THE COLD WAR AND THE WEST
21
There are some who deny that the differences in freedom be–
tween the two worlds is sufficiently great to justify a war of defense
against Communist aggression. But the reason they give indicates
clearly that they are not really concerned with freedom at all in the
present context of affairs. They say-falsely, I believe-that nuclear
war in all probability will destroy mankind.
If
this were so, it would
be true even if the West were ideally or completely free and had
realized the dreams of the great Utopians. No matter how free the
West, on this reckoning
it
would be destroyed. Their talk, therefore,
about the West not being free enough to justify a war of defence is
irrelevant-if not insincere-since on their view nothing is worth a
nuclear war which would threaten universal destruction. Freedom is
our
concern, not theirs. When they equate the cultures of the free
and Communist societies or minimize their differences, they are
mainly seeking to demoralize the will of the free world to resist
Communist aggression.
The same argument applies to those who say that since Stalin,
the Dour, has been replaced by Khrushchev, the Jolly, the conse–
quences of a Communist victory are a lesser evil than the dangers of
a holocaust. For the latter is the greatest of all evils.
If
this is true,
then what is the point of reminding us that Stalin and Stalinism
(they are not the same) are dead? Would they resist Communist
aggression if Stalin were alive and threatened us with nuclear rockets?
Obviously not.
For reasons which I have detailed at length in my debates with
Bertrand Russell in
The New Leader,
and in a recent discussion in
Commentary,
I am convinced that there will be no nuclear war,
if
the free world is prepared to defend itself with nuclear weapons.
Further, it seems to me criminal folly to say, as some unilateralists
have said, that if the Soviet Union refuses to accept reasonable
controls over disarmament, then the West should disarm unilaterally
even
if
this
means the universal sway of Communism and all its
evils. For such a position can only encourage the Kremlin to be
intransigeant in its unreasonableness--and we have seen how un–
reasonable and defiant of world opinion it can be !-and overrun
the free world. Even this would not be a guarantee of survival. For
the Chinese Communists are not likely to be as pacific towards the
Kremlin, if and when they have nuclear weapons, as the West has
