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0 H N STR AC H E.Y
cannot expect that. Until very recendy they stuck with unshakeable
dogmatism to the theory of the ever-increasing misery of the wage
earners of the non-communist world, reiterating it more and more
passionately as
it
became more and more preposterously at variance
with the facts. That was only to be expected.
(As
these words are
being written, however, signs are at last appearing that the dogma
of ever-increasing misery has been shaken. An admission of the ex–
istence of the affluent society is implicit in some of Mr. Khruschev's
speeches. And an explicit denial that such a thing is impossible is
beginning to appear in some of the work of the most knowledgeable
Soviet economists.) Nevertheless the new Russian thesis that a further
general war is no longer inevitable is still usually based in public
precisely upon the view that "the Imperialists" (i.e. non-communists)
are getting weaker so quickly that, with careful handling, they may
miss their moment, and be induced, in effect, to surrender peace–
fully. Any other explanation of the idea that further general war is
no longer inevitable would be too un-Leninist. It would involve too
unorthodox assumptions about the character of the real development
in the non-communist world, about the intentions of the rulers of
that world, and about the general uncertainty of future social develop–
ment to be publicly presentable inside the communist world.
But what do Mr. Khruschev and his fellow members of the
Praesidium
really
think? They are beginning to go about the world.
Do the wage earners of the United States
look
to them as
if
they
were sinking into ever increasing misery? Do the wage earners of
Britain, West Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Scandinavia,
Japan, Australia, and now even of much of France and Northern
Italy seem to be promising material for revolutionary propaganda?
As
"the affluent society" (with all its faults and vulgarity and ugli–
ness) spreads itself across the Western world, does it not occur to
them, in the privacy of their studies at least, that something queer
and unforeseen is happening?
If
once the thought that the real development of events in the
West is diverging from the Leninist prognosis enters their minds, they
will surely find it hard to avoid noting other divergencies. For even
with them events have not really followed the Leninist forecast. True,
the "Socialist Camp" has grown right enough, in geographical extent
as well as in armed power. But it has not grown in the simple) Lenin-
