502
PARTISAN REVIEW
that Communism has produced has brought about a situation
that I find extremely dangerous, one that threatens us with
increasing tensions and explosions. A continental empire not
only
can
but
has to
expand if it doesn't want to shrink. But
even in its dependencies in the so-called Third World, Commu–
nism as an ideology means hardly more than a despotism based
on Soviet weapons and the Soviet security police-the so-called
advisors. In democratic countries, however,Marxism-Leninism
as an all-embracing, comprehensive ideology has become a sort
of amusement for adolescents. What is really operating is not
Communism proper, it is Sovietism. But Sovietism as an
ideology, in contradistinction to sheer imperial power, has no
definable content itself.
What I want to stress is simply that our world has ushered
in a very dangerous phase. Western statesmen have no means
of preventing explosive situations from occurring periodically
in this entire geographical area of countries dominated by
the Soviet Union. The ideological void of this empire, which is
still substantially based on Sovietism, is likely to produce more
tensions and more explosions in the Soviet Union itself, because
the rulers are unable to cope with all sorts of social, economic,
and national tensions in their country.
If
we are not prepared-if
we do not think about how we will face the inevitable collapse,
the inevitable disintegration of the Soviet empire that will
result from the progressive dying away of its ideological base–
this disintegration might well occur in a manner that will be
extremely explosive and extremely dangerous to our entire
world.
VICTOR ERLICH: Is there anyone in the audience who would
like to open the discussion?
TERRY QUIST: Why is it that in the United States, it is particu–
larly the academic class that has ignored the continuing function
of ideology in Eastern Europe? Do you think it could be because
of Western progressive ideology, and do you think that this
Western ideology could explain not only our ignorance on this
question but also the silly notion of "convergence" -the idea
that we have our superstitions, our religion, our capitalism,
they have their superstitions, their Communism; and that
Communism, religion, and capitalism will inevitably disappear,
and everyone will come together and be rational?
