This may not be entirely rational. As Henry Kissinger has recently pointed out (“The International Context For U.S. Security,” in America’s Security in the 1980’s, International Institute for Strategic Studies Adelphi Paper 174), “The Soviet Union has great military strength and enormous political and sociological weaknesses. It is a system of government that has no legitimate means of succession…The economy is obviously not working, and all Communist countries, without exception, face the problem of what to do with the Communist Party in a developed state. The Party is not needed for government and it is not needed for economy. Under the socialist system you have the kind of absurdity that appeared in the Soviet press: the system operated on the basis of a tractor factory that was never built, and they fired a Minister because he reported the existence of a refinery that did not exist.”
The paradox is that the West continues to supply the Soviet Union with the means for bailing itself out of economic hardships; it thus has surplus goods which it can devote to its continued buildup of military strength.
Reginald Bretnor continues that analysis.
007: “IT IS ENOUGH, IVAN. GO HOME!”
by Reginald Bretnor
In the fictional world of détente and of the suspense novel, Secret Agent 007—James Bond—entertained us with the excitements of his clandestine warfare against fictional Russians.
In the real world we live in, on September 2, 1983, real Russians shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007—a cold-blooded, deliberate act of savagery—murdering two hundred sixty-nine men, women and children.
The aircraft was a passenger plane, unarmed, undefended, and there can be no doubt that the Russians knew exactly what they were doing. The monitored conversations of their fighter pilot show that. So do the reports of Japanese monitors. What we do not know—what none, or very few, of our leaders understand—is why they did it. I do not mean their immediate motive, whatever it may have been, but rather that mysterious twist in the Russian psyche—in the minds of those dire old men in the Kremlin who rule Russia—that seems to make such barbarities inevitable. They are the men who make decisions, decisions with possible worldwide implications, like the decision to kill Flight 007. In Russia such decisions are not made by impulsive junior officers, or even by impulsive generals.
We, in the world where Flight 007 was butchered, will profit if our revulsion and our anger bring us to the realization that the Russians most of us think we have been dealing with are as fictional as those in Secret Agent 007’s world, or those in the imagination of such fuzzy-minded liberals as the late Eleanor Roosevelt.
The real Russians Solzhenitsyn writes about are much more true to life, even though they exist only in the minds of his readers.
We live in the same real world as the Russian Communists, and if we are determined to survive, it is up to us to understand them. In order to do this, we must consider their history, for Russian Communism is a nineteenth-century growth, dogmatic Marxist materialism grafted onto the ancient tree of Russian tyranny.
The Mongol Heritage and the October Revolution
For almost two hundred and fifty years those lands that were eventually consolidated into the Russian Empire were under Mongol rule, and though Ivan the Great completed their defeat and their expulsion in 1480, they had left their mark on the people they had conquered. When the first English travelers came to Muscovy in the mid-sixteenth century during the reign of Ivan the Grim, they found a nation deeply suspicious of foreigners and of everything foreign, a nation where no man was free, where the authority of the Czar and his officers was absolute and arbitrary. Talented foreigners were being recruited—artisans, architects and (notably) artillerists—but once in, they were never allowed to leave. Those who did leave, escaped. The Orthodox Church had immense power, but this power was scarcely ever used to sustain human rights and human dignity. Not until the middle of the seventeenth century, during the reign of Peter the Great’s father, did Western influence become appreciable. Then came Peter the Great, himself a Russian tyrant in the classic mold, who, in spite of this, did more than any man to open Russia to the West. By the time of Catherine the Great a century later, Russia’s aristocracy and intellectuals had become largely Westernized; French was the language of culture and fashion; wealthy Russians were beginning to travel abroad. Unfortunately, this Westernization was largely cosmetic, and the Communist revolution of October 1918 shattered it. The aristocracy, the upper middle class and vast numbers of intellectuals were destroyed or scattered as refugees throughout the world, and before too long, bloody-minded Lenin died and was followed by the even bloodier-minded Stalin.
Again there were wholesale purges and imprisonments, enforced migrations of entire peoples and heartlessly engineered famines.
The old men now in the Kremlin were shaped by all these forces; they are men who have survived and climbed to power by deceit, by treachery, by never letting principle prevail over policy.
Simply consider the countries that were free and independent between the two World Wars and are now under the Russian heel: Latvia, Lithuania, Esthonia, Poland, Hungary, to say nothing of East Germany, North Korea, Outer Mongolia. Consider the spread of Communist subversion and Communist arms into every country where the Free West is vulnerable.
Reading the adventures of Secret Agent 007, one often felt that he and his Russian counterparts were playing games.
The old men in the Kremlin are not.
Unhappily, we are. We are playing their game: Motivation and Deterrence.
Let us consider what motivates these men. First—and I have never seen this adequately emphasized—they are men who live for power, and they justify its exercise at home and its exercise and exploitation abroad by repeating endlessly the empty promises of Marxism.
Second, they differ from almost all past tyrants in one thing: They are dedicated materialists; it is Marxist dogma that men have no souls, that at death, like a quenched candle flame, they simply cease to be. This has a very dangerous corollary. If you believe it, sooner or later you will think: When I die, so far as I’m concerned, the universe will end. No matter what I do during my life, nothingness can exact no payment from me; there can be no retribution.
We have failed to understand this, probably because so many materialistic thinkers in the West still believe in a humanistic philosophy the Communists have shucked off. One historical anecdote will serve to get the point across. In the Muscovy of Ivan the Grim, only one small group of people enjoyed freedom of speech. These were the “holy idiots,” like the one in the opera Boris Godunov. Ivan was mad. He was a sadist and a sexual psychopath. On one occasion, becoming enraged at the city of Great Novgorod, he marched against it in mid-winter with an army of his police and spent a few weeks looting, torturing, killing. When he left, only sixteen of the city’s men were still alive.
He then moved on to the city of Pskov, where he began the same sort of thing. However, there he was confronted by a “holy idiot,” one Mikula Svyet, who demonstrated his holiness by, among other things, going naked summer and winter. Mikula pointed at the Czar and said, “It is enough, Ivan. Go home!”
And Ivan went. Aside from his derangement, he was intensely, fanatically, religious. Fearing the wrath of God, he was deterred.
Would Stalin have been? Would Andropov be?
Whose Game Are We Playing?
Even before the October Revolution, we of the West began to play the Marxists’ game. First, the German general staff smuggled Lenin and Trotsky into Russia in a sealed boxcar to overthrow the liberal Kerensky government, which had deposed the Czar but had promised to continue fighting with the Allies. Then, in the twenties, American generosity, exercised through the Hoover Commission, saved millions from starvation. From then on, the Russian Communists continued to lift themselves by our bootstraps. The West lent them money, extended credit to them, sold them factories they themselves could not have built, technology they themselves could not have developed. We seemed determined to make Le
nin’s cynical prophesy come true: “When we hang the capitalists, they will sell us the rope to do it with.” (Nor is it fair, by the way, to blame all this on left-leaning liberals. Some of our largest corporations have been, and still are, just as guilty.)
Let us not forget, too, that when Hitler was threatening the West, he and Stalin concluded their notorious pact, partitioning tormented Poland and giving the Nazis a secure Eastern frontier. And when France had fallen, while Britain alone resisted Hitler, Russia remained “neutral”—just as she remained “neutral” all through our own war with Japan until Hiroshima had been destroyed and Japan’s surrender was a virtual certainty. And all the while, we had been pouring into Russia weapons, materiel, provisions, without which she would have been defeated.
Immediately after the war, we did nothing to halt the march of Russian Communist imperialism. Our first firm stand against it was Truman’s in Korea, which ended up as something less than victory; and then the bumbling of the Bay of Pigs; and then Vietnam, about which the less said now the better. And all this while, it was pretty much business as usual where “non-military” trade with the U.S.S.R. was concerned.
Business As Usual?
What business do we have to do with the Soviet Union? Much of it we do for our own profit. Some we undoubtedly do for our survival—strategic metals and minerals that otherwise might be in short supply. But by far the greater part of our trade with the Communists is strategically to our detriment. The reason for this is simple: There is no such thing as non-military aid to the U.S.S.R.
Every contract any Western firm accepts to build, say, an automobile factory, a truck factory, a dam, frees Russian technical personnel to build the tanks, the missiles, the aircraft and ships of war with which the Russian Communists implement their aggressive policy. Every sale of sophisticated electronic equipment, of laboratory equipment or of industrial know-how enables more Russian scientific personnel to devote their time to research for war. Every sale of wheat to this power that cannot even feed its own population adequately saves millions of Russian man-hours for work dedicated to our eventual destruction.
The coldly calculated brutality with which Korean Air Lines Flight 007 was destroyed may have been employed to test us, to determine just how far we’d let ourselves be pushed. Or its purpose may have been deliberately to outrage the civilized world and so divert attention from some other nasty business being planned elsewhere. At this writing, we do not know.
But we do know that the action was not exceptional, that it speaks eloquently of the total immorality of Soviet policy and that it warns us loudly and clearly of what we may expect in the future.
Business as usual? Perhaps so. Perhaps we will continue to sell the old men in the Kremlin the fruit of our scientific and technological superiority, to wink at their industrial espionage in this country, to ship them crops they cannot grow themselves. Or, even if we do not, very probably other industrial powers will.
The world forgets too easily when there is money to be made.
But the shadow of Ivan the Grim still looms over Russia, and perhaps the time has come for someone to say, with adequate authority:
“It is enough, Ivan. Go home!”
What the Soviet Pilots Said
Washington
Here is the transcript, distributed by the White House last night, of excerpts from the radio transmissions of two Soviet pilots who participated in the downing of the Korean Air Lines Flight 007 last week. This is a translation; the conversation was in Russian. All times are Greenwich Mean Time.
1818:34—SU-15 fighter to 1826:20—SU-15 fighter to “Deputat,” Soviet ground station call sign:
“The A.N.O. (air navigation lights) are burning. The strobe light is flashing.”
1818:56—MiG-23 fighter to Deputat:
“Roger. I’m at 7500, course 230.”
1819:02—SU fighter to Deputat:
“I am closing on the target.”
1826:20—SU fighter to Deputat:
“I have executed the launch.”
1826:22—SU fighter to Deputat:
“The target is destroyed.”
1826:27—SU fighter to Deputat:
“I am breaking off attack.”
Associated Press
Editor's Introduction to:
THE ’EATHEN
by Rudyard Kipling
This book is dedicated to the non-commissioned officers of the armed forces of the United States. Allowing for Kipling’s times, when there were no women non-coms, there have been few more powerful expressions of appreciation for this rare breed than this poem.
Sarge Workman tells me there’s nothing more dangerous than a second lieutenant with a map.
To those Regulars who put up with this particular second lieutenant (complete with map) this book is dedicated.
THE ’EATHEN
by Rudyard Kipling
The ’eathen in ’is blindness bows down to wood and stone;
’E don’t obey no orders unless they is his own;
’E keeps ’is side-arms awful: ’e leaves ‘em all about,
An’ then comes up the Regiment an’ pokes the ’eathen out.
All along o’ dirtiness, all along o’ mess.
All along o’ doin’ things rather-more-or-less.
All along of abby-nay 1, kul 2, an’ hazar-ho 3,
Mind you keep your rifle and yourself jus’ so!
(1. Not now. 2. Tomorrow. 3. Wait a bit.)
The young recruit is ’aughty—’e draf’s from Gawd knows where;
They bid ’im show ‘is stockin’s and lay ‘is mattress square;
’E calls it bloomin’ nonsense—’e doesn’t know, no more—
An’ then comes ‘is Company and kicks ’im round the floor!
The young recruit is ’ammered—’e takes it very hard;
’E ’angs ’is ’ead an’ mutters—’e sulks about the yard;
’E talks o’ “cruel tyrants” which ’e’ll swing for by-an-by,
An’ the others ‘ears and mocks ‘im, and the boy goes orf to cry.
The young recruit is silly—’e thinks o’ suicide.
’E’s lost ’is gutter-devil; ’e ’asn’t got ’is pride;
But day by day they kicks ’im, which ’elps ’im on a bit,
Till ‘e finds ’isself one mornin’ with a full an’ proper kit.
Gettin’ clear o’ dirtiness, gettin’ done with mess,
Gettin shut o’ doin’ things rather more-or-less;
Not so fond of abby-nay, kul, nor hazar-ho,
Learns to keep ’is rifle an’ ’isself jus’ so!
The young recruit is ’appy—’e throws a chest to suit;
You see ’im grow mustaches; you ’ear ’im slap ’is boot.
’E learns to drop the “bloodies” from every word ’e slings,
An’ ’e shows an ’ealthy brisket when ’e strips for bars an’ rings.
The cruel-tyrant-sergeants they watch ’im ’arf a year;
They watch ’im with ’is comrades, they watch ’im with ’is beer;
They watch ’im with the women at the regimental dance,
And the cruel-tyrant-sergeants send ’is name along for “Lance.”
An’ now ’e’s ’arf o’ nothin’, an’ all a private yet,
’Is room they up an’ rags ’im to see what they will get.
They rags ’im low an’ cunnin’, each dirty trick they can.
But ’e learns to sweat ’is temper and ’e learns to sweat ’is man.
An’, last, a Colour-Sergeant, as such to be obeyed,
’E schools ’is men at cricket, ’e tells ’em on parade;
They sees ’im quick and ’andy, uncommon set an’ smart,
An’ so ’e talks to orficers which ’ave the Core at ’eart.
’E learns to do ’is watchin’ without it showin’ plain;
’E learns to save a dummy, and shove ’im straight again;
’E learns to che
ck a ranker that’s buyin’ leave to shirk;
’An ’e learns to make men like ’im so they’ll learn to like their work.
An’ when it comes to marchin’ ’e’ll see their socks are right,
An’ when it comes to action ’e shows ‘em how to sight.
’E knows their ways of thinkin’ and just what’s in their mind;
’E knows when they are takin’ on an’ when they’ve fell be’ind.
’E knows each talkin’ corp’ral that leads a squad astray;
’E feels ’is innards ’eavin, ’is bowels givin’ way;
’E sees the blue-white faces all tryin’ ’ard to grin,
’An ’e stands an’ waits an’ suffers till it’s time to cap ’em in.
An’ now the hugly bullets come peckin’ through the dust,
An’ no one wants to face ’em, but every beggar must;
So, like a man in irons, which isn’t glad to go,
They moves ’em off by companies uncommon stiff an’ slow.
Of all ’is five years’ schoolin’ they don’t remember much
Excep’ the not retreatin’, the step and keepin’ touch.
It looks like teachin’ wasted when they duck and spread an’ ‘op
But if ’e ’adn’t learned ’em they be all about the shop.
An’ now it’s “ ’Oo goes backward?” an’ now it’s “ ’Oo comes on?”
There Will Be War Volume III Page 12