LIONS AND FOXES
193
Stalin's "geopolitical vision," for these are really over-elaborate meta–
phors for Stalin's familiar strategy of using radical and liberal ideology
outside of Russia to promote or to conceal Russian interests.
If
Stalin's style is adequate, as Burnham says, to his purposes, it
is
only
because his multi-national scheming and demagogic simplifications do
not require the intellectual power and range found in all great
Marxist leaders.
I am, of course, saying that Stalin is
not
Lenin's heir, not, at
least, in the sense that we can establish a political continuity between
the two figures; and I am aware that Burnham
is
not disposed to sec
Stalin as a "mediocrity" in terms of the socialist tradition because
of his belief that Stalin did not "betray the revolution." Yet I cannot
see any semblance of proof. At one point, Burnham simply identifies
size with succession:
"As
Stalin expands in size before us, we can
more readily grant his legitimate succession." At another, he asserts
that the seeds of the Stalinist "terror" and "political monopoly" were
to be found in Lenin: a specious argument, based on the common
genetic fallacy, for the seeds of any number of things can be found in
the most disparate phenomena: the seeds of Calvinism in early bour–
geois enterprise, the seeds of fascism in socialism, of socialism in cap–
italism, of art in neurosis.... The fact is, that the total politics of
Lenin were geared to a different conception and order of humanity
from those of Stalin. Burnham's cardinal point, however, is that no
matter how grandiose or beneficent the original principles of Marx
or Lenin or Trotsky may have been, the iron "law of revolutions''
soon grinds them into the mire of tyranny and misery for the great
masses of people. But from where, we must ask, has Burnham con•
jured up this revolutionruy law? Either he is generalizing on the
single Russian experience, in which case he
is
merely ignoring Trot–
sky's theory that socialism cannot be built in an economy of scarcity,
which I have never seen refuted. (Suppose a Leninist policy had
socialized the industrial plant of Germany?) Or Burnham must fall
back on some doctrine of human nature as intrinsically evil, as in
Pareto, Mosca-and Machiavelli.
So much for Burnham's specific arguments.
If
we look at
his
position as a whole, however, the question arises just what Burnham':s
historical perspective is, or from what historical position or values he
makes his analyses. On the surface, Burnham creates the impression
that he
is
making a cold study of the facts. Yet we know that history
does not permit any such "scientific" luxuries; and on closer exrun–
ination we discover that Burnham sees history as a
~eries
of
coups
d'etal
by the strong and the unprincipled who do not hesitate to use
