World in the Grip of an Idea: 29. The Cold War: Co-existence, Detente, and Convergence

In this series, Dr. Carson examines the connection between ideology and the revolutions of our time and traces the impact on several major countries and the spread of the ideas and practices around the world.

When the Cold War was at its height, it was sometimes suggested that there was a parallel between it and the religious wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The idea behind the making of this analogy was supposedly to put the Cold War in perspective. Those who pushed the analogy were saying, in effect, "Look, don’t get so excited about this conflict. Our forebears went through just such a conflict. There was a time when men were so heated up about religious differences that they fought grisly wars with one another about them. And what do we, with the advantage of historical perspective, think of the merit of these differences? Do we think them worth fighting about? Hardly!"

There are some interesting parallels between the earlier religious wars and those of this century, more interesting even than those who have advanced the analogy have pointed out. The earlier conflicts were between Christians, people of the same basic faith. The ideological conflicts of this century are between socialists, mainly, people of the same faith. In both conflicts, considerable attention has been paid to doctrinal differences, and differences in practice have occasioned acrimony. Moreover, socialists have been as inclined toward sectarian squabbles over dogma as Christians ever were.

There is yet another parallel. Both the earlier religious wars and the twentieth century conflicts were or are contests over political power; but since this parallel is crucial, the discussion of it should wait for a bit.

Reasoning by analogy has its pitfalls, however. Where complex phenomena are involved, as in these conflicts, it is important to attend both to similarities and to differences. It is even more important to distinguish between superficial similarities which may be accidental and critical differences which may be essential. Nor is any valid historical perspective to be gained by ignoring critical differences.

Living with Differences

It is true that Christians are generally at peace with one another in the world today. It is also true that sectarian differences which once were battle cries hardly excite a murmur. A certain amount of convergence has even taken place amongst some Christians, but it is also the case that where some union takes place, those who oppose the union often form their own denominations. The important point to get at, however, is to understand why Christians are generally at peace with one another. It is not, as secularists may suppose, that differences in doctrine no longer matter, or that there has been a decline in religion and religious fervor. It may be the case that dogmas are not generally so sharply defined or keenly felt as they were, say, in the course of the Protestant Reformation. But that is surely only a matter of degree and is by no means universal. As to a decline in religion, there has been such a decline among intellectuals in the last century, accompanied by an impact on the intellectual climate. This does not of itself signify a decline in religious belief but rather an intellectual narrowing of its import.

In any case, religious enthusiasm has waxed and waned several times in the period since religious differences among Christians were the occasion of any widespread conflict. This suggests to me that the degree of religious belief is not the key to an explanation of martial conflict over religion.

Conflicts Over Power

Religious differences only become an occasion for warfare when religion is linked to political power. To put it another way, conflict arises over the attempt of those who hold political power to force their beliefs on others who differ with them. Or, it can arise when there is a contest between those who have differing religious persuasions over who shall exercise the power in matters of religion.

The Protestant Reformation, and the Catholic Counter-Reformation, spawned wars because state and church were intertwined and because only one religion could be, or was, established. The power contest contributed much to sharply defined dogmatic positions and thus to the proliferation of denominations. (The more sharply drawn doctrinal positions are the less the likelihood of general agreement. But doctrines must be sharply defined if adherence to them is to be enforced by law.) The way to religious peace is to deny to any religion the power to force its doctrines on others or to establish its religion over them. This idea is found in the doctrine of the separation of church and state.

The matter runs deeper than this, however. There is a critical and essential difference between Christianity and modern socialism. At bottom, Christianity is not a power theory. As was earlier affirmed, socialism—whether revolutionary or evolutionary—is a power theory. But let us consider the case of Christianity first. It has already been pointed out that when Jesus went into the wilderness and was tempted that he rejected the vision of an earthly kingdom or empire. That is, he rejected the use of force to attain his ends. He did so again, in another way, just before his trial and crucifixion. When Judas betrayed Jesus and the crowd laid hands on him, this event occurred:

And behold, one of them which were with Jesus stretched out his hand, and drew his sword, and struck a servant of the high priest’s, and smote off his ear.

Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish by the sword. (Matthew 26:51-52)

It should be made clear, however, that these remarks were made in connection with the attainment of his ends. Jesus goes on to say that he could have legions of angels to defend him, if he would but ask. "But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be." (Matthew 26:54)

No Use of Force

Christianity is not a power theory. Jesus rejected the use of force to achieve his purposes. The methods he employed were concern, love, healing, sacrifice, attraction, and persuasion. Those who would follow him, he bade to take up, not their swords, but the cross (i. e., the way of sacrifice). What Jesus seeks cannot be attained by force. Men cannot be made to believe. They cannot be forced to have a change in which they comprehend the superior reality of spirit. The sword is an instrument of death, not of life, and he said that he came to bring life.

None of this is said to deny the obvious, namely, that many of those who have professed to be his followers have taken up the sword with the avowed purpose of defending or advancing Christianity. They have often enough intertwined religion with government. They have established churches by law. They have used the force of government to attempt to compel many things that were said to be in keeping with Christianity.

But they have not done so with the authority of Jesus; they have done so because they were impatient, because they were weak, because they were willful, because they substituted their wills for the will of Him they claimed to follow. They have even beset one another in violent and destructive wars. The carnage of the religious wars, and especially of the Thirty Years’ War, was great. They took up the sword, and many perished by it. That prophecy was fulfilled, not for the first time and, sadly enough, not for the last, for it has lately come to pass once again in Ireland.

Christianity does not require the use of force. On the contrary, Christianity cannot be advanced by force. We have it on good authority that if God willed to use force He could call forth such force as none could resist Him. But He does it not, for it is foreign to His nature and to His purpose. He wills peace, harmony, love, and that men should be at one with Him. These ends cannot be attained by force. To put it philosophically, in essence Christianity is not a power theory. When this guise has been forced upon it, it has been accidental and attributable to the weakness of men.

Socialism a Power Theory

Socialism is a power theory. In essence, it is nothing but a power theory. Its affinity for the state is as near absolute as anything can be in this world. The further it goes toward its goal the more absolute its reliance on the state. None of this is accidental. It follows inexorably from the professed goal and from the complex of hatreds which animate it. The moment socialists abandon the state as the instrument for the achievement of their purposes they cease to be socialists, and socialism is no more.

Socialist thinkers did not, we may believe, consciously set out to contrive a scheme to bring about such a state of affairs. Many of them did not even embrace the state willingly, and most have professed reluctance. For Marx, the state was to be a temporary expedient, something to be used temporarily until its purpose had been achieved and it could wither away. Gradualists have labored mightily to hide the mailed fist of the state behind the velvet glove of democracy.

What socialists contrived, whether they sought to do so or not, was a religion, or substitute for religion. It was a religion of man, and it was a man-made religion. The appeal of the idea that has the world in its grip is fundamentally religious. It has within it elements derived from traditional religions, but in it they become earth-bound and temporally oriented. The promise of the idea is that all things shall be made right here on earth and that man shall be finally liberated. The tacit promise is of an end of all restraint, and hence of an end to government and the use of force upon people. Man’s inhumanity to man, a favorite phrase of those enlivened by the idea, will cease.

That the application of this idea with the avowed purpose of fulfilling the promises leads to statism, to terror, to violence, or to the ubiquitous use of the force of the state has been the burden of this work to show. But why should it do so? Indeed, why must it do so? Because of the premises which underlie socialism. Society is rent and sundered by a fundamental disharmony. The disharmony results from man’s pursuit of his own self-interest, socialists claim. This, they say, turns man against man, defeats the common good, results in pervasive injustices, and is the occasion for the use of force. The received social institutions support and reinforce the pursuit of self-interest. The disharmony is thereby institutionalized.

In theory, a religion of humanity could change all this. There are, here and there, devotees of such a faith. And socialists in general subscribe to its tenets. But the idea that has the world in its grip is not the religion of humanity. Its religion is statism. The reasons for this may not be apparent, but they can be surmised. There are two main ones, I think.

The Trouble with Abstractions

The first of these is the inadequacy of the religion of humanity as a religion. It is a pallid thing. It is the worship of an abstraction which can never be personified. That is, man in the abstract, or humanity in the abstract, can be an object of veneration only so long as it does not entail actual men. Actual men have faults, something which most of us discover sooner or later, and are therefore not fit subjects for worship. A religion with wide appeal must have both personification and some sort of transcendence, or, at least, unquestioned purity. Abstraction is not transcendence, and actual men lack purity.

The other need of socialism as a religion was a means or instrument for altering social institutions and transforming man. By their focus on man and this world, they denied a transcendent being, thereby requiring that their instrument be immanent. The dimensions of the problem made the choice of the state as the instrument inevitable. Only something with power over the whole could conceivably achieve the alterations and transformations involved.

State is the crucial term here. Socialists are not much given to making the distinction, and they are quite unlikely to proclaim themselves as state worshipers, but there is a crucial distinction between state and government. The worship of government is attended by the same difficulty as the worship of humanity. The difficulty is that actual governments have flaws, or rather the men who man them do.

The state is an abstraction; it is pure; it can even be an ideal. Power vested in the state cannot be misplaced, for it is the natural depository of all power over a given territory. Sovereignty, absolute sovereignty, is its prerogative, its reason for being. The state, in socialist underlying conception, is the rightful instrument of "the people," and so far as it acts for "the people," whatever power is exercised is legitimate. (Communists sometimes say proletariat rather than people, but for them the proletariat is "the people.")

A constant struggle goes on to bring the government up to the level of the state, i. e., to make it a perfect instrument of "the people." What prevents it from being so is the persistence of "the class enemy," as communists put it, or of conservatives, reactionaries, business interests, or "the vested interests," in ‘gradualist countries. "Fascism," which is the socialist conceptual personification of all the evil forces, is ever lurking around the corner ready to seize and misuse the power of the state.

The Disappearing State

When the class enemy has finally been eradicated, when the last "fascist" has been rounded up, when the "vested interests" are at last divested of their power and influence, then government can be raised to the level of the state. "The people" will be identical with government, and government and state will merge. When this state of affairs comes about the use of force would be a redundancy. There could be no occasion for the use of force, for the will of the governors could be no different from the will of "the people." Communists have usually declared that this state of affairs will shortly come about. Gradualists foresee a much more extended struggle, with no culmination now in sight. In any case, it is a struggle for power, for the monopolization of all power by "the people."

This is the mystic vision of socialism. So far as it is a religion, it is a religion of state worship. And that turns out to be a worship of power. The whole world is caught in the vise-like grip of an idea which propels it into the struggle toward power. The idea promises beatitude; it leads to destruction, to tyranny, to murder, to rapine, to suicide. The idea requires the sublimation of the individual to the state. This requirement is no less than the death of the ego or the end of the individual self.

It is possible to commit suicide, of course, without going through the whole vast process of lengthy evolution, massive revolution, the creation of a vast state mechanism, and so on. The Jones cult showed the way in the horrifying mass suicide-murder at Jonestown, Guyana. Self-immolation, the tacit goal of socialism, can be achieved directly by individuals, cults, and small groups. But that is a "cop out," so to speak, for it must be done on a world-wide scale.

What has all this to do with coexistence, with détente, and with convergence? It has everything to do with them. Can East and West coexist? Can peace be attained by a policy of détente? Will communism and gradualist socialism eventually converge? There is no way to answer these questions definitively, of course, for they entail events and developments that have not yet taken place, if they ever will.

A Clearer Picture

There is a way to understand, however, what is involved in peaceful co-existence, détente, and convergence. It is through understanding the idea that impels the developments. Trying to make heads or tails of them with historical data in the absence of the ideological framework is akin to trying to put the pieces of a puzzle together without a picture of the completed puzzle before you. Explanations shift with changing leaders and changing policies, and no clear pattern emerges. The Chinese and Russians squabble over the meaning of coexistence. Soviet leaders hint at the possibility of convergence. Is détente anything more than the one step backward of the old Stalinist formula of two steps forward and one step back?

All these things begin to come into focus when we perceive that socialism is a power theory. Communism is a theory of coming to power, extending, and holding it by way of revolution. Evolutionary socialism is a theory of coming to power and extending it gradually by means that only subtly alter the received framework. Co-existence, détente, and the possibility of convergence are tactics in the struggle for power. Peaceful co-existence and détente are communist tactics for moderating the conflict and allowing time and room for further communist expansion to take place. Convergence is not an avowed policy of the communists, and it cannot be so long as and to the extent that they are wedded to the idea of the necessity of revolution. Convergence is the dream, however, of many Western intellectuals. Every accord between East and West arouses hope that convergence is coming. It may well be a communist tactic to keep that hope alive.

Socialism is not just a power theory; it is a power theory animated by a mystic religion. It has a world vision. That vision is of the whole world under a single power, of every organization and every individual subordinated to that power. Only then, it is felt, can the vision of socialism become an actuality. So long as there is one independent power in the world, the peace, i.e., socialism, is threatened. I understand this to mean that co-existence can never be more than a temporary policy. In like manner, detente can never be more than a temporary policy. Thus far, history bears this out. Co-existence and detente are largely illusions of Western intellectuals and the governments under their sway.

The Prospect of Change

Can communism not change? It depends upon what is meant. If it is a question of tactics, there is no doubt that communism can and does change. Communist tactics differ considerably from one country to another. Chinese and Cuban communism belong to the same genus, but they are quite different national species. Moreover, the tactics change greatly from time to time and under different leaders in the same country. Many of Stalin’s tactics differed greatly from those of Lenin, and Khrushchev disavowed many of Stalin’s tactics. Stalin fostered militant anti-fascist tactics in the Comintern for most of the 1930s, then entered into a pact with the Nazis. Communists have sometimes formed political parties, or semblances of them, and had candidates run for office in lands where they were not in power. At other times, they have refused to run for office on the grounds that such elections were a bourgeois trap. Tactics are but accidents, philosophically speaking, something to be changed according to the circumstances.

But could communism not change in essence? Those who believe in this possibility have not fronted what is involved. What is communism in essence? Communism is power, to restate the position. It is power wedded to a mystic vision of world dominion. Or, mysticism or not, it is power thrusting to the monopoly of all power in the world. Any essential change within communism would necessarily entail yielding up the monopoly of power which has been substantially attained wherever a communist system prevails.

If one party rule were relinquished so that two or more parties could compete, the monopoly of power would be gone. Freedom of speech and freedom of the press entail public debate in which appeals by those who differ are directed toward the populace. They would inevitably divide the populace and undercut the monopoly of power. The same goes for freedom of religion and any significant amount of private property.

A Monopoly of Power

Communist systems have that toward which all socialism tends, namely, a monopoly of power. Why would communists give it up? Better still, what would happen if they did? Communism without power is only a fantasy. It is like an electrical appliance without electricity; it is inoperative. Communism without a monopoly of power is not communism. It would be as if the revolution had not occurred. Communism without a monopoly of power would be, at most, another variety of evolutionary socialism. But evolving toward what? Evolving toward the monopoly of all power, something which communists had already attained in their own countries.

There is another reason why communism cannot change, or perhaps it is only the logical extension of the reasons given above. All socialism is braced to communism! The idea that has the world in its grip finds its culmination in communism, in the monopoly of all power in the state. All socialist roads lead to Moscow, to Peking, to Havana, or to wherever a communist regime is established. Socialist intellectuals are drawn to these centers as surely as the moth is drawn to the light. Much of the intellectual history of the twentieth century, or at least the history of intellectuals, could be written about these pilgrimages to the New Rome. It is not knowledge that draws them there, nor exactly the quest for it. It is a feeling, a feeling that they will find there the concrete reality toward which they yearn. Whether they do so depends upon the degree to which they cooperate with their hosts by succumbing to the illusions presented for their edification.

If communism should fall—that is, lose power everywhere—the whole structure of socialism must crumble with it. It would happen because there would no longer be a concrete reality to sustain socialism. Socialists would discover that they were leaning into thin air. The measures of gradualists would be proposals to be treated on their own merits, for they would have no vision behind them. Remove the religious mystic vision from socialism, and its proposals become transparent crackpot schemes.

Communism has often enough been an embarrassment to Western socialists, of course. Communists even commit the unpardonable sin sometimes, i. e., persecute intellectuals. But it is the embarrassment which children feel about the behavior of their parents. Remove the parents, and the family disintegrates. Remove the communist parents of socialism and the family of socialism will disintegrate. Socialism was only a fantasy until World War I. It took on flesh and blood with the Bolshevik Revolution. With the Nazi Revolution it took place in yet another guise. With the defeat of the Nazis and their Fascist allies, revolutionary socialism survived only in its communist manifestation, and it is in that manifestation of it that we may know it best today.

Braces work both ways, however. To say that evolutionary socialism is braced to communism is but another way of describing the dependence of communism on the noncommunist world. The dependence of evolutionary socialism on communism is largely spiritual. It is the religious ingredient in communism—the vision of a forward marching triumphant world socialism riding the wave of History—that is necessary to sustain evolutionary socialism and propel it onward. By contrast, the dependence of communism upon the noncommunist world is political and economic.

Diplomatic Recognition

Politically, the noncommunist world provides the stamp of legitimacy to the communist powers. By treating them as regular governments—by according diplomatic recognition, by making treaties and agreements, by carrying on various sorts of intercourse—noncommunist powers say, in effect, to the captive peoples in communist countries, "Yours is a legitimate government. It rightfully imposes its will upon you, for it is entitled to all the prerogatives of a government." More, by recognizing the legitimacy of the regimes, it tends to countenance whatever communist governments do to their people as being their business since such matters involve internal affairs.

Communism is a vast counterproductive system economically. Its primary aim of exercising power and extending that power over the peoples of the world makes it a counterproductive system. It is not that the rulers of communist countries lack the desire to have economic production and efficiency; it is rather that the repression entailed in the communist effort makes it impossible to achieve. The freedom to innovate is largely taken away, and the rewards for producing are arbitrary and insufficient to spur production. Hence, the relics of freedom in the noncommunist world provide invaluable aid to communism.

Communists depend largely on the noncommunist world for inventions, for technological innovations, and for the fruits of scientific progress. Grain shipments from the West have helped much in staving off famine in communist countries in recent years. Communist rulers lust after Western machinery. Take away the West, and the retrogressive character of communist economies would be even more transparent.

These braces should be conceived as temporary, however. When a building is completed the temporary braces are removed. Communist dependence on the West is always conceived as an expedient matter by communists. In like manner, the dependence of Western intellectuals upon communism is necessary only so long as socialism has not been achieved at home. In short, the mutual dependence is temporary when viewed from either angle.

The greatest threat to peace at the present time, such peace as there may be, is aggressive, belligerent, and expansive communism. Gradualist socialist countries do not pose any great threat at this time. They are most likely to disturb the peace by resisting the spread of communism. But the prospect of that has lessened in recent years. The United States does not appear to have the will to resist communist expansion now. Indeed, resistance was always hemmed in by such subtle niceties that it was far from effective. So far as other highly developed industrial nations are concerned, their will to resist communism has never been strong.

Domestic Problems

This is not to say that evolutionary socialists are just naturally peace loving people without desire for power. It is rather that each gradualist socialist country has a domestic power problem. Communists usually solve their domestic power problem shortly after coming to power. They concentrate all power, subdue all organizations, and imprison or kill such opponents of the regime as can be discovered or imagined. It takes only a few years to do this ordinarily. Then, the communist thrust for power shifts outward upon the world. Gradualists, by contrast, are unwilling or unable to grasp all power over the domestic population. (They would cease to be gradualists if they did.) Thus, their power struggle continues domestically; they do not have to look outward in their quest for additional power. Gaining and consolidating power over their own people remains a problem large enough to occupy much of their attention.

The United States has been a partial exception to this rule. The presidential system of government, with the president in charge of the conduct of foreign affairs and in command of the armed forces offers power incentives for foreign involvements. That is, presidential power tends to increase as foreign affairs become more important. This does provide the basis for an outward thrust to American power. However, intellectuals and the media, both domestic and foreign, appear finally to have convinced our presidents that they are not to extend their powers by way of resistance to communism. There is a way, however, to get their accolades; it is to reach accord with communist countries. Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Carter appear to have learned this lesson well. Congress has cooperated by circumscribing the presidential instruments for resisting communism: the military, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the CIA.

It is conceivable that there could be convergence between East and West. Evolutionary and revolutionary socialism have common goals—the concerting of all human effort, the removing of all centers of opposition to it, and the use of collectivist means. They both sanction, in practice, the vesting of the state with increasing power. It is plausible to suppose that as the West becomes more and more statist, if indeed it does, it would merge with the East.

Convergence a Dream

Convergence is, however, a dream, and a hope only of Western intellectuals and the politicians under their sway. There is no hard evidence that communists would converge with gradualists. A deeper look suggests how unlikely this is. Total power can be joined to partial power only by either totalizing all power or reducing the total power. Thus far, all the historical evidence that can be brought to bear on the question leads to the conclusion that convergence with communism is submission to communism. That is what happened in Poland, in Hungary, in Czechoslovakia, in Bulgaria, in East Germany, in Vietnam, in Cambodia, and so on. Any survival of contending parties as communists move to take power is only temporary.

In any case, it is not possible at present to converge with communism, per se. Communism is now divided. There are communist powers independent of one another. If convergence with communism were possible it would only be possible to converge with one or another of the communist nations or empires.

Indeed, the Cold War appears to have taken a turn. As this is being written, a submerged conflict has been taking place over Cambodia, a conflict between the Soviet Union which supports the Vietnamese invaders, and Red China which has been supporting another Cambodian government. The more pertinent question now seems to be not whether East and West can co-exist or will converge but whether independent communist powers can coexist with one another or not, and whether they can converge or not.

We cannot know what will actually happen in this newer contest, of course. What we do know is that the idea that has the world in its grip is a mystic vision of the eventual concentration of all power into one world power. Communism is the most virulent embodiment of the idea. The existence of more than one revolutionary socialist power is more intolerable to communism than the existence of a West that has not been assimilated. The expansion of communism has taken on a new dimension and a new urgency. It is impelled by the quest for communist allies in the struggle over which will be the power center of communism. Terror and violence, the established communist tactic, will probably be stepped up, as one center of communism attempts to overawe and intimidate the other.

The religious wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries suggest an even more fearful prospect. The religious wars that erupted between Protestant and Catholic lands had been preceded by a more desultory religious war, a centuries-long conflict between Christian Europe and Islam. Although the parallel is not exact, this conflict can be likened to that between evolutionary and revolutionary socialism.

The contest between communist powers has the potentiality of a full-fledged religious war, such as the Thirty Years’ War in Europe. No war can equal the fury of that between peoples of the same faith divided against one another. If history repeats itself, the world may be in for a horrendous and cataclysmic conflict. Be that as it may, it is to the conquest of the individual that has already occurred or is taking place that we must turn. The world conflicts of socialism are but a reflex on a grand scale of the determination embedded in the idea to crush all independence.            

Next: 30. The Individual: The Victim of the Idea.