I
War, according to dictionary definition, is “the state or fact of exerting violence or force against another; now only against a state or other politically organized body; especially, a contest by force between two or more nations or states carried on for any purpose; armed conflict of sovereign powers; declared and open hostilities.”
Should anyone prefer some other definition to this one, it will surely contain the thoughts that war is an openly recognized and formally declared state of relationships between nations and that it is characterized by the use of armed force.
The use of war for settling international differences has given rise during the past two centuries to a large but rather loose body of rules called international law. The purposes underlying the development of these rules have been to regulate the actual conduct of hostilities between armed forces, to afford protection to private citizens and property in belligerent areas, and to establish the duties and rights of neutrals.
It is obvious today that international law as it has been developed up to the present time has failed to keep the conduct of war within controllable bounds. Why should this be so? There can be no simple answer, but it is helpful in understanding the question to trace some of the trends in the conduct of war in recent history.
The invention of the steam engine and the beginning of the Machine Age about a century and a half ago opened a limitless field for the exercise of man’s ingenuity. Before that event the horse was his strongest source of power, and his travel over the earth’s surface was limited to the speed and capacity of the horse. At sea he was at the mercy of the winds. With the steam engine he was able to harness and convert to his service—power. By the beginning of the Twentieth Century the development of power sources included electricity and the internal combustion engine, with all of which man was able to produce increasingly complex instruments and machines to serve his desires. The Machine Age transformed large areas of the world from an agrarian to an industrial economy and produced a spiraling complexity in human life that today shows no signs of abating. What we live in is an endless cycle of new products, new uses, and new requirements for services, constantly relieving man of the need for physical labor but making him more and more dependent upon the machine.
Could all of this remarkable development have taken place without being reflected in the weapons of war? Even if an affirmative answer could be supported, it is obvious that that spiraling trend has been paralleled. Along with more complex and more powerful weapons came requirements for more men to operate them; in turn larger armies and navies, and now air forces.
By 1914, as World War I was soon to demonstrate, this spiral had expanded so much that the waging of war on a major scale required what we have come to know as national mobilization. To use, operate, and supply the powerful armies and navies that had been built up, natural resources and industry had to be brought into the chain of the military effort. That war required a huge expenditure of resources and materials with two major results. First was the tremendous economic cost of conducting war, not only for the actual materials expended, but also in the disruption of the normal economies of the various nations by the diversion of industrial capacity to munitions production. Secondly was the devastation and destruction of real property in the path of military operations. These effects raised a serious question: Can the expenditure of material and manpower resources now required for the conduct of war be balanced by the possible gains to be expected?
World War I is an appropriate starting point for a closer examination of the trends with which we live today. There are four major developments of the first World War that had a deep impact and significance upon the conduct of future warfare.
The first and more obvious development was that of the employment of the airplane as a vehicle of war. Apart from its military value, the use of bombing aircraft in that war opened a new field in international law. After the war, commissions tried to evolve a code for aerial warfare, comparable in scope to the Hague Conventions for land and naval warfare. While such a code was produced in the early ’30s, it was never ratified by any of the major powers.
The second major development was the use of the submarine on a large scale against enemy commerce. Its use against merchant shipping, and its successes, had significant results. Whole sections of international law as it then existed, such as visit and search, and the safeguarding of passengers and crew before sinking a prize, became obsolescent, since the submarine was unable to observe them. Here also in the post-war period efforts were made to control and even outlaw the use of submarines, but again international agreement could not be reached.
The third major development of World War I was that of the self-propelled vehicle, symbolized by the tank. This brought to land warfare a combination of mobility, protection through armor, and fire power. With the tank, land operations assumed a new character of speed, flexibility, and power that could not have been attained without the tank or some similar vehicle.
The fourth development that had a significant influence on the conduct of warfare was that of radio and rapid communications. The ability to communicate widely and rapidly reduced the elements of time and space materially for the fighting forces. It also provided the medium for introducing the widespread use of a non-violent weapon, psychological warfare. Radio communications were especially influential in changing the conduct of naval operations. At last there was the means for quickly disseminating intelligence to commanders at sea, for coordinating the movements of forces not in sight contact, and for initiating changes in plans without delay.
Possibly poison gas should also be listed as a major development of World War I. Certainly it was a spectacular one, and it further complicated the problems of securing international agreement regulating the conduct of war. Although not used in World War II, it was possessed by all belligerents, and from its potentialities we have seen suggested the possible development of comparable weapons such as radiological and bacteriological concentrations.
In the years immediately following World War I, spurred by the terrific economic cost and destruction caused by that war, a number of international efforts to limit and control the conduct of war were undertaken. The League of Nations, the naval limitation of armaments agreements, the Kellogg-Briand Pact, and the conventions seeking to codify rules regulating the use of aircraft and submarines are examples. None of these was even moderately successful, even though each aimed at the desirable goal of preventing or curtailing the huge costs of another war. Possibly they failed because, consciously or otherwise, they were designed largely to preserve Nineteenth Century standards without realizing fully the impact of Twentieth Century developments. Hampered not only by involved technical questions, they were attempted during the renaissance of the dictatorship type of government, first in Russia, then in Italy, and finally in Germany and Japan.
II
It is sometimes said that the next war is fought with the weapons developed in the last war. Or, in a more cynical vein, that we spend our time between wars trying to figure out how to fight the last one better. In September, 1939, the world was startled by the speed and thoroughness with which Hitler’s armies conquered and crushed the Poles. In doing this Hitler unveiled a technique which soon came to be known as the Blitzkrieg. But the Blitzkrieg was more than just a new technique; it was Hitler’s solution to the problem of how to fight a war without prohibitive costs in manpower and resources.
The Blitzkrieg was a coordinated aerial and mechanized ground attack which possessed the qualities of heavy fire power, great mobility, and concentration. By means of highly developed rapid communications the movements and operations of several mechanized columns and their supporting aircraft could be coordinated. Thus, by the ingenious combination of three of the major developments of World War I, the Germans created a fighting team of tremendous power and capabilities. The basic idea may not have been entirely new, for Ghengis Khan produced something with comparable capabilities for his time. But the Blitzkrieg as such could not have been developed as it was without first having the mechanized vehicle and tank, and rapid communications.
With the over-running of the Low Countries and France, this technique appeared to be all but invincible. It remained for the Russians, trading space for time, to resist the Blitzkrieg successfully. In doing this the Russians also revealed the basic weakness in Hitler’s strategy. Counting upon the Blitzkrieg to achieve his objectives in a short war, he was unprepared with an alternative or for a long campaign when the Blitzkrieg did not succeed.
In Norway Hitler produced another new technique in warfare, something in the order of a modern adaptation of the Trojan Horse, the fifth column. This same device was a material factor in the quick defeat of France.
World War II was also the testing ground for still another new form of warfare, strategic aerial bombardment. For the first time the enemy’s production sources could be brought under direct attack, without first dealing with the defending surface forces. In part it sought to gain to a greater degree a result comparable to the older naval blockade: to check or choke off the enemy’s supplies. That its contribution to the over-all effort was significant is well recognized, but of greater significance was that the uniformed man was no longer the only active participant in war and battle. To some degree the entire population, and especially the munitions worker, had become an active member of the fighting team. Large scale aerial bombardment adds greatly to the total destruction of physical property, and to the general economic cost of war.
The airplane also took a leading part in naval warfare, with the carrier providing the mobile base. One result of this general employment of aircraft in warfare has been to erase the importance of the former natural barrier and boundary between land and sea warfare, the shore line.
The one great development of World War II, that dwarfs all others in significance, was the atomic bomb. Introduced too late for its full capabilities and limitations to be demonstrated, there has been a wide range of speculation and discussion since the war of what might be its effect in the future. Certainly its destructive power so greatly exceeds that of any earlier man-made weapon that it is necessary to consider most fully and carefully the implications of its possible future use. Its widespread use in war could conceivably produce so much devastation and destruction that the economic structure of the world could not recover from its paralyzing effects for generations, if at all.
We have become so accustomed to extensive destruction of property as a byproduct of war that there is a growing tendency to use destruction as a measure of accomplishment in war. This is the reverse of the ideas which the formulators of international law in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries tried to codify. While all of the developments of the Machine Age have contributed to the breaking down of the objectives of international law, the airplane must accept a large share of the credit.
This apparently inevitable trend presents us with a problem whose solution will require the coolest and most penetrating thought. Does this growing tendency to measure results in warfare in terms of destruction point to a conclusion that the nations of the world can no longer afford to use warfare, as it has been developed, as a means of enforcing national or state policy?
What this trend means is that the total war of today involves the whole nation, for any place that can be reached by aircraft might well be in the active theater of military operations. Increased mechanization in all fields of warfare also contributes to this general expansion of the theaters of active operations. If continued, war of the future will place even greater demands on the sources and processing of materials, and tend to erase more and more the distinction that once existed between the civilian and the man in uniform.
This trend is the root of our problem. For, returning to our question, it suggests that the destructiveness of future war will increase, much as it has in the past. Is the world faced with an insolvable dilemma then, or is there some alternative? Assuming that our future efforts to eliminate or control war as the means for settling international disputes will be no more successful than they have in the past, is there a way in which wars can be fought without paying the tremendous price that we have had to pay in recent wars?
As has already been pointed out Hitler produced one answer in the Blitzkrieg. In the long run, however, it was the use or over-use of this very technique that brought on the devastation of World War II. But even before Hitler had conceived of his answer to this question, there had appeared in the world a new philosophy and a new form of warfare. While we have seen it at work for thirty years, it has only been since it has made great gains in the post-war period that the rest of the world has begun to realize how sinister, dangerous, and new it really is. There are many reasons for this, but one of the chief ones is that it has approached the subject of warfare in its own way, quite different from our conventional ideas on the subject.
The present alignment of the world into two hostile coalitions becomes something totally new when we examine the guiding force that is the root of this alignment. To get at the meaning of this force we must examine carefully the origin and nature of communism.
III
Though superficially resembling the Axis coalition of World War II, the present communist world is quite different in structure. Each of the Axis members was an independent state within the framework of nations that make up the world, with each retaining full sovereignty within the system. Rome and Tokyo, for example, did not look to Berlin for leadership. The Axis was a loosely knit coalition of convenience, and its members distrusted each other to a high degree. Even during the conduct of the war Axis military collaboration was scanty.
The communist bloc, on the other hand, while now composed of nations, looks to a central body for guidance. Moscow is the heart of this system and daily events indicate all too clearly that the so-called satellites are subject to its will. The leaders of this system are devoted to a doctrine which rejects the idea of independent nations and transcends national boundaries. Its openly stated objective is to bring the entire world into its system and under its control.
If so, how is this to be accomplished? For the answer to this we must attempt to fathom a philosophy and system of thinking that is quite different from any that has guided the development of what we call the Western World.
Communism and its basic philosophy was founded by Karl Marx in the middle of the nineteenth century. The philosophy itself is called “dialectic materialism”; the “dialectic” in this case being a system of logic developed by Hegel, and the “materialism” being derived from Marx’s contention that history is determined and life regulated by economic conditions and developments rather than social or political ones. It produces a system of thought processes peculiarly characteristic of the philosophy, and one very convenient to its disciples, for with it one can rationalize almost any point of view that he chooses.
Communist literature stresses the so-called “contradictions” of capitalism. Marx argued that wars were inevitable under the capitalist system, since that system required periodic wars in order to preserve itself. This is claimed to be a key “contradiction” of capitalism. But dialectic materialism cannot recognize, apparently, the actual contradiction in Marx’s assertion that the increased use of machinery in industry could only lead to increased enslavement and lowered standard of living of the working class. While it can show that real democracy cannot exist under the capitalist system, it can prove, to its own satisfaction, that 99.9% of the eligible voters, casting an affirmative vote for a single slate of candidates in an election, is an example of the purest form of “democracy.”
Strange and illogical as this system may appear to most of us, Marx’s doctrines attracted a number of disciples, among the early ones being a group of Russian “Bolsheviks.” Communism and the Communist Party were illegal in Tsarist Russia, and the Bolsheviks were of necessity a clandestine group, with some of them in Russia, some in exile. Forced to work underground they became highly skilled and trained conspirators. By engineering disturbances within Russia, such as the Revolution of 1905, they created dissension, attracted recruits, and became a well organized and close-knit group.
Their real opportunity came with the collapse of the Tsarist regime in 1917. For several months after the Tsar’s abdication various groups in Russia tried to form a socialist government, but they were improvised groups and weak in organization and experience. The leader of the Bolsheviks, Lenin, was in exile in Switzerland when the collapse occurred, and it was not until his return to Russia that the Bolsheviks began openly to take part in the effort to form a government. The strongest weapon they had at the time was a fully developed program. By October, 1917, Russian calendar, they had gained sufficient support to seize and thereafter hold the government. Many of the present day leaders of Soviet Russia, including Stalin, were members of this original group.
The current philosophy of the Communist Party is the interpretation of Marx by Lenin and Stalin, the familiar “Leninist- Stalinist” line of Marxism. Lenin had an extremely agile mind and he was a copious writer. Much of his writing was devoted to rationalizing his interpretation of Marx, and of showing how earlier interpreters had failed to perceive Marx’s true meaning.
Differences of opinion over Marx’s works, even among the faithful, were easy to develop, for he tried to cover the whole range of human experience. Much of his text, as a result, is vague and capable of almost any desired interpretation. The fact that communist writers could differ so widely is a good illustration of the flexibility of dialectic materialism as a philosophy. Even in the realistic battle for power that followed Lenin’s death, and which led eventually to the assassination of Trotsky, the basis for the differences was the proper interpretation of Lenin’s ideas. The same has been true in the periodic purges that have taken place since, including the dispute with Tito. It is essential to realize, in trying to understand the actions and statements of communists, the firm grip which this philosophy has upon them. It is this fanaticism which sometimes causes communism to be likened to a religion, although it is completely anti-religious in character.
The basic line of communism is found in Stalin’s book, Problems of Leninism, containing many of his essays, speeches, and reports to the Central Committee, from 1924 to 1939. There is no indication that the events of World War II have caused any material change in this doctrine. Several editions of this work have been published in English in Moscow, and the book is readily available in the United States. Studied closely, Problems of Leninism gives us a clear picture of the nature, objectives, and methods of communism. The quotations which follow are taken mainly from the first part of the 1947 reprint of the Eleventh edition—some 1924 lectures entitled, Foundations of Leninism.
Stalin defines Leninism as “ . . . Marxism of the era of imperialism, and of the proletarian revolution. . . . Leninism is the theory and tactics of the proletarian revolution in general, the theory and tactics of the proletariat in particular.” The proletariat in this ideology refers to the masses of the underprivileged and the working class. Everyone else, with certain exceptions in the intellectual field, falls into the “bourgeois,” “capitalist,” or “imperialist” class, mortal enemies of the proletariat.
“Imperialism is the omnipotence of the monopolist trusts and syndicates, of the banks and financial oligarchy, in the industrial countries. In the fight against this omnipotence, the customary methods of the working class—trade unions and cooperative organizations, parliamentary parties and the parliamentary struggle—have proved to be totally inadequate.”
This, he asserts, is the first contradiction between labor and capital. Seeking to improve the conditions of the working class through such means as labor unions, and laws enacted through normal legislative processes, have failed. Another means of achieving this goal must be found!
Other contradictions cited by Stalin are that wars among imperialist powers have become inevitable, and that the exploitation of vast colonial areas and peoples by the imperialist powers has created a proletariat in these areas.
In the modern world: “In other words, imperialism has brought it about, not only that revolution has become a practical inevitability, but also that favourable conditions have been created for a direct onslaught upon the citadels of capitalism.” Further; “The proletarian revolution, its movement, its scope and its achievements acquire flesh and blood only through the dictatorship of the proletariat.”
Quoting Lenin, Stalin says that; “ ‘The dictatorship of the proletariat is a most determined and most ruthless war waged by the new class against a more powerful enemy, the bourgeoisie, whose resistance is increased tenfold by its overthrow’; that ‘the dictatorship of the proletariat is a persistent struggle—bloody and bloodless, violent and peaceful, military and economic, educational and administrative—against the forces and traditions of the old society.’ ”
A more forthright statement of the nature of this revolution would be hard to imagine. It should be carefully noted that it is directed against all of the old society, and that its weapons are not only military, but also economic, educational, and administrative forces.
“It need hardly be proved,” points out Stalin, “that there is not the slightest possibility of carrying out these tasks in a short period, of doing all of this in a few years. Therefore . . . the transition from capitalism to Communism must not be regarded as a fleeting period of ‘super-revolutionary’ acts and decrees, but as an entire historical era, replete with civil wars and external conflicts, with persistent organizational work and economic construction, with advances and retreats, victories and defeats.”
He develops that this revolution is not merely a change in personalities in the government, or a change of cabinet, but rather it is an entirely new system which will arise on the ruins of the old bourgeois state. This means: “Briefly: the dictatorship of the proletariat is the rule—unrestricted by law and based on force—of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie, a rule enjoying the sympathy and support of the labouring and exploited masses.”
From this Stalin draws two conclusions: “First, . . . the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be ‘complete’ democracy, democracy for all, for the rich as well as for the poor; the dictatorship of the proletariat ‘must be a state that is democratic in a new way—for the proletarians and propertyless in general—and dictatorial in a new way—against the bourgeoisie.’ ”
“Under the dictatorship of the proletariat, democracy is proletarian democracy, the democracy of the exploited majority, based upon the restriction of the rights of the exploiting minority and directed against this minority.”
Does not this definition of “democracy” go far to explain the difficulties that have arisen in the world since the close of the war when the establishment of a “democratic” government in Germany, for example, has been under discussion?
Stalin’s second conclusion, from the nature of the proletarian revolution, was that: “The dictatorship of the proletariat cannot arise as the result of the peaceful development of bourgeois society and of bourgeois democracy; it can arise only as the result of the smashing of the bourgeois state machine, the bourgeois army, the bourgeois bureaucratic machine, the bourgeois police.”
“In other words, the law of violent proletarian revolution, the law of the smashing of the bourgeois state machine as a preliminary condition for such a revolution, is an inevitable law of the revolutionary movement in the imperialist countries of the world.”
Although not brought out directly in the above quotations there is a sharp distinction between “imperialist” wars and the proletarian revolution. That is why Communist leaders can say, in what to them may be good faith, that the communist world and the Western world can collaborate without resort to war—imperialist war, that is, something quite different and distinct from the proletarian revolution.
The organization required to accomplish the substitution of proletarian for bourgeois democracy is the Soviets. This is “ . . . the most internationalist of all state organizations in class society, for, since it destroys every kind of national oppression and rests on the collaboration of the labouring masses of the various nationalities, it facilitates . . . the amalgamation of these masses into a single state union.”
In using the term “Soviet” here, Stalin is speaking of the revolution as a whole, not alone of Russia. The “single state union” refers to eventually bringing the entire world into this system.
“The Soviet power, by combining the legislative and executive functions in a single state organization and replacing territorial electoral constituencies by industrial units, factories and mills, thereby directly links the workers . . . with the apparatus of state administration ...”
Here we see the industrial unit replacing the geographical unit as the basis for political organization. This emphasizes the eventual goal of eliminating nations as the components of the world system.
This revolution is to be carried out by the application of the strategy and tactics of Leninism. For these terms also we must look for different definitions and meanings.
“Strategy is the determination of the direction of the main blow of the proletariat at a given stage of the revolution, the elaboration of a corresponding plan for the disposition of the revolutionary forces (the main and secondary reserves), the fight to carry out this plan throughout the given stage of the revolution.”
Reserves, as used here, do not refer to reserves of military forces, as we might normally think of the term. These “reserves” are defined as proletarians in neighboring countries, dissident colonial elements, wars between imperialist countries, and such similar conditions as might be turned to the advantage of the revolution.
“Tactics,” on the other hand, “are the determination of the line of conduct of the proletariat in the comparatively short period of the flow or ebb of the movement, of the rise or decline of the revolution, the fight to carry out this line by means of replacing old forms of struggle and organization by new ones, old slogans by new ones, by combining these forms, etc.”
“Tactics deal with the forms of struggle and the forms of organization of the proletariat, with their changes and combinations. During a given stage of the revolution tactics may change several times, depending upon the flow or ebb, the rise or decline, of the revolution.”
From this we can see that tactics is concerned with the employment of all types of forces, covert as well as overt. All of these forces are to be used to the end of supporting the strategic plan, whether at any instant the revolution be advancing or retreating.
This leads us to the role of the Communist Party in this revolution. Stalin points out that an army at war needs a General Staff unless it courts certain defeat. Equally the proletariat needs a General Staff if it is to survive. “The working class without a revolutionary party is an army without a General Staff. The Party is the General Staff of the proletariat.”
In developing this thought further Stalin shows that the Party is not only the vanguard of the proletariat, it is also a part of that class, the organized part of that class, the leader of the class.
“But the Party is not merely the sum of Party organizations. The Party at the same time represents a single system of these organizations, their formal amalgamation into a single whole, with higher and lower leading bodies, with the subordination of the minority to the majority, with practical decisions binding on all members of the Party. Without these conditions the Party cannot be a single organized whole capable of exercising systematic and organized leadership in the struggle of the working class.”
Here the idea of the General Staff of the revolution is expanded a step further. The Party is organized into echelons, leading to a directing head at the top. Also, there is no geographical limit to the scope of the Party and its activities. “Communist Party, USA,” for example, does not mean a separate political group in the United States. The “USA” here is simply a geographical designation for a sub-division of the larger body of the whole Party.
“But the Party is not the only organization of the working class. The proletariat has also a number of other organizations without which it cannot properly wage the struggle against capital: trade unions, cooperative societies, factory and works organizations, parliamentary groups, non- Party women’s associations, the press, cultural and educational organizations, youth leagues, revolutionary fighting organizations (in time of open revolutionary action), Soviets of deputies as the form of state organization (if the proletariat is in power), etc. The overwhelming majority of these organizations are non-Party, and only a certain part of them adhere directly to the Party, or represent its offshoots.”
With such a diversity of supporting non- Party organizations to be directed, the need for central leadership is recognized. Obviously the Party, the General Staff, is the only organization capable of exercising this leadership!
“That is why Lenin says that the Party is ‘the highest form of proletarian class organization,’ whose political leadership must extend to every other form of organization of the proletariat.”
“That is why the opportunist theory of the ‘independence’ and ‘neutrality’ of the non-Party organizations, which breeds independent members of parliament and journalists isolated from the Party, narrowminded trade unionists and cooperative society officials grown smug and philistine, is wholly incompatible with the theory and practice of Leninism.”
A further characteristic of this party is that of the iron discipline which exists within the party. This does not exclude differences of opinion or discussion within party circles, for those are considered necessary and to be expected. “But after a contest has been closed, after criticism has been exhausted and a decision has been arrived at, unity of will and unity of action of all Party members are the necessary conditions without which neither Party unity nor iron discipline in the Party is conceivable.”
Still another characteristic of the Communist Party concerns the tolerance of factions within the Party. According to Stalin: “ . . . the parties of the Communist International, which base their activities on the task of achieving the dictatorship of the proletariat, cannot afford to be ‘liberal’ or to permit freedom of factions.”
“Hence Lenin’s demand for the ‘complete elimination of all factionalism’ and the ‘immediate dissolution of all groups, without exception, that had been formed on the basis of various platforms’ on pain of ‘unconditional and immediate expulsion from the Party.’ ”
If we substitute “Cominform” for “Communist International” in the above quotation, we get an idea of the significance of the current differences between Tito and the Cominform.
Finally, Stalin stresses: “The Party becomes strong by purging itself of opportunist elements.”
In his Report on the Work of the Central Committee to the Eighteenth Congress of the C.P.S.U., in March, 1939, Stalin reported that there were 1,874,488 Party members represented at the Seventeenth Congress (1934). After reviewing the incidents and purges of the intervening years he stated: “The number of Party members represented at this, the Eighteenth Congress is about 1,600,000, which is 270,000 less than were represented at the Seventeenth Congress. But there is nothing bad in that. On the contrary, it is all to the good, for the Party strengthens itself by clearing its ranks of dross.” Boasting in this way of purging at least 270,000 of the faithful is an indication of the strength of the iron discipline that exists in the Party, and of its ruthless use of the purge.
The above quotations from Problems of Leninism make it clear that the Communist Party is far from being a political party in the sense that we know political parties in the United States. It is international, or rather nationless in character, it is organized along military lines with echelons comparable to military command within the Party, it is ruled by a ruthless internal discipline, and the Party determines who its members shall be. It is a self-perpetuating group, which, in the final analysis, is responsible to no one but itself. Of course Stalin points out that as the revolution is completed, and there are no longer social classes in the world, then states will wither and disappear, and so also will the Party wither and disappear. Is it reasonable to assume, however, that there will no longer be the need for management or direction for socialized agriculture, manufactures, or transportation? For the Soviets?
From the above it seems obvious that the Communist Party is more military than political in nature and organization, but with some fundamental differences from that which we usually think of as military organizations. The scope of its operations goes far beyond the organized armed forces, which are only one element of the forces which it directs. All of these forces, including the governmental machinery of the Soviet, are not a part of the Party but, by and large, merely instruments of the Party. In addition to the overt employment of the armed forces, it uses economic, educational, and administrative forces to achieve its aims. These are largely the covert forces of the revolution, using the weapons of propaganda, the fifth column, creating civil disturbances, engineering riots, seizing power in labor unions, sabotage, and other forms of subversion. If we think of this as another solution to the problem of how to fight and win a war without prohibitive costs, its potentialities certainly cannot be minimized.
IV
Should communism continue to spread and gradually engulf the world, what might be the effect on that world as we now know it?
The threat is made by a small but highly organized group whose avowed intention is to obliterate completely the institutions of our civilization as we know them and to replace them with a system of its own design. In this new system there would be no personal liberties, no individual enterprise, no choice of political franchise, and no harboring of divergent political opinion. Most of all, since all forms of administration would be under the control of this self-perpetuating group, there would be little possibility of changing the system.
The ultimate stateless world envisaged by the communists would eliminate national sovereignties and the independent states that now make up the family of nations. Our present institutions for the conduct of international relations, trade and commerce, the exchange of cultural ideas and objects, and the developments of science, would all be replaced by a centrally regulated system reaching into every facet of human life. It would be directed by a self-selected group who are and would be accountable to none but itself. “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs,” said Marx. Who determines what each man’s ability is? Who determines what his needs are? The answer seems obvious—only the Party.
Stalin’s view of the role of the Communist Party as the General Staff of the proletarian revolution means that the party has borrowed a military institution and adapted its methods to include the direction of all of the affairs of mankind. It is proclaimed to be the all-knowing, all-powerful agent or trustee of the proletariat, untouchable, and not subject to external criticism or challenge. But, so long as any systems exist in the world which are alien to this one, they are enemies of communism and are targets for ultimate destruction. As Stalin has pointed out, this revolution is an entire historical era, involving victories and defeats, advances and retreats, consolidations, and compromises.
Communist literature stresses the strategical and tactical use of the retreat, the compromise, and reform programs. In each case, while a retreat or compromise might appear on the surface to be a concession to capitalism, actually such a retreat or compromise will be so engineered that ultimately it will be converted to a weapon of the revolution against capitalism. That is why there is little chance of serious efforts on the part of the communist world to “get along” with the other democratic world. That is why advocates of some form of superstate in which the communist states would form a cooperating part cannot hope to be successful. What is really being asked for here is that communists should abandon their whole basic philosophy. With the power and territory that the Communist Party has achieved in the world since 1917, could anyone believe that it would now voluntarily abandon such a program?
Since the forces and weapons of communism include all possible kinds, overt and covert, under the direction of its party or General Staff, our fundamental beliefs concerning international law and relations are hot only challenged but must be critically reviewed. Our belief that a treaty of peace is binding, or that a declaration of war is a pre-requisite to hostilities, for example, needs re-examination. We should keep in mind that it is a fundamental strategy of communism that any agreement or compromise with its enemy is made with the reservation that eventually it will be used as a weapon against that enemy.
The very basis of the proletarian revolution is that it is a continuing struggle, waged unceasingly until the complete destruction of capitalism is accomplished. Under such conditions, and with communism having such strength in the world as it does, there can no longer be a condition of “peace” in the sense that we normally think of the term. Even though open hostilities do not exist this revolution is being prosecuted actively all of the time. The nature of the movement is such that it denies that peace, as we know it, can exist in the world. Peace, to the communist, can only mean complete acceptance of and subservience to his system.
How, then, does the institution that we call war fit into this new situation? As Stalin emphasizes, violence is but one form of this revolutionary struggle. In terms of economic effort, of manpower, or of treasure, it is certainly the most expensive way of settling international disputes. Does it not seem reasonable that this method will be avoided when other weapons in the communist arsenal produce progressively favorable results? By creating an organization which requires its membership to place itself above all geographical or national considerations, with sole loyalty to that organization, and by developing and using such weapons as creating riots and internal strife, propaganda, and subversion, the communists have produced a system which is really new in this world. It is, it should be repeated, a system which adapts the principles of military command, discipline, organization, and strategy and tactics, to the direction of all human affairs.
Under this system the use of armed forces to gain its ends will be governed by carefully calculated studies seeking to determine if the use of armed force is, in fact, the best way to achieve the desired objective. Alternatively these same studies will determine if the same result can be obtained by other means, perhaps requiring more time, but at less cost. If armed force is selected, its use, and the rules for its use, will be determined upon the basis of how it will best serve the purposes of the revolution.
Leaders of the Soviet Union often refer to their armed forces as defensive forces, maintained to protect their domain from imperialist attack. This could be so, and if so, the covert weapons at their disposal might well be their chief offensive weapons. In this connection it is well to recall that Chinese, Czech, and Polish nationals, but communists first, engineered the coups that resulted in the present regimes in their countries.
When we consider all of the implications of this system, we might well ask ourselves if we had better not re-examine our understanding of the term “war.” With the conventional forms of warfare, the use of armed forces fighting with the recognized weapons of warfare, we are probably as well informed as any. With the use of economic, educational, administrative, and psychological forces, mobilized and directed to achieve the same results as war, we have much to learn. Collectively, such weapons, skilfully directed, could be more destructive, over a period of time, than any of the weapons of conventional warfare.
Since these weapons are being used against us at all times they are actually a new form of warfare for which no conventions or rules of international conduct exist. Viewed in this light, the “cold war,” of which we read and hear so much, has new meaning. If we accept what appear to be clearly stated lines of strategy and tactics, the cold war is but one form of a greater war which is constantly being waged, regardless of whether or not the armed forces take an active part.
If we recognize clearly the nature of the situation which faces us, our own program for combatting it can be built on firm foundations. Today our civilization and its institutions are facing a challenge not of their own choosing, and initially it gives the initiative to the opposition. To the communist, by his own rules, this attack can only result eventually in the complete destruction of our form of civilization, and its replacement by the communist system. With wisdom this challenge can be met.
As a main step in meeting the challenge then, let us realize that the definition of war, as quoted earlier, is no longer adequate. Rather, for a large part of the world, war is the proletarian revolution which, in Lenin’s words, “ . . . is a most determined and most ruthless war waged by the new class against a more powerful enemy, the bourgeoisie, . . . and that that war “ . . . is a persistent struggle—bloody and bloodless, violent and peaceful, military and economic, educational and administrative—against the forces and traditions of the old society.”
Whether we like it or not, that is the kind of war that we must face, and be prepared for.