FOREIGN RELATIONS, 1950, VOLUME I


blend of hatred and fear. Its strategy has been one of attempting to
undermine the complex of forces, in this country and in the rest of the
free world, on which our power is based. In this it has both adhered
to doctrine and followed the sound principle of seeking maximum
results with minimum risks and commitments. The present applica-
tion of this strategy is a new form of expression for traditional
Russian caution. However, there is no justification in Soviet theory
or practice for predicting that, should the Kremlin become convinced
that it could cause our downfall by one conclusive blow, it would not
seek that solution.
  In considering the capabilities of the Soviet world, it is of prime
importance to remember that, in contrast to ours, they are being drawn
upon close to the maximum possible extent. Also in contrast to us, the
Soviet world can do more with less-it has a lower standard of
living, its economy requires less to keep it functioning and its mili-
tary machine operates effectively with less elaborate equipment and
organization.
   The capabilities of the Soviet world are being exploited to the full
 because the Kremlin is inescapably militant. It is inescapably militant
 because it possesses and is possessed by a world-wide revolutionary
 movement, because it is the inheritor of Russian imperialism and be-
 cause it is a totalitarian dictatorship. Persistent crisis, conflict and
 expansion are the essence of the Kremlin's militancy. This dynamism
 serves to intensify all Soviet capabilities.
   Two enormous organizations, the Communist Party and the secret
 police, are an outstanding source of strength to the Kremlin. In the
 Party, it has an apparatus designed to impose at home an ideological
 uniformity among its people and to act abroad as an instrument of
 propaganda, subversion and espionage. In its police apparatus, it has
 a domestic repressive instrument guaranteeing under present circum-
 stances the continued security of the Kremlin. The demonstrated
 capabilities of these two basic organizations, operating openly or in
 disguise, in mass or through single agents, is unparalleled in history.
 The party, the police and the conspicuous might of the Soviet military
 machine together tend to create an overall impression of irresistible
 Soviet power among many peoples of the free world.
   The ideological pretensions of the Kremlin are another great source
 of strength. Its identification of the Soviet system with communism,
 its peace campaigns and its championing of colonial peoples may be
 viewed with apathy, if not cynicism, by the oppressed totalitariat of
 the Soviet world, but in the free world these ideas find favorable re-
 sponses in vulnerable segments of society. They have found a par-
 ticularly receptive audience in Asia, especially as the Asiatics have
 been impressed by what has been plausibly portrayed to them as the


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