The one

Mr. DALLIN. The term "coexistence" is a vague one. aspect of it which I suspect may be in the process of being reevaluated, though not necessarily rejected in Moscow, is the assumption that, whatever the forms of contest-ideological, economic, and so forth, or even military, in limited or local wars both sides share an interest in avoiding a nuclear showdown with the other and will stay out of the other's territory. I wonder whether those in Moscow who have never quite swallowed that line-undoubtedly there are, and I think probably Dr. Wolfe would know better than I do that there are, including some of the leading military men-that these people would find considerable ammunition and genuine concern in the present American behavior in Vietnam if this were to mean— and I think they are probably uncertain on the subject—that a new American policy would not, as it were, respect the integrity of the Communist world or would be prepared to dislodge or directly engage in hostile action against one of the governments now ruled by a Communist Party.

I say they must be questioning this. I think there is no indication as yet where they come out. I think objectively it is to their interest as well as ours to come to the conclusion that we do not mean to proceed to a direct challenge of the Soviet Union. But undoubtedly there is a serious concern.

Mr. ZABLOCKI. Doctor, you also say that the Sino-Soviet split has been an important catalyst within the U.S.S.R. and in what used to be the Communist bloc. Could you comment further on this?

Mr. DALLIN. It seems to me basically this split in communism between a moderate rightwing increasingly open to what the Chinese have called revisionism, to an increasing adaptation and some pragmatic departures from orthodox Marxism-Leninism has always been present, and has been fought by the more extreme, fundamentalist, orthodox Communist position. For the first time perhaps in the present showdown Communists all over have gained an opportunity to make a choice between these two positions. And as I believe both the other gentlemen on the panel indicated earlier, there has been a tendency in the Soviet Union internally to associate improvement in standards of living, and general relaxation of conditions with an improvement in relations with the United States and the West more generally.

There are clusters of positions, in other words, that tend to go together. The Sino-Soviet conflict, it seems to me, has forced much of this into the open and has forced them to do some rethinking, especially since it has come at the same time as some of the revelations about past and present failures of the Soviet regime itself.

All this together has opened up new avenues and opportunities for developments within the Soviet Union and the Soviet bloc which had not previously been as obvious or as strongly present. They might have come otherwise as well, but as Dr. Wolfe said earlier, the popular reaction against the Chinese, which may have always been there, is a good indicator of the mood. It was highlighted last spring when-you may have seen a newspaper item on this-some Soviet citizens attacked several visiting Japanese businessmen because they thought they were Chinese. This is not a matter of organized action by the regime. This is a popular response.

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In general there has been a remarkably strong gulf that has surprised the Communists themselves, between the Russians, Italians, and other Western Communists, and the Chinese.

The comments that one hears are that it would be unthinkable to have a Communist world movement led from Peiping, and the Chinese insistence that it is the underdeveloped countries and more explicitly the nonwhite countries which are today, as they put it, the storm center of world revolution, which is a departure from the basic Marxist proletarian approach to something that the Soviets cannot

swallow.

As a result I think of this cluster, including the simultaneous Soviet failures in the underdeveloped countries in the past few years, there had been established a presumption of and pressure for some improvement of relations with the United States.

Whether this goes down the drain now, I think remains to be seen. Mr. GALLAGHER. Could I be excused? Before I do, may I just have one comment to express my own personal thanks for your appearance here today. I have great admiration for the Ambassador for the contributions he has made to this country.

Mr. ZABLOCKI. Doctor, you stated it would be impossible for the Soviet Union or leaders of the Soviet Union to permit the international Communist movement to be run from Peiping. Ambassador Kennan said that the U.S.S.R. was once the unchallenged leader of world communism. The question I would like to ask is, if the U.S.S.R. cannot permit Red China to take over the dominant Communist leadership role, what can the Soviet Union do to prevent it; and what can China do to achieve it?

Mr. WOLFE. I would say first that this is what a lot of the problem has been about up to now. I don't think the Soviet Union can afford to let the leadership of the movement be seized by Peiping. The question might be put, if it seemed that control over the movement had passed to, let us say, Peiping, what would the Soviet response be? On second thought, however, I think this is a fairly hypothetical question, because I don't believe the Chinese are really in a position where they can seize control of the world movement. The result, it seems to me, will be what we have been witnessing for the last few years. Neither one nor the other can dominate the movement entirely. They seem unable to work out an organizational arrangement and a theoretical superstructure to go along with it that will successfully accommodate all the differences between them. Hence the likelihood that a superordinate control over the whole movement will be restored by either one of them, in my judgment, would seem to be fairly remote.

Mr. DALLIN. It seems to me there is no longer one world movement over which they can fight. There are several movements. The Soviet behavior in Eastern Europe suggests that they know that they can't win them all. If you take Soviet relations with Rumania, I think there is an increasing Soviet realization, quite reluctant undoubtedly, but a realization there isn't a thing they can do about Rumania's defiance except by going in with their tanks and staging another "Budapest" in Bucharest-which they don't want to do. There is nothing else they can do to force the Rumanians to play their game.

I think there is, and perhaps this is some sign of hope as an index of growing Soviet maturity, a realization that you can't have it your way all the time and you have to adjust, that politics is the art of the possible and there is a limit to what you can do.

Mr. ZABLOCKI. Though Russia demonstrates maturity and China demonstrates immaturity, how long can Russia permit that to go on? Mr. DALLIN. It is a question of alternatives. In the international movement there is a fierce struggle going on in every party around the globe. A Moscow-oriented publication reported a few weeks ago that the pro-Chinese in the party in Peru had turned over the party archives to the police. They are denouncing each other, in some cases physically fighting each other. That undoubtedly will continue. I think the lines have been pretty well drawn, by now one can see who sides with the Russians and who sides with the Chinese.

I wouldn't expect any material change in that. As to the relations between the two powers, here, of course, we are on a different ground. The Soviets are certainly aware of the dangers of a military conflict and see no reason to seek one with China.

Mr. ZABLOCKI. Ambassador Kennan, do you agree the Soviet Union has reached the state of maturity so that it will continue to turn the other cheek?

Mr. KENNAN. I don't see what else it can do. I do not think that the sort of unified control over the world Communist movement that existed in Stalin's time can ever be restored within our lifetimes here. There would have to be some entirely new world situation.

This movement, as Dr. Dallin has said, has broken up and nobody can reassert this kind of control over it. It seems to me likely as far as influence goes, ideological influence, the Chinese are in a better position with relation to those Communist Parties which are not yet in power, outside of Europe-leave aside for a moment Europewhereas those that are in power will tend rather to look to the Russians. In addition to this I think the great European Communist Parties, the Italian and the French, will probably continue to look to the Russians, because they must realize very well that they face a unique problem now in Western Europe. The old idea of revolution, as Lenin conceived it coming in Western Europe, has really gone.

Yet that is what the Chinese have in mind. The Communist movement in Europe as a revolutionary movement of a Leninist type is really today a matter of history. It just won't happen. I don't think this is satisfactory to the Russians. In fact it is a great blow to them. They don't like it.

But I don't see what they can do about it, and I don't think they see what they can do. I certainly agree it would not be worth their while at all to try to settle this problem by force of arms. To do so would be merely to split what remains of the facade of unity in this world Communist movement in I don't know how many different ways. They are simply caught.

Mr. McDOWELL. If this theory is true, if it proves to be sound and basic; how do we explain that since 1960, when the Russian military and economic aid to China stopped, they have since that time started to escalate the war in South Vietnam, have continued to, at least by word, expand the split between Peiping and Moscow, go out of their way to do it

Mr. KENNAN. The Soviet leaders?

Mr. MCDOWELL. No; the Chinese, on their part, have continually tried to widen the split. Isn't it just possible, while involving the Russians so much in this question of leadership in the Communist world, that they are quietly nibbling away in southeast Asia, expanding their area of influence, and couldn't care less-in the final analysis. as long as they continue to succeed as well as they have so far—who ends up to be the real leader in the Communist world.

Mr. KENNAN. I think the Chinese figure their prospects are pretty good for taking leadership, at least in that great section of the Communist movement which consists of parties not yet arrived in power-parties that are struggling for power. There has always been a great premium in the Communist movement in being the fellow furthest to the left. The Soviet leaders, for the first time now, are in the uncomfortable position of not being able to occupy that spot due to their own physical commitments as a going regime. This is a situation that I am sure they hate.

The Chinese have occupied it. The Chinese have outflanked them to the left. In all these little struggling groups of people who make up the Communist Parties in various countries around the world. which are still competing for power, there are usually fanatics, soreheads, extremists of one sort or another, and the most strongly inflammatory and leftist view always has pulling power.

The Chinese have this advantage today. The Russians are aware of it and are worried about it. They see no escape from the situation.

I am sure the Chinese feel this way, and I think that by and large the Chinese will come out with greater influence or at least wider influence geographically, probably, in the world Communist movement than will the Russians, which they realize.

On the other hand, so extreme, so unreal, in terms of this world today, is the ideological nature of the Chinese influence that I think they are going to condemn a great many of their Communist Party proteges to a lack of political success, just the way that Stalin condemned a great many of the Communist Parties in the old days to a lack of political success by insisting that they follow very unreal and inflammatory programs that didn't have great pulling power.

Mr. MCDOWELL. That is true, but fundamentally the Russians, in building their real satellite countries, have never let go. They have been willing in the final analysis to throw all ideologies aside and move in with blunt, brute military force to see that they didn't lose countries that were essential to them.

Mr. KENNAN. It is a question of what you mean by "lose them." It is a question of which one. They didn't move in with military force in the case of Yugoslavia. They permitted the Finns, who at one time had a Communist Ministry of the Interior, Communist control of their police, to get rid of this and to begin to behave in many respects as an independent country again.

Mr. MCDOWELL. Is not their economy fully related to Russia today?

Mr. KENNAN. I would not think so. I think the Finns have a good deal of their trade with the West. It is my belief that the Russians will let these Eastern European countries go very far along independent paths provided they do not do one of two things: One is to declare themselves no longer Socialist governments, in other words to get rid of the whole Marxist ideology, and the second is to cut the ties with the Warsaw Pact. That is, if any of them come up and say: "We want to leave the Warsaw Pact"-holding open the possibility that they might associate themselves with the Atlantic Pactthis would be too much for the Russians, and this in my opinion would provoke, as of today, a military intervention in any of these countries. Outside of that, they can do, as you see today with the Rumanians and with the Hungarians, pretty much as they like.

Mr. MCDOWELL. We always seem to come back to Vietnam. If, as you suggest, that not now, of course, but if we could have had our ifs at one time, if we had disengaged ourselves there, is there any doubt in your mind that the country would today be under the domination of the Communist Chinese regime?

Mr. KENNAN. It would be under the domination of its own local Communists. I doubt there would be Chinese troops there. Perhaps if there is one generalization you can make about people in Asia, it is that they are extremely flexible and inventive politically. I dare say these local Communists would have found ways to manifest a very considerable independence of policy just in the way that the Eastern European countries are doing today. Probably not to the point of associating themselves in a military alliance with ourselves, or anything like that, but probably following the line not identical with that of the Chinese Communists.

I think this is the way of the world. I think it is very difficult for any one country to control any other great country unless it occupies it in permanence. Human nature is ornery and obstinate everywhere. This is true with Communists. Unless you sit on them with actual military or police power, the tendency is going to be for national traditions, national deviations of psychology, national interests, national pride, to assert themselves, and they will begin to act as independent governments at some point.

Mr. McDOWELL. Mr. Ambassador, I quite agree with you. But I can't get away from experiences the hard experiences we have had in the past-that when any type of aggression was allowed to run wild, in the final analysis it had to come back to a military confrontation and we become involved in it.

Mr. KENNAN. Mr. McDowell, we face, when we think back to the experiences that we had in the Stalin area, two dangers: One is to ignore those experiences entirely and forget them and behave naively toward these people. The other is to overrate the relevance of these experiences to the present. This is a moving situation in the Soviet Union, and the personality of this Government is a great deal different today from what it was 20 years ago. There is, furthermore, a difference that is often ignored in this country-and the fact that it is ignored troubles me very much-between the sort of aggression that we were confronted with in the case of Hitler and the sort of aggression that we have faced in the case of the Soviet Union. This is the question of whether you regard all-out war, straight military