The Real Enemy

There was a time when the West counted the anniversaries of the Russian Revolution with some hope that one year the Communist regime would collapse. That time is long past. Russia celebrated the Revolution's 45th anniversary last week, and as revolutionary regimes go, 45 years is a considerable stretch. In the 4 1/2 decades following the French Revolution, for instance, democracy toppled monarchy, the bloody Terror crushed democracy, Bonapartism replaced terrorism, and despotism succumbed to the restoration of Bourbon royalty.

In the same span of time, the Russian regime, which Lenin thought could last scarcely three months, has had its own brief democracy, its own long terror, its own despotism. Never mentioned in the anniversary speeches are the 1,500,000 who died in the three-year civil war, the 10,000,000 who perished in the famine of the '20s and in Stalin's later ruthless collectivization drives, the 7,000,000 to 10,000,000 who were imprisoned or murdered in the maniacal purges of the '30s and '40s, and the unnumbered thousands whose lives were destroyed or maimed by Communism in open war or secret terror all over the world.

Khrushchev himself bases his whole political posture and power on a condemnation of these Stalinist "excesses." That is supposed to settle it. While no one seriously today predicts a return to Stalinist terror, the fact remains that the philosophy that made the terror possible has in no way been repudiated, but only softened around the edges. Yet in the West there is a growing tendency to shift all the guilt and all the villainy to "Stalinist" Red China and to presumed pro-Chinese partisans within the Kremlin.

Smile for the Camera. The fact that Moscow is no longer the undisputed capital of world Communism, and that there is, unquestionably, a Sino-Soviet split (see following story), is once again reviving the old, tempting speculation that some day Russia and the West will make common cause against China. Historian Arnold Toynbee suggested years ago that Christian Russia and the Christian West would stand together against the Chinese. Later, France's Charles de Gaulle talked of the "white nation in Europe" (Russia) faced with the "yellow masses of China." Now aging Pundit Walter Lippmann argues that "the true interest of Russia is to make peace in Europe and, with the West . . . to recognize that the containment of Red China is becoming more important than any other Soviet interest."

This pipe dream was reinforced by Red China's attack on India. Furthermore, according to some weird reports from the Caribbean last week, the U.S. and Russia seemed joined in a cordial effort to defuse Castro's Cuba. If one could believe the stories, some Soviet skippers happily waved and peeled tarpaulins off missiles on their decks for the benefit of U.S. surveillance cameras. One Red crew even sent a bottle of vodka up to the pilot of a hovering U.S. Navy helicopter.

All this suggested to some in the West a joint U.S.-Russian responsibility, arising from their possession of deadly nuclear weapons, to keep irresponsible fanatics like Castro and his Chinese backers in line. There were rumors of a secret deal between the U.S. and Russia involving some degree of military disengagement in Europe. This would presumably make possible the Lippmann notion of joint U.S.-Russian "containment" of Red China.

Split or Illusion? The West would obviously be foolish not to exploit the Sino-Soviet conflict to the fullest. But it would be even more foolish to let the thought of that conflict lure it into an illusory detente with Russia. For one thing, the Chinese menace is sometimes exaggerated. Obviously the Chinese can and do cause tremendous trouble, but their under-industrialized, underfed country will scarcely change the world balance of power in the foreseeable future, even if Peking builds its own atom bomb.

Secondly, as Roger Hilsman, the State Department's Director of Intelligence, pointed out last week, the split itself cannot be wholly trusted: "We must remember that Communist ideology, with its goal of world revolution, still provides an overall basis for unity between Peking and Moscow. So long as both partners see the United States as the greatest obstacle to the attainment of this goal, they will try to patch over their differences and unite against the common enemy."

In short, while the West has certain opportunities to play Communist countries off against each other, the real enemy remains not the dead Stalin, not live "neo-Stalinists," not Peking, but Communism, which Lenin first brought to power 45 years ago with the slogan: "Away with democracy. All power to the Soviets."

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