Russia: The New Gospel

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Decay Now, Collapse Later. Throughout rang the repeated cries that the "decayed capitalist shell" is about to break, that "socialism will inevitably succeed capitalism everywhere." Communism's more modest aim is still to catch up with its capitalist rival, the U.S. Curiously, Khrushchev's document has dropped the Soviet pretense that overall industrial output will soon match U.S. production. His target for 1970 is a 150% increase, which would hardly more than equal the U.S. 1960 level. And by 1970, the U.S. itself will have pushed production far above today's mark—barring, of course, the complete collapse of the capitalist system predicted so persistently by Communist dogma ever since Karl Marx emerged from the British Museum. "The inexorable process of decay has seized capitalism from top to bottom. It has entered the period of decline and collapse," said Khrushchev's new call to arms. But even Khrushchev felt it necessary to find some excuse for capitalism's continuing vitality: "This decay does not signify complete stagnation, and does not rule out growth of capitalist economies at particular times in particular countries."

The Four Words. Moscow's answer to such perplexing capitalist strength, which does not follow the "objective" Communist timetable for the locomotive of history, is fierce, unrelenting attack. The 47,000 words of the new document add up to four favorite words of Nikita Khrushchev: "We will bury you." No chapter of Hitler's Mein Kampf ever spelled out a dictator's goal more clearly: "The success of the struggle which the working class wages will depend on how well the party and the working class master all its forms—peaceful and nonpeaceful, parliamentary and extra-parliamentary—and how well they are prepared to replace one form of struggle by another as quickly and unexpectedly as possible."

Moscow's message was obviously intended to have a special evangelical appeal to the new nations of Africa and Asia still struggling for independence or economic success; paragraph after paragraph assured the "poor, struggling peoples" of Russia's support and socialism's sympathy. But along with the promise of friendship went a warning. The nationalism of emergent nations, said Khrushchev, may be "historically justified" as a reaction against "imperialist " oppression," but "national narrow-mindedness does not disappear automatically with the establishment of the socialist system." Translation: The kind of nationalism that opposes the U.N. in Africa is quite all right with Russia, but beware the stubborn nationalism of Hungarian patriots who opposed the Soviets in Europe.

Similarly, the document considered left-wingers and "welfare statists" hopelessly naive and the pawns of capitalists, but allowed for cooperation with such misguided liberals to serve Communist ends. In the colonialist struggles, even local business groups (in Marxist jargon, "the nationalist bourgeoisie") still have a "progressive role" that is "not yet spent." An orthodox, old-fashioned Marxist theoretician might find some of this ambivalence not very well thought out as doctrine, even while conceding its usefulness as propaganda.