ARTICLE

Not Victories for Communism

APRIL 01, 1958 by WILLIAM HENRY CHAMBERLAIN

Mr. Chamberlin is author of the definitive two-volume history of the Russian Revolution and numerous other hooks and articles on world affairs.

The obvious military threat from the launching of the So­viet sputnik is not the projection of an earth satellite into space, but the likelihood that capacity to do this implies capacity to launch an extremely formidable military weapon, the intercontinental bal­listic missile. Along with this ob­vious threat, which has been widely canvassed in Congress and in public discussion, there are two more subtle and indirect dangers which have received less attention.

First, there is the unmistakable trend to use the Soviet earth satel­lite as an excuse for indiscrimi­nate spending, nonmilitary as well as military. Grabs at the taxpay­er’s pocketbook are in prospect for everything, from federal aid to education to United States aid to subsidizing the socialistic econom­ic development schemes of rather unfriendly neutralist nations in Asia. Some columnists and com­mentators sneer at the very idea of a balanced budget as at some­thing as obsolete as the Model T Ford. In taking this attitude they prove, not their sophistication, but their inability to learn from the long history of the disastrous con­sequences of inflation.

Second, there is at least the be­ginning of an assumption that, be­cause the Soviet government beat us to the gun in launching an earth satellite, there must be some superiority in the Soviet political and economic system. Such a line of thinking, if pursued far enough, might suggest that compulsion is superior to voluntarism as a mo­tivating factor in economic pro­duction.

So it may be a good idea to take a close look at those fields where Soviet success has been most pro­nounced in order to see whether these successes were achieved by methods that have any relation to communist egalitarian philosophy. These fields are (1) military power, (2) educational training for science and technology, (3) quan­tity industrial production, (4) rapid catching up with the United States in know-how for the pro­duction of nuclear weapons and forging ahead in the manufacture of guided missiles.

A Lopsided Economy

There are many other fields in which Soviet standards of achieve­ment are far behind those of the United States and of all but the most backward countries of West­ern Europe. Take a few concrete illustrations.

The vast majority of the Soviet people subsist on a limited diet of coarse food, wear shoddy clothing, live in indecently crowded housing. The exceptions to this rule are to be found in the top layer of the ruling party and its managerial bureaucracy, at a liberal estimate not a higher proportion of the population than the recipients of an annual income of $20,000 or more would be of the American population.

Soviet per capita output of auto­mobiles is negligible compared with the American and is far sur­passed in Great Britain, Germany, France, and England. This means, of course, that the mobility of the Soviet citizen for work or recrea­tion is very much restricted.

Approximately half of the Soviet population, employed in farming, tries, with indifferent success, to feed the nation. About one-eighth of the American popu­lation, engaged in agriculture, not only produces enough to give the whole American population a much higher standard of living than the Russian, but, in addition piles up unsalable and unmanageable sur­pluses — at least unsalable and un­manageable under our clumsy sys­tem of massive state intervention and artificial price support.

The United States consumer standard of living, highest in the world, is made possible by the ex­istence of a competitive free mar­ket, geared to serve the customer, and supplemented by billions of dollars worth of comforts and luxuries from abroad, imported without restriction except for the payment of tariff duty. By com­parison the Soviet consumer is be­hind the eight ball conspicuously in two ways.

Soviet industries and stores are run by state appointed bureau­crats who are not in the least in­terested in consumer needs, who are, indeed, under specific instruc­tions to give the "heavy" indus­tries, most essential from a mili­tary standpoint, priority over the needs of the "light" industries which produce goods of everyday consumption. And the inflow of foreign consumer goods is negligible because the government strictly controls every item and gives preference to those which minister to strategic needs.

The American, the West Euro­pean, is free to travel when and where he pleases. The chance of a Soviet citizen, unless he is tapped for a state mission, being able to see any part of the world outside the Soviet Union, is very, very small. The citizen of a free coun­try, even if he stays at home, can learn a good deal about foreign lands by buying and reading their newspapers and magazines. For­eign publications, unless they are communist, are strictly contra­band in the Soviet Union.

Putting aside these and many other points in which the balance of comparison inclines heavily to the side of the West, how did the rulers of the Soviet Union achieve relative success in the four fields which have been listed?

1. The Armed Forces

The Soviet regime came into power forty years ago on a tide of social upheaval in which one of the biggest elements was a gigan­tic mutiny of the Russian Army. For three years the predominantly peasant Russian army had been fighting an unequal war against German armies that were better armed and equipped and more cap­ably officered and commanded.

Russian losses in killed, wounded, and imprisoned were prodigious. Then Czarism was overthrown in March 1917. Nicholas II abdi­cated. A well-meaning but weak and inexperienced provisional gov­ernment, uncertain of its power and hesitant in the exercise of its authority, came into being. To the Russian peasant soldier the Czar, the only symbol of authority he knew and recognized, had disap­peared. He felt instinctively that there was no longer a firm hand of government authority which would jail or shoot him if he dis­obeyed orders. Then, before long, agitators began to appear, telling him that he had no quarrel with the Germans, that the capitalists on both sides were responsible for the war, that he should go home and divide up the large estates with his fellow-peasants.

As this kind of propaganda ap­pealed to the peasant’s own in­stincts, it met with increasing suc­cess. By the time the communists, or Bolsheviks, as they were then called, struck for power in Novem­ber the armed forces were so com­pletely disintegrated that the pro­visional government had no armed force on which it could rely.

"Land" and "Peace" were the magic slogans in the revolution led by Lenin and Trotsky. When the new Soviet regime began to create an army of its own to fight the counterrevolutionaries who opposed communism, their first idea was to make it as unlike the Czarist army as possible. Distinc­tion between officers and privates was reduced to a minimum. The very word "officer," along with the titles of "Marshal," "General," and "Admiral" was abolished; fancy epaulettes were eliminated; the only title of respect in the new Red Army was "Comrade Com­mander."

Some modifications of this ex­periment took place in the thirties, including the restoration of the title of Marshal. But the whole idea of an egalitarian army, with officers and men very much on the same level, was scrapped under the severe test of World War II. Officers again acquired orderlies. Generals began to clank with medals. The difference in pay and rations between officers and men became greater than in the Ameri­can army. The Soviet officer was even given the right of inflicting summary execution. The Soviet armed forces, as they were formed during World War II and as they exist today, are not unlike the old-fashioned Czarist army in general set-up and in exacting marks of respect and distinction for the offi­cers. Nothing is left of the early revolutionary idea of an army of equals.

In other words, the Soviet suc­cess in building up a formidable military machine had nothing to do with the ideal of communism. Even the propaganda during the war was along Russian nationalist, rather than revolutionary lines.

2. Education

The first communist idea about the schools was to turn the old order, one of strict discipline, up­side down. The most extreme per­missive methods were intro­duced; authority, so far as there was any, was vested in pupils’ councils. Marks, examinations, and formal instruction according to subjects all went down the drain. Maximum self-expression was en­couraged; exact knowledge was treated with contempt.

The Soviet school children of this period acquired a kind of scrap heap and rag-bag knowledge, learning a few facts here and there, getting a plentiful dose of communist indoctrination but little systematic instruction. There was another characteristic of the Soviet universities and higher schools at this time: class favoritism on an upside down basis. While children of landowners, businessmen, and other members of what the Soviet leaders called the bourgeoisie, no matter how bright, could not gain admission except by stealth and deception, manual workers and children of workers, with little regard for scholastic qualification, were given preference in admission. Academic life in Russian universities was probably never on such a low in­tellectual level as at that time.

The Soviet educational system of that time, turning out half-baked products in the elementary schools and making admission to higher institutions depend on class origin and political reliability, not on merit, could never have pro­duced the trained engineers and technicians needed for operating a modern industrial system, much less scientists of the quality essen­tial for the mastery of nuclear physics and related subjects.

This perception must have come to Josef Stalin during the first Five Year Plan, which began in the latter part of 1928 and was pronounced finished at the end of 1932, for at this time the Soviet school was completely made over. Back came the authority of the teacher, marks, examinations, even uniforms. Pupils were taught to stand up when the teacher entered the room. Troublemakers were bounced out of the schools. Stiff compulsory courses, taught by subjects, replaced the wander­ing in the fields of experimenta­tion.

There were equally important changes in higher education. Ap­plicants were judged by ability, not by class origin. Scholarships were assigned to the brightest, not to the neediest. Driving hard work, closely graded and meas­ured, became the characteristic of the Soviet educational system, from primary school to university or higher technical institute. For more than a quarter of a century Soviet scientists, engineers, tech­nicians have been coming out of this kind of educational regime.

The Soviet education system has not produced independent minded citizens, familiar with a variety of political, social, and eco­nomic ideas. This was not its pur­pose. The design was to turn out specialists who would be service­able to the Soviet State. And here considerable success has been achieved. A managerial and tech­nical class capable of managing and operating a much expanded modern industrial plant has come into existence. But such success as has been achieved in this direc­tion is due to rejection of com­munist techniques in favor of the conservative pattern of education which was adopted in the early thirties.

3. Industrial Production

The ideal of communism was once stated in the slogan: "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." Lenin summed up his forecast of life under communism in the fol­lowing formula:

"All society will be one office and one factory, with equality of labor and equality of pay." And equality was one of the trump cards of communist propaganda in 1917. There were to be no more rich and poor; the peasants were to take over the land of the big estates and divide it equally among themselves. The workers were to take over the factories, mines, and railways "in their own horny hands," to recall a catchphrase of communist agitation.

There was a terrific downward leveling because all sources of pri­vate wealth disappeared. Land, houses, factories, stores were na­tionalized. No more interest was paid on public or private obliga­tions. Savings became worthless because the ruble experienced a catastrophic inflation. A kind of equality of universal misery was characteristic of the first years of the Soviet regime.

But compulsory equality made no wheels turn and did not pro­duce the food and clothing which the ruined country desperately needed. So Lenin ordered the economic retreat known as the New Economic Policy, which relieved the distress by restoring freedom of internal trade and small indus­try and substituted a system of taxation for the former requisi­tioning of the peasants’ surplus produce.

These specific concessions were temporary and were withdrawn when Stalin went over to a com­pletely planned economy. But then more fundamental and permanent inequalities entered into the pic­ture. The principle of unequal pay for work of unequal value began to prevail throughout the whole Soviet economy. The spread in the spendable income of various pro­fessions and groups is in many cases greater in the Soviet Union than in Western countries. This is especially true as regards the comparative pay of professors and un­skilled workers, of factory man­agers and workers, of officers and privates.

In short, so long as communist theoretical principles were main­tained, the Soviet economy was a shambles. It was when these prin­ciples were tossed overboard that big advances in quantity produc­tion began to be chalked up.

4. Nuclear Weapons and Guided Missiles

These observations also hold good for the treatment of the scientists, Russian and foreign, who have been responsible for the nuclear and missile projects. No expense is spared to give them most comfortable living conditions and the best scientific equipment. So the Soviet achievements here may fairly be reckoned as victo­ries for Russian scientific and in­ventive genius, but not for the principles of communism.

Indeed it is an unvarying rule that the Soviet regime has been most successful where it has departed from communist theory and provided, so far as this is pos­sible within the Soviet system, the incentives of superior rank for superior achievement, differential reward for work of unequal value, special rewards for those groups and classes which are most useful, from the standpoint of the re­gime: scientists, engineers, indus­trial managers, writers, artists, and musicians of some talent who toe the party line in ideological matters.

The conspicuous failures of the Soviet economy, the inadequate production of food, the wretched housing, the poor service to the consumer, could be cured quickly by one simple remedy: proclama­tion of the right of the Soviet citizen to own land and industrial enterprises. But it is most unlikely that the Soviet government will ever consent to this, for two rea­sons. It would remove the last bases of a communist economy, and it would stimulate the desire for political freedom by giving the Soviet people economic freedom.

As the Soviet Union was founded on a combination of very wrong and immoral ideas, dogmatic athe­ism, class war and class hate, wholesale spoliation, and denial of the right of private property, the United States was founded on right and moral principles : re­spect for a Divine Author of the universe, government of divided and limited powers, individual freedom safeguarded by many specific sanctions, equality of American citizens in rights and obligations before the law and in opportunity, but no compulsory leveling between those who make good use of their opportunities and those who do not.

Neither power has been abso­lutely consistent in adhering to its own original principles. Whereas the Soviet Union has gained in strength by scrapping or shelving some of its most unworkable dog­mas, we have lost strength by di­luting and in some cases gravely compromising the principles of the Founding Fathers, substitut­ing welfare statism for individual responsibility and opportunity, softening our educational require­ments to the lowest common de­nominator just when the Soviet Union was toughening its school requirements. Our best answer to the Soviet challenge is to get back to the basic principles of the Con­stitution as thoroughly and as fast as possible.