The War Without a Name

In his memorable The Struggle for the World, which shocked people who still believe that good will and good wishes are enough to create One World (TIME, March 24, 1947), James Burnham told Americans that they must defeat Communism or be defeated by it; there were no other alternatives. In a new book, The Coming Defeat of Communism (John Day; $3.50), Philosopher Burnham of New York University tells Americans what he thinks they must do to bring about Communism's defeat.

Since The Struggle for the World, the West has reluctantly climbed from the misty valley of ineffectual good will to the bleak but clearer plateau of the cold war. But on the new terrain loom the same old dangers of complacency ("We are winning the cold war"), inertia ("Wait for the dust to settle") and false security ("They'll never match our atomic stockpile"). With a combination of cold logic and hot passion that burns like dry ice, Burnham tries hard to arouse the free world to full realism and resolution. Burnham's argument:

The free world is already at war with Communism, and must clearly recognize the nature of this war.

"It is not a conventional, formal war, a war of organized massed armies hurling themselves at each other in total armed conflict (though this may be a later phase of the present war), but a kind of war for which we have no name--a political, subversive, ideological, religious, economic, resistance, guerrilla, sabotage war, as well as a war of open arms."

As the free world's leader, the U.S. must draft an unconventional plan, to fit the unconventional war.

"Our planning and policy are not so much wrong as incomplete . . . From appeasement, we have reached the uneasy turning point of containment. But containment . . . cannot be a stable equilibrium. From containment, we must either drop back to appeasement, a deal (or what would seem to be a deal), or go forward to the offensive [aiming at] destruction of the power of Soviet-based Communism."

Some of the "unconventional" policies which Burnham advocates:

P: Massive, sustained propaganda., using all media--from radio to leaflets to matchfolders--directed not only behind the Iron Curtain but over the world.

P: A bold drive to strengthen anti-Communist labor organization. U.S. capitalists must stop regarding organized labor as an enemy, and realize that it is often their most powerful ally against Communism.

P: A determined, organized campaign to win firm political friends everywhere; e.g., the Gaullists, the Vatican, Islam, and the Chinese Nationalists. The U.S. must not rely exclusively on formal pacts of friendship and alliance with governments: "To strengthen France's Atomic Energy Commission under the Communist, Joliot-Curie, is a defeat, not a victory; to keep even precariously alive a small detachment of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army is an unalloyed victory."

P: Full cooperation with anti-Communist refugees, deserters, resistance and liberation movements.

Burnham suggests that the "unconventional" offensive against Communism might best be coordinated in a new executive office directly under the U.S. President, with experts supplied by State, Defense and Central Intelligence, and with Congress represented.

Inverse Philistines. Philosopher Burnham berates the American businessman for being "too ignorant, too greedy, too reactionary, and, in a certain sense, too cowardly" in the struggle against Communism. Burnham cites the U.S. businessman's shortsighted eagerness for keeping U.S. tariffs high while preaching free trade to the world; his prejudice against fighting side by side with converts from Marxism, whom Burnham (a convert from Marxism) regards as the most knowing scouts in that fight; his readiness to trade with his Communist enemies any time he can make a fat profit.

But for all his faults, Burnham observes, a little condescendingly, the U.S. businessman is basically loyal to American ideals and will take his proper place in the struggle against Communism. Says Burnham: "I have no sympathy and little patience with those inverse Philistines . . . who sneer so easily at business and businessmen . . . There are motives more injurious than the search for profit; and [businessmen] did not need slave camps to people their frontiers. If this country is 'basely materialistic' in its 'philosophy,' then let it be noted that such materialism is the cause of less suffering and more joy than most idealisms which history records."

The Will to Win. Burnham is convinced that full-scale war with Russia can be avoided if the U.S. is firm enough. He scoffs at the timid notion that it is dangerous to provoke the Communists. "Communists are never 'provoked'; if they sometimes seem provoked, that is only a rehearsed bit of acting ... Experience uniformly proves that Communists are always emboldened to further aggression by friendship ... It is from firmness and power that they yield and retreat . . ."

The Coming Defeat of Communism has its share of jarring notes; ex-Marxist Burnham can be too pedantic and doctrinaire, sometimes sounds too pleased with his own conspiratorial cunning. Perhaps his most hopeful and least convincing thesis lies in his book's eye-catching title. He argues that it is necessary to believe in and trumpet the coming defeat of Communism--in order to give heart to the anti-Communist Resistance everywhere and to counter the myth of inevitable Red victory. Yet, while believing in the inevitability of its own victory, the Western world must not become complacent; i.e., it must act as though its victory were not inevitable. That might prove a tall order for people not trained in Marxist dialectics.

In the past three years, says Burnham, Communism made a net gain in its drive for power. The free world contained the enemy in Europe, but retreated dismally in Asia. Still, "dynamically considered, the years 1946-49 show a net trend against the Communists. If the Communists are not yet losing--and they are not--their rate of advance has at least been slowed . . ."

The vital question is: Will the trend against Communism continue? It all depends, says Burnham, on the quality of the free world's political leadership. He has a mystic faith that in the long pull this leadership will not be wanting. In America's grass roots especially he has recently found the will to win. "The knowledge and intelligence, which enter into the synthesis of politics, are still needed to make ... as fruitful as possible a victory, as sparing as possible of blood and treasure. But the issue is no longer in doubt. Doubt is vanquished by the act of will which makes the decision."

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