COEXISTENCE AND IDEOLOGY
237
Soviet spokesmen never tire of repeating that coexistence must be
based on the political status quo. Thus we would have the following
alternatives: either the negotiations leading to withdrawal would
leave the political status of Europe in doubt, and in that case the
ambiguity of the agreement would constitute a danger to world
peace; or there would be a serious attempt to specify the political
status of a reunified and militarily evacuated Europe, and there
would be little chance of an accord.
Let us consider the first alternative. What would happen if,
after the departure of the Russian troops, the Hungarians rose against
their masters? Would the Kremlin passively absorb this defeat? What
would the West do if the doctrine of the new Holy Alliance (the
Russian right to intervene against counter-revolution) were applied?
Make war? This would mean suicide. Would the United States then
simply send its troops back to Germany? Even supposing that they
could do so, the return to the status quo ante would merely mean
that after the evacuation of Europe the Iron Curtain would con–
tinue, invisibly, to exist, since Soviet military operations west of the
line would mean war and east of the line would not.
If
we are to
have an Iron Curtain it would better be visible than invisible.
Let us now consider the second alternative. Prior to any military
exacuation, the Russians, the Americans and the Germans would at–
tempt to settle the political status of Germany. Why should the wider
framework make agreement any easier? For the moment, Mr.
Khrushchev does not envisage the desovietization of Eastern Germany.
The proof of this is simply that he has not proposed the one settle–
ment which has occurred to everyone else. In return for desovietiza–
tion he could easily force a reunified Germany out of the Atlantic
Pact, since no government in Bonn could refuse neutrality if it were
to be followed by democratic reunification.
The simple truth is that the West wants a military status quo
and
Moscow wants a political one. Compromise between these two
contradictory purposes is, for the moment, improbable. Mr. Kennan's
suggestions offer no way out of the impasse. The proposed evacuation
implies a modification of the military situation which the West would
accept only if it came with the quasi-assurance that the political situa–
tion in Eastern Europe would also change. Since this assurance can–
not be had, the West will not agree to evacuation; at most (and
