Communists: Around to the Dulles Position

In a celebrated 1956 attack on the principle of nonalignment, John Foster Dulles defined neutralism as a policy that “pretends that a nation can best gain safety for itself by being indifferent to the fate of others.” It is, Dulles added, “an immoral and shortsighted conception.”

The U.S. has since taken a more patient view of neutralism, while an evolving Russia has become less tolerant of the uncommitted nations that receive aid from both camps. Last week in Moscow, the party’s theoretical journal Kommunist huffily denounced neutralism in terms that, in their way, were the same as those John Foster Dulles used eight years ago. Said Kommunist: “The leaders of young countries who really desire progress for their peoples cannot occupy intermediate positions between contradictory world social systems. There are only two paths of development—one path leads to capitalism and the other to socialism.

There is no third way.”

Moscow’s outburst was clearly aimed at Egypt’s President Nasser, who has received massive U.S. aid as well as some $271 million in Soviet loans and grants for the Aswan Dam. “The policy of nonalignment,” grumped Kommunist, “presupposed only nonparticipation in military blocs and alliances, and by no means an identical attitude to the friends and champions of peace, on the one hand, and to the enemies and aggressors on the other.”