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masses at all. The mass revolts in modern times have never been sim–
ple and spontaneous uprisings of the whole population, despite the
mystique propagated by Marxism on this point. (The mystique is
expressed nowhere more eloquently, because he sincerely believed
in it, than in Trotsky's
History of the Russian Revolution,
a book
which is not so much an account of historical fact as a vast expansion
of a poetical metaphor. ) The reality has been something different: a
crumbling of the accepted social order, vast unrest among the masses,
and then a tightly organized group able to enlist an effective minor–
ity in its fight for power, and thus eventually to impose its discipline
upon the disorder of society. Abstractly speaking, such societies ought
to be left to take their historical course, evolving toward whatever
forms they are capable of. However, since Russian Communism
is
compelled, through the momentum of its own dictatorship, to con–
quer what remains of liberal civilization and therefore exploits these
disorders all over the world, the U.S. is compelled in turn to embark
upon international action to halt the tide.
Can the U.S. hope to launch an opposing tide of its own in
Asia? What Communism has to offer the Asiatics are not any specific
proposals to solve the economic and political problems of these coun–
tries, but much more powerful incitements to human passions: its
apocalyptic visions of redemption and revenge. The first propaganda
leaflets dropped by the North Koreans upon American troops blamed
the "monopoly capitalists" for the war. Under other circumstances
this might have been funny . What genuine knowledge of monopoly
capitalists can we expect from a North Korean peasant? Capitalism
has no more been the cause of his poverty (or that of the Chinese )
than Communism would be its cure. The "monopoly capitalists" are
the imaginary devils that the Communist religion can summon up
for hatred and exorcism by the Korean peasant. Scientific method–
in
politics as elsewhere-is piecemeal, analytic, and tentative: social
questions approached in this way, far from enkindling the imagination
or passions, are likely to prove as dryas income tax returns. To put it
paradoxically: the political values America has to offer are superior
precisely to the degree that they are unable to command the kind of
passions aroused by Communism. This is no consolation, however:
America might win a !ogical victory and suffer an historical defeat.
In history, as Hegel observed (and it was a point which Marx,
