Destiny's Men

Brooks Atkinson, New York Times drama critic turned foreign correspondent, is an honest, undogmatic, down-to-earth New Englander just back from ten months in Moscow. In three Times articles this week, Atkinson appraised Russia today in a report so shrewd, balanced and clear-focused that it promptly became a major guidepost to U.S. understanding of the country most important for Americans to understand. Some excerpts:

In the attempt to establish workable relations with the Government of the Soviet Union we have to abandon the familiar concepts of friendship. Friendship in the sense of intimate association and political compromise is not wanted, is not possible and is not involved. . . . The Russian people are admirable people. . . . But between us and the Russian people stands the Soviet Government. Despite its sanctimonious use of the word "democracy," it is a totalitarian government. The familiar dictatorship of the proletariat is actually the dictatorship of the 13 members of the Politburo of the Communist Party.

There are no freedoms inside the Soviet Union. As far as I know, the Government is not imposed on the people against their will, nor is it a corrupt Government that puts the personal interests of any one group ahead of what are regarded as the true interests of the State. Despite many internal disorders and disloyalties ... the people of the Soviet Union generally trust and respect the wisdom and integrity of their leaders. . . .

Not Enemies, Not Friends. But, by nature, the Government is a machine for generating power inside the Soviet Union and as far outside as the power can be made to extend; and all attempts to deal with it in terms of friendship are doomed to failure. Although we are not enemies, we are not friends; and the most we can hope for is an armed peace for the next few years.

Where our interests lie, we have to apply equal power in the opposite direction. This is the most reactionary method of arranging world affairs. But the spirit of the Soviet Government is fundamentally reactionary, as its attitude toward defeated nations and the behavior of the Red Army in Manchuria suggest. Accustomed to the use of force inside the Soviet Union, the Soviet Government instinctively thinks in terms of force in its external affairs. . . .

Although the most violent period of the Soviet revolution has probably passed, a streak of violence persists. No one knows how many million political prisoners are now living in jail or in exile. The estimates run all the way from 10,000,000 to 15,000,000. . . .

To survive, [the Soviet Government] believes that it must be free to conduct its affairs in secret and to act swiftly, by force if necessary. It naturally carries the same psychology into the satellite states where people are less used to that kind of treatment from a foreign source. . . .

Credit & Bootstraps. As far as a foreigner can tell, the Soviet leaders are in a strong position. They have led their people to a remarkable victory over an efficient, modern foe; and the Communist Party is naturally taking full credit for winning the war--in various degrees ignoring the contributions the other allies made to the defeat of Germany, and taking credit for the knockout blow against Japan. . . . But it is not in the nature of men like members of the Politburo to feel secure. As leaders of a backward, poorly fed, loosely organized country that is trying to lift itself by its bootstraps in a hurry, they have many unpleasant duties to perform and many labors to lay on the backs of their people. No doubt they feel that the circumstances require that they have freedom to act at the top without criticism, opposition or observation. Although their motives may be above suspicion, they behave instinctively like conspirators. . . .

Group Aberrations. The spirit of the Soviet Government is antiforeign. Ever since the bloody purges of 1936 there has been a nameless terror about foreigners, who are regarded as spies and enemies. . . . Even the leaders are not immune. [They] are victims of their isolationism. Although they have access to an enormous mass of information from abroad, they lack the experience to analyze it. ...

It seems to me that the most conspicuous and also the most irritating abnormality in Soviet leadership is a group paranoia. The leaders imagine that every man's hand is against them; they imagine that they are surrounded. And, of course, there is no more certain way of arousing first the bewilderment, then the contempt and finally the enmity of other nations. In view of the size, strength, courage and inexhaustible resources of the Soviet Union, this phobia about being trapped and cramped would be hilarious, if it were not so troublesome to foreigners who want to find some way of getting on with the Soviet Union. . . .

In America, there is a kind of old wives' tale to the effect that the leaders of the Soviet Union are shrewd, cunning and realistic men who always know from one moment to the next where they are going. But I suspect that they are rather commonplace men who have had no experience of democracy at home and are confused by manifestations of democracy abroad. After successfully destroying differences of opinion at home for the holiest Marxian reasons, they instinctively regard differences of opinion abroad as treachery to the Soviet Union and to the common people. . . .

Socialism v. Capitalism. The most formidable impediment to amicable international relations is the basic fact that the Soviet Union is a socialist state developing and expanding in a capitalist world. According to the Communist party line, the Soviet is not secure from aggression so long as capitalist countries like the U.S. and Great Britain also hold dominant positions in the world. . . .

In my opinion, socialism in itself is not the source of the trouble between the Soviet Union and the U.S. and Great Britain. Other things being equal, the two Western democracies could get on with the Soviet Union more profitably than Nazi Germany did during the period of the fraudulent pact of friendship. Indeed, I expect that they will.

But that is not the point of view of the Soviet leaders. They regard themselves as custodians of the future of the world. In their opinion, everything is going their way; as leaders of a socialist state with a Communist goal, they regard themselves as the advance agents of manifest destiny. In Poland* and the Balkans they believe that they are helping manifest destiny along, although the resistance is terrific from the "unenlightened," who are in a vast majority. . . .

The Law & the Prophets. For Communism is not only a political science but a religion, and its conduct is governed by dogma as well as by reason. . . . The modern icons are the heroic statues and portraits of Lenin and Stalin in every public building and the huge portraits of the minor prophets carried by the believing multitudes on holidays. . . . The parish letters to the faithful, which are the leaders on the front pages of the newspapers, solemnly declare that the Soviet Union is the most blessed nation in the world because it has embraced the one and only true faith, and that the future will overflow with love, joy and singing.

When the Soviet representatives meet ours at the conference table they are in effect meeting the last tottering princes of original sin; and they cannot give way to us without yielding divine principle. That is one reason why the Russians are so difficult to get on with in pagan assemblies that do not worship Marx, Lenin and Stalin. . . .

Despite all these impediments to pleasant and easy relations . . . the Russians really do not want to lose friends throughout the world, nor build up resistance. They do not want to defy world opinion. . . . The Russian people are sincere and goodhearted. It is a pity, perhaps it will be a tragedy, that as a nation we have to live with the Russian nation in an atmosphere of bitterness and tension. But we have to. There is no other way.

*For details of manifest destiny in Poland, see FOREIGN NEWS.

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