Chart 1. THE TRIPLE CHAIN OF COMMAND OF COMMUNIST POWER* * ln 1952 , the politburo was renamed " praesidium ," and orgburo and secretariat were merged . The future will tell the signiflcance of this change . Chart Il. THE FLOWER STRUCTURE OF COMMUNIST ORGANIZATIONS FRONT ORG. The lnterlocking System of Communist Party , Parly Auxil ia ries , Front Organizations, and Transmission Belts A Century of Conflict Communist Techniques of World Revolution A CENTURY OF CONFLICT Communist Techniques of World Revolution STEFAN T. POSSONY Professor of International Politics Georgetown University Chicago • HENRY REGNERY COMPANY • 1953 Copyright 1953 HENRY REGNERY COMPANY Chicago, Illinois Charts by Les Rosenzweig Manufactured in the United States of America Preface LEPURPOSE of this book is to present the soviet pattern of conquest. The method of this book is to trace the development of the com­ munist doctrine of conflict management . A synthesis of the bolshevik "science of victory" concludes the volume. Communist techniques of usurpation and expansion represent the culmination of a co-ordinated effort by several generations of skilled revolutionaries and soldiers. These methods, which reflect the politi­ cal, social, and military experience of previous conquerors, are based upon elaborate studies in the humanities and social sciences as well as upon extensive pragmatic tests. So far, communist conflict management-poorly imitated by the nazis-has stood the test of victory as well as that of defeat and catastrophe. The writer submits that the successful soviet encroach­ ment on the free world is due largely to the operational know-how of the communists. Marxian communism has been an important political movement since 1848. The procedures and plans of the Soviet Union have been a major, if not the most important, source of international friction since 191 7. But, while great attention has been paid to the more theoretical aspects of communism, soviet strategy and tactics have been neither fully studied nor clearly understood. 1 Kinetic communism often is termed an "ideology," as if the corn- 1 Sorne of the few major studies devoted to this subject are: Curzio Mala­ parte, Tecnica del Colpo di Stato (originally 1931, reprinted at Milan, Bom­ piani , 1948) ; Fedotoff White, "Soviet Philo sophy of War, " Political Science Quarterly , LI (1936), 321-53; Henry Rollin, La R évoluti on Ru sse (2 vols., especially Vol. Il, Le Parti Bolchevist e [Pari s, Delagrave, 1931]); Timothy Taracouzio , War and Peace in Sovi et Diplomacy (New York, Macmillan, 1940), Chap . 2; Sigmund Neumann, "Engels and Marx: Military Concepts of the Social Revolutionaries" and Edward Mead Earle, "Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin: Soviet Concepts of War ," both in Mak ers of Modern Strategy: M ilitary Thought /rom Machiavelli to Hitler , ed. by E. M. Earle (Princeton, N, J., vi PREFACE munist movement were held together by a bond of idealism, with individuals succumbing to communism because of its ideological at­ traction. Exponents of this thesis, when discussing ideas and ide­ ologies, usually do not have in mind Marx's theoretical analysis of capitalist economics or his materialistic philosophy of history but rather the stated platform of the communist party. Actually, the communists themselves do not preoccupy themselves unduly with their program. In their very voluminous writings they devote a minimum of space to the society of the future. There are but three basic programmatic statements in all the classical com­ munist literature . The first of these is contained in Section II of the Cammunist Manifesta ( 1848). This original platform was scrapped in part when Marx and Engels, in an introduction to the 1872 edi­ tion of the Manifesta, described it as "antiquated ... in some de­ tails." Second, programmatic statements are found in Marx's The Civil Warin France (1871) . Third and last, the Sixth World Con­ gress of the Communist International ( 1928) built a platform which has been allowed to stand and must be considered as still the officially sanctioned one. If the ideological orientation of communists were as strong as is so often assumed, they hardly would content themselves with a program drafted a generation ago. 2 For the most part, the communist plan as laid down in these docu­ ments is neither original nor can it be distinguished easily from other projects for social reform. Princeton Univer sity Press, 1943) ; William R. Kintner, The Front is Every­ where, Militant Communism in Action (Norman , Okla. , University of Okla­ homa Press, 1950); and Nathan Leites, The Operational Cod e of the Politburo (New York, McGraw-Hill, 1951). There are also numerous studies on the Russian armed forces, communist part y procedures, front organization s, propa­ ganda, and so forth. The books by Kintner and Leites are particularly im­ portant. See also, The Soviet Union, Background, Ideolo gy, Reality, a sympo­ sium ed. by Waldemar Gurian (N otre Dame, Ind., University of Notre Dame Press, 1951). 2 The Russian social democratic party adopted a program in 1903 which Lenin, in )917, described as "utterly antiquated." According to him, it had been antiquated long before World War 1. Lenin and a few other bolsheviks, during May 1917, prepared a draft for a revision of the program, but this draft was never accepted as the official program. See V. 1. Lenin, Selected Works (New York, International Publi shers, 1943), VI, 105-24 and explana­ tory notes, 540-44. The program adopted in 1919 by the Ru ssian communist party never assumed any importance and admittedly has been under revision for many years. PREFACE vii In its advocacy of progressive taxation, free education, wasteland cultivation, and abolition of child labor, it has, in general, been over­ taken by events. One plan, for example, demands "the establishment of institutions that will gradually relieve the burden of house drudg­ ery." Certainly the "institution" of the American dishwasher has relieved house drudgery more successfully than has the communist movement. In other instances, the Soviet Union clearly has neglected or de­ parted from the platform. Marx called for the closing of pawnshops, the abolition of nightwork for bakers, and the establishment of co­ operative societies; and the Sixth World Congress came out against nightwork and overtime. Y et there still is nightwork and overtime in Russia. The promised radical reform of marital and family laws was car­ ried out, but very soon the reform measures were withdrawn: gov­ ernment-sponsored free love and military strength hardly are com­ patible. Surely, the Soviet Union follows Marx's exhortation to burn the guillotine only in a figurative sense: it uses more modern tools of punishment. Ail this is quite in line with Engels's remark: "The irony of his­ tory willed-as is usual when doctrinaires corne to power-that [the parties of the commune] did the opposite of what the doctrine of their school prescribed." 3 There remains the communist program in the strict sense of the term. lt consists of three main points: ( 1 ) the abolition of private ownership; (2) the dictatorship of the proletariat; and (3) the set­ ting up of labor armies.4 This is not the place to take issue with these three proposais . But since, in their propaganda, the communists con­ stantly invert this program to mean "land reform," "welfare," 5 "de- 3 Jntroduction to Karl Marx's The Civil Warin France, 1871 (New York, International Publishers, 1940), p. 18. 4 The Communist Manifesto called for: "Equal Iiability of ail labor. Es­ tablishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture." "Industrial ar­ mies," of course, is a circumlocution for "forced Iabor." This is a point which in the early twenties was admitted quite frankly by Trotsky but which since has been dropped from public discussion. See Samuel Gompers, Out of Their Own Mouths (New York, Dutton, 1921). 5 The concept of planned economy figures in the communist program only by implication. lt was conceived in its modern form, not by communists, but viii PREFACE mocracy," and "free labor," their reluctance to push their own prod­ uct is demonstrated. Truly, the last word on the matter was said by Edmund Burke: "The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion." The fact of the matter is that the communists gain popular sup­ port not through pushing their own platform but by espousing non­ communist ideas. Like proper pirates, they sail under false flags. Bolshevik propaganda strives to make people believe that commu­ nism stands for the abolition of things that are bad. -Whatever may be worrying a nation, the communists promise that they will abolish the trouble. Whenever a country is finding its own solutions, the communists work to undermine confidence in existing institutions. It is true the communists have an ideology, but it is strictly a creed for small militant and power-hungry groups. Hence, communism is not a modern version of Islam. In many re­ spects the communists are the heirs of the Mongols who conquered, not because they had an attractive ideology, but because they out­ performed their opponents in the fields of strategy and tactics. Win­ ston Churchill pointed out rightly: "Communism is not only a creed, it is a plan of campaign. A communist is not only the holder of certain opinions, he is the pledged adept of a well-thought-out means of enforcing them." 6 Lenin admitted this state of affairs quite frankly. "Our party bas not written a new program and the old one is worthless," he ex­ claimed on July 5, 1918. And, anticipating the worthlessness of future programs, he added this remarkable statement: "Socialism by Walter Rathenau , president of the German General Electric Company, for the pµrpose of supporting the German army during World War I. In 1920, Lenin, who had been impres sed by the Germ an war economy, copied the idea and asked one of his assistants to "produce a plan (not a technical but a po­ litical scheme) which would be understood by the proletariat.