AMERICA II
sured that a man completely loyal to Moscow was in command
of the crack Chinese Communist forces, Stalin no longer had
any need to worry about the possibility of Mao Tse-tung, or
Chuh Teh, emulating either Chiang Kai-chek in 1927, or
Marshal Tito today. The proof that Mao Tse-tung, and the
other former leaders of Communist China are today prisoners,
or stooges, of the Kremlin, is afforded by the February 14,
1950, treaty between Communist China and Moscow.
253
In fact, except partly in the somewhat farcical case of Albania's
devotion to China, there is no example of a country in which
indigenous
Communist forces won power, and then put their country under the
control of another Communist country.
America's foreign policy,
if
it continues to be predicated on the
necessity of "preventing the spread of communism," by all means in–
cluding the use of armed force, is likely to lead to the permanent
policing by America of ever wider areas in the poor world. On the
other hand, it is not clear in what way American national interests
would be endangered
if
the view were accepted that it is up to govern–
ments of poor and weak states to behave toward their own peoples
in
such a way that a native communist movement does not become a
danger, and that if it should become a danger, the United States will
not bail them out, or prop them up with its own forces. Such govern–
ments, receiving aid, would then have a built-in incentive to use such
aid for the benefit of the people, instead of stealing it, as they often do
at present.
It
is not, I think, naive to believe that the emphasis of U.S.
foreign policy could shift in this direction. The lessons of the Vietnam
involvement tend, if rightly understood, that way and-unlike some of
your correspondents-I don't believe that the peace movement's educa–
tional efforts have been wholly futile. But it is important to get people
to
understand that the logic of "containing Communism"-as distinct
from preventing the territorial expansion of Russia or China-is a logic
of imperialism, and that
if
America is to avoid an imperialist destiny it
must avoid anti-communist interventions in other people's countries. A
good
beginning in that direction would be to draw the line at
military
intervention and to do so not only by the verbal pledge of the U.N.
Charter, but also in practice. One of your correspondents,
H.
Stuart
Hughes, refers to a belief that leadership of the world "by right of
both
power and virtue" belongs to the United States. Perhaps. The
United States is at present the most powerful nation certainly, while in
respect of virtue international competition has never been intense; the
United States has as good a right to claim the prize as anyone else.
There is also a sense in which the richest nation can afford the most
virtue-as journalists reserve the term "philanthropist" for millionaires
