World: MOSCOW: Real View of the Cold War

ON public occasions, including Communist Party Congresses, Nikita Khrushchev exudes confidences, pretends to see the imminent “downfall of capitalism and the establishment of Communism.” But a hard-eyed realist in the Communist camp must recognize what many a Western pessimist does not: the cold war is by no means going all Russia’s way. Area by area, the real view from Moscow shapes up something like this:

∙WESTERN EUROPE. Soon after World War II, Western Europe seemed ripe for Communism. Yet France has not had a Communist in its Cabinet since May 1947; the Italian Communist Party, biggest in the West, has shrunk from a peak of 2,500,000 to 1,700,000 last year. Economically, Free Europe is in an unprecedented boom and moving toward political unity—the result of a remarkable alliance between capitalism and democratic socialism. All of this confounds Leninist-Stalinist dogma, which in 1952 predicted that the industrially advanced nations would destroy themselves in a shooting war over foreign markets. The combined industrial potential of Western Europe, the U.S. and Britain will for an indefinite period far outweigh the potential of the Red bloc.

∙ASIA. Moscow engineered the neutralization of Laos, and is forcing the U.S. to pour even more military aid—possibly even troops—into shaky South Viet Nam. But also in Asia, Red China’s immense economic crisis will surely force a cutback in industrial goals, just as the 1958 crop failure required a drastic revision downward of the “Great Leap Forward.” In the Philippines, Burma and Malaya, Communist rebellions have been almost completely erased. Perhaps more important, spectacular industrial gains in Japan have undercut the influence of the divided local Communist Party and moderated the anti-Americanism of the left-wing Socialists, which reached a peak two years ago when anti-U.S. riots forced Ike to cancel his visit. And in India, while aging Nehru’s neutralism is still highly irritating to the U.S., the country’s atmosphere has lately been more friendly toward the West.

∙AFRICA. In the newly independent states of Africa, the ruling political spirit is extreme nationalism with often vicious or childish anti-Western overtones, but this does not necessarily mean that these new countries are going Communist. Moscow may find it difficult to bind this willful, unpredictable force to a Soviet-made troika, even in the cases of such left-leaning states as Ghana, Guinea and Mali, which sent “observers” to the Communist Party Congress. Nigeria, the most stable former colony south of the Sahara, and the Brazzaville group of twelve former French territories are especially suspicious of Red intentions. The Congo, once Moscow’s sharpest spearhead in Africa, may be inching toward stability even though Communist embassies are reappearing in Leopoldville.

∙MIDDLE EAST. Five years ago, Columnists Joseph and Stewart Alsop overstated the widespread view that “the most strategically vital region of the modern world has been handed to the Kremlin on a silver platter—with the American Government as a rather conspicuous platter bearer.” That once tangible Soviet threat in the Middle East has faded to a still ominous but much less menacing shadow. The recent split of the United Arab Republic has more or less returned Syria to the Western camp. Egypt’s Nasser, an “imperialist baiter” until lavish promises of Soviet aid failed to materialize, is busy mending his fences with Britain, France and the U.S. Iraq, though unstable, is ruled by an independent dictator, and Iran is racing to start some long-needed social reforms.

∙LATIN AMERICA. Unquestionably, Communism’s biggest success in a decade is Castro’s Cuba. Fidel’s revolution in the name of social justice has touched a responsive chord among the have-not masses of the Americas. The U.S., recognizing the need for reform, has promised to contribute most of $20 billion toward an “Alliance for Progress,” but only an equal awareness by Latin America’s own rulers can checkmate Communism on the continent. The fact remains that, so far, Castro’s attempts to export his revolution have failed, and he is having serious trouble in his own country.

∙COMMUNISM AT HOME. In its own orbit, Communism is buffeted by conflicting pressures. The Soviet triumph in space was matched by its failure on the ground: 50% of the people are still tied to agriculture, still unable to produce foodstuffs in ample quantity for the population. “Rockets, rockets, rockets —who needs them now!” exploded one letter writer to Komsomolskaya Pravda. “For the time being, to hell with the moon; let me put something better on my dinner table instead.”

On the other hand, better food on the dinner table and better consumer goods in the shops—the promise of material progress held out by Khrushchev—are a vision with limited appeal to Soviet youths who never suffered, in the name of the Revolution, the deprivations of the Stalin era. Regardless of the outcome in the struggle between Khrushchev and Chou En-lai over Communist strategy, the Soviet realist knows that he faces a much deeper problem. The issue was raised by Poland’s senior Marxist Philosopher Adam Schaff, in response to a student who asked: “Please don’t get angry, but what is the meaning of life?” To which Schaff responded by begging for a “socialist humanism”—without which Communism is “sterile and meaningless to the ordinary man.”