THE Communist conquest of mainland China may be legitimately viewed as the culmination of a century-long interregnum during which the traditional equilibrium of Chinese society was profoundly disturbed by the Western impact, at a time of dynastic decline. The initial impact of the West was in the nature of a shock treatment administered by the Opium War, the subsequent military defeats, the unequal treaties, and the rise of the whole Treaty Ports system. Thus China's first massive contact with the West was associated with humiliation, bewilderment, frustration, and a sense of inequality. In these terms, then, a constant and continuing struggle for equality has been a hallmark of China's development since 1840.

The military and diplomatic defeats suffered by the Chinese made them conscious of the West's technological and industrial superiority. In fact, one of the essential ingredients in China's striving toward equality was economic—expressedin a deep-seated aspiration to catch up, to narrow the gap, and to industrialize. In other words, the Western impact generated “tension between the actual state of economic activities in the country and the existing obstacles to industrial development, on the one hand, and the great promise inherent in such a development, on the other.”

This article is an effort to set forth certain major similarities and differences between the societies of the Soviet Union and Communist China as of January 1955.

It is evident that the Soviet Union and Communist China have many characteristics in common. They stem mainly from parallel or identical concepts of power and its purposes, internal and external, accepted by the respective top leadership groups. These concepts have been translated into similar methods of societal organization, imposed value standards, and lines of day-to-day policy at home and abroad. Differences between the two countries arise from the nature of the economies controlled by Moscow and Peking; from the length of time the Communist regimes have been established; from certain characteristics of each top leadership group; from elements in the Russian and Chinese cultures that even modern totalitarianism has not wholly erased; and from problems presented by the goal of external expansion that the Soviet Union and Communist China share.

INDIA is six years old. Its reactions to the world are still largely a matter not of deliberate policy, but of a set of sometimes in consistent attitudes toward foreigners, attitudes which are only now, under Prime Minister Nehru's constant prodding, crystallizing into a foreign policy. A policy, whether foreign or domestic, is the pursuit by word and deed of a calculated line of action based on the interest, real or mistaken, of a country, or sometimes of its ruling classes. There is still no such calculation of risks and rewards in India's relations with the world, although a certain continuity of planning and thinking is beginning to emerge. Mr. Nehru's proclaimed “judgment of issues as they arise, on their own merits, with an open and independent approach” is by definition the negation of policy, since it precludes the pursuit of a pattern, or even the calculation of India's interests. To those accustomed to the history-rooted calculations of Europe, such an approach to policy-making seems odd.

Military strategy is of all the human sciences at once the most ancient and the least developed. It could hardly be otherwise. Its votaries must be men of decision and action rather than of theory. Victory is the payoff, and is regarded as the most telling confirmation of correct judgment. There is no other science where judgments are tested in blood and answered in the servitude of the defeated, where the supreme authority is the leader who has won or can instill confidence that he will win.

Some modicum of theory there always had to be. But like much other military equipment, it had to be light in weight and easily packaged to be carried into the field. Thus, the strategic ideas which have from time to time evolved have no sooner gained acceptance than they have been stripped to their barest essentials and converted into maxims. Because the baggage that was stripped normally contained the justifications, the qualifications, and the instances of historical application or misapplication, the surviving maxim had to be accorded a substitute dignity and authority by treating it as an axiom, or, in latter-day parlance, a “principle.”

Ten years after the Liberation, the French Communist Party remains the strongest party in France. It can muster a quarter of the nation's votes and claim more “militants” than all other French parties put together. A majority of industrial workers continue to vote for the “party of the working class” even if they are reluctant to strike on its behalf. This persistent strength is both disturbing and puzzling. It is obviously a major source of weakness not only for French democracy, but for the effectiveness of the Western coalition. There is no simple explanation of the continued hold of Communism, since it is both the cause and the consequence of the many-faceted crisis of French society.

When Max Weber published in 1906 two book-length studies of contemporary Russian politics, Zur Lage der bürgerlichen Demokratie in Russland (On the situation of bourgeois democracy in Russia), and Russlands Übergang zum Schein-konstitutionalismus (Russia's transition to pseudo-constitutionalism), he was venturing upon a field of inquiry in which he had previously shown no interest, and which seemingly lay entirely outside the range of his professional qualifications. He was by this time widely known as an economic historian specializing in agrarian and financial problems, and in the methodology of the social sciences. True, two years earlier he had also departed from his specialty by writing on the relationship between capitalism and Protestantism, but in that instance his deviation had not been quite as radical, since these studies had concerned the economic implications of a religious movement. What could have induced him, so shortly after recuperation from a nervous breakdown which had incapacitated him for the better part of five years (1897–1903), to interrupt his academic routine, acquire a reading knowledge of Russian, and devote several months to the tedious perusal of the Russian daily press? Why did he, as his widow and biographer reports, “follow for months in breathless tension the Russian drama” of 1905? Weber's interest in Russian politics, it is obvious, had deeper motives than mere fascination with current events; indeed, it was intimately connected with his two most vital concerns: the future of Germany, and the future of free society.

THE death of Joseph Stalin marked the beginning of a new period in the history of the Soviet regime in Russia. It set in motion a train of events in the internal political life of the country which, for better or for worse, will alter the political personality of the Soviet regime as the world came to know it under the influence of Stalin's dominating figure. No one can yet predict with any confidence how this sequence of events will unfold in the years to come. The most that can be done at this early stage is to visualize the forces at work behind the scenes and strive to reach an informed preliminary guess about the direction or directions in which these forces are moving.

That is the task of the present article. It seeks to investigate certain aspects of the post-Stalin train of events which are now themselves a part of history. Its purpose is to cast light upon some of the principal trends and issues in the internal political life of Soviet Russia since Stalin died. These trends and issues are for the most part hidden beneath the surface of Soviet public life; only occasionally, as in the Beria episode, have they erupted into full view of a perplexed and fascinated world. It is necessary, therefore, to study the submerged political realities through their indirect reflection in the public pronouncements of the controlled and official Soviet press. The central importance of the new regime‘s attitude toward Stalin and the Stalin heritage directs attention upon the changing manner in which the official propaganda has presented the image of Stalin to the Soviet people. We shall first tell the factual story of this process, tracing the steps by which Stalin‘s heirs successively dethroned him, partially restored him, and finally refashioned an entirely new Stalin image to fit their present needs. The latter part of the article attempts to interpret the political meaning of the new Stalin myth and of another new phenomenon closely associated with it, the “cult of the Party”

The Korean War represented the first American experience with the problem of meeting local Communist aggression by means of limited, if costly, warfare. But despite the revulsion with that experience, and the “new look” at military strategy and foreign policy, it may not be the last. The character of recent weapons developments and the passing of our thermonuclear monopoly make it probable that in the future, as in the past, American policy-makers will be forced to consider the alternative of local conflict, with all its problems and risks, in determining how to respond to the threat or actuality of Communist moves in the peripheral areas.

In these circumstances, analyses of American policy-making immediately before and during the Korean War may well illuminate the perspectives and considerations relevant to this difficult and dangerous type of operation. Here, no more can be done than toexamine the effect of strategic planning and estimates of Communist intentions and behavior on the decision to commit American forces to the defense of South Korea. This decision, and even the crucial decision to commit ground forces to eventual offensive operations against the aggressor, was made within afew days of the North Korean attack. Attention, accordingly, is focused on American policy reactions to the war in the first week or ten days following June 25, 1950.

Intensive study of factors affecting the relative power position of states “in the long run”—location, human and material resources, level of economic development and rate of capital formation, national solidarity, etc.—is no substitute for consideration of certain other factors which operate in the short run and determine the extent to which a state's power potential is utilized to achieve specific foreign policy objectives. Wars are fought or threatened and diplomatic settlements or impasses reached in the short run. So are decisions affecting all these grave matters, and sometimes with long-range consequences.

The main link between a state's long-run power potential and its government's achievement of present-day policy objectives are decisions taken regarding the level and character of military preparedness. Power potential is not a complete substitute for fighting capacity, especially when wars may begin with thermonuclear attacks which destroy the potential or prevent its being mobilized in time to influence the outcome of the war. Nor is it a substitute for the particular kinds of fighting capacity most efficient in deterring and localizing war.

While the West is occupied with the cold war, an economic test is slowly shaping in Asia. Upon its outcome may depend the political beliefs and allegiance of half the world's people. The issue may be stated simply, although the forces at work are complex and intricate: Can India, with a population of 360 million, under the democratic process, with free elections and a mixed economy similar to mat of many Western nations, meet the national aspirations for economic betterment and a more abundant life more fully and more rapidly than Communist China, with its totalitarian rule of 500 million people and its forced labor, forced investment, and forced production? In spite of all the propaganda about progress in Communist China, it is probable that the Indian record of actual achievement is more impressive, though less well publicized.

DEEP crises in the life of a nation sometimes lay bare with lightning clarity those basic social ties, loyalties, and commitments which render possible some maintenance of order and control when everything seems about to break down or disappear. In 1945, year of the deepest crisis that the German people have undergone in modern times, groups and organizations like the Junkers or the Nazi Party simply vanished; others, like the military, disappeared at least temporarily or, like the industrialists, were gravely weakened. It was the bureaucracy which became the bedrock, the irreducible minimum of social cohesion upon which, first locally, then in larger units, society was rebuilt. Subsequently, confirmed in its traditional position of control by the occupation powers (certain measures of attempted political purge and technical reorganization notwithstanding), its actual power was enhanced by the innumerable tasks of postwar reconstruction, from the building-up of entire new administrations (in the new Länder as well as on the bi-zonal and then federal levels of government) to the handling of what has been aptly called the “universe of claims” arising out of Nazi, war, and postwar conditions.

In a speech made in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1949, Sir Winston Churchill said, “For good or ill, air mastery today is the supreme expression of military power, and fleets and armies, however necessary, must accept a subordinate rank.” This statement comes from a figure of world repute whose strategic instincts are steeped in naval tradition. It has been echoed by President Eisenhower in recent speeches and Eisenhower is a General of the Army. We can therefore take it that modern air weapons are supremely important for all major aspects of contemporary strategy and politics. The big questions are these: In an age when atomic and hydrogen bombs have demonstrated that they can devastate cities and military and naval targets in a way never before experienced, would the heavy bomber and long-range rocket inevitably get through and shatter air defense? Or could prohibitive losses be inflicted again and again on the raiders so that the scale of attack dwindled? And, furthermore, could the United States or the USSR, militarily or economically, sustain a long-range atomic or hydrogen bomb and rocket air offensive? These are indeed $64 questions which are likely to be unanswerable for several years to come.

LABOR movements in areas of South Asia which are, or were until recently, under the control of British, French, or Dutch administrations have assumed considerable political, social, and economic importance despite the fact that industrialization and wage employment affect only a small segment of the population. As adjuncts of national movements they played a significant role in the struggle for independence; they have served the interests of the Communists and other dissident revolutionary groups; and they have participated in the tasks of economic reconstruction. In some areas, moreover, these labor organizations have exceeded in size not only existing political parties, but also other movementsbuilt on common occupational interests, such as peasant organizations. As a result, they have become afocal point for extra-parliamentary political activities.1 Their importance in most South Asian countries is all the more surprising, considering that they are purely Western institutions characteristic of highly industrialized and occupationally stratified societies. Yet in South Asia these movements are thriving in predominantly agricultural societies, with an occupational stratification bearing little resemblance to that of industrialized countries.

The determination of military policy can be generally conceived as a matter of answering, in order, two questions: for what purposes is military power required, and how much is required? Unfortunately, these questions are more easily asked than answered. The first—military power for what and against whom?—is complicated by the fact that the government is usually confronted with a variety of foreign policy contingencies, many of which seem to call for different kinds of military establishments. The second question—how much military power?—is complicated by the fact that the government must usually allocate its resources among many national values, of which military security is only one. These complicating factors, one a condition of international politics and the other a condition of domestic politics, appear to be as inescapable as the two questions themselves. Consequently, some insight into present and future problems of civil-military relations may be gained by examining the influence of these conditions in the past.

Communist China has broken with the Chinese cultural tradition, which it attacks and condemns. This break was prepared in part by the transformation of China during the declining years of imperial rule and in Republican times. But whereas this period was marked by the disintegration and disappearance of old institutions and some uncertainty about things to come, a new, rigid doctrine and social structure are now being introduced to integrate a new society within a totalitarian state. The old values have been discarded, but some of the organizational patterns of the past have been carried over, or have reappeared in the new system. The Communists are attempting to impose their system on Chinese society through the agency of an ideologically oriented elite which not only holds official position in government but also controls society itself. The degree of success which this system achieves may depend in part on the extent to which Chinese society has been prepared by its tradition to accept a centralized bureaucratic state working through a trained elite. In addition to helping us to assess the degree of preconditioning in China for Communist rule, an analytical study of imperial China may provide us with a greater understanding of the social and political techniques which a bureaucratic state employs, and which become of such special importance for a totalitarian government. What, then, were the key features of the imperial state and society which the Communists have retained or replaced in their own way, and what was the role played by the educated elite of the past?

The imperial state aimed at a strong control over Chinese society. The struggle to keep an all-powerful central rule was the dominant concern of every Chinese dynasty. The center of all authority was the emperor and the court, the embodiment of the interests of the state. Serving the emperor was a group of officials, small in number compared with the size of the country and the population, and with the importance of the functions to be carried out. These officials represented the interests of the state as a whole—its concern with the well-being or acquiescence of all groups of the population. The last Chinese dynasty had in addition special support from a group which served the state without being a part of Chinese society. The Manchus had come as conquerors from the frontier of the Chinese empire, with their forces militarily organized into units known as “banners.” When the Manchu dynasty was set up, the Manchu banners were kept apart from the Chinese people and the bannermen remained an inner core of dynastic supporters used both as a military force and in key official positions. But these bannermen were only a small group, largely unqualified for the complex tasks of Chinese administration, and thus the Manchu dynasty, like its predecessors, had to recruit its state administration from Chinese society.

In general terms, by the end of 1952, mainland China's productive capacity was reactivated and its institutional framework transformed to such an extent that the regime felt the time was ripe for launching an ambitious and comprehensive program of economic development. However, the announcement of a Five-Year Plan for China does not seem to have been preceded by a major debate on issues, methods, and problems of industrialization such as occurred in Russia in the 1920's. It would appear that Chinese Communist thinking and policy, as it has emerged, is almost completely hypnotized by the Stalinist model of economic development, with Preobrazhenskis and Bukharins absent from the scene.

These two books are as dissimilar as two books can be which deal with essentially the same problem and are inspired by essentially the same philosophy. The problem is the survival of the West, and the philosophy is one of progressive conservatism. In foreign policy, both authors share a preference for the traditional outlook and methods and an aversion to the crusading tendencies of mass democracy.

A Major obstacle to analysis of Communist movements is the, absence of firsthand evidence on attitudes and motivations affecting tension and cohesion. The refusal of four thousand members of the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese Communist Youth Corps to return to the mainland after the Korean War offered an unusually large and representative cross-section of these two organizations for systematic interrogation. The results of such an interrogation conducted by the author in April 1954, while in no way conclusive, provide suggestive statistical and analytical information concerning the composition and motivations of the post-Yenan Chinese Communist.

According to official Communist figures, the Chinese Communist Party numbered approximately three million in December 1948 and more than five million in June 1950. This increase of two million members in eighteen months represents the most rapid expansion of Party rolls in the history of the Chinese Communist movement. It occurred after victory was in sight, but before rigorous measures to consolidate control erupted in the “Three Anti” and “Five Anti” movements of 1951. Those who joined the Party during this period form a group strikingly different from the elite of the Chinese Communist movement, which is composed of devoted revolutionaries trained in the rigorous experiences of the Long March and the wartime days of Yenan.

Regardless of whether a detailed Five-Year Plan is in operation or not, there is in Communist China every indication of a determined, relentless, and massive effort to pursue a program of industrial expansion. The rapid rate of recovery, the restructuring of the institutional framework, the possession of an industrial base in Manchuria, the termination of hostilities in Korea, and, above all, the application of political and social power to the mobilization of resources in the hands of the state are all factors that have enabled the regime to raise the rate and level of investment considerably above that of the past. At the same time, the regime is mobilizing not only capital, but technique and entre-preneurship as well. In essence, the Chinese economy—after being more or less stationary for centuries, with only erratic and partial spurts of growth in recent decades—seems to be entering, for better or for worse, a self-sustaining growth process.

Barring another world war or a major agricultural crisis in China, the long-run question before us is not whether the Chinese Communist economy will grow at all, but whether the rate of growth will be sufficiently rapid so that the forces of the industrial revolution will be in a position to defeat the Malthusian counterrevolution. Given the previously discussed conditions and limitations, how rapidly may industrialization be expected to proceed? Obviously, these questions can only be answered conditionally and hypothetically. However, before approaching this problem, it may be well to take a schematic look at the “size” and “structur” of the Chinese mainland economy in 1952, which may be considered as the point of departure for the upward climb.