Raymond Aron
COEXISTENCE: THE END OF IDEOLO
Coexistence is neither a doctrine nor a desire:
it
is
and foremost a
fact.
Communist and democratic countries live
by side or face to face on the same planet, on the same
without combating each other militarily and without
beliefs aMd ideologies which serve, on each side, to justify the
regime and to disparage or condemn the regime established
011
other side.
The anti-Communism of the free world cannot be
equated with the
ideological
aggressiveness of the Communist
Leninism-Stalinism proclaims the inevitable destruction of
(and all Western countries are included in this term, whatever
degree or form of their socialism or the strength of their labor
ments) and, in this perspective, enjoins the faithful to hasten
advent of the Last Judgment. Democratic doctrine-to the
that the word doctrine can be applied to the ideas prevalent
in
West-requires no declaration of war against the states which
to Leninism-Stalinism; it is essentially opposed to the universalist
tentions of the enemy ideology. Should the Soviets ever
that their regime is only one of a number of possible ways of
ing industrial societies, the majority of democrats-while
to regard certain practices of the Soviet regime as deplorable,
cient or inhuman-would no longer feel obliged to maintain
an
tude of active hostility to the Soviet Union.
This proposition, that we of the West are committed to
the
struction of the Soviet regime only to the extent that the latter
the destruction of our free societies,
will
be challenged or
rejected
by
three categories
of
Westerners: extremists
in
a.WJ-~IVIU.
nism
(such as James Burnham), moralists, and representatives
of
