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66 T October 12, 1978 INTRODUCTION During the past six years detente with the Soviet Union has been one of the most controversial topics of American politics Widely discussed by the media, argued about by politicians as well as learned Sovietologists, the accurate meaning of detente, one of the most flexible catchwords of our political vocabulary, seems to constantly elude us.
In 1975, the last year of the Ford administration, our govern ment was increasingly troubled by the Soviet approach to detente The Soviet government saw no contradiction in combining continued bilateral and multilateral negotiations with "capitalist countries in the fields of arms limitation, technological exchange and foreign trade with world-wide communist support to the so-called national and social liberation movements, including armed intervention.
Communist (Soviet, Cuban East German, etc backing of the Marxist-oriented Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola including large-scale Cuban military involvement and Soviet logistic support brought sharp criticism from the then Secretary of State Kissinger. His effort to link the SALT negotiations with communist restraint in Africa was vigorously rebuffed by Soviet government spokesmen The Ford Administration, involved in a presidential campaign and hampered by congressional opposition reacted only verbally.
President Ford showed his irritation when he stated in one of his 2 campaign speech&s-j:;;L&eit me.'say xery' s ecific-a-lly+-that .We. are going to forget the use .of the'word .detente. c t But preoccupation--irJith domestic politics made a more -vigorous re ac'tion--imposs_ible In his campaign oratory, candidate Carter naturally claimed that he could deal more effectiveP9 than Ford with the Soviet government. In his first press conference as President he explicitly rejected any attempt at linkage in order to influence Soviet conduct in Africa or, for that matter, induce the USSR to conform with the human rights provisions of the Helsinki agreement, one of his most vaunted campaign promises.2 Thus, he apparently accepted the Soviet version of detente PRESIDENT CARTER AND SOVIET-AMERICAN RELATIONS In President Carter's first year and a half in office, Soviet influence spread at an alarming rate. Consolidation by pro-Soviet regimes in Angola and Mozambique were followed by massive military support for Ethiopia against Somalia, the invasion of the Shaba province in Zaire, the military coup in Afghanistan, which installed a pro-Soviet government to name only a few areas targeted by the Soviets in the confrontation of the two systems.
President Carter, prodded by some of his foreign affairs ad visors, decided to send a signal to the Soviet government about American displeasure with their interpretation of the detente code of behavior. Addressing the graduating class of the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis on June 7, 1978, the President,in covering a broad spectrum of foreign policy, spoke of Soviet-American relations at length even though somewhat ambiguously. On one hand, complaining about "persistent and increasing military involvement of the Soviet Union and Cuba in Africa he warned We are deeply concerned about the threat to regional peace and to the autonomy of countries within which these foreign troops seem permanently stationed...and that is why I and the American people will support African efforts to contain such intrusions as we have done recently in Zaire 1. Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Monday, March 15, 1976, vol 12, no 11, p. 350 2. Ibidem, Monday, Feb. 14, 1977, vol. 13, no. 7, p. 160. He insisted, however, that "we have no desire to link the ne gotiation for a SALT agreement with other competitive relationships I nor to impose other special conditions on the process." He expressed a desire for "better communications and understanding, cultural and scientific exchange and increased trade with the Soviet Union and with other nations." Specifying that the United States favored cooperation through detente that increasingly involves similar re straints on both sides the President sternly cautioned l i competition without restraint and without shared rules will escalate into. graver tensions The Soviet Uniorircan choose either confrontation or cooperation. The United 3 States is adequately prepared to meet either choice.
The Soviet government reacted swiftly and sharply to the address by Carter. On June 11 Pravda charged that the President's state ment has ''a smell of the malicious spirit of the Cold War." The paper noted that the speech was part of a conscious effort to "work up anti-Soviet hysteria."
President's continued emphasis on human rights and his criticism of Soviet actions in Africa The paper went on to assail both the Not only did the U.S. President make impermissible out bursts against the social system of the USSR, he demanded freedom of action for imperialist agents in the socialist countries and forbade the USSR and other socialist coun tries to support national liberation movements in Africa and elsewhere. All this was accompanied not only by propagandistic panegyrics to Western "democracy" but an unambiguous warning that in case of non-compliance by the Soviet Union the process of detente will be evi dently undermined.
Making the same points even more forcefully six days later Pravda issued- along editorial covering a wider range of criticism of U.S. policy as reflected in the Naval Academy address torial noted that The edi Changes dangerous to the cause of peace are taking place in the policy of the U.S.A. An acute struggle has been going on for quite a time now in the ruling circles of that country over questions of detente, relations with the Soviet Union and other socialist countries. And as time goes on, there are more and more signs that the representatives of groupings that would like to under mine detente and return the world to the cold war, to 3. New York Times, June 8, 1978, p. A22 4. Pravda, June 11, 1978. 4 new confrontations and unrestrained military rivalry are beginning to take the upper hand. This is testified not only by speeches coming from the President and a number of other high-ranking U.S. officials, but also by Washington's concrete deeds.
The U.S. government is blamed for deliberately slowing down the SALT negotiations, interfering in the USSR's internal affairs under the pretext of defending human rights, and unilaterally restricting ties and contacts in the field of trade, technological and cultural exchanges. The statement also accuses the U.S. of being the main inspirer of a new colonialism in Africa, of a policy of armed intervention and open interference in the affairs of African states, and of suppressing the national liberation movement.6 A motley and noisy coalition of the detente opponents" is singled out as exerting a strong influence on U.S. policy: the so called military-industrial complex, the extreme right-wing circles the organizations of counterrevolutionary emigrants from Eastern Europe and other forces.
The Soviet statement asserts that these forces are able to in fluence the official policy of the U.S. because of "strong vestiges of the cold war which is firmly linked with imperialist traditions of long standing one does not have to think about complex problems and search for answers to them, because the source of all evil is the external enemy, "communism,* and it should be combatted by all possible means.7 After hinting that the new "tough" foreign policy has been adopted for domestic consumption, i.e to divert attention from the problem of unemployment, inflation and widespread crime, which the President is unable to cope with, the editorial cautioned that such policy is fraught with danger, since not everything that one can get away with in American domestic politics is acceptable in foreign politics.
Here, as we see already today, the "tough line" has every chance to develop from a tactic into a dangerous 5. Editorial "On the Present Policy of the U.S. Government Pravda, June 17 1978 6. Ibid 7. Ibid. 5 Africa followed which rejected outright any reciprocal restraint asked for by President Carter in his Annapolis speech. Charging that "an offensive is being waged against the national liberation forces in Africa through aggressive actions of a group of leading I The Soviet Union, consequently, and the entire socialist system is giving all and will continue to give all conceivable support to the national liberation struggle of the African peoples irrespective of detente since detente by no means implies an artificial restriction of objective processes of historical development and the more so, it does not give any right to suppress the just struggle of the peoples for their national liberation and social progress, and to interfere in their internal affairs 11 8. Ibid 9. Editorial Soviet government statement on Africa, Pravda, June 22, 1978 10. Ibid 11. Ibid 6 These defiant Soviet statements indicate hat there is a large gap between Garter's and the-Soviet's percepelop of detente since they rule out the President's prerequisite of "mutual re straints" and "shared rules without which detente is a one-way street A two-fold effort will be made in this study to clarify the extremely confused attitudes on our part toward detente, reflected in wildly fluctuating, now optimistic, now pessimistic reactions both in our official public statements and media coverage.
The origins of detente on the American as well as on the Soviet side must be traced, firstly, since they may not coincide. Secondly the Soviet understanding, in addition to our own, of that concept must be defined, since as any newspaper reader can ascertain they definitely do not coincide, giving rise to the problem whether it is possible to base our relations with "the other superpower on principles which are semantically contradictory ORIGIN OF DETENTE IN THE U.S With memories of "the cold war" and the Korean conflict fading the American people in the late'1960's focused'their.con-cerns on the protracted war in Vietnam. Even the Cuban missile crisis.of 1962 has been largely forgotten. The Vietnam war, strangely enough was never officially understood as a "national liberation war par excellence, even though it was supported consistently not only by the USSR but also all other communist-controlled countries, and as such represented a front in the military confrontation of the two systems.
With the departure of John Foster Dulles, the natural American tendency to "normalize" relations even with countries whose politi cal system is hostile to our democratic ideals began to resurface.
From President Dwight D. Eisenhower's "spirit of Camp David" through President John F. Kennedy's call for relaxation of tensions, which led to the limited nuclear test ban treaty to President Johnson's spirit of Glassboro" and proposals for "reconciliation with the East" which produced the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and the first talks on limitation of strategic arms, episodic efforts have been made toward detente.
These were prompted by the natural inclination of the American people to "normalcy" in the time of peace, i.e.,absence of a major in ternational armed conflict. The conventional non-communist logic is inclined to evaluate behavior and events in terms of "either-ori'either peace or war. Peacetime is characterized by friendly relations in the international arena, including open borders permitting free move ment of people and ideas as well as the exchange of goods in un hampered trade I This tendency of an open society has been exploited 7 not on y by the communists, who of,en are in great need of acquiring Western goods and scientific know-how, but also by Western business men interested in communist-controlled markets, however limited.
Thus, normalization has been assiduously promoted in the West by business interests, whose "thirst for profit," to use Lenin's well-known characterization, has motivated them to seek expanded trade and scientific-technological exchanges with the communist controlled countries, while ignoring the real intentions of the trading partners. To achieve increased trade relations, until recently subject to embargos and restrictions for national security reasons, normalization had to be sold to the average citizen still suspicious of the alleged changes in communist objectives nist-controlled- Fovernments, the "convergenee theory has been 'formu lated, suggesting that in the "post-industrial" society antagonism between the private-ownership and communist-controlled systems will be overcome by their "hybridization producing a society with mixed, "socialist" as well as "capitalist" features. Variations of the 1960's convergence theory suitable for promoting the "bridge building of the 1970's range from the concept of "planetary con sciousness," supposedly overcoming the private-ownership/communist system antagonism in the "technotronic era," to various theories of "globalism according to which the economic interdependence of all world areas will eventually bring about ideological rap prochement between the two systems. The fact that the communist ideologists have constantly ridiculed the convergence and other similar theories as products of the decadent imperialist mind12 has apparently not discouraged the protagonists and their patrons In -order 'fo:'d u$fify the.<_bel3f_ef>
68. No one could seriously question the strong anti-communist credentials of Richard M. Nixon, a John Foster Dulles-type cold warrior. In his 1962 book, Six Crises he credits Dulles with explaining to him the true meaning of Khrushchev' s "peaceful coexistence" as "peace for the communist world since the "competition between his system and ours takes place only in our world, not in his 12. See V. Smolyanskiy From the Convergence Theory to Planetary COnSCiOUS ness The Communist (in Russian no. 8, May 1978, pp. 101-110. 8 Apparently, under Dr. Kissinger's influence, Nr. Nixon when President, embraced his National Security Advisor's view about the changing nature of the Soviet system. Many, however, were unaware of this metamorphosis, since Dr. Kissinger's reputation as a reso lute anti-communist and supporter of a strong national defense po licy still predominated at the time that he became a full-time government offical.
It may, therefore, be of interest to trace Dr. Kissinger's views on U.S.-Sovipt relations and on the nature of the Soviet system. A perusal of his writings, A World Restored (19541 Nuclear Weapzns and Foreign Policy (1957 Necessity for Cho-ice 1961) and The Troubled Partnership 1965), shows the gradual but complete reversal of his oriqinal conviction forcefully expressed in the first two monographs that "basic and lasting accomodation with the Soviet Union" is impossible, since the Soviet pursuit of the export of revolution challenges the existing legitimate inter national order and "our only possibility of affecting their actions resides in the possession of superior force."
In the early 1960's, as a director of Special Studies for the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Dr. Kissinger, without joining the con vergence theory enthusiasts, made an about-face by abandoning the thesis of the Soviet Union (and communist China, for that matter as revolutionary state and therefore an unsuitable partner for con ventional diplomatic negotiations fundamental switch by arguing that Soviet foreign policy had al ready moderated significantly and that the Soviet government, be cause of the enormity of the nuclear threat to marrkind,had a stake in a stable international order. This opened an era in which U.S Soviet relations will move "from confrontation to negotiation" and in which the U.S.'s objective should be to enter into as many poli tical, military and economic agreements with the USSR as possible in order to create "Soviet vested interest in detente." However plausible this theory may sound, Dr. Kissinger, even in the 1960's was not able to support it with empirical facts as to the allegedly changed Soviet world outlook.
Advisor, was able to proceed with putting his theoretical assump tions into practice. The result was Nixon's visits to Moscow (1972 and Peking (1973) and Brezhnev's trip to Washington (1973). This exercise in "summitry" created a detente euphoria in the United States and produced several agreements with the Soviet Union, two of them in the arms-limitation category treaty and the five-year interim SALT agreement In his 1965 book, The Troubled Partnership, he justified this In 1968 Dr. Kissinger, as President Nixon's National Security the Anti-Ballistic Missile President Nixon also signed two other important political docu- ments with Secretary General Brezhnev: ciples of Mutual Relations between the USA and the USSR" and a Declaration of Basic Prin9 joint communique on problems of mu,ual interest, carried in full in the American press but scarcely commented upon, even though the wording of the Declaration should have raised some eyebrows among the U. Sovietologists.
In the Declaration, both parties agreed that they will proceed from the common determination that in the nuclear age there is no alternative to conducting their mutual relations on the basis of peaceful co existence. Differences in ideology and in social systems of the USA and USSR are not obstacles to the bilateral development of normal relations based on the prin ciples of sovereignty, equality, non-interference in internal affairs and mutual advantage.
The Joint Communique between the U.S. and the People's Republic of China,issued in Shanghai on February 27, 1973,worded similarly also including the peaceful co-existence princi.ples.
While the legitimation of peaceful co-existence in both docu ments went largely unnoticed by commentators here, members of the North Atlantic Council, NATO's guiding body, were reported to be baffled" and "bitter" over the Moscow Summit s acceptance of that concept.13 Later events certainly confirmed their concern about the peaceful co-existence" concept as unsuitable for normal re lations, since this, in Soviet understanding, dialectical Ti or revo lutionary, concept has little to do, as will 'Be seyen-l.Zter with-."G pe~ce-f rela-t~ons gtates.
Dr. Kissinger, however, clung stubbornly to his belief in communist moderation. Despite the outbreak of the Yom Kippur war on October 6, 1973, abetted openly by the Soviet Union, he reitera ted his view in an address to the Pacem In Terris conference in Washington. He stated that detente with the Soviet Union was pos sible, because "the Soviet Union has begun to practice foreign policy at least partially as a relationship between states rather than as international civil war."l4 This is, of course, a complete misreading of the Soviet in i terpretation of peaceful co-existence, which does not see any logical contradiction between a desirable avoidance of a USA-USSR I 13. Flora Lewis Soviet-American Accord Embitters NATO Officials New York Times, July 20, 1972, p. 1 14. Press Release, Department of State, October 8, 1973, no. 362, p.'
5. This statement in a nutshell reflects the most dangerous illusion about Soviet and communist intentions It is only fair to say that Dr. Kissinger did not initi ate this illusion and has apparently abandoned it since returning tb his aca demic status. 10 nuclear conflict and promotion of the revolutionary process through out the world, in fact, facilitated by detente.
Before analyzing the genesis and purpose of detente on the Soviet side, a few words should be said about the official Soviet interpretation of the 1972 Moscow Declaration. The Soviet Union and other communist-controlled states take a much more legalistic view concerning the.nature of the basic principles agreed upon there, while Dr. Kissinger asserted that they carry no legal force but merely lay down a general rule of conduct G. Arbatov, for instance, the well-known apparatchik and director of the Institute for the Study of the USA, commented in an article on the Moscow Summit This sizeable document Basic Principles of Mutual Rela tions between the USSR and the USA full of profound implications, in fact formulates international-legal principles regulating relations between the two states.
The first place among them is occupied by the principle of peaceful co-existence of states belonging to dif- ferent social systems 15 Arbatov's contention is, of course, questionable, since even the United Nations refused to identify peaceful co-existence with general international law principles governing friendly relations and cooperation among states. Nevertheless, it reinforces the widespread misunderstanding as to the real meaning of that concept.
Even more disturbing is the Soviet assertion that the 1972 Moscow Declaration signed by both President Nixon and CPSU Secretary General Brezhnev belongs to the category of executive agreements concluded in conformity with constitutional prerogatives of the U.S. presidency.
The American executive agreement was given an exhaustive study in June 1973 in an authoritative Soviet journal, with the author quoting extensively from U.S. Supreme Court decisions, statements by government officials and legal literature.16 He claimed that executive agreements signed by an American president are equal in binding force and permanence to international treaties which are ratified by the U.S. Senate. His reading of American sources also lead him to assert that executive agreements are valid under the American domestic legal system, that they are the "law of the land 15. G. A. hrbatov An event of Great International Significance USA Economics, Politics and Ideology (in Russian No. 8, August 1972, pp. 3-4 16. gations of the Ubited States USA Economics, Politics and Ideology in Russian June 1973, pp. 8-19 A. M. Belonogovi "Executive Agreement As a Form of International Obli11 The official Soviet position, therefore, is that the 1972 Moscow Declaration of the Basic Principles governing mutual rela tions between the USA and the USSR, reflecting detente based on peaceful co-existence, is an executive agreement binding not only under international law but also internally, as part of the law of the land.
Theoretically, at least, detente 'American style was based on the meaping of co-existence spelled out by Dr. Kissinger in the Pacem In Terris address We will oppose the attempt by any country to achieve a position of predominance, either globally or regionally We will resist any attempt to"exp1oit the policy of detente to weaken our alliance: We will'react if re laxation of tensions is used as a cover to exacerbate conflicts in international trouble spots .17 These American prerequisites to detente have been formalized in another"kxecutive agreement" concluded during Brezhnev's visit to Washington in June 19
73. The "Accord on Avoiding Atomic War includes the following stipu1akxkori.s Article I. Proceeding from the basic principles of re lations between the United States and the USSR signed in Moscow on May 29, 1972...the parties agree that they will act in such a manner as to prevent the development of situations capable of causing a dangerous exacerbation of their relations, as to avoid military confrontations and as to exclude the outbreak of nuclear war between them and between either of the parties and other countries.
Article IV. If relations between countries not parties to this agreement appear to involve the risk of nuclear war between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or between either party and other countries, the United States and the Soviet Union, acting in accordance with the provisions of this agreement shall immediately enter into urgent consul tations with each other and make every effort to avert this risk.l8 17. Press Release, Department of State, October 8, 1973, no. 362, p. 5 18. See New York Times, June 23, 1973, p. 7. 12 Actually, when Dr. Kissinger was speaking to the Pacem In Terris conference on October 8, 1973, it was obvious that the USSR had successfully disregarded all three co-existence pre requisites listed by him and had also violated ArkZcles I and IV of the Accord signed only about three months before by General Secretary Brezhnev.
On October 6, the Yom Kippur War broke out in the Middle East preceded by a'long crisis. Management of that crisis through U.S.-Soviet detente diplomacy severely affected our NATO allies who criticized the U.S.-Soviet "condominium diplomacy," which failed to prevent the war while "humi1,iating Europe all along the line during the secret cease-fire negotiations and "treating it like a non-person 1'19 Much more serious from the U.S. detente viewpoint was the Soviet violation of Article IV of the Accord signed in Washington on June 23 of that same year. The Soviet Union had clearly com mitted itself not to use relaxation of tensions (detente) as a cover to exacerbate conflicts in international trouble spots, but ignored this obligation. Only a worldwide American military alert on October 25 prevented a unilateral Soviet intervention in the Midd1ea:East War, which it had helped to unleash in the first place.
During the critical months preceding the Arab-Israel War considerable skepticism was expressed in the media about the com patibility of the U.S. and Soviet views of detente. Powercul voices of Soviet dissidents were given prominent space in articles discussing detente. The New York Times commented editorially Academician Sakharov attacks the Kissinger thesis at its weakest point its failure to insist that de tente move the Soviet dictatorship toward greater democracy and responsiveness to public opinion.
Sakharovkwarning is that detente without Soviet democracy could be suicidal for world freedom.20 Another New York Times editorial Terror in Moscow") two weeks later endorsed Sakharov's warning that "helping a completely regi mented Soviet Union become stronger could ultimately be the road to American suicide.Il21 And on October 6, the' Times characterized the 19. See New York Times November 19, 1973, p. 34 20. See New York Times, September 9, 1973, p. 16 21. Ibid., September 23, 1973. 13 Soviet-condoned Arab aggression against Israel as "a shattering blow to detente I However, the Middle-East cease-fire and the subsequent highly publicized but largely inefficient U.S shuttle diplomacy" as well as American domestic problems (President Nixon's resignation 1976 elections) overshadowed detente. Not for long, since every policy based on the misreading of the partner's basic aims is bound to backfire. The massive .Soviet- intervention in Africa in many ways much more dangerous than the Mid-East imbroglio, and the recent Moscow trials of dissidents have brought the problem of the genuine meaning of detente back into the headlines ORIGIN AND MEANING OF SOVIET-STYLE DETENTE The question is: thus long overdue: What is Soviet-style detente, its genesis and meaning? For an answer we must delve into the Soviet concept of peaceful co-existence, a term unfortunately legitimized in the 1972 Moscow Declaration but having a specific meaning in Soviet ideo-semantics.
While peaceful co-existence has a long history in the Soviet conduct of foreign policy, detente or relaxation of tensions based on the peaceful co-existence concept has been comparatively recently included in the diplomatic terminology of the non-communist world. It took Soviet leaders almost twenty years of effort to gain this inclusion.
After Stalin's death his successors realized the extremely weak position of the USSRvis-a.r'ui.s the Westeconomically as well as mili tarily. It was imperative, from their viewpoint, to avoid any risk of military confrontation and gain access to Western technology.
In 1953 an obscure literary magazine carried an article signed by M. Gus under the title, "General Line of Soviet Foreign Policy."
The author concealed behind the pseudonym was Feodor Tarasevi'ch Gusev, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, a veteran Soviet diplomat with experience at all post-World War I1 conferences.
He wrote The year 1953 will enter the history of international relations as a year during which some relaxation of international tensions (detente razryadka) began to be felt.22 He claimed that detente was the result of Soviet peace-loving foreign policy, whose 22. Zvezda (in Russian no. 11, 1953, pp. 106-115. 14 theoretical and practical basis is the Leninist prin ciple of possibility and necessity of lengthy peaceful co-existence as well as confrontation of the antagonis tic social systems the socialist system headed by our great socialist power and the capitalist system headed by the USA.23 As official Soviet language "peaceful co-existence" was em ployed even earlier: Stalin made use of it frequently in the thirties 24 Aware of Stalin's reputation in the West, Soviet sources' now prefer to claim that it was Lenin who coined the phrase peaceful cohabitation sozhitel'stov) to describe relations between communist-controlled Russia and the capitalist states. His Com missar for Foreign Affairs, Chicherin, changed the term to "co existence" (sosushchestvovaniye as early as 1920.
Irrespective of its authorship, peaceful co-existence has be come one of the most important terms of communist Newspeak, a new language, which according to George Orwell's visionary description of "socialist" societies in his book, 1984, was devised to meet the ideological needs of the new system, "ingsoc English social ism). As Orwell put it, the purpose of Newspeak is not only to provide a medium of expression for the worldview and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc but to make other modes of thought impossible 25 In fact, an ideo-semantic terminology based on the Russian language has been in process of formation by Sovsoc (Soviet social ism) since the inception of CPSU control over Russia in 1917.
Glossaries26 and encyclopedias27 have been compiled to familiarize Party members with ideological Newspeak, the new systemic language which enables them to communicate without being understood by non members 23. Ibid. p. 107 24. See Roy Howard, "Interview with Stalin," New York Times, March 5, 1936 25. George Orwell 1984 (New American Library: New York 1949, p. 246 26. See Scientific Communism A Glossary (in Russian), Moscow, 1975;and Political Glossary (in Russian Moscow, 1958 27. See Philosophical Encyclopedia (in Russian), vols. 1-5, Moscow, 1960-70. 15 To illustrate, in searching for the meaning of "peaceful co existence" in one of these, one finds the following entry Peaceful coexistence designates interstate relations between the socialist and capitalist countries based on a mutual repudiation of war as a means of solving inter national .conflicts. 28 Other aspects of the co-existence concept are also cited which apparently, correspond to our own notion of "peaceful Thus solution of controversial issues by negotiation; equality mutual understanding and trust between countries; con sideration for each other's interest; recognition of the right of every people to solve all the problems of their country by themselves strict respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all coun tries; promotion of economic and cultural cooperation on the basis of full a-nd mutual benefit..-29.
Careful reading of the entire 2,000 word entry, however, dis closes key, and to our mind, contradictory aspects of peaceful co existence For instance, in describing it as a "specific form of class struggle30 in the international arena the encyclopedia specifies that peaceful coexistence does not mean toleration of capitalism and imperialist oppression and does not include the field of ideology. Nor does it cover relations between antago nistic classes within the capitalist states and between the oppressed peoples and the colonizers.31 In particular, the Newspeak encyclopedia continues the peaceful coexistence policy carried out by the social ist countries is a powerful factor accelerating the global revolutionary process since/ peaceful co existence between the two systems does not rule out revolutions in the form of armed revolts and just national 28. Ibid., vol. 3, 1964, pp. 452-54 29. Ibid 30 enterprise system Thus detente-class struggle-global communist struggle to destroy the private 31. Op. cit. 16 liberation wars against imperialist oppression, which takes place within the capitalist system.32 It is no secret that the communist-controlled states, and especially the USSR, consider it their internationalist duty to render all-conceivable assistance to the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat in the capitalist countries and to peoples waging wars of national liberation L. I. Brezhnev has repeatedly boasted We (the CPSU) have always been on the side of peoples subjected to imperialist aggression and gave them po litical, economic, and when necessary, military support.
We also have continued to unmask the perfidious machinations of the aggressors 33 The communists cannot certainly be accused of inconsistency and their "potential adversaries" have no excuse for not grasping their ultimate aims leaders explicitly confirms the detente-peaceful coexistence-class struggle triad Every major pronouncement by the Soviet In his report to the 1976 XXV CPSU Congress, General Secretary Brezhnev said Some bourgeois figures express surprise and raise fuss in regard to the solidarity of the Soviet communists and the Soviet people with the'struggle of other peoples 34 for freedom and progress.
Characterizing this as either naivete or, most likely, a delib erate attempt at promoting confusion, he emphasized that detente does not in the slightest way abolish, and cannot abolish, the laws of class struggle.
We do not conceal the fact that we see detente as a way toward creation of more favorable conditions for peaceful socialist and communist construction. This merely con firms the fact that peace and socialism are indivisible.35 The same -Cojtru?lZti6ent was forcefully reasserted in Brezhnev' s speech devoted to the 60th anniversary of the October Revolution on Nov. 2, 1977 32 33 34 35 Ibid See Materials of the XXIII CPSU Congress (in Russian) Moscow, 1966, p. 24.
See Izvestiya (in Russian Feb. 25, 1976. 17 Peaceful" aspects of Soviet foreign policy, clearly, then are restricted to the communist effort to avoid a thermonuclear and by necessity) global conflict with the states of the capital ist system, and especially with the United States, as long as our nuclear deterrent is credible, which even today is open to doubt.
The communists see no contradiction between this "peaceful" aspect of "normal" interstate relations and their "promoting revolution I According to Lenin's behest, they are obligated to do the maximum realizable in one country for the promotion, sup ort and stirring up of revolution in all countries 56 The same Lenin is often quoted in ridiculing the incomprehension by "bourgeois pacifists" of the Marxist-Leninist concept of the na ture of war and peace hose who do not see""th-e.ir_nmutable connection between war -and thG- struggle o classes within a--kountry and from whom we /i.e the communistsj/differ further be cause we fully recognize the ju,s;tification and pro gressive character of civil wars, wars waged by the oppressed class against the oppressor class The Marxist-Leninist concept of peaceful coexistence does in no way contain the pacifist-like promotion of peace. Peaceful coexistence presumes mobilization for an effective struggle and utilization of the entire might of socialism.37 Peaceful I interstate relations and support of 'I international civil war" are, then, according to communist logic, not incompatible.
This mental acrobatics is possible due to an ingenious semantic device of the Sovsoc Newspeak called "double think which Orwell defines as "the power of holding two contradictor mind simultaneously and accepting both of them 35 Marxists Leninists call it dialectics.
According to this logic, international "peace" (i.e desirable avoidance of global nuclear conflict) is, in the context of Soviet foreign policy, clearly compatible with promoting "local" revolu tionary civil and national-liberation wars, which are international ized by the very fact of communist support and participation beliefs in one's 36 emphasis in original V. I. Lenin, Complete Collected Works (in Russian MOSCOW, v0l. 37, p. 304 23 The- Benfnist :Policy of Peaceful Coexistence and Its Adversa;ies ,I1 Pravda in Russian), Oct 9, i970 38. orwell op. Sit., p. l76. 18 Thus, Mr. Nixon's formula "from confrontation to negotiation I as well as Mr. Carter's challenge to the USSR to choose, "either confrontation or cooperation while perfectly logical from our viewpoint, are both based on a fundamentally false grasp of communist policy, which does not recognize the from-to and either-or alter natives Negotiation" and/or "cooperation" with the "capitalist" enemy are tools of the same strategy of daily, hourly violent struggle economic, political and ideological of the two systems according to the principle, "kto-kogo who is going to destroy whom)39 in favor of socialism. This struggle is in evitable until the complete victory of communism and ruin of capitalism are achieved.40 While the true meaning of Soviet-style detente can be unravelled from communist open sources by persons fluent in Newspeak (Russian or English) who are a rather rare species conventional infor mation gathered through intelligence channels has apparently been available since 1973 to U.S. government agencies A transcript of a frank discussion of detente by Secretary General Brezhnev at the Prague Summit of ruling communist parties was obtained by British intelligence and turned over to the United States. As summarized by Defense and State Department officials who have studied the report, the Brezhnev version of Soviet-style detente went like this To the Soviet Union, the policy of accomodation does represent a tactical policy shift over the next 15 or so years. The Soviet Union intends to pursue accords with the West and at the same time build up its own economic and military strength.
At the end of this period, in about the middle 19'80's the strength of the Soviet Union will have increased to the point at which the Soviet Union, instead of relying on accords, could establish an independent superior position in its dealings with the West.41 39 A Leninist expression implying a struggle until the complete victory of one and destruction of the other warring party Dictionary of Russian Language in Russian published by) Academy of Sciences, USSR, vol. 2, 1958, p. 189 40 1966, p. 119 41. See John W. Finney U.S. Hears of Brezhnev Reassurance to Bloc That Accords Are a Tactic New York Times, September 17, 1973, p. 2 P. N. Fedoseyev, Dialectics of the Contemporary Epoch (in Iiussian Moscow, 19 Interest in this intelligence report was revived during the 1976 National Intelligence Estimate debate between the CIA analysts and a team of outsidespedialists It was disclosed then that Dr. Kissinger "scoffed at reports that Brezhnev manipulated de tente" by using it "as a ruse, a strategem to allow the Soviets to build up their military and economic power so that by 1985 a decisive shift in the correlation of forces would enable them to exert their will whenever they need to 42 According to the article's source, the intelligence report came during the height of euphoria in the U.S. about the promise.of:.detente policy of which Kissinger was the principal architect and exponent and was as welcomeas adose of chicken pox as far as_ Henry was concerned I suspect-that, had it .been more con genial to what he was trying to accomplish, it would have got wider attention and credence. 43 Needless to say, our experience with detente since 1973 tends rather to confirm the information contained in the intelligence re port concerning the Soviet understanding of detente told the 1976 XXV Party Congress As Brezhnev we see /detente/ as a way toward creation of more favor able conditions for peaceful socialist and communist construction.44 I Peaceful socialist and communist construction the Newspeak phrase means, then, a global communist onslaught against the private-ownership system by both "peaceful" and "non-peaceful methods, as the situation requires armed intervention in Africa is nothing but Marxist-Leninist revolu tionary globalism in action, which is aimed at denying vital resources oil, minerals, sea routes and ports to industrially advanced non-communist states. These states, meanwhile, are displaying al most total paralysis under the influence of the detente syndrome In this context, communist (Soviet, Cuban, East German, etc 42 tente The Washington Star, Feb. ll, 1977, pp. l, 14.
See William Beecher Kissinger Scoffed at Report Brezhnev Manipulated De 43. Ibid 44. See Izvestiya (in Russian Feb. 25, 1976.
I 20 CONCLUSION The sharp discrepancy between the U.S. and Soviet perceptions of detente poses a foreign policy dilemma for the United States Government. While we insist that relaxation of tensions between the two superpowers should be reflected in "mutual restraints" on a worldwide scale and should lead to normal relations in the con ventional sense, the Soviet Union, on the contrary, adheres to a very limited interpretation, equating detente with peaceful co existence. The "peaceful" aspect of this Newspeak formula is re stricted to bilateral efforts of avoiding the nuclear conflict and engaging in trade that the USSR badly needs.
Soviet government statement, confrontation between the private ownership and socialist systems is an "objective process of his torical development I According to the All communist parties, first of all the CPSU, are committed to foster it with available means, including the export of revolu tion, all their disclaimers notwithstanding. To cope with this dilemma it will obviously take more on the part of the United States than a verbal.protest, occasional cancellation of an ex port license and insufficient support of our remaining allies.
Only a position of superior force, and credible readiness to use it, can thwart Soviet global advances and induce the USSR to accept the conventional meaning of detente I Written at the request of The Heritage Foundation by Charles T. Baroch Dr. Baroch received his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in International Law from Harvard University and a J.D. degree from Charles Univer sity Law School. He has served as an advisor to Members of Congress and has been a Scholar in Residence with the American Bar Associa tion.
