VII
Totalitarian Expansionism and the Future
26
THE MILITARY ESTABLISHMENT
The degree to which a totalitarian movement succeeds in politicizing the army is indicative also of the extent to which the society itself has become totalitarian. Indeed, not the least striking distinction between modern totalitarian regimes and traditional dictatorships is the different ways in which they treat the armed forces. In the case of the latter, the army usually provides the actual power basis for such regimes and to a great extent retains its autonomy of action. Most of the traditional dictators of our age, such as Pilsud-ski, Kemal Pasha, or even Franco, not only based their power on the army, but actually came to power from the army and through the use of the army. Naturally, under such circumstances, the army tended to remain in a sacrosanct position, jealously watching its many prerogatives and privileges, and retaining a distinct political identity of its own. As developments in some of the non-European states, notably Turkey and Pakistan, suggest, that type of regime may have a distinct future wherever a totalitarian movement lacks adequate backing. Military dictatorships have in the past been typically concerned with maintaining the status quo. The new regimes are characterized by a progressive and modernizing outlook. (378; 22)
In a totalitarian system, the military is subject to the total claim of the movement and party. The totalitarian movement is the source of the dictator's power, despite occasional expedient compromises with other groups, particularly in the early stages of its development. As soon as power is seized, efforts are made to neutralize and then to integrate the armed forces into the totalitarian fabric. Indeed, in terms of the mature type of totalitarian system,
344 Expansionism and the Future
the ultimate goal is to make the armed forces into a mere branch off the totalitarian party. The army would be then a sort of totalitarian militia, supporting the external policies of the regime in much the same way that the totalitarian secret police buttresses the regime's domestic policies.
Political necessity, however, creates its own imperatives. When Hitler seized power in 1933, the political situation was such that any immediate effort to limit the influence of the Reichswehr would have been disastrous for the NSDAP. The totalitarian dictator realized that he held power thanks, to some extent, to the tolerance and benevolent neutrality of the armed forces, and he was not yet in a position to do away with them. (349a) Another factor of paramount importance in temporarily maintaining the integrity of the; Reichswehr was the internal struggle for power between Hitler and Goering, on the one side, and the more radical, revolutionary elements led by Rohm and his storm troopers, on the other. Rohm's. program of integrating the army into the SA so as to create even-^ tually a party pretorian guard played into Hitler's hands, but it also aided the continued maintenance of Reichswehr independence. It played into Hitler's hands because it induced the army to back him in the final showdown. Precisely because Hitler needed this backing, he was unable to act vigorously against the army in the: fashion in which he acted against the other Weimar institutions. The attack on the army had to wait.
The army was thus able to resist, passively at least, the process of totalitarian subjugation. Nazi foreign-policy goals, furthermore, postulated the need for strong armed forces, to be built up as rapidly as possible. This again made it inexpedient for the Hider regime, even after solidly entrenching itself in power, to attack the army. Such an effort would have produced obvious dislocation and confusion and would have most likely impaired the fighting capacity of the new Wehrmacht. The officer corps, on the other hand, while often not masking its suspicions of the domestic political objectives of the regime, could not fail to note that at long last it was getting all the sinews of war it needed. The marriage of convenience was thus bearing fruit.
In fact, as the Nazi controls were gradually strengthened, it became fashionable to remark that so-and-so has "emigrated into the Army," clearly implying that there at least one was relatively free
Ch. 26
The Military Establishment
345
from totalitarian control and could pursue, to a degree, one's career on a purely professional basis. Such a situation, however, was anomalous and could not last within the framework of a totalitarian revolution. Even before the outbreak of the war in 1939, a number of leading German generals, such as Blomberg, Beck, and Fritsch, were removed from command and replaced by more spineless officers. At the same time, young Nazi stalwarts were being increasingly introduced into the lower command echelons. This process naturally became more marked as the war casualties took their toll, while the later reversals and defeats resulted in the appointment of Hitler partisans to the top command posts.
This process of penetration of the army with politically devoted elements was not the only method used by the Nazis to neutralize and integrate the armed forces. The fact is that, despite all these efforts, Hitler and his lieutenants were never fully certain of the loyalty of the officer corps, and the events of July 1944 bore out the correctness of their suspicions. For this reason, even while strengthening the Wehrmacht, the German political leadership set busily about developing a parallel military structure, which was to be the pretorian guard of the National Socialist movement and a countervailing force to the professional army. The SS, accordingly, became a second army, independent of the OKW (High Command), and at its peak could boast of over 800,000 elite troops, organized in some 40 divisions.
The unsuccessful uprising of July 20, 1944, further enhanced the position of the SS, and Himmler was given the task of commanding all the reserve armies on the home front. At the same time, a thorough and bloody purge took a heavy toll of the Army High Command, a large part of which was implicated. (386; 123c; 46f; 302) A particular effort was made to humiliate the condemned officers, and some of them were hanged in the nude on meat hooks. In an effort to institutionalize direct party controls in the armed forces, Martin Bormann, the party secretary, was given command of a network of political officers of the commissar type, known as NSFO (Nationalsoziab'stische Fiihrungs-Offiziere, or leadership officers). Their task was to make certain of the political loyalty of the military. The party secretary, and not the military, was also charged with the task of creating the Volkssturm, a sort of home guard of old men and youngsters, for the purpose of a last-ditch
34Ö
Expansionism and the Future
Ch. 26
The Military Establishment
stand. This process of complete politization of the army, howeve came too late, for within ten months the German military machine itself fell apart.
In Italy, as in Germany, the totalitarians after seizing power had to cope with an established army and a professional officer corps. Here, throughout the Fascist era, the army remained a haven for royalist sentiments and a source of latent, and finally active, opposition to Mussolini. Indeed, the fall of the dictator in the summer of 1943 was engineered by the combined resources of the royal court and the military high command. Mussolini, after being dismissed as Capo del Governo by King Victor Emmanuel, was arrested on the steps of the Quirinale palace and transported away in a military ambulance. These technical arrangements of the coup were symbolic of the military forces that Fascism had shrunk from destroy, ing.
At the time of the march on Rome, the Italian army was the only force capable of defending the liberal and democratic order against the rising power of the Fascists. Mussolini, therefore, was extremely careful not to offend the armed forces, and at every occasion he emphasized both his hostility to pacifism (exemplified by his military service and wounds) and the Fascist admiration for the "Army of Victory." Even after the seizure of power and the reorganization of the original squadristi (the armed guards of the Fascist Party) into the Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale (MVSN), the army leaders were assured that the MVSN was merely an auxiliary arm of the party and would not threaten the army's monopoly of the uniform and the sword. "The officers of the militia are the chiefs of the revolution; the officers of the army are the architects of the military machine which won the war. Mussolini does not intend to use the army as a political arm," said an early Fascist statement. (92)
As in the case of Germany, the foreign ambitions of the regime made necessary a strong army with a high professional morale. For this reason the Fascist regime felt it inexpedient to engage in a headlong clash with the military circles that were needed for the expansion of the armed forces and that appeared to be content with the Fascist program of rapid armament. A pragmatic modus vi-vendi seems to have developed and, although since the military reor-
347
ganization of 1926 the Duce had been in command of the armed forces with the chief of staff directly responsible to him, no direct process of politicizing the military was launched. In fact, during the rapid expansion of the army during the thirties, although MVSN was not integrated into the regular units as shock troops, its units were during the Ethiopian war placed under the command of army officers. During World War II efforts were made to promote young Fascists to leading posts, but to the very end senior officers of a royalist orientation generally remained part of the professional cadres. The fact that the top staffs were not members of the Fascist Party made possible the secret negotiations between the Allied and Italian high commands in 1943, prior to the official surrender of Italy. For a brief spell afterwards, Mussolini, upon his spectacular release from captivity by Skorzeny's German paratroopers, attempted to build up, on the basis of the former MVSN, his own Republican Fascist Army under the command of one of the few higher officers who remained true to Fascism, Marshal Graziani. These efforts, however, were merely the last gasps of Fascism.
Italian Fascist experience with the armed forces, as well as the ambivalent attitude of the Fascist movement toward the monarchy, raises once more the important question of whether Italy may legitimately be included as an example of a totalitarian system. On the one hand, it is important to point out that the Fascist movement in Italy never fully succeeded in mastering and politicizing the military. On the other hand, party and military agents influenced military policy, promotions, and the like, as brought out in the Bastroc-chi trial. There prevailed a genuine dualism between army and MVSN until the outbreak of World War II, the army being much smaller than the MVSN with its 700,000 men. After the outbreak of the war, the position of the party rapidly deteriorated. No such organization as the Waffen-SS was developed in Italy, but then Italy only "joined" the war and became increasingly dependent upon Germany in the course of it. Yet, until 1939, the party and its militia effectively held the army in check, and no such coup as the one in Argentina which overthrew Peron's dictatorship would have been possible. (120h) When the impact of outside blows and military defeats made it clear that Fascism was leading Italy to ruin, the military, with the collusion of the monarchy, was able to shake off
348
Expansionism and the Future
Ch. 26
The Military Establishment
349
the controls superimposed upon it by the Fascist leadership and take effective action of the type that their colleagues in German} were not able to initiate successfully.
The situation in Russia was quite different from that in German) or Italy after the totalitarian seizure of power. The tsarist army { disintegrated completely under the stresses of war and domestic sedition. The Bolshevik revolution was achieved with scattered, unequipped, and ill-trained Red Guards and the Kronstadt sailors, j The great masses of the soldiers merely drifted home, casting away their weapons. The army of the ancien regime was no more. But this, initially at least, did not trouble the Bolsheviks. For many years the army had been in their eyes the symbol of imperial oppression, and Marxist theory emphasized frequently that this coercive tool must be destroyed, together with the state it buttressed. Lenin, for instance, declared: "A standing army is an army that is divorced from the people and trained to shoot down the people ... A standing army is not in the least necessary to protect the country from an attack of the enemy; a people's militia is sufficient." (205i)
As in the German case, however, political imperatives intervened. The Civil War, efforts to invade the Baltic states, and the Russo-Polish war could not be fought with nonprofessionals under modern conditions of weaponry. A revolutionary army had therefore to 1 be created to defend the revolution against counterrevolutionary coups and to spread the red banner to adjoining areas. This revolutionary army had to have leaders, and the only available officers were former tsarist commanders. The Bolsheviks had no choice but:, to accept them and give them the command of the newly created Red Army of Workers and Peasants. Trotsky, the organizer of the Red Army, rationalized it thus: "As industry needs engineers, as farming needs qualified agronomists, so military specialists are indispensable to defense." (357) Some 48,000 former tsarist officers were accordingly given command posts in the revolutionary army.
The regime, however, was fearful of a Bonapartist coup and was determined to prevent it. One of the first steps taken in connection with the admission of former officers into the ranks of the new army was to decree that political commissars would supervise the operations of the military commanders. The commissars were given: power to countermand orders and even to arrest the commanders whenever it was deemed necessary. Their function was defined as
follows: "The military commissars are the guardians of the close and inviolable inner bond between the Red Army and the workers' and peasants' regime as a whole. Only irreproachable revolutionaries, staunch champions of the proletariat and the village poor, should be appointed to the posts of military commissars, to whom is handed over the fate of the Army." (373) Following the conclu-. sion of hostilities, the new Soviet regime at first decided not to set up a centralized military organization, but rather to rely on a decentralized territorial militia army. This plan, however, soon proved to be inefficient and by the mid-thirties energetic efforts were being made to develop a centralized, hierarchically commanded army. By then most of the tsarist officers had been weeded out, and a Soviet-trained officers' corps had replaced them. (387) Still, Stalin continued to suspect the army command, and in 1936-1938 most of the higher-ranking Soviet officers were eliminated in a series of lightning and fierce purges. The situation was thus radically different from both the German and the Italian cases.
During the same time the regime was making certain that the officer corps was composed of loyal elements, an institutional framework of controls was being constructed to ensure that loyalty. In its Stalinist form, which with minor modifications continues to the present, it combined a tripartite network of political officers, party cells, and secret-police agents. (40a) The political officers, who were no longer known as commissars but as Zampolits (abbreviation for Deputy Commanders for Polidcal Affairs), existed in every unit, starting with the company, and were responsible to their own superiors for the political loyalty of their men as well as the officers. At the apex of the political officers' network stood the Main Political Administration of the Soviet Armed Forces (GPUVS), which was also a section of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. The Zampolits wielded considerable power and were particularly important through their periodic assessments of the state of political consciousness of the officers and men. In order to stimulate that consciousness, they organized constant political activities and conducted regular indoctrination study courses. Since then the party, in keeping with the general trend, has continued to play a significant role. To be sure, in the first few years after Stalin's death, there was a marked tendency for the military to achieve a measure of independence. This came to an end when Marshal Zhukov was purged
M
350 Expansionism and the Future
under accusation of having encouraged such a trend, as well as seeking personal glorification, while failing to give the party adequate recognition for its contribution to the victorious war. (449a) In fact, Zhukov and his associates had manifested a high degree of independence in revising the old Stalinist doctrines. Khrushchev accepted compromises, as long as he needed the army's neutrality in the succession struggle. Once he had achieved predominance, he made short shrift of the military. (89aa; 209d; 240f) Party primacy was re-established; the memory of Lenin's position was conjured up; the political officers were up-graded; and a measure of interchange between the political and military officers was organized. At the same time, party units were reinforced by an intensive drive for party members among soldiers and sailors. Their criticism of higher-ups was encouraged, and the party remained pre-eminent. Thus the party cells organize the activities of the party members serving in the armed forces and are the nerve centers for propaganda and agitation among the troops. What was said of Stalin's day is even more true now, because of the more vital role of the party in Soviet life. "The party organizations of the armed forces are an organic part of the Bolshevik Party . . . They enlightened the Red Army men, cemented their ranks, implanted strictest discipline among them, rallied them around the Bolshevik Party and educated them in the spirit of selfless devotion to the motherland and the cause of Communism." (424a) In keeping with such views, party members are charged with organizing small study circles to read party literature. They sponsor special movies for the troops and devote their leisure time to the indoctrination of the non-Communist military personnel. The party organizations thus provide the necessary support to the official functions of the political apparatus in the army. (424b) The Main Political Administration has continued to wield its massive controls down to the battalion level, with Zampolits in charge.
In the event that these controls fail to ensure a positive and enthusiastic approval for the Soviet regime, the secret police may step in. Secret-police officers operate in all units, starting with the regiment, and are charged with the general task of security. They are to make certain that no "disloyal" elements penetrate the Soviet armed forces. However, the role of the secret police has considerably declined. The testimony of former Soviet officers, according to
Ch. 26
The Military Establishment
351
which the secret police carried on extended activities, especially during the war, may no longer be valid. (40b) Still, the KGB representatives are there, and their counterintelligence work is extensive. Not very much is known in detail. The secret-police special sections, while subject to their commanders, are responsible to and report directly to their own command in Moscow.
Communist China did not face the problem of the military in the same way that the Soviet Union did. Since the Communist movement grew slowly in the twenties and thirties as a military formation, the Chinese military establishment has from the beginning been an integral part of the system. Presumably the problem is not so much one of control as it is one of effective professionalization. Little is known about progress in this direction, but during the Korean War the Chinese gave an impressive demonstration of their fighting ability with conventional weapons. A similar situation has existed in Cuba. Here, too, the original thrust came from the very elements that had been fighting under Castro, and no independent military cadres are troubling the regime. With the inspirational leader as the top fighting man, crowned with all the glory of military success, the characteristic conflict with civilians has been absent. In both regimes, the totalitarian claim was in part born of military necessity and military operation. This may help to explain the radicalism of their revolutionary violence.
In the Soviet Union, too, the politization of the army is nearly complete. In October 1962, it was reported that almost 90 percent of all Soviet officers were party members or Komsomolites, and for the entire military establishment the figure was 82 percent. (441s) It is therefore evident that any expectation of separate action by the military in these totalitarian regimes is highly unrealistic. There is no doubt a "military viewpoint" urged in party and government arguments over policy issues, but the leader's view is practically certain to prevail. It is he who controls the essential levers and he who may "press the button" that would unleash nuclear war. Hence the armed forces are an integral part of the totalitarian system, poised for attack in support of the regime's policy of world-revolutionary expansionism, entrenched for the defense of an armed camp. National sentiment and traditional patriotism serve to reinforce this commitment of the military to the established regime. (116) This state of affairs does not exclude the possibility of the
352 Expansionism and the Future
military's playing a considerable role in cooperation with dissident elements in the party. The military constitutes an important interest group in the Soviet system, and it may not be ignored. The removal of Khrushchev has caused a good deal of discussion concerning the share the military had in his fall. As has been noted, there was some rather sharp criticism of his defense and weapon policies, which aroused the ire of some branches of the military, especially the conventional forces. Even so, it is impossible at this writing to assess the influence that the military might have had on the dramatic events of October 1964. Whatever it was, the basic fact of the integration of the military into the Soviet regime was never put into jeopardy. Under modern conditions of a government's monopoly of effective weapons, the military's commitment to the regime provides not only a powerful instrument for foreign policy, but also a firm protection for the regime's survival.
Of the totalitarian systems subjected to analysis in this chapter, it is the Communists' handling of the army which comes closest to the model image of the complete integration of the military into the totalitarian movement. Such a process is not without obstacles, and former Soviet military personnel testify to the constant strains and tensions these controls themselves generate. It is very doubtful, however, that the existing impediments to political indoctrination and integration are in themselves sufficient to produce anything like a major crisis in the totalitarian control of the armed forces, as long as the system is not itself subjected to a major challenge from the outside. Only then could latent dissatisfaction and hostility develop into a positive reaction against totalitarian control. But even under such circumstances, if Fascist and Soviet experience during World War II has any meaning, the likelihood of a successful military coup is doubtful. (99a; 386b) This, in itself, constitutes a significant difference between totalitarianism and the older traditional dictatorships.
27
THE FOREIGN POLICY OF EXPANSION
"Workers of the world, unite!" is the summary slogan of the Communist Manifesto. It is the call to world revolution to which the Soviet Union has at least ideologically steadfastly adhered. "Today Germany, tomorrow the world!" was the battlecry of the Nazi Party, as Hitler set out for aggression and war. These virulent world-revolutionary appeals are an innate part of totalitarian dictatorship. They correspond to the "passion for unanimity" which these regimes display in their dealings with the people already under their control, and also indicate their inherent propensity for disturbing the peace. There can be little doubt that, without an outward projection against a real or imaginary enemy, these regimes could not marshal the fanatical devotion the system requires for survival. Such a projection may be actualized, as in the Soviet Union, China, Germany, and Italy, or it may be potential or even vicarious, as in the satellites. Nor is this merely a matter of size; for Cuba, though small, is radically expansionist, and so is Ghana. (442c) Wherever the world-revolutionary call is heard, the political community is in a permanent state of emergency and causes other countries to be similarly alerted. How to cope with the constant emergency created by the totalitarians has therefore become one of the most serious problems for constitutional and democratic regimes. These governments are further handicapped by the priority of domestic over foreign policy. (106) Curiously enough, the Communists have actually proclaimed this priority as a principle of their own foreign policy. (209e) But in view of their world-revolutionary goals, the claim is patently hypocritical. Hitler and Mussolini were more candid in this respect; they both expounded the older doctrine
354 Expansionism and the Future
of "reason o£ state" (108) and its corollary, the principle of "primacy of foreign policy." Again and again the cry is heard that some kind of accommodation must be found, some over-all agreement be reached, through a summit conference or through traditional diplomacy. Advocates of these projects never seem to realize that nothing worse could happen to a totalitarian system than such general pacification, since it would deprive it of its enemies. To appeal for peace while at the same time doing everything to prevent it from "breaking out" is a key feature of the relations of a totalitarian dictatorship with the rest of the world.
This problem has been aggravated by the inability of democratic states to adjust themselves to the fact that the totalitarians completely reject the traditional patterns of diplomatic behavior in the international arena. Such behaviorial patterns, institutionalized by custom and the usage of many years, are embodied in a certain ritual and certain consequent niceties. In a sense, therefore, diplomatic protocol — guiding the general conduct of international affairs and conferences — serves to limit the area of diplomatic warfare to accepted fields of battle, and the actual conduct of the warfare to mutually accepted weapons. The totalitarians accept all these to the extent that such rules and conventions do not limit their freedom of action; the moment they do, they reject them unhesitatingly.
The totalitarian dictator thus proclaims total freedom of action for the achievement of his total goals. The startled world, accustomed, during the last one hundred years at least, to traditional diplomatic manners, thought it extremely bad taste for Ribbentrop, when presenting his credentials as Hitler's Ambassador to the Court of St. James, to greet the astonished English monarch with a resounding "Heil Hitler!" The world probably forgot, however, that a similar act of scornful rejection of established international manners had already occurred more than fifteen years earlier, when the first Soviet delegation arrived at Brest-Litovsk to negotiate with the stiff and formal German delegates. As soon as the Soviet delegation had detrained and exchanged official greetings with the German representatives, Radek, who accompanied the Soviet delegation, broke loose and began to distribute revolutionary tracts among the curious German military onlookers gathered at the station.
Ch. 27 Foreign Policy 355
The democratic states are thus confronted with a pattern of behavior completely at variance with their own. The totalitarian operations are designed always in terms of their goals, and restrictions are only reluctantly accepted. The diplomatic notes of such regimes, for instance, are usually couched in language that a few decades ago would have constituted a casus belli for any self-respecting nation.* Abuse, tendentious lies, and vituperation are all part of the normal contents of a note from a totalitarian dictator, be it from Nazi Germany a few years ago or from Communist China today. To a student of modern totalitarianism this should come as no surprise. For such notes, mirroring in part the totalitarian vision of the world, are not really meant to further understanding between nations, as the citizens of a democratic state would desire. They are tools that are aimed either at forging domestic opinion or at shattering the morale of the opponent. This attitude has become so embedded in totalitarian practice that now even notes designed to influence wavering foreign opinion, as for instance the 1954 Soviet notes to France on the European Defense Community or Khrushchev's Vienna memorandum for President Kennedy on Germany, cannot abstain from inserting a few vituperative remarks about capitalist or imperialist aspirations.
Similarly, in international conferences, the totalitarians have succeeded frequendy in subsdtuting competition in vituperation, in which they have a definite edge, for a more formal type of negotiation. At the same time, much to the amazement of more conventional statesmen, negotiators of the totalitarian dictator, particularly Communist ones, utilize such meetings for open appeals to the populations of their opponents, urging them to rise and revolt. It was truly two baffled men who, in the persons of Ambassador Kuehlmann and General Hoffman, reported to Berlin in January 1918 on the first negotiations with the Soviet delegates. What perplexed them, presumably, was that the Brest-Litovsk conference had become the first international gathering where a green table was used as a soap box for agitation. It was there that Trotsky declared on his and his colleagues' behalf that "we do not belong to the diplomatic school. We should rather be considered as soldiers of the revolution." (397) This kind of conduct has by now become
* One need only to recall the famous Ems Dispatch and the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 as an example.
356
Expansionism and the Future
established practice. Soviet leaders use foreign conferences, as we as domestic occasions, to couple denunciations of the leaders of the West with ringing appeals to the "brotherly" English and American peoples.
A striking demonstration of the agitational character of totalitarian diplomacy was provided by the Khrushchev-Bulganin visit to I India and Burma in November and December 1955. Western diplo- I mats were appalled by the brutal tone and mendacious character of the speeches delivered by the Soviet leaders to throngs of cheering Indians and Burmese. Completely disregarding the possibility that i their remarks might embarrass their hosts, Khrushchev and Bul-ganin used every opportunity to vilify the West, accusing it of aS variety of imagined crimes ranging from helping Hider attack Russia to planning to subvert the newly won freedom of the Asian peoples (most of which had been granted by the West). What surprised Western observers had failed to learn is that totalitarian leaders refuse to consider state visits in the light of traditional Western diplomacy, which harks back to ancient customs of royal courtesies and polite exchanges of hospitality. To them, such an occasion is an opportunity to make open propaganda against the enemy. It has been something of a surprise to many that the same kind of distortion and misrepresentation has also been characteristic of communication between the Soviet Union and Communist China. It had previously occurred in the relations between the USSR and Yugoslavia, and it had, of course, been typical of the language exchanged between the Communists and the Fascists. These intertotalitarian exchanges demonstrate the "naturalness" of such discourse and its logical relation to the totalitarian mentality.
Naturally, then, normal exchange of diplomatic representatives is considered by the totalitarian dictator to be part of the total struggle. His diplomats, while insisting on the customary diplomatic privileges, do not hesitate to serve as organizers of fifth columns or underground cells and espionage networks. At the same time efforts are made to deny even the customary privileges to democratic diplomats in the totalitarian zones of influence; instead they cause continuous trouble, ranging from severe travel restrictions to* such wanton acts as the imprisonment of the American consu Lester Ward in Mukden or the murder of the Polish consul genera Matusinski in Kiev in 1939. This, to a totalitarian dictator, is merelj
Ch. 27
Foreign Policy
357
a question of tactics, and it may help to illustrate the fundamental operational differences between democratic and totalitarian relations with the world. Still, the totalitarians regard international law as an important tool in foreign policy; in fact, Soviet diplomats are both skillful and rigid in their exploitation of legal advantage, and international law has become a field of intense, if one-sided, scholarly activity in the Soviet Union. (174; 401a) The ideological cast of its outlook may be gleaned from a standard definition given by a leading Soviet jurist: "International law can be defined as the aggregate of rules governing relations between states in the process of their conflict and cooperation, designed to safeguard their peaceful coexistence, expressing the will of the ruling classes of these states and defended in the case of need by coercion applied by states individually or collectively" (italics added). The instrumental nature of international law as a tool in the international class war is clearly brought out. (410a; 221a)
A review of the intricacies of totalitarian foreign policy in its detailed development is beyond the scope of our analysis. (38; 224; 106; 14; 97) But it is of great importance to study the general problems presented by this world-revolutionary premise of the totalitarian dictator. Before we consider the similarities between the different systems, one basic difference between fascist and communist dictatorships must be pointed out. It is found in the field of ideology (see Chapter 7). Fascists of all shades glorify war. The glorification of war by Mussolini, as he preached the resurrection of "the grandeur that was Rome," is well known. The theme was elaborated upon by Hitler. War was the necessary school for men, Hitler insisted, and only through the trials of the warrior could the manly virtues be developed and maintained. His views were echoed in speeches and writings of Nazi subleaders again and again. "Every German who by his blood belongs to the great community of the German people is first a soldier, a fighter for his nation," Victor Lutze, chief of the SA, told a group of foreign diplomats and press representatives on January 24, 1936. In an official publication on the training of German youth for military service by Hell-mut Stellrecht, published in 1935, we read that "it is absurd to make a man a soldier for two years only, and after he is grown up. The preparation for military service ought to begin in the earliest possible years of youth, and should be continued and extended until the
358
Expansionism and the Future
culminating point of training is reached by service in the army." Similarly, the Italian Balilla had stated: "Therefore, everyone of you must consider himself a soldier, a soldier even when he is not wearing the green-gray uniform, a soldier also when he is at work ... a soldier bound to the rest of the army." (95a)
In lieu of many other such passages, Mussolini may be cited for the key proposition, later reiterated again and again by him as well as others: "Fascism . . . believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace . . . War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have the courage to meet it. All other trials are substitutes, which never really put men into the position where they have to make the great decision — the alternatíve of life and death." (95b) This glorification of war and the warrior, which rests on the ideological stress laid on a collective command over the total dedication of the individual, stands at the center of the fascist view of man. (123d; 127b; 266e) It contrasts sharply with the communist emphasis on the worker. For the communist, war is primarily the war of classes rather than of nations. But this class war, which culminates in revolution, is not considered in itself a good. Indeed, the eventual world order of communism is said to be a peaceful order, although communism rejects the possibility of genuine peace between communism and capitalism. This rejection is the result of what the Soviets consider a realistic view of imperialist and capitalist warmongers and their plots against the "socialist fatherland." Their readiness to prepare for war is due to the bellicose view of man as a class-bound being, motivated by economic interest; but somehow all this bellicosity will, they claim, end when the world revolution has been consummated. War is a necessary means to the end the Communist strives for; it is not an end in itself. The conflict between Moscow and Peking is in part cast in terms of an argument over the interpretation of these positions. Obviously, neither Marx nor Lenin addressed himself to the problem of whether international war, especially when involving nuclear weapons of total destruction, should be waged as part of the class struggle. Mao has said that even 900 million casualties would not be too great a price to pay for transforming the world into a communist one, to which the Soviets replied that this was criminal adven-
Ch. 27 Foreign Policy 359
turism and asked whether this view would be shared by the millions thus to be sacrificed. (240g) Still, Mao does not glorify war for its own sake, as did the Fascists.
That is why the Communist leaders are able to profess simultaneously, and probably with some degree of sincerity, their contradictory beliefs in the possibility of coexistence of communist and capitalist worlds and in the inevitability of conflict between the two, ending in the total extinction of the capitalist world. Soviet leaders have frequently gone on record as believing in peaceful coexistence, and many quotations to this effect could be cited. This was also true of Stalin, who told an American interviewer in 1947: "Yes, of course. This [coexistence] is not only possible, it is reasonable and fully realizable. At the most tense times during the war differences in form of government did not prevent our two countries from uniting and conquering our enemy. To an even greater degree it is possible to retain these relations in peace time." (427) This view was implied in a reaffirmation in a declaration of a congress of Communist parties in 1960, which said: "Peaceful coexistence does not mean a reconciliation of socialist and bourgeois ideologies. On the contrary, it assumes intensification of the struggle of the working class and of all Communist parties for the triumph of socialist ideas." (328a; 172b; 221b)
This position follows quite logically from what we have previously said concerning the Communists' conviction in the ultimate victory of their cause. It is precisely because they assume, on allegedly scientific grounds, that capitalism is doomed that they are willing to coexist with it. For peaceful coexistence to them is by no means a static situation. In the communist conception of reality, such coexistence does not stop the unfolding of history, which the Communists feel they must further, and the fall of capitalism still remains the object of feverish activity despite the absence of a major armed conflict. Indeed, war is a means, but only one of many; other means frequently as effective are social and economic decay, antico-lonial eruptions, and racial strife. Only when they fail may war be necessary. Thus Molotov was not contradicting Stalin when he declared that "the feverish efforts of imperialists, under whom the ground is giving way, will not save capitalism from its approaching doom. We are living in an age in which all roads lead to Commu-
36°
Expansionism and the Future
Ch. 27
Foreign Policy
361
nism." (441£) The same view has been expressed many times by Khrushchev, who re-emphasized such expansionism in connection with his efforts at revitalizing the party and its ideology.
Does any practical importance attach to this difference in oudook on war between the Fascists and the Communists? To the democratic statesman, confronted with the Soviet Union today, the difference is primarily this: it makes the Soviet Union a morel dangerous enemy in the long run. While it was foolish to doubt the warlike propensities of Hitler and to assume that they could be appeased, it is probably unwise to assume that the USSR will seize the first chance that is offered by superiority in nuclear weapons to | attack the United States. (116) The Soviets, as they gain strength1, may become bolder in challenging the American position in contested areas; they are likely to remain circumspect about a general war. One does not have to accept at face value the protestations of those who claim that the leaders of the Soviet Union are confident about the eventual victory of Marxism that they will not see any reason for starting wars. Stalin, at one point, is said to have told an English visitor who queried him on this point that every so often a kick well administered might help a lot. But such kicks, such limited wars, are means toward achieving the over-all end of world revolution; they are not something to be gloried in for their own sake.*
Although the struggle for world conquest that is the totalitarian' natural bent has certain affinities with the imperialism of a preceding age, the two must not be misunderstood as identical. Mussolini, to be sure, wrote that "imperialism is the eternal immutable law of life." To him, the would-be warrior, imperialism was "at bottom; nothing other than the need, the desire, and the will to expansion which every individual and every live and vital people possess." He added that "imperialism is not, as is usually thought, necessarily aristocratic and military. It may be democratic, pacific, economic, spiritual." (95c) But such a broad conception of imperialism blurs the significant features. Hannah Arendt rightly observes that "imperialism is not empire building and expansion is not conquest." (5d)5ji
• The only Marxist writer of note who leaned toward glorifying violence for its own sake was Georges Sorel who, in his Reflexions sur la violence, stressed the value of bloody combat for the development of the morale of the proletariat. Mussolini acknowledged his indebtedness to Sorel. See the illuminating preface to the: English edition by E. A. Shils (Glencoe, 1950).
1
They are all related, but should be clearly distinguished. And the conquest of the world for a totalitarian movement is something else again. While the older imperialism was an outgrowth of the industrial economy, the will to conquer the world that animates the totalitarian systems is intimately linked with their ideological preoccupations. It is the outward thrust of that passion for unanimity which brooks no disagreement with what the movement proclaims as "the truth."
As a consequence, the totalitarian attack is a continuing one. It takes the form of organizing subversive activities within communities abroad, based upon the ideology of the movement. The Italian Fascists and the German Nazis tried in countries like the United States to mobilize those elements which by background and tradition "belonged" in their camp. At one time, immediately preceding the United States's entry into World War II, all the programs in the Italian language broadcast in Boston were in the hands of Fascist agents. (411) The Nazi Bund sought to provide effective support for Hitler's party line, especially among German-Americans. (23) Similar activities were carried on wherever there were German minorities that could be organized for this purpose. A particularly dramatic instance was the large-scale subversion undertaken by the Sudeten German organizations of National Socialist bent, which eventually comprised a large percentage of the German-speaking population of Czechoslovakia. (35) Hitler acknowledged this development in the spring of 1938 and made it the basis of an annexationist appeal. In his speech before the Reichstag on February 20, 1938, he spoke of ten million "Germans" who lived in Austria and Czechoslovakia and announced that the protection of their personal, political, and convictional freedom was a national interest of the German Reich. Similar thoughts recur throughout his speeches and writings. (150; 151; 191) Eventually the policy was generalized to include all sympathizers with Hitler's notions, regardless of nationality. But the resultant policy of organizing fifth columns, led by quislings, was less successful than is commonly assumed, as careful research has revealed. (165)
These efforts, while dangerous enough, were more easily dealt with than the world-wide movement of Communist parties, because of the limited appeal that the supremacy of a particular "folk" has for the rest of the world. In some countries, the Communist Party
362 Expansionism and the Future
has been outlawed, but there is no country in the world in whic there does not exist such a party, and in some of them it is large enough to affect the nation's political decisions whenever a major disagreement develops. The substantial majority for the European Defense Community that existed in France outside Communist ranks was routed by the Communists when they made common cause with its opponents from other quarters. (398) This is only perhaps the most striking instance of the "enemy within" effectively determining a country's foreign policy by parliamentary means. Similar results are continually achieved in France and Italy, though rarely in other countries where the party is not strong enough. In these places, the Communist Party devotes its efforts to infiltrating the government services, the educational institutions, and more particularly the trade unions. This latter effort can be very serious, if the unions concerned happen to operate vital key industries which might cripple an effective defense effort. Even in the United States, where Communism is notoriously weak, some unions have been under Communist domination. (61; 323; 26; 80)
Communist subversion has often been able to penetrate the higher levels of governmental and professional work, as a number o£ trials in Britain, Germany, France and the United States have shown. But it has not achieved significant proportions. It is precisely this ability of the Communists to recruit local supporters that makes them so much more effective and dangerous than the Nazis. Communist control over the captive nations in Eastern Europe, much more stable than under the Nazi occupation, owes a great deal not only to the actual Soviet military occupation, which was instrumental in seizing power, but also to the ability to raise local cadres, which then could penetrate easily any attempts to develop an anti-Communist underground. Under these circumstances repressive measures are far more effective. (39b)
This "strategy of terror," which has been made even more unset-ding by the development of nuclear weapons that presumably could be placed in strategic centers by a relatively small group of saboteurs without too much difficulty or even danger of detection, has not so far been met by any significant countermoves by those opposed to the totalitarian dictatorships. The timid efforts to broadcast cheering bits of information into the totalitarian lands, while probably of some limited value, can in no way be compared in effect
Ch. 27 Foreign Policy 363
with totalitarian subversion. Consequently, extension of Soviet control over one territory after another has been proceeding since 1945 almost with the annual regularity of the seasons. After the first big grab of that first year, netting Poland, Rumania, Hungary, and Yugoslavia, there have been the additions of Czechoslovakia, East Germany, China, North Korea, North Vietnam, several African nations, and Cuba, with Iraq and Laos infiltrated and gravely endangered. (175) Comparable efforts in Greece, Iran, and Indonesia have been stopped for the time being, but it seems to be only a matter of time before the next victim is "bagged."
As the Soviet sphere expands, there have of course developed a number of stresses and strains, as well as deviant regimes of Communist totalitarianism. The most dramatic case is that of Communist China, of course, to which we shall return. There is also the case of Yugoslavia. She was temporarily alienated from the Soviet bloc, but the breach has been lessened, if not healed, by Khrushchev-ian diplomacy. It is well to remember that, first, Yugoslavia never left the Soviet bloc, but was expelled much against her hopes; and second, that Yugoslavia was probably the most communized satellite in Eastern Europe by the time of the break in 1948. The loss of Yugoslavia stemmed from a surprising miscalculation of Stalin and, allegedly, Zhdanov. The Soviet leaders assumed that, because of the high revolutionary fervor and strength of the Yugoslav Communist Party and its ambitious political and economic goals, the very thought of separation from the Soviet bloc would make the party reject Tito's leadership and replace him with more amenable successors. The expulsion of Tito from the Cominform, however, did not produce his fall from power. The reason for this may be found in precisely what was assumed to be the ground for so confidently expecting his fall: the Yugoslav Communist Party was sufficiently strong and sufficiently rooted not to need outside assistance by 1948. Despite the expulsion of its leader, it could maintain its cohesion and still hold its power. (361) Efforts at healing the breach, which looked promising in 1956, were only partially successful. Tito has continued his policy of playing West and East against each other. At one time there was even talk of "Titoism" in China. The error of this expectation has since been revealed. China, far from modifying the Soviet Communist position in a Western direction by toning down its totalitarian radicalism and expansion-
3^4
Expansionism and the Future
ism, has on the contrary gone beyond Bolshevism in its revolutionary fervor and anti-Westernism. It is taking the line of "left deviation" rather than "right deviation," to use the Soviet mode of talking. The difference is crucial in international relations and poll icy, in that the position of Mao makes it much more difficult for Western diplomacy to exploit this deviation. To be sure, De Gaulle believes he can do so, but it is doubtful whether he understands the ideological force of totalitarian expansionism. Although the Soviet'!! Union has not yet repeated the mistake of expelling Communis™ China from the bloc, there are indications that this may happen. (38g) In any case, the differences between the Soviet Union and China have become a significant factor in world politics. (129; 238e; 397.1)
The relations between the totalitarian dictator and the world, then, are those of constant struggle, varying only in pace and intensity. The world-revolutionary aspirations of the communist move- | ment have become intertwined with the ancient Russian imperial propensities, based upon historical reminiscences and geographical inducements, the so-called necessities of geopolitics. (220) This novel combination results in providing the Soviet imperial expansion with an ideological underpinning far more potent than the older Panslavist and Third Reich ideologies. This must be kept clearly in mind, especially since a number of well-known writers have claimed the opposite. It has been argued that "Nazism and Bolshevism owe more to Pan-Germanism and Panslavism (respectively) than to any other ideology or political movement," and that "this is the most evident in foreign policies, where the strategies of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia have followed so closely the well-known programs of conquest outlined by the pan-movements." (5e; 179) The USSR certainly does not owe more to Panslavism than to Communism, even if one agrees that their policy followed the Panslavist "program of conquest." Neither China nor Germany played the role in Panslavism which they adopt in Soviet policy and ideology. Yet in Russia there developed a significant shift toward nationalism after 1934, and there were some curious points of kinship between the thoughts of the Panslavist Danilevsky and those of Stalin. They both saw the struggle between the Slavic world and the West as inevitable, wanted Russia to turn to Asia for support, and were profoundly convinced that the prolonged war with the
Ch. 27
Foreign Policy
365
West would end in Russian victory. But these thoughts were framed, in Stalin's mind, in the rigid dialectical formulas of orthodox Marxism-Leninism and completely lacked the romantic note that is such a curious feature of Panslavism. (236)
There is more of a direct relation between the Nazi position and Pan-Germanism, since Hitler explicitly acknowledges in Mein Kampf his indebtedness to von Schönerer, the Austrian leader of the Pan-German movement. (148a) To claim it as the primary ingredient of Nazi ideology, however, is surely not feasible. While Hitler's writings and speeches often use Pan-German slogans, the key to Nazi ideology is the race myth. The recently discovered "second book" of Hitler, which is primarily concerned with foreign and international affairs, does not, according to its learned editor, alter anything very significant in the understanding of his foreign policy, except to confirm its racist and general expansionist line. (151) His race doctrine is, in spite of some anti-Semitism in the ranks of the Pan-German League, a far cry from the old-fashioned imperialism of that league, which never had any substantial popular support. Pan-Germanism lacked the emotional depth of Panslavism, as it lacked historical roots. It possessed a shrill quality and a demagogic superficiality, which contrasts unfavorably with the romantic dreams of a Danilevsky or a Dostoevsky. (384)
In conclusion we might say that the dictator's aspiration to world rule is inseparable from the ideology of the movement and from the party which provides the framework for the dictator's operation in this as in other fields. It is, conversely, quite evident that the possibility for peaceful coexistence of the nations peopling this world presupposes the disappearance of the totalitarian dictatorships. Since, according to their own loudly proclaimed professions, their systems must be made world-wide, those who reject the system have no alternative but to strive for its destruction. Any relaxation of the vigilance required to face such ideological imperialists as the totalitarians is likely to result in a disaster such as the Second World War, or worse. This point was well illustrated by the Cuban crisis of October 1962; its full political and legal significance is still obscure. (221c) It would seem that the American president acted at the very last moment.
But Hitler is gone, and so is Stalin and his nationalist propensities. His place was taken by Khrushchev, who revived the world-
366
Expansionism and the Future
revolutionary line in the name of Lenin. He coupled this line with the line of peaceful coexistence, as we have seen. He never wearied of predicting the downfall of capitalism while insisting upon its occurring gradually and peacefully. In doing so, he spoke for a rapidly developing Soviet Union, which occupies a position of reasonably secure power and plenty and which, like the United States, would fashion its foreign policy to aid and assist its friends and sympathizers, but would do so short of war. Communist China is challenging this concept. Although also developing rapidly, China is far from a position of security in either power or plenty. Nor is she part of the European world; her teeming millions share the resentment of Western imperialism and white supremacy, which has been destroying the old empires and bringing into being a very.; different world. (272) The question remains: who shall rule this world? It is the key question of totalitarian foreign policy.
28
THE STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT AND THE FUTURE
In much of the foregoing discussion, there have been some implicit notions about the stages or phases of totalitarian development. From time to time, explicit statements have been made. At the very outset, we suggested that totalitarian dictatorship does not come into existence by a "seizure of power," as is assumed in so much of the literature regarding the subject. What is seized is the control of the existing government, customarily referred to as the state, and a dictatorship is set up in order to realize the totalitarian ideology of the party that has "seized the power." But the total transformation of the existing society that this ideology calls for quickly runs into numerous and formidable obstacles. The series of critical situations thus created give rise to the swift enlargement of power and the totalitarian radicalization of the means of control; in the course of this process, the totalitarian dictatorship comes into being.
In view of the gradual emergence of the totalitarian features of these dictatorships, it is evident that these systems have not been the result of intentional action. (146) True, the total character of the ideology led to a dim appreciation of the difficulties, and to a corresponding ideological acceptance of force and violence. The acceptance of violence also carried with it the acceptance of fraud, and more especially propagandistic fraud on a large scale, as a more special form of violence, namely, that done to mind and sentiment. But force, fraud, and violence have always been features of organized governments, and they do not constitute in themselves the distinctive totalitarian operation. This operation we have defined in
368
Expansionism and the Future
terms of a syndrome of interrelated traits or features, the emergence of which signalizes the consummation of the totalitarian evolution. It is easy to identify these features, once they have come into full play: Italy, Germany, Russia — they all had emerged by about 1936 as totalitarian dictatorships; China and a considerable number of J satellites have followed suit in the years since the Second World War. All exhibit the six traits we have identified as characteristic: a total ideology, a single mass party led by a dictator, a terroristic secret police, a monopoly of mass communication, a monopoly of weapons, and a centrally planned economy. Often they also carry on an expansionist foreign policy.
The collapse of two of these totalitarian dictatorships occurred as a result of war and foreign invasion. If we study these wars, we find that they were the natural consequence of the ideologies of these particular dictatorships. Demonstrably, the ideologies themselves, with their glorification of violence, were at least in part responsible for the grave errors in judgment that launched the leaderships into their belligerency. Other difficulties contributed to the defeat; some of these are once again definitely traceable to ideological and other defects of these regimes. More particularly, the concentration of all power in a single man's hands, when combined with the absence of any sort of continuing critical evaluation of governmental operations, gready enhanced the probability of erroneous judgments with fateful consequences.
But the end of these particular regimes, linked as they were to specific features of their ideology, must not mislead one into readily assuming the early demise of totalitarianism. One need not go so far as to envision a world which will be divided among three warring sets of totalitarians in order to appreciate the possibly lasting qualities of totalitarian dictatorship. More particularly, the inroads of totalitarianism into the Orient, where despotic forms of I government have been the rule for thousands of years, ought to 'j give one pause and prevent any too optimistic estimate of the totali-tarians' lack of capacity for survival. We noted at the outset that autocratic regimes have often lasted for centuries, even when their oppressive practices became ever more pronounced. Therefore the mere maturing of totalitarian autocracies into regularized patterns of organized coercion need not spell their destruction; quite the contrary. Since the end of totalitarian dictatorship is purely a mat-
Ch. 28 Stages of Development 369
ter of speculation, to which we shall return at the end of this discussion, let us start with its beginning.
As we just noted and indicated at various points in our study, the totalitarian dictatorship emerges some time after the seizure of power by the leaders of the movement that had developed in support of the ideology. The typical sequence is therefore that of ideology, movement, party, government. The point of time when the totalitarian government emerges may be reasonably fixed and delimited. It is that point at which the leadership sees itself obliged to employ open and legally unadorned violence for maintaining itself, particularly against internal opposition due to ideological dissensions arising from within the movement's own ranks. In the Soviet Union, this point is marked by Stalin's liquidation of his erstwhile colleagues in the USSR's leadership and more particularly by his epochal struggle with Trotsky. In Nazi Germany, Hitler's bloody suppression of Rohm and his followers represents this totalitarian breakthrough. In Mussolini's Italy, the Matteotti murder and its sequel are one turning point, the attack on Abyssinia another. In China, the totalitarian government seems to have emerged full-fledged because a kind of totalitarian government had been in existence for a considerable time prior to the Communists' establishment of control over all of China, namely, in those provinces they had controlled and developed in their war against the Japanese. But even here the true totalitarian maturation may be fixed at the point where there occurred the purge of competitors to Mao Tse-tung's absolute dictatorial control.
The development in the Eastern European satellites of the USSR follows a definite pattern, too, culminating in the totalitarian breakthrough some time after the seizure of control by the Communists. However, in these regimes it may be claimed that the establishment of a totalitarian dictatorship was definitely willed at the outset. We do not know for sure, and there are indications that at least the local leadership had some illusions to the contrary, expressed in notions about the more democratic form that the Communist regimes would take in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary. But it is likely that the Soviet leaders had definite plans for the structuring of the society conceived in their own image, to become "people's democracies" in their parlance, "totalitarian dictatorships" in ours. This inference is supported at least in part by the remarkable paral-
370 Expansionism and the Future
lelism in the development of all these regimes. On the other hand, highly authoritative voices from within the Soviet Union have taken a line which makes it conceivable that the Soviet leadership itself was uncertain and only "crossed the Rubicon" toward the totalitarian breakthrough in the light of actual situational needs. Thus we read, in an article by E. S. Varga, "The social order of these states differs from all states known to us so far. It is something completely new in the history of mankind." (428) A. Leon-tiev even went so far as to claim that neither Marx nor Lenin foresaw or could foresee such a form of state, the reason being that these regimes were organized in response to a specific and novel historical situation. (438b) But whether intentional or not, here too the totalitarian features came into existence not immediately upon the seizure of power, but some time afterward and regularly in connection with the purging of dissident elements, presumably men who had questioned the need for setting up a regime in the image of the Soviet Union. (37j)
In a study of some years ago (234; 322), it was shown that the totalitarian dictatorship in the satellites developed in accordance with a definite pattern. The spark that set off the totalitarian breakthrough was the defection of Tito from the Cominform. It highlighted, as in corresponding situations in older totalitarian systems, the dangers inherent in the survival of potential centers of dissent within the Soviet-controlled Communist movement. It brought on the total dominance of the several societies by Russian-directed Communist parties, except of course in Yugoslavia, where it enabled the anti-USSR group of the Communist Party to establish totalitarian predominance. (78c; 112i)
If one inquires how this breakthrough was conditioned, one finds two antecedent stages in these regimes. During the first, the totalitarian movement achieved a key position within an as yet nontotali-tarian political environment. It therefore entered into coalitions with other parties to form a government. It was maintained that this represented a novel and unique form of democracy, unlike the USSR, and that its political task was to liquidate the old ruling class and to seize control of the major instruments of power: the resistance movements, trade unions and other associations, the armed forces, land reform and socialization, and the key ministries such as Interior, Justice, Communications, and Education, which
Ck. 28 Stages of Development 371
would yield control of the police and courts as well as mass communication media and propaganda. It is evident that this pattern corresponds to the features characteristic of a totalitarian dictatorship as we have analyzed it. Hence it is hardly surprising that, in the second stage, the government is definitely molded in the image of the totalitarian dictatorship. The pretense that these regimes were novel and unique was dropped, and their kinship with the USSR as a model for building the communist society was frankly proclaimed, as well as their dependence upon Soviet political and military support readily acknowledged. During this phase, opposition was destroyed and dissenters were purged from the party coalitions. Opposition leaders fled or were liquidated, while their parties were either reduced to impotence or dissolved. While this was going on, the Soviet Union itself gradually shifted from moderation and tolerance toward tight control and intransigence, preparing the ground for actual total control at the point of the breakthrough.
This phase came to an end with Stalin's death. Since then, national autonomy has been gaining in all the satellites, especially after the return of Gomulka, the resumption of friendly relations with Tito, and the growing conflict with Communist China — itself an expression of this phase. It has brought "polycentrism" into being. It is an established fact, and it is likely to increase rather than decline. It seems that totalitarian states, because of their ideological basis, "find it, as a rule, more difficult to coexist with each other than old-fashioned big powers." (193a) Such polycentrism is a response, at least in part, to the emotions of cultural, regional, and national identity through which forces are at work that transcend Marxism. This polycentrism is fraught with tensions and difficulties, because of the lack of an "operative theory of communist international relations." (193b) But in spite of all the diversity, there is a good deal of parallel evolution in the Soviet Union and the satellites, as they seek to operate their regimes without physical terror. These ongoing efforts have encountered very serious economic difficulties, since rising expectations have not been fulfilled and the intellectuals' rebelliousness has increased. (172c)
The reason for sketching these developments in the satellites is that they throw some light on the evolution of totalitarian dictatorship in the major countries. For without drawing sharp lines, we find the coalition with nontotalitarian parties in Italy and Germany,
372 Expansionism and the Future
the compromise with remaining bourgeois and rich peasants' groups in Russia, as well as Hitler's and Mussolini's "deals" with big business and the churches, and similar compromises. These were accompanied by an insistent emphasis on the democratic features of the new regime. If it has been stressed in discussions of the satellites that their "road to socialism" was easier than the Soviet Union's had been, there is an element of truth in such an assertion; \ the lack of a "model" had indeed been a striking feature of the development of totalitarian dictatorship in the Soviet Union, as we mentioned at the outset. The lack of such a model cannot be claimed with quite the same justification in the case of the Fascists and National Socialists; for while they doctrinally rejected the Soviet Union altogether, there is a good deal of evidence that they followed its example in a number of respects concerning vital features of the totalitarian system. When they instituted the secret;! police and the monopoly of propaganda, the corresponding transformation of education, the organizing of youth, and central planning, and when they developed the technique of a rigidly hierarchical party apparatus, the Fascists followed essentially Soviet models. To what extent this was a matter of conscious imitation does not seem very important, since these features are inherent in the dyr namics of a totalitarian movement. It may, however, be well tdj trace this "phasing" through some of its distinctive component fields, more especially ideology, party, and secret police. This sketch provides a summary of what has been discussed in greater detail earlier.
We saw when discussing ideology that the radical change which a totalitarian ideology demands necessarily occasions adjustments and adaptations to reality and its situational needs when an attempt is made to "realize" such an ideology. The totalitarian revolutionaries! are, in this respect, not in a different situation from other revolts tionaries before them. In the French revolution especially, the via& lent controversies over the ideological "meaning" of the revolution fed to the terror. But since the ideology lacked that pseudo-scientific ingredient which has enabled the Communist and Fascist totali-tarians to insist on the "mercilessness of the dialectics" (Stalin) and on "ice-cold reasoning" (Hitler), a totalitarian ideology did not develop. Whether its exponents are convinced or merely pretending,;
Ch. 28 Stages of Development 373
the totalitarian ideology requires that it be maintained even while it is being adapted to changing situations. It is at this point, when the inner contradictions of the totalitarian ideology become evident, that the totalitarian breakthrough occurs. For since there is no longer any possibility of maintaining the ideology on logical grounds, total violence must be deployed in order to do so. The mounting fierceness of the conflict between the Soviet Union and Communist China, in which tongue-lashing vituperation accompanies armed conflict at the border, appears to be a projection of this inherent "dialectic."
In the development of the party, which is closely related to this ideological evolution, an analogous process takes place. In the original movement, when the party fights for success against a hostile environment, all the leader's authority, or a very large part of it, springs from the genuine comradeship that unites the effective participants. After the seizure of power, this relationship continues to operate, but —owing to the new situation confronting the leadership with the vast tasks of a government that aspires to accomplish a total change and reconstruction of society —it becomes rapidly bureaucratized. Not only the government but the party is transformed into an increasingly formalized hierarchy. As is always the case, the apparat acquires its own weight and operates according to the inherent laws of large-scale bureaucracy. At the point of the totalitarian breakthrough, purges of former comrades reveal that it is no longer a matter of "belonging" to a movement, but one of submitting to autocratic decisions that determine a person's right to belong to the party.
Hand in hand with this development goes that of the secret police. In order to become the instrument of total terror that the police system is in a matured totalitarian system, it must acquire the requisite knowledge of its human material, the potential victims of its terroristic activity. Centers of possible opposition have to be identified, techniques of espionage and counterespionage have to be developed, courts and similar judicial procedures of a nontotali-tarian past have to be subjected to effective control. Experience and observation show that the time required for these tasks varies. In the Soviet Union, the tsarist secret police provided a ready starting point, and hence the Soviets got under way in this field with the
374 Expansionism and the Future
Chcka very quickly. The entrenched liberal tradition in Italy allowed the Fascists to organize the secret police effectively only in 1926, and it took another two years before it really took hold of the situation. The National Socialists, although anxious to clamp down at once, did not perfect their secret-police system until well after the blood purge of 1934, when Himmler first emerged as the key figure in the manipulation of this essential totalitarian tool.
It is at the point at which the totalitarian breakthrough occurs that the total planning of the economy imposes itself. For it is then that the social life of the society has become so largely disorganized that nothing short of central direction will do. In a sense, this total planning is the sign of the culmination of the process. In Soviet Russia, it is the year 1928, in Nazi Germany 1936, while in Italy it comes with the instituting of the corporative set-up in 1934 (it had been grandiloquently announced in 1930), though perhaps the Ethiopian war was even more decisive. It is not important in this connection to what the planning effort amounts; it will vary in, inverse proportion to the economic autonomy of the country. The crucial point is that this total planning imposes itself as the inescapable consequence of the totalitarian evolution in the economic field. It is therefore not surprising that plans should have sprouted all over the satellite regions, and that even Communist China should have produced a plan, announced in 1952 and starting in 1953, even though many of the essentials of planning are absent in that vast and unorganized country. Even the statistical basis for planning in China appears to be in a rather primitive stage. (396b) Even so, planning has been undertaken on an ambitious scale, with uncertain results. The schism that has developed between the Soviet Union and Communist China is in part concerned with the resulting problems. More especially, the communes as a possible answer to the agricultural problem were, as we have seen, at one time embraced as the "great leap forward," but have since been virtually abandoned. Khrushchev had presumably tried to dissuade the Chinese leaders, but only with the result that they became more aggressive, presenting as one Soviet source put it their "totally unsound and harmful policy ... as an objective law." (442e) As the conflict widened, the language became abusive in ideological terms, each nation calling the other a "betrayer of the revolution," a "stooge of capitalism," a "traitor to imperialism," and the like. There can be
Ch. 28
Stages of Development
375
little doubt that this open break will profoundly affect the future of totalitarianism and of the world that has to live with it.
What can be said about the projection of totalitarian dictatorships into the future? We exclude here the problems raised by the possibility of a world-wide conflict between totalitarian and nontotalitarian regimes; such a war, while possible, is too speculative in its military and political implications to allow reasonable reflections. But the internal evolution of the totalitarian dictatorships, given a species of peaceful coexistence, allows for some projection on the basis of past experience.
One possibility should be excluded, except in the satellites: the likelihood of an overthrow of these regimes by revolutionary action from within. Our entire analysis of totalitarianism suggests that it is improbable that such a "revolution" will be undertaken, let alone succeed. (112j) The records of the resistance in the several totalitarian regimes that have collapsed reinforce this conclusion. When the characteristic techniques of a terroristic police and of mass propaganda are added to the monopoly of weapons that all modern governments enjoy, the prospect of such a revolutionary overthrow becomes practically nil. This may be true, though one doubts that, "even if opposition were less savagely repressed, the people of the totalitarian countries, no matter how badly off or how dissatisfied they are, would not want to engage in any large-scale struggle — they seem to feel that disorder, chaos, and destruction would make them even worse off." (112k) The doubt is suggested by the events of June 17, 1953, in East Germany and those of the fall of 1956 in Hungary. But the dismal failure of these upheavals unfortunately confirms the conclusion that revolution is not likely to succeed even if it is begun.
What then is going to be the course of totalitarian development? If one extrapolates from the past course of evolution, it seems most likely that the totalitarian dictatorships will oscillate between an extreme of totalitarian violence and an opposite extreme of an actual breakdown. The first extreme is illustrated by the Stalin regime in its later phase and by Hitler's after 1942; the second by Hitler's in 1945, Mussolini's in 1944, and Hungary in 1956. But these oscillations are not merely cyclical; they are part of a steady evolution in totalitarian rule which can be described as a maturing process. The
378
Expansionism and the Future
revolution at home, can combine these domestic measures with foreign expansion, short of war. It is rather unlikely that they would launch a major and open campaign of aggression because of internal difficulties. They accept such difficulties as part of the revolutionary process. Their refined, yet often brutal, system of controls dooms any effective resistance in advance (see Chapter 22). The possibility of open war may increase, however, as the Communists gain in military preponderance. A chilling indication of such a development occurred after the sputnik success; voices in the Communist camp became more strident and ventured open challenges.
Whether it is possible, in terms of a developmental construct, to forecast the probable course of totalitarian evolution seems doubtful. We prefer the simple extrapolation of recent trends and the estimate of broader potentials in terms of long-range observation of autocratic regimes throughout history. (1121) Considered in such terms, the prospect of totalitarian dictatorship seems unclear. Leaving aside the possibility of liquidation by war, there might conceivably be internal transformation. "It is possible," as one highly qualified observer says, "that the 'wave' of totalitarianism has reached its high water mark. And it may well be that in the not too distant future it will start rolling back." (112m) It may be. But if one such totalitarianism disappeared, others may appear to take its place, owing to the endemic conditions that have given rise to them. Totalitarian dictatorship, a novel form of autocracy, more inimical to human dignity than autocracies in the past, appears to be a highly dynamic form of government, which is still in the process of evolving. Whether it will, in the long run, prove to be a viable form of social and political organization remains to be seen. Nonetheless, large portions of mankind may have to pass through, its crucible before becoming ready, if they survive the ordeal, for more complex and civilized forms of political organization. "Socialist legality" may have an important role to play in this process. For an increasing recognition of law and legal restraints, by limiting autocracy, may provide a middle ground between the extremes of violence and anarchy, which past experience has shown to circumscribe the range of totalitarian change.
Some Bibliographical Notes Bibliographical References Index of Authors Cited Index