28
IRVING HOWE
the victors in the last war, ideological conflicts both profound and
factitious, etc. The struggle between the two sides will continue, I
think, through the lifetime of everyone reading these lines, though
the forms it will take are impossible to predict.
If
the
aim
of the West was to destroy the Communist societies,
then the cold war has been lost.
It
begins to seem that the Com–
munist dictatorship, like any other kind of political system resting
on an industrialized economy, can achieve some measure of internal
stability. How long this stability will last no one can say with
as–
surance; but Russian Communism, apparently past the worst ordeals
of industrialization and no longer subject to the crises produced by
Stalinist terrorism, is reaching a point of development and inner
modification somewhat like that of capitalism in the advanced West–
ern countries.
To say this is not, of course to approve of or be reconciled to the
Communist regime. Stabilization does not necessarily imply a good
society or a gradual evolution toward democracy, as the theorists of
inevitable progress suppose. It merely signifies that we had better
expect to face the Communist threat for a long time, relying not
upon "inherent" upheavals of the historic process but upon our own
intelligence and radical powers of renewal to meet that threat. I
believe, or at least hope, that even in a society with a rising standard
of living the problem of dictatorship cannot be long evaded; I expect
that this will bring severe conflicts within Russia; but these conflicts
will have to be endured and worked out by those living under the
dictatorship, for there is no longer any possibility, as there was never
any desirability, of external intervention.
If
the Western aim was to "roll back" Russian might in Europe,
then the cold war has been lost. Given the world in which we live–
"I too dislike it"-nothing short of atomic war can now remove the
hold of Russia upon its satellites, and no sane person can propose
to launch such a war. In the present epoch there is emerging a new
kind of imperialism, largely ideological in nature, which seems likely
to be as persistent and pernicious as the older kinds, and quite as
great a possible incitement to war as the arms race.
If
the Western aim was to check Communist expansion in Asia
or Mrica, then the issue remains in doubt, though the prospects are
grey. The political
ap'peal
of Communism in some of the Asian coun-
