WILLIAM B,ARRETT
395
In the past we had always nursed the hope, silently at least, that
the Soviet regime might eventually liberalize itself. We were social–
ists , after all, and in some sense it was a socialist state. Perhaps we
ftxed too much on the person of Stalin as the evil ftgure responsible
for the dictatorship. But now any such hope of liberalization is illu–
sory. The iron law of a Communist regime is that its bureaucracy must
not only perpetuate itself but expand its power as well. The perma–
nent revolution is the permanent dictatorship . Security from external
attack doesn't lead to any relaxation of its grip. We should have
known this as early as 1946 . At the end of the War, Russia had secured
its borders and accumulated a fund of good will on the part of the
Allies as a residue of wartime partnership-and it chose to launch
the Cold War. One has to emphasize this point now against the dis–
tortions of our various revisionists. In 1946, when I joined you on
PR,
I found you already engaged in the Cold War, which I promptly
joined.
You
were politically avant-garde then, ahead of the rest of the
country.
PR
was engaged in trying to point out to liberals theu illu–
sions about Russia and Russian expansionism. The response of the
American government, which seemed to us so tardy and faltering,
often left us feeling like climbing the walls out of frustration . That's
the way it is
to
be politically avant-garde . The evil is not that the
United States eventually responded to the Cold War, which it had
not initiated, but that it carried it on so stupidly during the McCarthy
era.
The Vietnam War was another stupidity on America's part . It
could not have waged a more pro-Communist war
if
it had deliberate–
ly set out to do so. The struggle against Communism, which is bound
to be long and prouacted, and will go on Detente or no Detente, has
to be a matter ofmuch more limited commitments.
One thing that remains constant now as then is the presence of
the Fellow Traveller, though he has now changed his colors. Usually
he professes to be thoroughly disabused and cynical about Russia, but
the cynicism ends by equating the imperfections of American democ–
racy with dictatorship. It's as
if
we were back with Orwell and Koestler
arguing against the fellow-uavellers of the late forties. China, or
Cuba, is now the utopian and fair-haired darling. We have Park
Avenue Maoists as we once had Park Avenue Stalinists. (The hostess,
at one fashionable party I attended, wore a Chinese gown just to set
