236
JOHN STRACHEY
What then should be our own reactions to this development of
Russian intentions? First, we should have done once and for all with
the pernicious nonsense that it is impossible to deal with Russia be–
cause she is "determined to attack us." But on the other hand we
should delude ourselves if we supposed that Russia's transformation
into an ordinary nation-state, even if it were completed (and it is
far from complete) would solve the problem of the prevention of
war in the nuclear age.
Even "run-of-the-mill-nation-states" are profoundly self-regard–
ing organisms. They do not, usually, actually want war. But they
usually want things which prove unattainable without war. It is
said that when Bismarck was asked whether he wanted war, he
replied, "Certainly not. What I want is victory." It may be surmised
that, as a first very rough approximation, some such attitude as this
has underlain many of the recent activities of the rulers of Soviet
Russia. In this respect they have not differed very markedly from
most rulers of most other states at most times. The rulers of states
who, like Hitler have welcomed the prospect of war almost for its
own sake, have been comparatively rare. What nearly all rulers of
strong states have wanted was not war. What they have wanted was
their way. And, like everybody else, they would have preferred to have
their way with the minimum of trouble, risk and expense. They sin–
cerely regretted it when, as so frequently happened, attempting to
get their way did in fact involve them in war. But only the more
sophisticated of them have been inclined to notice that as what they
wanted usually contradicted flatly what some other state wanted, war
was sooner or later bound to break out.
Insofar as the Russia of the 1960's is becoming a nation-state
like another, it is inherently probable that the intentions of her rulers
do not diverge very much from this familiar pattern. Russia, in my
view, gives little evidence of being one of those exceptionally aggres–
sive, predator, states of which Nazi Germany, Napoleonic France,
countries were weak,
if
the Soviet peoples had not built the might they
possess today, the possibility of preventing a new world war would be slender;
in fact there would be no such possibility at all."
Just how we are to "fight out" peace and peaceful co-existence is not
explained. But Mr. Gomulka's general sense is clear enough. This is merely the
communists' way of saying that they must "negotiate from strength."
