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pallid language of diplomatese and may therefore strike some harder
blows. But the U.S. is not going to get anywhere in this war of ideas
unless it succeeds in obtaining some better intellectual grasp of the
basis of its propaganda.
No doubt there is a formidable body of truth on America's side,
but truth these days prevails little against slogans, and the most
powerful slogans are on Russia's side. The slogans of Marxism"l!–
work best in a disordered society, which is now the condition of most
Asiatic countries. Marxism once held that the revolution would come
as the last stroke of inevitable evolution in the most advanced indus–
trial countries. But this is one more bit of Marxist theory that our
Marxist century has disproved: Communist revolutions have arriveJ
in the most industrially backward nations-Russia in 1917, China in
1949-precisely because a more pauperized and politically backward
proletariat is more easily reduced to political submission. The Asiatic
level of society begins to appear as the typical situation in which
Communism can come to power.
Unfortunately it is also a situation where American values fight
at a distinct disadvantage. In the Asiatic countries where the great
masses exist in incredible poverty, where social stability has crumbled
or is crumbling, and where the habits and feelings of self-government
are unknown, the values of a liberal civilization do not apply and
probably would not even be understood. Into this social chaos Com–
munist propaganda and organization enter very easily. The propa–
ganda could not succeed without the organization; but on the other
hand the organization also needs the propaganda to recruit (under
the threatening presence of the organization, to be sure) consider–
able mass support for itself. Communism cannot be expected to solve
the problem of poverty in Asia: after thirty years of absolute rule
in Russia, disposing of immense resources of population and raw
materials, it has lowered the standard of living below the Czarist
regime's in 1913; but Communism does bring its own solution of the
problem of social stability: for the few million Chinese who become
*
By Marxism here it might be claimed that I really mean Leninism. The dis–
tinction would be important in a discussion of the history of ideas; in politics
it is pedantic, or, worse than pedantic, confusing. The only politically effective form
of Marxism now in existence is Leninism (or Stalinism), and this is therefore
the only form of Marxism with which political discussion can significantly deal.
This shall be the meaning I attach to Marxism throughout this discussion.
