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The Communist Doctrine of the Inevitability of War
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 August 2014
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Since 1959 one of the most noted ideological issues in the Sino-Soviet conflict has been the question of the “inevitability of war.” Krushchev had brought up this subject at the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in February 1956, where he proclaimed as no longer applicable “a Marxist-Leninist precept that wars are inevitable as long as imperialism exists.” His objective in this exercise in revisionism was to rid the foreign policy and the international image of the Soviet Union of a doctrinal liability. Coming to terms with the realities of the thermo-nuclear stalemate, the Soviet leaders had decided to emphasize “peaceful coexistence” (interpreted by them as political, ideological and economic struggle) as the “highest form of class struggle” and the road to victory over Western capitalism. On the ideological plane, this optimistic vision clearly called for the scrapping of a tenet-inevitability of war- according to which, given present-day military technology, the triumph of socialism would have been precluded by the disappearance of the human species. This, and no more, lay behind Khrushchev's pronouncement of 1956, since raised to an article of Soviet dogma, that war can be avoided. “Avoidability of war” became the doctrinal complement to the global strategy and propaganda line of “peaceful coexistence.”
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References
1 Khrushchev's speech at the Twentieth CPSU Congress. Extracts in Hudson, G. F., Lowenthal, Richard, and MacFarquhar, Roderick (eds.), The Sino-Soviet Dispute (New York, 1961), pp. 42–46Google Scholar; above quotation on p. 43.
2 “The policy of peaceful coexistence is, then, as far as its social content is concerned, a form of intense economic, political and ideological struggle between the proletariat and the aggressive forces of imperialism in the world arena.” From Khrushchev's report on the Moscow Conference of 81 Communist parties, January 6, 1961, ibid., p. 214. Cf. also Khrushchev's speech at Novosibirsk, October 10, 1959, in Pravda, October 11, 1959.
3 Contrary to the Chinese doctrine, in which revolutionary war remains the highest form of class struggle. See below, p. 351.
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33 An occasion would have been the publication in 1938 of the official New Data for V. I. Lenin's “Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism,” edited by E. Varga and L. Mendelsohn. The book is full of the latest statistics “proving” concentration of production, growth of monopolies, parasitism and decay of capitalism, etc. Not a word is said about war.
34 Dimitrov, G., The United Front: The Struggle against War and Fascism (New York, 1938), pp. 133, 174Google Scholar.
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36 Stalin, in a pre-election speech, February 9, 1946, Pravda, February 10, 1946.
37 See, for instance, the discussion of Lenin's Imperialism in Pravda, October 28, 1946. For a later, more forceful application of the Leninist position to World War II, see Stalin, , “Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR” (1952), sections 5-6Google Scholar.
38 Stepanyan, , “Origin and Character of the Second World War,” in Krasnaya Flot, 10 24, 1946Google Scholar. See also Zhdanov, A., “The International Situation” (Speech on the occasion of the foundation of the Cominform), in For a Lasting Peace, For a People's Democracy!, 11 10, 1947, pp. 2–4Google Scholar.
39 See below, footnote 40.
40 Cf., however, Dinerstein, H. S., War and the Soviet Union (New York, 1959), p. 66Google Scholar, according to whom Stalin in this passage “clearly meant … that as long as capitalism existed, war involving the Soviet Union was inevitable.” I am unable to follow this interpretation, all the more so since Stalin makes it a point to deemphasize, expressis verbis, inter-camp as compared to inter-capitalist contradictions. But cf. Marcuse, Herbert, Soviet Marxism (New York, 1958), p. 161 whose viewpoint I share.Google Scholar
41 Stalin, J. V., “Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR,” in Gruliow, Leo (ed.), Current Soviet Policies (New York, 1953), pp. 7ffGoogle Scholar. With the abolition of imperialism, not only does “inevitability” come to an end, even the necessity for preventing war is ruled out. War, according to the Marxian eschatology, will have become impossible.
42 Political Economy: A Textbook (Moscow, 1954), p. 180Google Scholar. The last categorical affirmation of this doctrine I have seen occurs in Varga, E., Grundfragen der Oekonomik und Politik des Imperialismus (nach dem zweiten Weltkrieg) (Berlin, 1955)Google Scholar. (Translated from the Russian edition, Moscow, 1953.) Varga bases his prognosis of inevitable new wars within the imperialist camp generally on the authority of Lenin and Stalin, and specifically on the “sharp contradictions between the USA and England on the one hand, and the USA and the reemerging West German and Japanese imperialism on the other.” (p. 326) This was not Varga's position before the appearance of Stalin's 1952 article. As he acknowledges in this book (i.e., as of 1953), he “had incorrectly cast doubt upon the precept of the inevitability of wars between capitalist countries” before “J. V. Stalin showed” that it remains valid, (pp. 335-36)
43 Political Economy: A Textbook, p. 180.
44 It is possible that this rejection reflected the 1954 views of Malenkov and his group (discussed by Dinerstein, op. cit., pp. 66-69, 71-75) that the USSR's possession of the hydrogen bomb would deter capitalist aggression. However, Malenkov's theory of deterrence and the policy of relying on it were then opposed not only by the other members of the subsequent “anti-party group,” but also by Khrushchev (see ibid.) who two years later justified his Twentieth Congress claim that war can be prevented in large part by pointing to the military strength of the socialist camp, i.e., precisely by Malenkov's deterrence theory!
44a In the authoritative Fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism (Moscow, 1959)Google Scholar the doctrine of the inevitability of war between capitalist countries is no longer even mentioned.
45 Not, however, by everyone in the USSR. Dinerstein, op. cit., p. 68, quotes three Soviet writers (V. Tereshkin and Cols. G. Fedorov and A. Piatkin) who insisted in January-March 1954—i.e., at the very time the Textbook was in preparation if not already completed-that wars remain inevitable as long as capitalism exists. None of the three specifies the kind of war he is referring to, and if we could assume they meant wars between capitalist countries, their position would not conflict with Stalin's and the Textbook's. However, military writers are not likely to be very interested in theories about war inside the enemy camp only, quite apart from the fact that the context clearly points to war involving the USSR. It appears, therefore, that these authors were extending the “law” that wars are inevitable as long as capitalism exists to cover wars between capitalist countries and the USSR–in sharp contrast not only to Stalin's doctrine but also to that of the Textbook. Thus, not even in the Soviet Union is there complete synchronization in matters doctrinal.
46 One of many examples: “The statement in the [Twentieth] Congress documents that wars are not fatally inevitable in the present epoch … represents a model for the creative development of Marxism-Leninism.” Fundamentals of Marx-ism-Leninism (Moscow, 1959)Google Scholar. English translation by Joint Publications Research Service (New York, 1960), p. 470. Italics in text. Western commentators have also generally, and incorrectly, accepted Khrushchev's statement at face value as a major innovation in Marxist-Leninist doctrine. See, for instance, R. MacFarquhar, in Hudson, Lowenthal, MacFarquhar (eds.), op. cit., pp. 39-41. Not, however, Marcuse, op. tit., pp. 161-62.
47 This translation is from Hudson, Lowenthal, MacFarquhar (eds.), op. cit., pp. 43-44. Italics are mine. Of the several possible interpretations of the expression “fatalistic inevitability,” I incline to the one that it has no special significance, i.e., is a simple tautology.
48 Marcuse, op. cit., p. 162.
49 In addition to dumping some excess ideological ballast, Khrushchev's doctrine was, therefore, part of the de-Stalinization process. It 18 ironical, though by no means startling, that Stalin is here repudiated for adherence to orthodox Leninist gospel by men concerned to parade their Leninist purity and on an occasion specifically dedicated by them to resuscitating a pure Leninism freed from Stalinist excrescences. Nevertheless, this repudiation fits in well with the general tendency of the Twentieth Congress to file smooth the rough edges of Stalinism both in domestic and foreign affairs.
50 The New York Daily Worker was quick to perceive this denial by Khrushchev of Lenin's thesis of the inevitability of inter-imperialist wars. See “What was New at the Soviet Party Congress” by Joseph Clark, the Foreign Editor, March 18, 1956. See further, Allen, James S., “War Fatalism and the Peace Fight,” Daily Worker, 03 8, 1956Google Scholar.
51 It could be objected that Khrushchev (or his research analysts) had not done their homework and were unaware that Lenin's theory of imperialism relates to war between capitalist countries only. This is highly unlikely because both Stalin and the Textbook had quite recently been so very clear on this point.
52 Marcuse, op. cit., p. 161.
53 In addition, he makes it a point, if not to question, at least to play down the proposition that war is basically an economic phenomenon—another attack on Stalin and Lenin.
54 As did all the advertising to the effect that declaring the inevitability of war obsolete was a doctrinal innovation. See note 46, above. Cf. also Frantsev, Yu., “Problems of War and Peace in Present-day Conditions,” Pravda, 08 7, 1960Google Scholar, excerpt in Hudson, Lowenthal, MacFarquhar (eds.), op. cit., p. 145.
55 They have distorted Khrushchev's position to mean that peace is practically guaranteed. See below, p. 349. While this is not the Soviet doctrine, which presumably leaves as much room for emphasizing the possibility that war may break out as it does for the possibility of preventing it, Soviet propaganda has emphasized the latter at the expense of the former. Not unnaturally, this has caused unhappiness not only to the Chinese but also in Soviet military circles where, no doubt, it is considered a dangerous tendency toward ideological disarmament. The following is an interesting example of this dissident viewpoint within the USSR, which stresses the other aspect of the Twentieth Congress thesis: “It is necessary, if even briefly, to note that some of our propagandists give a one-sided interpretation of the question of wars in the contemporary epoch. In explaining this proposition of the 20th CPSU Congress they often concentrate chief attention on the question of the possibility of preventing wars in contemporary historical conditions. And insofar as the possibility of the outbreak of new wars prepared by the imperialists is concerned-of this they speak in passing as if it were something secondary and insignificant. Such an approach to the question of wars in the contemporary epoch contradicts the very spirit of Soviet military ideology. What is basic for Soviet military ideology is the proposition of the 20th CPSU Congress that even now the economic basis for war exists and that the imperialists will seek to unleash war. Our chief attention should be devoted to that aspect of the question.” Col. Fedorov, G., “On the Content of Soviet Military Ideology,” Red Star, 03 22, 1957Google Scholar, quoted by Dinerstein, op. cit., pp. 83-84.
56 English text of Moscow Declaration in Hudson, Lowenthal, MacFarquhar (eds.), op. cit., pp. 46-56.
57 Ibid., p. 56.
58 Ibid. The identical view was expressed prematurely in 1953 by one Gus, M. in “The General Line of Soviet Foreign Policy,” Zvezda (Leningrad), 11 1953, p. 109Google Scholar, quoted by Dinerstein, op. cit., p. 67. Gus was attacked for this by, among others, the Col. G. Fedorov cited in note 55 above, who insisted that, since the laws of development of capitalism cannot be paralyzed, “as long as capitalism exists wars are absolutely inevitable.” Red Star, January 6, 1954, quoted ibid., p. 68. Both Gus and Fedorov seem to take for granted that the Marxist-Leninist “laws” of capitalist development determine wars between capitalist and socialist countries, thereby blurring the two war doctrines in the manner of Khrushchev in 1956 and contrary to the Textbook in 1954.
59 Translation from Hudson, Lowenthal, MacFarquhar (eds.), op. cit., p. 57. The Twenty-First Congress added nothing of substance to the Twentieth Congress thesis. It only made more explicit that the continued existence of capitalism will henceforward be compatible with world peace. But cf., to the contrary, R. MacFarquhar, ibid., p. 41, who concludes that the thesis on the avoid-ability of war of the Twenty-First goes beyond that of the Twentieth Congress. So does F. Kozlov in his speech on the forty-second anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, November 6, 1960, ibid., p. 168. So also does Zagoria, op. cit., pp. 237-38.
60 Translation of speech in Hudson, Lowenthal, MacFarquhar (eds.), op. cit., pp. 132-39; above remarks on pp. 136-39.
61 Ibid., p. 140.
62 See Crankshaw, Edward, The Observer (London), 02 19, 1961Google Scholar.
63 Text of Moscow Statement in Hudson, Lowenthal, MacFarquhar (eds.), op. cit., pp. 177-205.
64 TASS Broadcast, Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service, December 13, 1960, USSR International Affairs, p. BB1.
65 Program of the CPSU, translated in Triska, Jan F. (ed.), Soviet Communism: Program and Rules (San Francisco, 1962), pp. 23–129Google Scholar; above quotation on pp. 64-65.
66 Cf. New Times (Moscow), No. 10, 03 1, 1956, p. 2Google Scholar.
67 See Tse-tung, Mao, Imperialism and all Reactionaries are Paper Tigers (Peking, 1958), pp. 29–30Google Scholar. See also “Long Live Leninism,” editorial in Red Flag, No. 8, April 19, 1960, translation in Peking Review, No. 17, 1960, reprinted in Hudson, Lowenthal, MacFarquhar (eds.), op. cit., pp. 82-112, p. 93.
68 This opinion was expressed by Malenkov in March 1954 (Pravda, March 13, 1954) when he ventured to speak the truth in saying that an atomic world war would mean the destruction of world civilization. He had reason to regret this statement which, for its lack of optimism, was repudiated many times as “theoretically dangerous and politically harmful” and “convenient only to the new imperialist war-mongers, who calculate to intimidate people by atomic blackmail.” See Konstantinov, , “J. V. Stalin and the Question of the Building of Communism,” (Pravda, 03 5, 1955)Google Scholar. Malenkov was forced to retract this statement almost immediately (Izvesliya, April 27, 1954), saying that a nuclear war would destroy the capitalist system only. See Dinerstein, op. cit., pp. 66-69, 71-75. Later, the exact view for which Malenkov was denounced in 1954-55 was adopted by Khrushchev, becoming the position of the Soviet leadership. As so often before in Soviet politics, the line of the defeated opponent is appropriated by the victor and becomes the official doctrine: A thermo-nuclear world war “would lead to the complete destruction of the main centers of civilization … and would bring immeasurable disaster to the whole of humanity.” Belyakov, and Burlatsky, , “Lenin's Theory of the Socialist Revolution and Present-day Conditions,” Kommunist, No. 13, 09 1960, pp. 10–27Google Scholar; above quotation from the translation in Hudson, Lowenthal, MacFarquhar (eds.), op. cit., p. 154. In a similar vein, Khrushchev in his report to the Supreme Soviet on October 31, 1959 after returning from Washington and Peking. (Pravda, November 1, 1959) Also O. V. Kuusinen in his Lenin anniversary speech, April 22, 1960. (Pravda, April 23, 1960.) Quotations in Zagoria, op. cit., pp. 284, 302.
69 1961 Program of the CPSU, in Triska (ed.), op. cit., p. 66.
70 The skepticism of the Chinese Communists on this very point is one of the basic issues in the Sino-Soviet dispute. See the revealing statement of Enver Hoxha, below, note 73.
71 For Khrushchev's later, explicit remarks on this point, see below, p. 353.
72 In the April 1960 Lenin anniversary articles Khrushchev is called, in effect, an appeaser and revisionist. See “Long Live Leninism!,” loc. cit., pp. 82, 87-90, 94-95, 98-99, and passim. Cf. Zagoria, op. cit., p. 284.
73 On November 7, 1961 Enver Hoxha, speaking officially for the Albanian Communist Party but acting almost certainly as the mouthpiece of Peking, said: “We do not agree with certain opportunist views of N. Khrushchev and his followers who consider peaceful coexistence as the general foreign policy line of the socialist countries, as the main path to the victory of socialism on a world scale.” Quoted in Brown, J. F., “Albania, Mirror of Conflict,” Survey, 01 1962, pp. 35–36Google Scholar.
74 “Long Live Leninism!,” loc. cit., p. 98. Cf. also Liu Chang-sheng, speech at the WFTU Council session, Peking, June 8, 1960, ibid., p. 124: “It is entirely wrong to believe that war can be eliminated forever while imperialism still exists.”
75 Zagoria, op. cit., p. 42.
76 On the error of this Western view, see also ibid., pp. 301, 312-13, and Lowenthal, “Diplomacy and Revolution: The Dialectics of a Dispute,” loc. cit., p. 13.
77 See, e.g., Liu Chang-sheng, WFTU speech of June 8, 1960, ibid., p. 124.
78 Chao-li, Yu, “On Imperialism as the Source of War in Modern Times, and on the Way for All Peoples to Struggle for Peace,” Red Flag, No. 7, 03 30, 1960Google Scholar, transl. in Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service, April 4, 1960, Communist China, International Affairs, p. AAA 15.
79 See, inter alia, ibid., p. AAA6; “Long Live Leninism!,” loc. cit., p. 88; Zagoria, op. cit., p. 298; Lowenthal, loc. cit., pp. 13-14.
80 It has been suggested that the Chinese, who had approved the Twentieth Congress avoidabil-ity of war thesis, objected to the reformulation of that thesis at the Twenty-First Congress because it went beyond the 1956 position. See note 59, above; also Lowenthal, ibid. I think the more likely explanation is that in the meantime Peking had become convinced by Soviet military advances that Khrushchev's low-risk foreign policy, reflected equally in both statements, had become unnecessary and, therefore, pernicious. That the more clear-cut formula of the Twenty-First Congress served as a more convenient target for the Chinese attack, and that accordingly they chose to distort its meaning, is another matter.
81 See “Long Live Leninism!,” loc. cit., passim; also Yu Chao-li, “On Imperialism as the Source of War in Modern Times, and on the Way for All Peoples to Struggle for Peace,” loc. cit., passim.
82 Hoxha, quoted in Brown, “Albania, Mirror of Conflict,” loc. cit., p. 35.
83 “So long as imperialism exists there will always be soil for aggressive wars.” Moscow Declaration of 1957, loc. cit., p. 48. This is the Soviet position, not a concession to obtain the signature of the Chinese. Cf. Khrushchev's statements to the same effect at the Rumanian Communist Party Congress, June 21, 1960, in Hudson, Lowenthal, MacFarquhar (eds.), op. cit., pp. 136-37.
84 These the Russians promptly reciprocated by implicitly accusing the Chinese of aiming to achieve the goals of world communism through global war. See Khruschev at the Rumanian Communist Party Congress, ibid; Khrushchev's report on the Moscow Conference, January 6, 1961, ibid., pp. 207, 214; Zagoria, op. cit., p. 286. This accusation is levelled explicitly against Peking in Kardelj, Edvard, Socialism and War (Belgrade, 1960)Google Scholar which, however, was immediately and violently attacked by the Russians anxious to avoid being identified with the Yugoslav “revisionist” line. See the review article by Arzumanian, A. and Korionev, V., Pravda, 09 1, 1960Google Scholar.
85 “Long Live Leninism!,” loc. cit., p. 98.
86 It has been pointed out that at the Twenty-First Congress Krushchev mentioned “world war” only as excludable from the life of society while capitalism still exists. I do not think that much can be made of this, since he did not even intimate then or since (until January 1961, see below, p. 353) that any other kind of war is inevitable.
87 Revolutionary wars of socialist against imperialist countries, as distinguished from revolutionary civil wars within imperialist countries, the Chinese have nowhere declared inevitable or even advocated-except, of course, in the familiar sense that wars of defense fought by socialist states against imperialist aggression would, according to Mao, assume the character of revolutionary wars leading to the expansion of socialism.
88 See Yu Chao-li, “On Imperialism as the Source of War in Modern Times, and on the Way for All Peoples to Struggle for Peace,” loc. cit., pp. AAA 6ff, who quotes Lenin to the effect that “in the era of imperialism, national wars waged by the colonies and semi-colonies are not only possible but also inevitable.” Lenin, , Collected Works (Moscow, 1958 ed.), Vol. XXII, p. 303Google Scholar, quotation ibid., p. AAA 7.
89 Ibid., pp. AAA 7-8.
90 Ibid., p. AAA 8.
90a Possibly also by an unwillingness to surrender any item in the arsenal of doctrinal prerequisites for revolutionary expansion-though it is nonetheless rather unlikely that this has led the Chinese into the kind of wishful thinking about inter-imperialist war which Khrushchev has so clearly abjured. See below, p. 353.
91 Marcuse, op. cit., p. 162.
92 Yu Chao-li, “On Imperialism as the Source of War in Modern Times, and on the Way for All Peoples to Struggle for Peace,” loc. cit., p. AAA 15.
93 According to Peking, nuclear technology has not changed the character of the period of “imperialism and proletarian revolution” (Lenin). See Zagoria, op. cit., p. 304.
94 “A Basic Summing-up of Experience Gained in the Victory of the Chinese People's Revolution,” Red Flag, No. 20-21, 1960, in Hudson Lowenthal, MacFarquhar (eds.), op. cit., p. 167.
95 Cf. Zagoria, op. cit., pp. 301, 309-10, 348.
96 The Russians admit that non-peaceful revolutionary struggles may be necessary, though they are not inevitable. See Belyakov and Burlatsky, “Lenin's Theory of the Socialist Revolution and Present-day Conditions,” loc. cit., p. 156.
97 “Long Live Leninism!,” loc. cit., p. 94.
98 Cf. the statement of Hoxha, note 73 above.
99 “Long Live Leninism!,” loc. cit., p. 101.
100 Zagoria, op. cit., p. 229.
101 Tu, Sung, “Answers to Readers' Queries on War and Peace,” Chung-kuo ch'ing-nien, 02 16, 1960Google Scholar, cited by Zagoria, op. cit., p. 298.
102 See below, p. 353.
103 Cf. above, p. 347.
104 Cf. Fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism, JPRS trans!., pp. 470-76.
105 Belyakov and Burlatsky, “Lenin's Theory of the Socialist Revolution and Present-day Conditions,” loc. cit., p. 154.
106 Khrushchev's report on the Moscow Conference, January 6, 1961, ibid., p. 211.
107 See ibid. Also Khrushchev's speech to the Rumanian Communist Party Congress, June 21, 1960, ibid,, p. 138. Cf. also Zagoria, op. cit., pp. 310-11, 331.
108 Cf. ibid., pp. 167, 350.
109 Liu Chang-sheng, WFTU speech of June 8, 1960, loc. cit., p. 124.
110 Zagoria, op. cit., pp. 314-15.
111 Granov, V., in Partiynaya Zhizn', No. 9, 1960, pp. 61–67Google Scholar.
112 Cf. 1961 Program of the CPSU, in Triska (ed.), op. cit., p. 67.
113 Khrushchev's report on the Moscow Conference, January 6, 1961, loc. cit., pp. 211-12; Lowenthal, “Diplomacy and Revolution: The Dialectics of a Dispute,” loc. cit., pp. 22, 33.
114 Khrushchev's report on the Moscow Conference, January 6, 1961, loc. cit., pp. 211-13.
114a This conclusion pointing to elements of similarity in in the Soviet and Chinese positions on the specific point of doctrine here under discussion does not detract from, and is not intended to minimize the basic differences in the disputants' political and strategic outlook on. war in general as an opportunity for revolutionary expansion. (See above, p. 351.) On the contrary, these differences are manifested by their zealous overstatements of the doctrinal divergency.
115 Ibid., pp. 210-11; italics mine.
116 See above, p. 350.
117 Above all Zagoria, op. cit.
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