At the international Communist conclave that assembled in Mos-Cow in November 1960, the Soviet delegation introduced a new formula, designed to serve as an ideological blueprint for Communist policy in the less-developed areas of the world. The formula consisted of two parts: a statement of immediate objectives and a tactical plan to achieve them. Of these, the objectives were set forth in the form of a theoretical governmental model, described as a transitional state structure appropriate for less-developed societies. It was christened the “national democratic state,” and the tactical plan chosen as the proper means for its establishment was correspondingly designated the “national democratic front.”

The comparative ease with which authoritarian groups have come to power in nations where large parties stood pledged to defend the democratic order to the bitter end has become one of the most disturbing elements in modern world politics. Such developments have brought into question the validity of accepted liberal-democratic norms governing the behavior of responsible leaders, both in the domestic opposition to the authoritarian regime and in foreign governments whose security arrangements are adversely affected by the suppression of free institutions. Basically, these traditional norms have implied non-interference with constitutional political processes and acceptance of their consequences. On June 23, 1933, Hitler outlawed the German Social Democratic Party (SPD), which for over four decades, until 1932, had been the largest German party and, since the founding of the Weimar Republic iri 1918, the principal advocate and defender of the democratic system and a peaceful foreign policy. In considering the actions of its leadership from the accession of Hitler to the outlawing of the party, this article seeks to contribute to a re-examination of these accepted norms, particularly insofar as they concern the behavior of a liberal-democratic mass party faced with a government seeking total power.

Since the April 1960 student-led revolution there, debate in South Korea on the peaceful unification of the two Koreas has increased in frequency, intensity, and popularity among students, intellectuals, political parties, and other social groups. Popular support for independent and peaceful unification is rapidly mounting. This changing mood may be due to more effective North Korean propaganda as well as to the unhappy economic conditions in South Korea. In response to North Korea's aggressive unification campaign, the ROK (Republic of Korea) government has found it necessary to set up a research organization dedicated solely to the study of problems of unification.

Foreign policy decision making is the result of a complex political process in which the political values and style of the chief executive play a large part. The case of Canada's decision, in 1963, to acquire nuclear weapons illustrates that external events and pressures generated by Canada's international obligations were processed through complex political interactions. The Government of Prime Minister Diefenbaker was unable to take the nuclear weapons decision because of two splits in the Cabinet, only one of which was pertinent to nuclear weapons policy. The decision was taken by Leader of the Opposition Pearson alone and in conformity with his personal values, because of his political style which commanded deference. The approach used combines historical detail with political analysis.

Since Stalin's death in 1953, Russia's leaders have every four or five years convened the nominally supreme body of the Soviet Communist Party, its Congress, to ratify policy guidelines and power shifts. Khrushchev lent excitement to the Congresses he presided over, launching surprise attacks on domestic and foreign Communists who were critical of his unorthodox traits. At the 20th Congress in 1956, the Party First Secretary went beyond the text of an anti-Stalin report that had earlier been agreed upon in the Kremlin and he implicated rival associates in cases of Stalinist misrule. The same foes, eliminated from high places in 1957, were just as suddenly brought under heavy criticism by Khrushchev's group at the extraordinary 21st Congress in 1959 and the 22nd Congress in 1961. A delegation of observers from Communist China headed by Premier Chou En-lai walked out of the 22nd Congress after their Albanian clients were unexpectedly assailed for heretical beliefs close to those held in Peking. In contrast, dramatic challenges and disclosures were missing from the 23rd Congress, which the successors of Khrushchev organized in 1966. The flat nature of the proceedings underlined the fact that a cycle of renewal in post-Stalin politics had been superseded by what was essentially a cycle of consolidation.

The basis of NATO deterrence strategy is the manipulation of the nuclear "threshold." When NATO's conventional component is strong and the exact nature of its nuclear threshold is uncertain to Warsaw Pact countries, NATO's deterrent will be strong. Attempts to improve the “quality” of the nuclear arsenal by making the outcome of nuclear conflict more predictable weaken NATO's deterrent power. It is the possibility that NATO may use nuclear weapons, as well as the uncertainty of the consequences of such use, that strengthens the deterrent. The number of nuclear weapons in the NATO arsenal could be reduced with no appreciable damage to the deterrent posture. Qualitative improvements in the conventional component, while increasing deterrent strength, also serve as safeguards in case of deterrence failures. To the extent that political unity within NATO increases the predictability of a NATO response to Warsaw Pact aggression, it is possible that political disunity actually adds to deterrent strength.

The contrast between brave American words in support of colonial aspirations and United States military aid in support of colonial powers putting down native insurrection is painfully sharp. Checking the spread of Soviet imperialism and liquidating the remnants of old-style European imperialism are objectives which seem to stand in the way of each other. Military security can apparently be purchased only at the price of popular hostility in the colonial world. And friendship may prove unpurchasable at any price.

Foreign policy making always involves a reconciliation of not wholly compatible goals, but the dilemma which United States colonial policy poses in Asia is peculiarly distasteful. What we face there today we might tomorrow face in Africa or the Pacific islands. Some action has to be improvised in the Far East at once. But this crisis also requires the United States to remove the conditions which will present similar predicaments elsewhere in the future.

There is every likelihood that future historians of the Russian novel will praise the Soviet period for the record number of volumes produced and blame it for an equally unprecedented decline in artistic standards. Yet one may hope that the twenty-first-century critic, in fairness to an unhappy past, will not overlook a redeeming feature of the Soviet novel, i.e., its considerable anthropological value. The present reflections about a few recent or fairly recent Soviet novels do not deal with their literary qualities. They are concerned exclusively with the light these novels cast upon various aspects of everyday life in Soviet Russia, including, it may be added, the life of the novel makers themselves.

Western observers remain fundamentally divided on the motives behind Soviet policy toward the West. An examination of these motives must be based on understanding elite opinion in the U.S.S.R. on East-West issues, as well as the scope of political conflict and consensus. The writings and public comments of prominent Soviet foreign policy officials over the last decade reveal a broad spectrum of views and persisting signs of political tension on issues of arms control policy, foreign trade and economic ties, and competition with the West in the Third World. Reform-minded officials have pressed for expansion of cooperation with the West as a matter of practical self-interest in the age of nuclear weapons and advanced technology. More conservative officials have resisted efforts to mute competition and have sought to preserve more insular policies. Proponents of expanded ties to the West openly pressed their case when détente flourished in the early 1970s, and many of their arguments found reflection in statements by the Soviet leadership. The arguments of conservative spokesmen have resonated anew, however, as East-West tensions have mounted since the late 1970s.

American foreign policy has recently become a favorite target-area for attacks upon an alleged moralizing and legalistic habit which ignores or condemns national interest. The criticism runs the whole gamut of our relations with the world outside, focusing with final virulence upon our effort to find peace in the United Nations. It covers most of the nation's history, tracing the decline from “realism” to moralistic fantasy back to the moment when the genius of the Federalists began to be corrupted by Jeffersonian sentimentalism. The vast complex of today's foreign relations furnishes innumerable points of assault. A folly of self-righteousness has led us—so the indictment reads—into tragic error in China, in Korea, in the Near and Middle East, even (though here some of the accusers desert) in Europe. We give quixotically where we should sell; but our purse-strings are tied with moral scruples where we should be lavish. Shrinking from the open use of power, we enter into wasteful and entangling alliances where we should keep a free hand. Crusading in the name of democracy and disregarding the limits of our resources, we undertake to assist peoples anywhere to establish free governments in the face of intervention from Moscow. We take up arms for the utopian aims of an international organization set up in postwar zeal for a new era and maintained at our expense. A course in this literature of calamity leaves us wondering how the nation has survived. It sounds like the dirge for a fallen empire.

The first general strike in the history of England, with its mass labor action, was bound to attract strong interest from the workers' state which proclaimed as its rallying cry: “Workers of All Countries, Unite!” Soviet concern for the British working class followed logically from the active participation of Marx and Engels in the movement, and the continued attention shown by Lenin to this important “section” of the “world proletariat.”

Perhaps the central dilemma in national security policy is how to A reconcile the obvious potency of nuclear weapons for purposes of deterrence with their dubious utility as instruments of defense—i.e., for fighting a war at tolerable cost in case deterrence should fail. In prenuclear days, deterrence was more or less a function of an efficient capacity for defense, but with the new technology deterrence may be accomplished with capabilities and threats that do not correspond to the capabilities and strategies most suitable for rational military action. This dichotomy forms the leading theme of Deterrent or Defense, by Captain B. H. Liddell Hart, one of Britain's leading military analysts. The book is a collection of articles written mostly during the past three or four years, and concerned chiefly with military problems of NATO. As in many books of this sort, the articles overlap to some extent and are not always consistent. Leaving aside the inconsistencies for the moment, Liddell Hart's basic position can be stated briefly. Strategic nuclear airpower is useful for deterring an all-out nuclear attack on the United States or a full-scale conventional assault on Western Europe. But it has no value whatever for purposes of defense, because the inevitable result of the actual use of such weapons is simply “mutual suicide.” Even though it would be “lunacy” for the United States to initiate thermonuclear war in response to a Soviet attack in Europe, the Russians' fear of such a response probably is still strong enough to deter them from all but limited actions. Hence, the major problem facing NATO is to develop an effective non-suicidal defense against limited aggression. The book's greatest merit lies in its contribution to the solution of this problem.

POOR old Trotsky,” Prime Minister S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike once remarked, “his unhappy ghost seems to have found its only refuge in this country.” While Ceylon is not the only refuge of Trotsky, it is certainly the most hospitable, for nowhere else has his image inspired so successful a following. On two occasions since Ceylon has become independent, one or another of the Trotskyite parties has acted as the principal opposition to the government, and in one instance one of them governed Ceylon in coalition with a party of the Center. Ambitious, dedicated, expressive of the needs of the people, and possessing perhaps the most astute and distinguished leadership of any of the parties in Ceylon now that Bandaranaike has unfortunately been assassinated, the Trotskyite movement seems to have installed itself as a permanent part of Ceylonese politics.