240
PARTISAN REVIEW
plete determination to demonstrate within this limit no aggressive US
intentions toward the USSR. It must commit itself, econ.omically,
politically, and militarily, to the maintenance of this balance over
a long period. Given sufficient time, the Soviet internal tempo will
slow down. The ruling class will become less risk-minded, more se–
curity-minded. Greater vested interests will develop in the existing
order; Russia itself will begin to fear the revolutionary tendencies
which modern war trails in its wake. The squabbles between the
gallicans and the ultramontanes will dilute the ardor of national
Communist parties; they too will develop stakes in an existing national
order, if only in order to hold on to a mass following. At the same
time, US backing to the parties of the non-Communist left and US
support for vast programs of economic reconstruction may go far
toward removing the conditions of want, hunger, and economic in–
security which are constant invitations to Soviet expansion.
Can the US conceive and initiate so subtle a policy? Thou r"
the secret has been kept pretty much from the readers of the liberal
press, the State Department has been proceeding for some time some–
what along these lines. Both Byrnes and Marshall have perceived
the essential need-to be firm without being rancorous, to check Soviet
expansion without making unlimited commitments to an anti-Soviet
crusade, to invoke power to counter power without engaging in sense–
less intimidation, to encourage the growth of the democratic left. The
performance has often fallen below the conception; but the direction
has been correct. Men like Ben Cohen, Dean Acheson, Charles Bohlen
have tried to work out details and whip up support for this admittedly
risky program.
It is risky. It may at any moment tumble over into the ideologi–
cal crusade. In addition, its proponents must combat the death-wish
of the capitalists, as exemplified by Mr. Kennedy, and the befuddle–
ment of the fellow-travelers, as exemplified by Mr. Wallace, both of
whom unite in opposing a policy of resistance to Soviet expansion. The
triumph of either the Kennedy or the Wallace views, if there is much
difference between them, would mean the triumph of the radical
expansionists in the Politburo, for it would remove all present ob–
stacles to the Soviet conquest of Europe.
But can the US embark on any program of resistance to Soviet
expansion without itself moving toward fascism? There is certainly
a short-run tendency in critical situations toward reliance on reac–
tionaries as counter to Communists, because they are the only people
who can match violence with violence. In a divided land like China
