time: the kind of thing Bri tish Prime Ministers are re buked for in the leader-pages of The Times. A menace to the higher values it may well be; but it is not what we mean by the Communist me nace, or even the Russian menace. Nor is it what many of the fraternal parties mean by 38 Panorama Communism. The Chinese have shown themselves espe cially bitter and contemptu ous of Khrushchev’s unex pressed slogan: Prosperity for the Soviet Union first — and good luck to the rest of the comrades! And Chineste cri ticism here is sharply echoed by poor, weak and aspiring people who inhabit backward areas over the greater part of the globe. No Rome Not for them the dream of “catching up with Ameri ca”: many of them would settle for a loaf of bread. The spectacle of Khruschev presiding comfortably over one of the “have” Powers, and arranging the world to fit in with his personal pros perity drive, does not appeal. To the have-nots, Chinese methods seem to have more to offer. But this is not to say that the fraternal com rades wish to exchange regi mentation in the interests of Soviet prosperity and power for regimentation in the in terest of Chinese imperial ambitions. If the Communist mono lith never really existed, the current image of two rival Communist Ropes is equally misleading. There is now no Rome at all. The focus of interest has shifted from Moscow and Peking to the individual fraternal parties all over the world, with more to come. Each has to be studied in the context of its own historical and geographical setting and tackled accordingly. But we know little about them. For example, we know that the Brazilian party which, though small, used to be so brilliantly organized under that most intelligent and per ceptive of Communist lead ers, Prestes, is now split right down the middle. We know that his rival, Grabois, is leading a militant, proChinese wing, which has now captured half the party, on a rapidly anti-American ticket. But we do not know to what extent Grabois is a fanatic, a convinced believer in Mao’s Road, recoiling in righteous indignation from the sophisticated gradualism of Prestes and looking for support from the angry, the impatient, the desperate who see their only hope in vio^ lent action soon or whether he is using China as a stalk Septempkr 1963 39 ing-horse in a personal bid to steal power from Prestes. If it comes to that, we do not know whether Prestes himself, so skilfully arguing Khrushchev’s line, regards the Russian comrades as the guardians of the true faith, or as Gringo barbarians use ful to Brazilian or LatinAmerican Communism be cause they have money to burn and an armament that frightens the Americans. The gentleness and sophistication of Prestes’s speech at the Moscow conference of Nov ember, 1960, warmly support ing Khrushchev against the Chinese, was in itself a re proach to the crudity of Rus sian methods. At the same meeting, Jesu Faria of Venezuela, who also supported the Russians, nevertheless indicated clearly that his respect for Khrush chev stopped well this side of idolatry. He supported Moscow because he thought Khrushchev’s policies more intelligent in the atomic age than Mao’s, and particularly because the Chinese had been actively engaged in trying to undermine his own authority over the Venezuelan party (oil again?). But he thought that many of the speakers at that meeting had been alto gether too uncritical of the Soviet comrades, who he said, had themselves committed many errors. He hoped that the Russians would be clever enough in future to devise' a system that would put an end to inter-party quarrel ling and prevent future schisms. Exasperation These remarks were a fore taste of more to come. The Cuban adventure last autumn did not at all redound to Khrushchev’s credit. If the Chinese had been more sub tle and had made at least some atempt to present their invasion of India'as anything but old-fashioned powerpolitics, had disguised their eagerness to do a Real-politik deal with Pakistan, had shown‘more concern for the fraternal comrades in S.E. Asia and less for Chinese na tionals in that area, and had resisted the temptation to boast of their contempt for the nucelar threat, which frightens most comrades, like all of us, out of their wits, they might have made much more headway. 40 Panorama It is probably not too much to say that, for a whole variety of reasons, the gen eral feeling among Commu nists in most countries about Russia and China is “A plague on both your houses!” Dismay, exasperation, some times contempt, are felt by many Communist leaders who were not privileged to be born Russian or Chinese in the face of the imbecilities and crudities displayed by the heirs of Ivan the Terrible and Confucius. In purely practical terms this quarrel, or the way it has been conducted, has alienated fellow-travellers and the ea ger members of "front” or ganizations all over the world, has bored to distraction the faithful who are trying to get on with the march to wards die millennium, has caused neophytes in darkest Africa to raise their eyebrows. In intellectual terms, it has plumbed depths of mental squalor which make, the flesh of the more intelligent Com munists creep. In political terms it has indicated that the senior partners of the Socialist camp are more in terested in their own power struggle than in the future of the movement. In the last resort, and for the time being, Russia will win when it comes to com manding the allegiance of the party as a whole. She has the money, the power and the prestige. It has yet to be proved that Mao’s soli citude for the weaker brethen is any deeper than Khrush chev’s: it is easy to appear solicitous when you have no thing much to give. Khrushchev, though an inferior dialectician to Mao and his worshippers has much more good sense. He is closer to the age we live in, and he is being dragged ever closer by the demands of fraternal comrades, such as Togliatti of Italy, who actual ly live in it. With his very vivid sense - of the calamitous nature of nuclear war (no doubt the Chinese are just as afraid but they dare not say so), he appeals directly to all those gdod comrades who do not want to be blown up. On a lower level, he is belov ed by many smaller parties, who know that their only hope of survival is to lie low for sometime to come. September 1963 41 He is one, also, with those parties who either rule or in habit countries with comparativey advanced economies, which, though they may dili gently beaver away (as in Britain) to make things dif ficult for their present mas ters, would nevertheless pre fer to live as desrtuctive mi norities in a comfortable land than inherit a ruin. More than this, Russia really has the last word, if she cares to say it, with parties which would naturally gravitate, one would say, to China: she has, for example, more to give to Laos (if she cares to give it) than the Chinese. But what does it all amount to? And where is the central leadership on the march to revolution? Khrush chev may reassure himself with Leninist slogans, but knows very well that for the forseeable future he is in terested above all in conso lidating Soviet power and se curity, avoiding war, and augmenting the prosperity of his country. There is no dy namism here. Warnings China cannot begin to pre tend to leadership of a world that embraces Europe and North America. Other par ties, though they may value Moscow’s support, have their own problems. When the Swedish Communist leader, Hagberg, announces to the Moscow Conference that the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat is outdated and that Swedish Commu nists are determined to co operate with the Swedish Socia Democrats, whom they see as a true workers’ party, the writing is on the wall (this was a secret speech among Communists, not an essay in propaganda). When Mr. Gollan, of Lon don, at the same meeting, reads the Chinese a lecture explaining that they have no conception of British ways and true appreciation of the strength of the British La bour movemen, he is also warning the Russians. As for Italy, Togliatti and Longo are already far out in a deeply heretical move to^ wards ‘'reformism." They are meeting with opposition within their own party, but it is not at all clear whether the "Chinese” wings in Pa dua and elswhere are moti vated by admiration for Mao 42 Panorama or dislike of Signor Togliatti. These uncertainties are legion. The only certain thing is that the proper way to approach the Communist menace is to pay less atten tion to Russia and China and a great deal more to the problems of the separate countries of the “Socialist camp” and to the discontents in our own midst. Each country that feels it can pro duce a better solution than the Communist solution should strain itself to the utmost to prove that it can — and help, even at a sacri fice, the weaker brethen.1 — The Observer, July 28, 1963. LESS DEMOCRACY? Carl L. Becker writes that one of the conditions essential to the success of democracy is a measure of economic security. “Democracy does not flour ish in communities on the verge of destitution. In ancient and medieval times democratic government appeared for the most part in cities, the centers of prosperity. In modern times democratic institutions have, generally speaking, been most successful in new countries, where the conditions of life have been easy for the people. Democracy is in some sense an eco nomic luxury, and it may be said that in modern times it has been a function of the development of new and potentially rich countries, or of the in? dustrial revolution which suddenly dowered Europe with unaccustomed wealth. Now that prosperity is disappearing round every next corner, democracy works less well than it did.” September 1963 43
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