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PARTISAN REVIEW
regime of this kind by some species of authoritarianism which has
already failed, e.g., in the case of China by the discredited Kuomin–
tang rump.
(5) Failing a genuine
modus vivendi
the
aim
should be to take
the poison out of the present, potentially disastrous, atomic arms race
by going back to "pure" power politics, as being less likely to entail
a world-wide catastrophe. In particular any sign of Russia returning
to "classical" imperialism should be sympathetically regarded and, if
possible, directed against China (and vice versa). In general it should
always be borne in mind that even if the worst happens the Russians
won't stay our enemies for ever (any more than did the Germans)
and that in thirty years' time we shall probably need them to protect
ourselves from the Chinese, whatever the political changes in the
interval.
(6) The immediate aim should be to promote such internal
changes in Russia as will diminish the influence of the paranoiac,
terroristic, and now largely parasitic, Party apparatus, and enhance
the power of the relatively rational, though possibly expansionist, mil–
itary-cum-managerial stratum. This process, which is probably going
on anyhow, can almost certainly be aided by the U.S. government
making it clear that it is willing to talk business with any Russian
government which is definitely non-Stalinist.
In this connection it can be argued that the biggest mistake
made by the Eisenhower administration since it came to power was
the failure to issue an immediate declaration to this effect in the
weeks of confusion after Stalin's death. This would have stopped the
growth of neutralism and wishful thinking in Europe, and perhaps
have had a decisive influence on the internal struggle in the Kremlin.
The declaration should have been accompanied by the aforemen–
tioned unpublished threat.
What could a policy of this kind hope to achieve? At the very
least it would help to crystallize the internal line-up within the Soviet
regime and provide the more rational elements with a foreign-policy
platform. For an offer, whether public or private, to "talk business"
with the Kremlin naturally implies some readiness to envisage a more
or less permanent division of the world into spheres of interest. Yet
this is not quite the old containment policy, for it would be backed
by an unmistakable threat to go to war in certain specified circum-
