4. Critique of Frank S. Meyer's Memorandum

4. Critique of Frank S. Meyer’s Memorandum¹⁰³

March 1962

The first thing to note about Mr. Meyer’s memorandum is his striking, almost remarkable, lack of foresight in evaluating the status of the world Communist movement. Presumably, the memorandum was written shortly after Khrushchev’s report of January 6, 1961. Any perceptive and knowledgeable observer of world Communism knew, by early 1961, that the ideological stresses and strains between the Khrushchev and the Chinese-”Stalinist” wings of the movement were becoming ever greater and more intense; any such observer would have known that the seeming agreement expressed in the November 1960 conference of the Communist parties was a mere temporary papering over of these differences, and that a crucial split was soon to occur.

By the fall of 1961 and since, as the whole world knows, the split has come savagely into the open, as well as further splits within the numerous Communist parties, and more open drives toward a “revisionist” position. But Frank S. Meyer, in early 1961, saw none of this; no, for him, the Sino-Soviet disagreements had been minor and transitory, and they were, furthermore, successfully “resolved” (not just “compromised,” states Meyer) at the 1960 Communist Party conference. A “unified policy” for international Communism had been “hewn out”; and the “ideological authority of Nikita Khrushchev as the leader of international Communism in all respects was confirmed.”

Rarely has the analysis of a supposed expert on world Communism been more rapidly or more shatteringly disproved by the march of events. There are important reasons for this, as revealed by the memorandum, which go beyond the personal failings of the author. For the Meyer analysis was the only one that fit his preconceived worldview of the Communist movement as a single international “monolith.” This monolith, in Meyer’s analysis, is hardly composed of individual human beings, with ideologies and hopes and fears; instead, the world Communist movement is treated almost as if it were a “thing” from outer space, a diabolic monolith dedicated solely and simply to world conquest of power. The only time such an emotion as “fear” is indicated for Communists by Meyer is the supposed fear of the Communists of “awakening the West” to the creeping conquest of Communism; tactical moves of Communists are treated simply as diabolical ruses and thrusts in the conquest drive. Now, we submit that this sort of behavior—the only sort of behavior attributed to Communists by Meyer—has never been applicable to human beings on this Earth, but only to titillating monsters in science-fiction extravaganzas.

Totally absent from Meyer’s purview is the possibility that the Communists might be frightened for their own skins. And yet this fear—the fear of a war launched upon them by the West—is probably the single most important guide to Communist views and policies since the advent of the Soviet revolution. In the first place, the Communists possess the ideology of Marxism-Leninism (barely mentioned by Meyer). This ideology tells them that while every effort should be bent toward making the socialist revolution a peaceful one, this effort will most probably fail, because the capitalist ruling class, when it sees itself threatened by socialist change, will itself turn to violence and—either by fascism, militarism, authoritarianism, or a mixture of these forms—stamp out the civil liberties and democratic processes that would bring about socialist change.

In short, Marxism-Leninism by no means advocates violent revolution; it prefers peaceful, democratic change; but, not being absolutely pacifist, it counsels the working class to prepare to fight defensively against offensive and fascistic suppressions by the bourgeoisie. (Let us note that in no democratic country, where free speech and free elections have prevailed, has the Communist movement turned toward either violent revolution or guerrilla warfare; that the latter have occurred only in dictatorial countries—Cuba, China, Vietnam, etc.—where peaceful methods were not open to the Communist Party.)

As in domestic affairs, so in foreign; the Communists believe that Western imperialism, which they consider to be run by the upper bourgeoisie, will not permit socialism to thrive peacefully and will not permit each country to decide and resolve its own “class struggle” in its own way without foreign intervention. The Communists believe that Western imperialism, concerned over the spread of socialism, will turn to international violence in an attempt to crush socialism and to prevent socialist states from coming into being.

There is a great deal of sense in both of these expectations by the Communists, who conclude that no ruling class will abide peacefully at its own displacement. In the international sphere, in which we are interested in this memorandum, Communist expectations have been more than fulfilled since the birth of the Soviet Union. No sooner had the Soviet Union been born than the United States and other Western powers fiercely invaded Soviet Russia and for several years gave armed support to the Czarist counterrevolution. Several years of this joint invasion were enough to confirm (and certainly reasonably so) the ingrained suspicion among the Communists that, given half a chance, Western imperialism would invade and attempt to stamp out socialism in the Soviet Union or in any other Communist lands.

Frank S. Meyer, in his odd terminology, says that, before World War II, Soviet Russia took the “strategic defensive” (for more on Meyer’s fallacious methodology, see below); indeed it did, for it was scared out of its boots that the West would invade again. “Capitalist encirclement” it saw as a reality, not a slogan; this was confirmed by the failure of the United States to recognize the existence of the Soviet Union for sixteen years, until 1933; and then by the evident desire on the part of many Westerners to encourage Hitler to have a go at conquest of the Soviet Union. The “strategic defensive” was, then, not adopted for some sort of diabolic reason, or to “lull the West,” or any similar “outer space” motivation; it was adopted simply and candidly because the Soviet Union was afraid of Western invasion, and its main and perfectly logical objective was—and always shall be—“defense of the socialist fatherland.”

During this pre-World War II period, claims Frank S. Meyer, the Communists adopted a “tactical offensive.” Where are the “offensive tactics”? The Soviet Union conducted itself, throughout these years, in a way so admirably defensive as to be worthy of emulation by the other great powers; when and where did it aggress against other nations? Indeed, Lenin, at the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in 1918, rammed through the greatest “appeasement peace” in modern history, turning over to German control almost the entire Western Russia, and Lenin drove home this appeasement settlement over the determined opposition not only of all the other parties in Russia but also of the bulk of the leadership and rank-and-file of the Bolshevik Party itself.

Where are the offensive tactics? Indeed, no offensive tactics were pursued by the Soviet Union; here again, Meyer can only make out any sort of case by switching reference from the Soviet Union to other domestic Communist parties. But here, too, the Communist parties were simply pursuing their adopted ideology. In the early 1920s, the Communists believed, a priori, that Germany and other European countries were ripe for internal revolution, and indeed Germany was not far from going Communist in these years. But later on, these hopes died, and Stalin, particularly after the ouster of the fanatic Trotsky, who always wanted immediate revolutions everywhere, settled down to calm concentration on “socialism in one country.”

Indeed, insofar as Stalin was able to influence the Communist parties abroad (and they were never the absolute monolith conceived of by Frank Meyer and the Sunday supplements), his influence—before, during, and after World War II—was always in the direction of moderation, of abstaining from violent revolutionary change. And this critical fact is one of the basic reasons for the current worldwide split in the Communist movement; ever since Stalin’s ouster of Trotsky, the “left wing” of the Communist movement has been accusing Stalin and the Soviet leadership of “betraying” the world revolution, of inducing Communist parties to collaborate with the “class enemy.”

This accusation of the Left is essentially correct, and the continued record of dampening of world Communism by the cautious and moderate Kremlin leadership has finally led to unbridgeable gulfs in the Communist movement. As early as the 1920s, Stalin tried to prevail on the Chinese party to form coalition governments with Chiang against the Japanese; and it was against Stalin’s advice that Mao Tse-tung went into the hills to form his revolutionary guerrilla army. During the middle and late 1930s, the Litvinov line—guided again by defense of the Soviet Union against the rising threat of Nazi aggression—was to promote “collective security” and popular fronts with the bourgeoisie against the Nazi-Fascist threat. During World War II—again to Trotskyite and “leftist” chagrin—this policy of class collaboration with the bourgeoisie against the Nazi-Fascist threat continued.

World War II made another deep imprint on the Communist psyche. On the one hand, there was the savage and massive assault launched against the Soviet Union by Hitler, an assault in which 20,000,000 Russians lost their lives. On the other hand, Stalin and the Russian leaders saw that it was possible to engage in an alliance with some “bourgeois,” capitalist leaders in the West, most notably Franklin D. Roosevelt. From World War II, two important lessons were learned by Stalin and the Communist leaders: (1) a great (and rational) fear of German militarism, and (2) a recognition that some capitalists were not implacable enemies, out to destroy the Soviet Union (e.g., FDR).

Mr. Meyer maintains that, during and after World War II, Communist strategy shifted to “offensive strategy—defensive tactics,” as compared to the reverse condition before the war. This is a wholesale fallacy; actually, the strategy and tactics of the Soviet Union continued, after the war, to be defensive. The really critical and important dichotomy is not between “strategy” and “tactics”; it is between the international, military position of the Soviet Russian state and the various domestic, internal policies of the Communist parties. The position of the Soviet Union has always, since 1917 and since Brest-Litovsk, been defensive; the position of the various Communist parties has always been “offensive” in the sense that they, like any other party, try to advance to power as best they can.

But there is nothing diabolic or mysterious about the process or the dichotomy. As a matter of fact, as we have indicated above, the influence of the Soviet Union on the various Communist parties has always been a moderating one. This was particularly true during and after World War II. So impressed was Stalin with the friendship of FDR, and so impressed was he with the need to maintain the “Grand Alliance” with the West, that Stalin went to great lengths to try to induce the various Communist parties throughout the world not to revolt and not to seize power where they were able.

We must remember the conditions that obtained in Europe and Asia during and immediately after World War II. The so-called Soviet “expansion” into Eastern Europe occurred as the inevitable and natural consequence of the rollback of the German armies. Russia could only defeat Germany by occupying Eastern Europe and part of Germany; most of Eastern Europe was not only occupied by Germany but had had governments allied with Hitler in the attack on Russia. But in addition, as the German armies fell back from occupied Europe, and the Japanese armies fell back from China and Southeast Asia, a natural power vacuum remained in these countries. This vacuum naturally tended to be filled by the guerrilla armies that had been rebelling against Nazi or Japanese occupation. Now, in those countries where guerrilla armies existed, the guerrillas were invariably led by Communists. This was not the result of some sort of diabolic Communist plot; it was the simple result of the fact that it was generally only the Communists who were anti-Nazi enough, and determined enough, to form guerrilla rebel bands.

In Asia, the Chinese Communists profited enough by the Japanese defeat to move forward to eventual conquest of China. Ho Chi Minh had occupied all of Indochina immediately after the Japanese defeat. In Europe, Communist guerrilla armies were in a position to take over the following countries: Greece, France, Belgium, Italy, Yugoslavia, and Albania. Yugoslavia and Albania were taken over by Communist guerrilla troops.

But in the other countries, Stalin “sold out” the Communist movement; in the interests of what was later to be called “peaceful coexistence,” in the interests of preserving the Big Three alliance for lasting peace, Stalin induced the Communist parties and guerilla bands of France and Italy to refrain from seizing power and to join coalition governments; in Greece, where the Communist guerillas (with strong “left” tendencies) refused to do likewise, Stalin consented to the British reinvasion of Greece and the imposition of a conservative government. (The Greek Communists were able to continue the struggle against the imposed Anglo-American counterrevolutionary government, because the independent Marshal Tito continued, despite Stalin, to supply the Greek Communist troops.) And in Indochina, Stalin consented to the reinvasion of the country by French imperialism, which beat back Ho Chi Minh. In China, Stalin tried many times to induce the Chinese Communists to enter coalition government with Chiang, but the angry Chinese Reds refused and went on to victory.

It is this record of what many dedicated Communists considered to be Stalin’s base betrayal of the world Communist movement that has set the indispensable background for the Soviet-Chinese split of today. Stalin, therefore, began the conscious policy of “betraying” the interests of the world class struggle on behalf of a policy of what was later termed “peaceful coexistence” with the capitalist West.

At the conclusion of World War II, the Soviet Union faced some new world conditions. As the natural and inevitable result of the defeat of the German aggression, Soviet Russia found itself in occupation of Eastern Europe. Its primary object in Eastern Europe was, from the beginning, to satisfy its fear of a future German aggression; it therefore wished to guard against any resumption of German militarism and revanchism, and, in the other East European countries, to see to it that East Europe is never again used as a high road for an attack on the Soviet Union. Its primary object in these countries, then, was to insure, not so much Communist control of the East European countries, but a control by governments which would not be anti-Soviet. At the Yalta and other Big Three conferences, recognition by the West of the legitimacy of this Soviet desire was the capstone of the wartime agreements. To keep the good will of the West, as we have seen, Stalin in effect scuttled the prospects of immediate Communist takeover in many countries in Europe and Asia.

The crucial fact of the aftermath of World War II was the aggressive rupturing by the West of the Big Three alliance, and the principles hammered out at Teheran, Yalta, and Potsdam. Even before Roosevelt’s death, the Allied occupation forces reneged on an agreement with the Russians to share occupation duties with each other in every country in Europe; instead, in the first European countries occupied by the Allies (Italy, Southern France), the Allies established their own occupation authority and regimes with little or no consultation with the Russians.

After the death of FDR, the West began immediately an intensified and aggressive pressure against the Soviet Union, particularly attempting to roll back Soviet and Communist power out of Eastern Europe. This aggressive pressure, launched by Churchill, Truman, Byrnes, Vandenberg, et al., refused to be satisfied with either the Yalta concept of coalition governments in the occupied countries, or with the several free elections that the Russians permitted in Eastern Europe (e.g., in Hungary, in 1944–1945 and 1947). Inexorably from 1945–1947, the United States launched the policy of an American empire. Military bases were constructed circling the Soviet Union, continual pressure was placed for a rollback in Eastern Europe, the German four-power occupation agreement was cut and the West German state established, and the United States assumed the old British role in Greece and Turkey. By 1948, Stalin, in despair of ending the Cold War that had been launched by the West, ended the coalition policy in Eastern Europe, and fastened complete Communist governments on the countries of Eastern Europe. The Soviet policy can only be considered defensive, and the Russian troop withdrawal, in the postwar era, from Iran, from Austria, from Finland, and from Manchuria, can only be considered as part of this defensive policy.

Another new condition faced by the Soviet Union after the war was the expansion of the Communist community as a result of the successful revolution in China, as well as the new wave of “national liberation” movements against Western imperialism in the underdeveloped countries of Asia and Africa.

The American policy of “containment” was not a defensive policy, as it may superficially seem to be. In the first place, this policy extends the American commitment from its own borders to the borders of all non-Communist nations, which constitutes, as Garet Garrett pointed out, the shift from “Republic to Empire.” Secondly, the containment program was not only directed against any prospects of Soviet military aggression; it was and is directed also against internal, domestic Communist movements in every country. The fallacy here is common to Frank Meyer and many other writers: the melding together, as if they were one and the same band on the same plane, of Russian military movements and actions, and internal Communist growth or uprisings within other countries. Yet here is precisely the difference between a policy of peace in the nineteenth-century tradition, and a policy of imperialism. The American commitment, therefore, not only by Communist standards but also by any standards of nineteenth-century international law, is one of an imperialist propping up of unpopular dictatorial governments throughout the world, even in defiance of the will of the indigenous population.

Hence, the aggressiveness of American-imperialist actions in Greece, in Vietnam, in Laos. Hence the aggressiveness of the frankly CIA-directed coup against Mossadegh in Iran, and the CIA-directed coup against a democratically elected pro-Communist government in Guatemala. It was the Guatemalan coup that also helped to precipitate the Kremlin-Chinese-Albanian split; for the official Communists, moderate as always, had insisted that, in Guatemala, as in other underdeveloped countries, the first aim of the Communists should be to form a “national liberation front” with the “national bourgeoisie,” in the fight against imperialism. The Left Communists came to the conclusion that more radical measures were necessary: viz., in dictatorial countries, immediate guerrilla uprisings based on the peasantry—thus skipping over the bourgeois-worker stages of orthodox Marxism. It is this Maoist-Trotskyite tradition of Left Communism that gave rise to Fidel Castro, and now in young Communist circles throughout the underdeveloped world, radical Maoist-Castroite groups are chafing bitterly against the Kremlin restraint. The fact that Khrushchev is attacking the “Stalinists” should not be permitted to obscure the fact that Stalin’s policy was also one of moderation and peaceful coexistence, although he had not refined it to the extent of Khrushchev.

In the conditions of the postwar world, then, the Kremlin redoubled its older policy of defense and of peaceful coexistence with the West. Stalin made many retreats before the aggressive blows against his World War II-born position in Eastern Europe, but, finally, after the Cold War was fully under way, he could only consolidate his position in Eastern Europe, in the meantime launching a plea for peace, as embodied in the Stockholm Peace Appeal. Postwar conditions also saw an anti-imperialist movement (partly Communist, largely nationalist) in many underdeveloped countries, and here fissures developed, with the Kremlin still trying to exercise a restraining influence on the left-Maoist-Trotskyite-Castroite forces.

But another new condition appeared in the postwar world that Frank Meyer mentions not at all, but which has increasingly become dominant in Soviet thinking and in rational Soviet fears: this is the development of nuclear warfare. With the development of the air age—first of long-range heavy bombers, then of the atom bomb, next of the hydrogen bomb, and finally of missiles with hydrogen warheads—it has increasingly been borne home to the Soviet leaders, especially to Khrushchev (who acceded to power at about the beginning of the H-Bomb Era), that the main threat, not only to Communists and to the Soviets but to all men everywhere, is total nuclear annihilation. With the accelerating arms race, and the intensification of the nuclear annihilation threat, Soviet fear has become rampant.

Certainly, the Communist movement is much stronger than it was prewar; but it also must now face the threat of nuclear annihilation. And considering that the West has already invaded Russia once and Germany has invaded her once, considering the intensified anti-Soviet fanaticism building up in the United States and in West Germany, considering the number of military men and “strategic thinkers” in the West who perpetually mutter about a “preemptive strike,” or “hit her now while we can,” or “let’s get this over with,” or talk blandly about “only” “fifty megacorpses” (50 million deaths) in a nuclear war, no one can blame the Soviet Union and the Communist countries for greatly fearing a Western nuclear attack. This is the dominant consideration for the Communist movement, and it is to relieve this terrible fear that the Communists have genuinely propounded and elaborated their theory of “peaceful coexistence,” of the necessity and prime importance of nuclear and general disarmament by all nations, as well as of rational peace settlements of matters left over from World War II (such as the Berlin-German questions.) The Communists, in short, have, as all members of the human race should, learned the lesson of the nuclear age. Has Frank Meyer?

The crucial difference between Khrushchev and the Maoist-Trotskyites is not, as the press has declared, that the Chinese “want war” while Khrushchev and the Soviets do not. The situation is a lot more complex than that. The point is this: the Maoist-Trotskyite Left believes, as did Marx and Lenin, that capitalist imperialism will not permit Communism to gain power within various countries, by guerrilla or even by legitimately democratic means. They believe, in short, that imperialism will one day launch a total war of aggression against the Communist bloc. Imperialism, say the Chinese, is an evil monolith; all the imperialists, whatever their country or nature, are alike. All wish only the conquest of the world and the destruction of the socialist countries.

There is no real difference between a Macmillan, a Kennedy, and a Robert Welch.¹⁰⁴ The seemingly “soft” imperialists like Macmillan, are simply lures trying to put the Communist militants to sleep while imperialism launches its attacks against the socialist bloc. (If you see a strong resemblance between the Chinese view and analysis of the world, and that of Frank S. Meyer, you are correct. Both refuse to recognize crucial distinctions in the world; both are infected with a diabolism approaching paranoia about the “enemy camp.”)

Therefore, say the Chinese, since the imperialists will launch a war anyway, there is no point in all these negotiations, attempts to disarm, etc. They can only weaken the will of the socialist camp to resist imperialist attack. Above all Khrushchev must stop putting the damper on domestic Communist upsurges in the underdeveloped countries. Since imperialist aggression is inevitable, we must prepare to fight; and the only possible way of forestalling imperialist aggression is to push hard and ever harder, to launch continuing attacks on imperialism and to show it that it is only bluffing, that it is only a “paper tiger.” (The Maoist concept of the “paper tiger”—one of Mao Tse-tung’s famous articles is entitled “Imperialism and the Atom Bomb are Paper Tigers”—is, again, the equivalent of the Meyer-[Lloyd] Mallan-Medford Evans thesis that the Russians really don’t have advanced weapons.) Besides, say the Chinese in an equivalent of the Herman Kahn-RAND Corp. “megacorpse” thesis,¹⁰⁵ in case of a nuclear war, there may not be any Russians or Americans left but there will probably be about 50 million rural Chinese remaining, to carry on—a viewpoint which is probably empirically far more accurate than the Herman Kahn wishful thinking about the United States.

So much for the Left Communist viewpoint. The Khrushchev viewpoint, which has been adopted by the Soviet party and by most other Communist parties, is considerably different. Khrushchev maintains that (a) since the Communist bloc is much stronger than before the war, and (b) because of the possibility of nuclear annihilation for both sides, this new technological fact, this changed world condition, renders obsolescent the gloomy Leninist view about the inevitability of imperialist aggression. Remembering the fruitful coalition with FDR, Khrushchevites believe that there are basic distinctions between various capitalists and imperialists, that there are substantial numbers of bourgeois who can listen to reason, and join in peaceful coexistence and disarmament agreements for their own mutual sakes. In short, the thermonuclear age renders both mandatory and possible the conclusion of peace agreements with the West. The Khrushchevites then see enormous distinctions between people like Adlai Stevenson or [Harold] Macmillan and people like [Nelson] Rockefeller or Robert Welch. The former can be brought to a reasonable agreement for mutual survival. The Khrushchevites, then, are able to see reality clearly and act upon it, while the Left is, as usual, “dogmatically” bound a priori by rigid Marxist-Leninist categories.

Faced with their rational fears of Western attack as well as the horror of nuclear weapons, the Khrushchevite Communists were confronted with the problem of how to have peace with the West, and still maintain the Communist movement, with its eventual aim of coming to power within each country, still intact. The resolution was certainly a sensible one; it is expressed in the concept of “peaceful coexistence.” This concept is completely consistent with nineteenth-century ideals of “isolationism” and international law. It proposes the following: peaceful settlements of disputes and joint, inspected disarmament of nuclear and other weapons down to police levels—therefore, no country to aggress against the territory of any other country; and dismantling of foreign bases and of foreign occupying troops. In short, complete peace between the governments of all nations. And, also, a complete non-interventionist policy by each government in the affairs of other governments.

This means to let each country decide itself, within its own “domestic” borders, what social system it will adopt. There is to be no aid to any side by any of the major powers—as the Communists phrase it, “no export of revolution or of counterrevolution.” In this way, since the Communists, as a basic part of their ideology, believe that every country will some day inevitably go Communist, they can genuinely and sincerely disarm and pursue a peaceful policy, in that way both (a) securing the defense and the survival of the Soviet Union and other Communist countries from the threat of nuclear annihilation, and (b) waiting for the “inevitable” time in each country as it decides to go Communist.

We have seen, however, that even in domestic affairs within each country, Stalin and Khrushchev have, if anything, tried to put a damper on militant Communist actions in underdeveloped countries, being thus often willing to sacrifice the class struggle for the sake of peaceful coexistence.

Now all this is a straightforward, sensible, candid, and nondiabolic policy, pursued eagerly and consistently, especially since Russia adopted the Western disarmament proposals (which we then quickly withdrew) in May 1955. The United States, on the other hand, has been most reluctant to engage in any honest disarmament negotiations, and one suspects that the reason is that we are unwilling to adopt the “isolationist” plan of leaving each country to its own fate and own decision. Certainly it is likely that many of the current “periphery” countries in Asia (Korea, Vietnam, Laos) would go Communist pretty quickly. We, in short, are reluctant to give up our “export of counterrevolution.”

It might be—and has been—said, if Khrushchev is so honestly eager for peace, why doesn’t he “call off” the Communist parties throughout the world? In the first place, it is unreasonable to make such a request; we can expect that the head of a government “call off” his own war preparations, but not that he “call off” ideologues in other countries allied to him. Would we wish to “call off” freedom fighters in Communist countries? Secondly, this question suffers from the delusion (held also by Frank Meyer in his memo) that the world Communist movement is essentially a mindless monolith directed by push button from Moscow. In actuality, these domestic Communists are not “things from outer space” “controlled” by push button from the Kremlin; they are not devil’s agents, but living human beings. They have become Communists not to “take orders” but because they believe ideologically in certain ideals and principles. Khrushchev could not, even in the unlikely event that he wanted to, order these people to stop being Communists.

Already, we have seen the restiveness and the splitting of the Communist movement that has occurred in recent years precisely because of the alleged “betrayals” by Stalin and now Khrushchev; it should be evident even to Frank Meyer that now the world Communist movement is by no means a monolith; and if they are not now (and certainly were not in the pre-Stalin era), it is obvious that they were not even in Stalin’s day, although they superficially acted as if they were.

This lengthy discussion has been, we believe, necessary to set forth the historical and current background for the Communist problem and for the Meyer memo. It is particularly necessary to set the record straight in order to show the alternative to the rigid diabolism categories assumed by Frank Meyer in his discussion of world Communism.

Let us now turn to the Meyer memorandum itself. In the first place, it should be noted that it is superficial and undocumented. It blithely assumes Communist diabolism and proceeds from there with no factual or theoretical analysis; it is no wonder that the author was so quickly proved wrong by the deep-seated split within the Communist world. Meyer’s major methodological premise is his juggling of the concepts of “offensive strategy,” “defensive tactics,” etc. We confess that very little sense can be made of this approach. If Country X is aggressive, the theorist can either postulate (a) that X’s “aggressive tactics” are masking long-term “defensive strategy,” or he can say (b) that this is an example of “offensive strategy.” By what possible rational method is the analyst or historian supposed to determine when a given action is to be “tactical” or “strategic,” or “really in tune with” strategy, or a counter, “masking” strategy?

This whole approach impresses us as nonsense. How can Meyer or any other theorist prove, or collect evidence for, his theses? Is a defensive move a sign of defensive strategy, or is it only proof of truly offensive diabolism? All this is question begging and totally unscientific and unverifiable. Furthermore, the very concept of strategy and tactics diametrically opposed to each other makes little sense as well. Surely the long run and the short run must be basically in harmony; strategy and tactics must be in harmony for any sort of coherent policy to emerge. If, for example, the Soviet Union—or any other country—pursues, each month and each year, a continuing series of “defensive tactics,” how in the world is it ever to implement its “long” or “medium” term “offensive strategy”? If each year’s actions, in short, are to be defensive, how is an alleged five- or ten-year offensive ever to be launched, much less successfully completed?

We must conclude that this whole glib shuffling of “strategy” and “tactics” must be discarded as unverifiable and absurd on its face, and we must assume that both strategy and tactics will generally consist in the harmonious application to new conditions and events of the basic policy “line” of a country. It makes little sense, then, to say that “Communist documents cannot be considered as ad hoc reactions to current situations, but only as the continuing development of a major medium-term line”; let us simply say that Communist documents are applications of the basic line to changing world situations. There is no dichotomy here. And let us not try to camouflage the reality of Soviet defensive actions by saying that it only masks some sort of hidden “offensive strategy.”

There is one crucial point made by Meyer in this second paragraph of his memo that deserves to be stressed: that we must realize that Communist documents are issued for the “guidance of Communists... they are understood as guides to action by the ruling circles of the Communist world.” Very well; but let us see what this means; this means that we must not, as most “anti-Communists” do and as Frank Meyer does, pooh-pooh the documents as “masking” hidden aims, as “lulling the West,” etc. The Communist movement is much too large to treat as a simple conspiracy; since it must indeed lay down guides for its many millions of members, and since Meyer admits that these documents serve as guides, then these documents must be carefully considered, and taken at face value—something Meyer does not do.

In Meyer’s first paragraph, it is true that “Khrushchev’s Report” must be given great weight (why is there such a stark absence of documentation on what that report was?), and that the Statement of the 81 Parties is equivalent to the old Communist International Congresses. And yet the general impression left by the paragraph is a false one; this is not simply a new tactical form of the old Comintern. The old Comintern movement permitted itself to be guided totally by the Kremlin; the new movement, as expressed in the November 1960 conference and also in the later 1961 congress, is one of substantial “polycentrism”; each Communist party functions as an autonomous unit, making its decisions and taking its stand; and then the various Communist parties make decisions in what is an approach to a world Communist parliament. Thus, in the 1961 congress, each Communist party took a stand on the Albanian issue: most joined Khrushchev; some joined with the Albanian-Chinese view; others abstained. Polycentrism has been growing inside the world Communist movement, even within the East European bloc, ever since Stalin’s death in 1953, and particularly since Khrushchev’s famous “secret speech,” repudiating Stalin’s tyrannical actions, in 1956.

As we have indicated, Soviet strategy and tactics were defensive before World War II. What, exactly, does Meyer mean by the statement that it aimed to “work by every means of subversion, conspiracy and diplomacy to secure the material base... from which to move forward”?

This sounds ominous enough, but is it rightly so? Securing the defense of the Soviet Union is certainly defensive policy, but what is the justification for the lumping of the terms “subversion, conspiracy, and diplomacy”? Diplomacy, in the first place, is a perfectly legitimate method used by every state; it is hardly proper, therefore, to lump it in with such alleged methods as “subversion” and “conspiracy.”

What does “conspiracy” mean? If Communist A and Communist B put their heads together in private to carry out policy X, why is this any more a “conspiracy” than if socialists A and B or Democrats A and B, or Republicans A and B, or lodge members A and B put their heads together privately in the same way? Why is one “conspiracy” and the other not? No organization, be it business, labor, fraternal, or political, bares all of its deliberations and consultations to the public view. We must conclude that the use of the term “conspiracy” is totally unscientific and should be barred from political discourse; it is a “smear term” pure and simple.

If we then consider that the Communists publicize their aims and meetings relatively fully, it is clear that the Communist movement is less of a “conspiracy” than many other supposedly far more “legitimate” organizations. As for “subversion,” this too is a meaningless “smear term.” How is “subversion” to be defined? If government X is in existence, and party Y or group Y is in opposition to that government and wants to replace it, does this make it ipso facto “subversive”? For X’s propaganda purposes it undoubtedly does, but the use of such a term as “subversive” is decidedly improper for a scientific political analyst.

The Meyer thesis that the one thing that might perturb the Communists is the awakening of the West to the Communist threat indicates that Meyer has a poor grasp of the realities of the present world situation. For the last fifteen years, and increasingly so, when has it ever been possible for an American to read a paper, listen to or watch a commentator, read an article or listen to a political speech, without having constantly drummed into his head the alleged imminent menace of the “international Communist conspiracy”?

Americans need to be “awakened” indeed! It might better be said that Americans need a good dose of tranquilizer, so concerned have they increasingly become about the supposed menace of Communism. What the Communists fear is not that the West will “awaken,” but that its aggressive actions and words will culminate in the launching of all-out war. Meyer concedes this in a backhanded way when he talks of the Communist fear of the “consolidation in the West of a force dedicated to the destruction of Communism; the emergence in the West of a will which places the defeat of Communism as decisive”—i.e., the emergence of a determined drive for total nuclear war.

Communist defensive policies, in short, are not “tactics” but genuine policies, designed not to “disarm us” but to disarm all the big powers, the Communists included.

We have seen the total failure of analysis and perception implicit in Meyer’s declaration that the 1960 Conference had “resolved” all the disagreements within the Communist movement, and “absorbed [them] into the main line.” Equally important, Meyer’s exegesis of what the essence of the three main positions (Left, Khrushchevist, and Titoist-revisionist) is totally false.

Meyer states that the Khrushchev line holds the concept of “peaceful coexistence” to be a tactic in the pursuit of a generally offensive strategy; that the Left (Chinese, etc.) are opposed even to the tactic of coexistence in this strategic offensive; and that the Right (Tito, etc.) are genuine believers in coexistence—i.e., that they believe in the long-range strategy of coexistence and peaceful transformation as the route to eventual Communism. Now this is a total misconception of the three positions, a misconception that fits into Meyer’s biased a priori framework and diabolic view of the Communist movement.

On the contrary, the actual positions of the three groups must be shifted significant degrees “to the right.” Namely, the Khrushchev line believes genuinely in peaceful coexistence as the “main line” of foreign policy, and denies that it is a “tactic”; the Chinese Left does believe in the tactic of peaceful coexistence, but only as a tactic and not as genuine long-run policy; the Right believes not only in peaceful coexistence but also in “peaceful transformation” internally, i.e., in virtual abandonment of any sort of militant class struggle within the various countries of the world. In short, no one (except perhaps the Trotskyites on the extreme Left) wishes to abandon peaceful coexistence even as a tactic; the Meyer version of the “Khrushchev position” is actually the Chinese position which has been repudiated by Khrushchev and the bulk of world Communism; the Meyer version of the “right-revisionist” position is, at least as regards peaceful coexistence, actually the central Khrushchev position. No wonder, then, that Khrushchev has been accused by the Chinese and old “Stalinists” of being “revisionist,” and no wonder relations between Khrushchev and the revisionist leader Tito have continued to improve!

Before turning to documentation of this thesis, let us see what evidence Meyer offers for his. There is, in the first place, no documentation; there is the simple assertion that coexistence, prevention of war, and disarmament fall under the head of “defensive tactics,” while the proclamation of Communist strength, the supposedly “aggressive position” on Berlin, Germany, and Cuba, and the assertion of a difference between “local wars” and “wars of national liberation,” are all supposed to reflect the Soviet’s “strategic offensive.”

Now, for the objective observer, it is clear that the first set of proposals—disarmament, coexistence, etc.—are far more fundamental, basic, and long run, than a particular view on Berlin or Cuba. It therefore makes far more sense to say that Russia is revealing “defensive strategy” and “offensive tactics,” but this of course would remove much of the aura of diabolism and imminent menace that Meyer tries to place on the Communist movement.

Secondly, let us consider these supposedly “aggressive” Soviet policies. The proclamation of Communist strength is hardly aggressive; it is a tactic being done by all major powers every day. Has any major power ever proclaimed its essential weakness? The position on Cuba and Latin America—how can it be called “aggressive”? As for Berlin and Germany, here too Soviet policy is far from aggressive; the Soviet Union has tolerated, for seventeen years now, a Western enclave deep inside its own territory, manned by Western troops, and it has tolerated the deliberate failure of the West to regularize in some way the Berlin and German problem and finally to conclude a peace treaty with Germany and thus liquidate World War II.

The Russians have, on the contrary, been remarkably patient about this failure to end World War II, and its wish to regularize permanently this peculiar situation resulting from the breakdown of four-power occupation is surely commendable rather than aggressive. Russia has proposed either a unified, neutralized, and disarmed Germany (again the threat of German militarism!) and a peace treaty with this single Germany, or separate peace treaties with two governments of East and West Germany, thus regularizing matters there. The West refuses to do one or the other. The West did it in the case of Austria, and nobody has called Soviet actions in Austria “aggressive”; why not a similar solution, then, for Germany? Is it, Russia asks itself, because the United States desperately wants to arm West Germany with nuclear weapons so that it can try to regain German territories lost in World War II by force?

The third example alleged by Meyer of Communist “aggressiveness” in the 1960 conference is the “assertion of a profound contrast between ‘local wars’ and ‘wars of national liberation’.” This “assertion” is not “aggressiveness”; it is a simple and correct analysis of fact. Local wars are wars between great powers, such as the United States and Russia, meddling in domestic civil wars (e.g., Cuba, Korea, Vietnam) or revolutions; local wars, with their employment of transnational military force and foreign intervention, are condemned completely by the Communist policy.

Wars of “national liberation,” on the other hand, do not require the participation of any outside armed forces; they are revolutions conducted by colonial peoples against their imperialist oppressors. Technically, indeed, they are not wars but revolutions; Communist distinction between them is the sort of distinction that any nineteenth-century upholder of international law would make also.

Furthermore, as we shall see documented below, the Communists do not, contrary to Meyer, believe in “all-out support for wars of national liberation.” They believe only in moral support; they believe, as part of the theory of peaceful coexistence, in withholding material support for revolutionary wars of national liberation, provided that the United States and other Western powers also refrain from material support for counterrevolution against national liberation. This is certainly a fair position. Meyer, then, is totally wrong in calling “wars of national liberation” “aggressive local wars against the West.” They are revolutions against imperialist or imperialist-dominated governments.

Meyer also falsifies the other major points concluded by the 1960 Communist conference. He claims that one point was the “widest possible movement throughout the world for ‘coexistence’ and Western disarmament.” On the contrary, the push is for general and complete disarmament in all countries, not just the West. The omission of “all countries” of course makes the Communist policy to be purely diabolic and insincere.

Similarly, another point mentioned by Meyer is to “capture Berlin” and the “neutralization of West Germany.” Here again, Meyer distorts and falsifies the facts. The Soviet Union has proposed (in the Rapacki Plan) not simply the neutralization of West Germany, but of all Germany, West and East, in addition to the neutralization and disarmament of Poland and Czechoslovakia. The plan was angrily rejected by a West bent on rearming West Germany to the hilt. The “capture” of Berlin is excessively melodramatic. What the Soviets want is United States recognition of the existence of the East German government; in return for this, they are willing to agree to perpetual Western access in West Berlin, as well as West Berlin being a permanent free city guarded by UN troops. This reasonable proposal is hardly for the “capture” of Berlin.

For other criticisms of the Meyer memorandum see the discussion in part one of this paper.

Let us now turn from the specific Meyer memorandum to some documentation of our previous position and statements in this memo, documentation that in Meyer’s memo is conspicuous by its almost total absence.

We have noted, for example, our important disagreement with Meyer, who claims that Khrushchev considers peaceful coexistence as a mere tactic, while the Chinese reject even that tactic. Let us turn to a critically important article that appeared in the American Communist publication, New World Review, for February 1962 (pp. 3–7). This article—really an editorial—is the first full-scale, open criticism of the Chinese position in an American Communist publication. The New World Review cites two authoritative sources; an article by the eminent theoretician Professor Fedor Konstantinov in the November 1961 issue of Kommunist, the major theoretical organ of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, as well as an editorial in Pravda for December 14, 1961.

Says the NWR: “Professor Konstantinov charges that the Albanians regard peaceful coexistence mainly as a catchword and do not believe in the possibility of preventing war in our epoch.”

Konstantinov then quoted Enver Hoxha, Albanian Communist leader, as asserting in a speech on November 7, 1961, “We do not object to the principle of peaceful coexistence, but we do not agree with those who regard peaceful coexistence as the basic line of the foreign policy of socialist countries.”

In short, the Albanians-Chinese do not reject the concept of peaceful coexistence altogether; but they consider it as a mere tactic only, and not a genuine “main line” of foreign policy. The attack on this view is the nub of the Soviet-Khrushchevite difference with the Chinese-Albanians.

NWR then quotes from the aforementioned Pravda editorial:

The question of peace and peaceful coexistence is the crucial problem of our times. There can be either peaceful coexistence or a devastating thermonuclear war, for there is no other way out. That is why it is quite obvious that those who come out against the policy of peaceful coexistence are playing into the hands of the most bellicose and adventurist imperialist circles, which are preparing a devastating thermonuclear war.

NWR reports that Konstantinov charges the Albanians with doing everything possible to discredit Soviet disarmament proposals as “counter to the interests of the socialist countries.” The Albanians also fail to distinguish between the neutral countries and the imperialists, and consider all nonsocialist countries as being “in the imperialist camp.” Also, “The Albanians disagree with the view of the USSR and other socialist countries that possibilities exist in some countries for peaceful transition to socialism and charge the Soviet government with ‘revisionism’.”

NWR then moves to the more painful problem of discussing the Chinese themselves. It first hails Communist China for its first explicit enunciation of the Panch Shila, “the five principles of peaceful coexistence,” and for signing the statements of the 1957 and 1960 Communist conference—statements stressing the necessity for peaceful coexistence. Incidentally, Meyer, who does not deign to quote from the 1960 statement, certainly refrains from quoting its declaration that the possibility of averting war now exists, and that “peaceful coexistence of countries with different systems or destructive war—this is the alternative today. There is no other choice.” But, warns NWR, the Chinese Communists keep quoting Mao’s dictum that “imperialism and all reactionaries are paper tigers,” that no one should be afraid of nuclear war.

Wrote Mao:

The atom bomb is a paper tiger with which the U.S. reactionaries try to terrify the people. It looks terrible, but in fact is not. Of course, the atom bomb is a weapon of mass destruction, but the outcome of a war is decided by the people, not by one or two new weapons.

To this, the NWR, the American Communist monthly, replies sharply indeed:

But when paper tigers have nuclear teeth whose bite could destroy the world it is necessary to seek all possibilities of dealing with them by means that avoid the risk of direct combat.... Did it [the atom bomb] only look terrible to the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?... Everyone in the world should be afraid of nuclear weapons and expend all their efforts on trying to get rid of them through disarmament and peaceful coexistence and to prevent situations arising in which they might be used as long as they exist in the arsenals of nations.

Also, the Chinese believe that any top-level negotiations between socialist and capitalist countries are useless. Again, at the World Peace Council meeting, the Soviet delegates placed primary stress on peace and disarmament; the Chinese and Albanian delegates placed primary stress on the “liberation struggle of the colonial and semi-colonial peoples.”

Again, the NWR returns to the pro-peace attack on the Communist Chinese position:

In reading the Peking Review and other Chinese publications, we find the point of view frequently expressed that emphasis on the horrors of nuclear war only frightens people and disarms them in their resistance. We believe on the contrary that any glossing over of the mass deaths and destruction a nuclear war would bring, disarms the peace forces, weakens their efforts to insure that nuclear weapons will never be used.

In taking the attitude that the socialist countries must be prepared to risk nuclear war, in belittling the strength of the forces armed with thermonuclear weapons, we believe the Chinese leaders underestimate all the factors involved—for there is not only the risk of a deliberate “preventive” or “preemptive” war which certain circles in our country have advocated, but the ever-present possibility of mischance, accident or madness which must be reckoned with, which makes the elimination of nuclear weapons from the arsenals of nations the first task of mankind.

There is no diabolism here; there is only a sincere opposition to war versus a tactical indifference. The evident similarity between the controversy carried on in the Soviet-versus-Chinese camp and that carried on between those in the United States today who wish for peaceful negotiations and those who are driving toward war, is too evident not to bear mention again.

Let us go back a few years for further exposition of the origins of the Soviet-Chinese split on the question of peaceful coexistence. At the Twenty-first Communist Party congress, of January 1959, Khrushchev proposed bilateral agreement with the United States to establish peaceful coexistence—for one thing, with the end of the danger of imperialist aggression, the Soviet Union could transform itself into complete communism and the withering away of the defensive functions of the State. Following this proposal came the visits of Mikoyan and Koslov to the United States in 1959, and Khrushchev’s famous visit to the United States in September 1959, during which he came to believe at Camp David that Eisenhower was willing to make a reasonable settlement of the Berlin question. On his return from the United States, Khrushchev said at Peking, on September 30, “We on our part must do everything possible to preclude war as a means for settling outstanding questions. These questions must be solved through negotiations.”

On April 26, 1960, however, the Peking Review (reported in the New York Times, May 26) implicitly attacked the Soviet position. It criticized those for whom “the peace movement is everything,” and who seek peace which “may be acceptable to imperialists” but which would “destroy” the “revolutionary will” to socialism. The dangers of a general nuclear war, it added, are not great, since there would be some human beings (presumably particularly Chinese) left.

Added the Peking Review,

War is an inevitable outcome of the system of exploitation.... The nearer they (the imperialists) approach their doom the more they will put up a frantic fight... on the debris of a dead imperialism, the victorious people would create very quickly a civilization thousands of times higher than the capitalist system and a truly beautiful future for themselves.

(Pace Herman Kahn!)

The Peking Review added that it is impossible for the imperialists ever to accept general and complete disarmament. The United States would be able to cheat under any system of controls. After the collapse of the summit, Khrushchev, on June 21, 1960, addressed a meeting of top officials of twelve communist countries; he declared that the socialist camp was now strong enough to prevent war by the imperialists. This is a duty since nuclear war would be disastrous for all people and for civilization. Coexistence of “different social systems” must therefore be established, and the class struggle must follow non-military lines only. Khrushchev accused the Chinese of failing to abide by the 1957 Conference declaration for peaceful coexistence.

On August 26, 1960, Pravda clarified the differences with the Chinese Left about the role of the colonial movements of national liberation. These movements, said Pravda, require support for national bourgeois leaders, and not immediate Communist revolt and conquest.

Furthermore, Pravda added,

Marxism-Leninism regards as a reactionary utopia the attempts to export the revolution or to impose on other countries such social orders and institutions which are not the product of their internal development.

In short, hands off other countries, even to “export revolution”! The Chinese Communist Party answered with a circular letter to all other Communist parties on September 10, 1960, declaring that Soviet Russia had neglected its responsibilities as leader of the Communists, by failing to support revolutionary wars.

Next came the 1960 Communist conference discussed by Meyer. While supporting peaceful coexistence, and the possibility of peaceful negotiations with the capitalist countries, it also made concessions to the Chinese and Albanians and their desire for an aggressive strategy. The Chinese had apparently threatened to divert their four nuclear reactors to military uses if concessions to them were not made. Marshal Tito denounced the 1960 manifesto of the conference as a “rotten compromise” forced on the meeting by the Chinese and he pledged his continued good will to the Soviet Union.

Meyer concedes that great weight must be given to Khrushchev’s report of January 1961. It is indicative and significant, then, that Meyer in no place documents his analysis by quoting or even paraphrasing that report. Khrushchev said in the report that the USSR would work unremittingly to prevent a general nuclear war because it would result in the deaths of hundreds of millions and the ruin of civilization. He was in favor of “wars of national liberation” (Algeria, Cuba), but opposed to local wars (Suez, Indochina) because the latter could lead to general nuclear war. Khrushchev (Meyer, please note!) emphasized that peaceful coexistence and general disarmament are “not a tactical move,” for they would prevent both a nuclear war and any foreign intervention in wars of national liberation. The goals established by the 1960 conference would be achieved by non-military struggle.

On January 21, 1961, the Chinese Communist central committee apparently capitulated, accepting the noninevitability of war, and accepting the Soviet thesis that “revolution is the affair of the peoples in the various countries.” But this was only papering over the split. On February 11–12, western papers contained documents from various Communist parties reporting on the severity of the Soviet-Chinese clash at the 1960 meeting. Chou En-lai had said that peaceful coexistence could not prevent a nuclear war between East and West. Khrushchev, rising eloquently to the occasion, had accused Mao Tse-tung of being a “megalomaniac war-monger”; in answer to the Chinese view that war was inevitable and that stress on the horrors of war would cause less of fighting nerve in the socialist camp, Khrushchev defended disarmament as “the dream of mankind... the only true humanism”; war, Khrushchev said, would mean the “destruction of the working class.”

During the spring of 1961, Albania executed numerous pro-Soviet Albanians after a February 13 declaration by the Albanian Communist Party that coexistence was a failure because the United States was preparing for a third world war. On May 26, Russian submarines left permanently their Albanian bases. On July 13, Soviet Russia and Yugoslavia came to an accord on peace and the reduction of world tensions. On May 12, Khrushchev declared, at the fortieth anniversary of the founding of the Georgian Communist Party,

I repeat that we do not need war to achieve domination of our ideas, the most progressive Marxist-Leninist ideas. War brings only harm.... We will create this victory because other peoples will follow our example.

On July 8 and 9, Chinese foreign minister Chen Yi again tried to deny a split by acceding to the “peaceful foreign policy of the Soviet Union,” and reasserting the November 1960 stand that “revolution cannot be exported,” and reaffirming support for “peaceful coexistence of countries with different social systems.” But presumably this was superficial agreement only.

On July 2, Isaac Deutscher reported in the Sunday Times (London) that Khrushchev had sent a letter attacking Mao Tse-tung for advocating preventive war and for favoring an attack on Taiwan at the risk of causing a general nuclear war.

The next important document is the famous draft of the program of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) on June 19, 1961. This document criticized current welfare-state and social-democrat regimes as not being really “socialist,” for they still pursue an aggressive, imperialist foreign policy and militarization:

People suffer want in material goods, but imperialism is squandering them on war preparations.... State-monopoly capitalism stimulates militarism to an unheard-of degree.... While enriching some groups of the monopoly bourgeoisie, militarism leads to the exhaustion of nations, to the ruin of peoples languishing under an excessive tax burden, mounting inflation, and a high cost of living.

Now, in foreign affairs, said the CPSU statement,

United States imperialism is in effect performing the function of a world gendarme, supporting reactionary dictatorial regimes and decayed monarchies, opposing democratic, revolutionary changes and launching aggressions against peoples fighting for independence.

The CPSU maintains that forces capable of preserving and promoting world peace have arisen and are growing in the world.... Imperialism is the only source of the war danger.... The important thing is to ward off thermonuclear war, not to let it break out.

Peaceful coexistence of the socialist and capitalist countries is an objective necessity for the development of human society.... [It is] a mighty obstacle in the path of imperialist aggressions.

The CPSU added that its program can only be “fulfilled successfully under conditions of peace.... Aggravation of the international situation... may prevent realization of the plan for an upsurge of the well-being of the soviet people.”

The CPSU also declared that

Peaceful coexistence serves as a basis for the peaceful competition between socialism and capitalism on an international scale and constitutes a specific form of class struggle between them.

Support for the principle of peaceful coexistence is also in keeping with the interests of that section of the bourgeoisie which realizes that thermonuclear war would not spare the ruling classes of capitalist society either.

The CPSU then pledged itself to the following foreign policy tasks:

• Use of “every means for preventing war and promoting conditions for the complete elimination of war from the life of society”
• “To work for the disbandment of all military blocs... the discontinuance of the ‘Cold War’... and the abolition of all air, naval, rocket and other military bases from foreign territory”
• “To work for general and complete disarmament under international controls”
• To improve relations with capitalist countries to safeguard peace

It also expressed opposition to wars of conquest, wars between capitalist countries, and local wars against national liberation movements.

In an interview with the New York Times (September 7, 1961), Khrushchev further explained his foreign policy position: no country may fight even a war of liberation for another country, that country must fight its own war. The concept of peaceful coexistence, Khrushchev added, meant not just the absence of war, but also the rejection by all states of military intervention in each other’s affairs, even when the social and economic systems of these states have antagonistic differences. Each state should respect and recognize each other’s sovereignty and pursue friendly trade and cultural relations. The export of both revolution and counterrevolution were opposed by Khrushchev.

The happenings at the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, held in Moscow on October 17, 1961, are widely known, including the resumption in depth by Khrushchev of the anti-Stalin campaign, and the attack on Albania, at which point Chou En-lai left the congress; and since then, the Soviet-Chinese split has come into the open at last. But we should emphasize that, at the twenty-second party congress, Khrushchev again stressed his concept of peaceful coexistence, including the refraining from intervening in support of even Communist revolution in other countries:

We are convinced that in the end the socialist system will triumph everywhere. But this in no way implies that we will seek to achieve its triumph by intervention in the internal affairs of other countries. You cannot bring in ideas on bayonets... or on rockets.

And even Meyer concedes that Communist Party pronouncements and statements by Khrushchev must be taken with the utmost seriousness!

Fermentation within Communist parties of the world is now continuing apace. While Chinese leftism sprouts in Asian and Latin American parties, revisionism is spreading in other parties. Recently, the veteran leader of the Italian Communist Party, Palmiro Togliatti, went further in a pro-peace direction than any other official CP leader. He declared that “nuclear war must be avoided at any price.” And this highly revisionist statement comes from the leader of the Italian CP, who occupies a centrist position within the Italian CP! The right wing of the Italian CP is growing steadily, and its leader, Giorgio Amendola, goes far beyond Togliatti in both foreign and domestic revision. The search for peace, as well as the growing internal campaigns against Stalinist tyranny, has caused a ferment within world Communism that makes all the more ludicrous Meyer’s unsupported picture of the world Communist movement as a diabolic monolith.

We may conclude our critique of the Meyer memo by citing the wise cautionary words of Father John F. Cronin, in his recent pamphlet, “Communism: Threat to Freedom,” published by the National Catholic Welfare Conference. Father Cronin writes:

[T]here are three types of “experts” whose credentials should be scrutinized with care. They are former agents of the FBI, former informants for the FBI and persons who have had first-hand contact with the Communist party either as members or victims.¹⁰⁶