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focus[w84,jmc]		The foci of evil

	President Reagan has a talent for putting a substantial idea
into a nutshell.  Two of his recent statements referred to the
Soviet Union as an "evil empire" and as "the focus of evil in
the world".  In my view the first is correct, but the second is
mistaken.  The Soviet Union is indeed an empire, run by a few
brutal and ignorant old men.  It constitutes a danger to the rest
of the world, because of its expansionist tendencies and because
of its aid to communist and other harmful
activities.  Unfortunately, there is no
feasible way to get rid of it at present, so we have to live with
it and compete with it.  Fortunately, its present leaders are
cautious, even though it cannot be guaranteed that their successors
will be.  While this essay emphasizes
these harmful activities, it is important not to forget that
there are common interests worth pursuing - in arms control,
science, culture and trade.  I am not of the opinion, however,
that pursuing these common interests is likely by itself to make
the Soviet Union less harmful and dangerous.

	Reagan's characterization of the Soviet Union as "the focus of
evil in the world" was unfortunately mistaken.  There are many foci of
evil, and they would exist if the Soviet Union gave up its imperialism
tomorrow.  In some respects, they would be a lot easier to handle if the Soviet
Union reformed, but that's wishful thinking.  In other respects, the
bad example of the Soviet Union makes communist ideas less attractive
than they might otherwise be and hence less of a menace.

	Consider two examples, Iran and Cambodia.

	Moslem fanaticism has come to rule Iran, engages
in domestic and foreign terrorism and tries to expand.  It has
succeeded in turning much (almost all?) of the youth of Iran
into fanatics.  This is remarkable.  Fifty years ago, the educated
young in all the under developed countries were modernists.  How
come their successors are fanatically reactionary?  I fear that the
Western media bear a substantial part of the responsibility.  It
has always amazed me how much of what people in the under-developed
world think about themselves is an echo of the Western media or
if it has a domestic origin reverberates through the Western media
back to themselves.  The Western media phony adversary relation to
modernity is very directly copied, complete with the phoniness involved in
relying on the technology being denounced.  While Moslem fanaticism is
murderous, it is not the responsibility of the Soviet Union, with the
probably minor exception that Soviet propaganda echoes any attacks on the
West that appear anywhere.  Also it is not very dangerous to the U.S.
directly except for the danger to our oil supply and the possibility
that its aggressiveness may at some time be supported by nuclear
weapons.

	Cambodia is more directly to the point.  It was communist
ideology, but not Soviet Union in any direct sense, that caused the Khmer
Rouge to kill more than a million of their fellow Cambodians.  Communist
fanaticism is an evil that arises independently in every country.  While
it often gets material and propaganda support from the Soviet Union, it
also loses support because of the bad deeds of the Soviet Union and the
other communist ruled countries.  The elderly party bosses of a mature
communist country are corrupt and brutal, but rarely genocidal - only
ordinarily murderous.

	It's the young, enthusiastic communists that starve millions with
hare-brained agricultural and industrial schemes and murder millions
directly who exhibit recalcitrance.  Andropov took decades to
wipe out the dissident movement, and there are still individuals
in Moscow out of jail, who sometimes give Western correspondents
information that offends the masters.  Among the one billion Chinese
on the mainland, there isn't one who dares let himself be quoted
by name opposing the government.  Vietnam, Cambodia and Cuba are
worse.

	Communism in the world is harmful in two ways.  First,
Soviet expansionism may yet cause a nuclear war.  Second, communist
rule of a country has always been a tragedy for its inhabitants.
Alas, this point requires elaboration.

	1. The country makes less economic progress than it otherwise
would.  In every one of the divided countries, the non-communist
part does better economically.

	2. The inhabitants come to hate the communists and often
risk death in order to escape.  In every communist country, the rulers
have sooner or later, usually sooner, felt compelled to post
guards to shoot would-be escapees.  Only China can afford
to some extent the variant strategy of saturating the world's
willingness to accept refugees.

	Note that in Vietnam, the inhabitants initially decided to
accept the communist conquest in the hopes that it would be bearable.
It was only after several years that millions of Vietnamese of all
social classes concluded that communist rule was so bad that it
was worth a large risk of death to escape.

	3. There is no freedom of speech or free elections.
Liberals often say that free speech and free elections are meaningless
to a hungry man.  This turns out to be false.  Political oppression
is resented by the poor as well as by the well off.  Moreover, free
elections are a population's only protection against disastrous
schemes, whether they be wars or collectivization, on the part of
their rulers.

	Why then is communism so popular?  It seems to me that
the attractiveness of communism has two components - socialist
ideas of equality and rationality and the Leninist idea of
a one party dictatorship.  The attractiveness of socialist ideas
has been well studied.  However, by themselves they aim at
electoral victories of socialist parties or, when there isn't
enough democracy, to socialist oriented revolutions like the
one in Portugal.  In either case, democracy is the result and
socialist parties compete for favor with capitalist oriented
parties.  While I prefer capitalism myself, democracy is ordinarily
preserved, and there is an alternation of parties as one or the
other makes some economic progress but disappoints the hopes
of the voters.  In any case, this is no menace to the rest of
the world.

	Much less studied has been the attractiveness of the
one party dictatorship per se.  Mugabe has said that his goal
is to turn Zimbabwe into a one party state and Bouterse has
said the same about Surinam.  More sophisticated third world leaders
are less frank, because part of the Leninist doctrine involves
lying about democracy.  My opinions on this are rather tentative.
Here are some possibilities.  I am not clear about their relative
importance.

	1. The trappings of power.  When a third world leader visits
the U.S., his hosts are eager to show him how democratic we are.
The host drives him about in his own car, for example.
When he goes to the Soviet Union, it is all chauffeured limousines
and banquets with servants.  He can see for himself how the bosses
treat the lower classes.  He may conclude that the democracy of the
U.S. is all very well for a rich country, but his country is unlikely
to be rich in the forseeable future.  However, the privileged life
of a Soviet leader is demonstrated to be entirely compatible with the most
egalitarian slogans.  Moreover, it is clear that these trappings of
power are entirely attainable if he can only seize power.

	This doesn't necesarily require conscious insincerity on the
part of the revolutionists.

	2. Approval.  The West in general and the U.S. in particular
disapprove of coups.  They disapprove of the execution or other
mistreatment of political opponents.  Even if the U.S. Government
accepts such behavior as a lesser evil, the Western media will
disapprove.  The Soviet Union has no such inhibitions.  It will even
tolerate the killing of communists and be friends with the killers
provided the subsequent policies of the killers are pro-Soviet.
(According to one rumor, the Afghanistan invasion was triggered
when the pro-Soviet dictator Amin had the KGB resident killed
for getting too powerful.  If so, this would suggest that the
Soviets draw the line at killing their own people).
Actually, substantial sections of the Western media approve of
pro-communist coups and will minimize their pro-Soviet aspects
and their Soviet support.

	3. Revenge.  Revenge as an acceptable motive is not
respectable in modern Western society.  This represents one of
modern society's greatest moral achievements.  Perhaps Christianity
deserves much of the credit.  However, even
in modern society, it still motivates many individuals.  In
earlier societies and in more primitive societies, revenge is
still a respectable motive.  One of the promises of communism
is the liquidation of the "exploiting classes".  This is the
one promise they usually fulfill fully - even overfullfill.
The same skill needed to seize power will suffice to carry out
any promises to kill individuals or groups.

	Indeed revenge is such a powerful human motive that
many people are attracted to it vicariously.  If they
personally or their families or neighbors have never suffered
an injury motivating revenge, and this is often the case in
middle class society, it is always possible to identify with
some mistreated individual or group and seek revenge against
whoever did wrong.  Perhaps some of the third worldism in the
developed countries has this character.

	3. Assurance of keeping power.  If a socialist oriented
government keeps democracy, it always has to suffer an alternation
of power with a capitalist oriented party.  Even in Israel, which
started as a very socialist oriented country, eventually the
socialists lost power.  Of course, they are quite likely to get
it back again, but this limits what they can do.  As long as the
socialist has democracy as an over-riding value, this prospect
of possibly losing power is tolerable.  However, once the program
of the party becomes all-important, it is just one step to the
power of the party becoming all-important.

	There are two different lessons that different groups draw from
the fate of Allende in Chile.
Some draw the lesson that a socialist government should not
outrun its mandate.  In particular, it should be cautious economically
and it shouldn't think it can squeeze the middle class unmercifully.
The other lesson is that a "real socialist government" shouldn't
be squeamish about suppressing potential opposition.  Allende's mistake
was in not establishing a dictatorship.  Rumor has it that he was
trying to correct this mistake when he was overthrown, but that may
not be true.  Needless to say, communist propaganda draws the second
lesson rather than the first.

	4. Many communist movements have gained power idealistic
about democracy and with self-sacrificing non-corrupt leaders.
Any dictatorship was supposed to be temporary.  Without a single
exception they have subsequently followed the path of dictatorship,
suppression of personal freedom, privilege and corruption.  Of course,
they sometimes start well along this path, especially if they
come to power by military coup.  Why they evolve in this way requires
more study, but here are some speculations.

	a. The doctrines and slogans most effective for gaining power
are false in important respects.
Poverty cannot be relieved merely by confiscation
of wealth.  The idea that the people previously running the economy
owed their power entirely to privilege rather than merit is
substantially false.  Replacing them by politically selected people
often leads to economic disaster.  If gaining power involves a military
effort, the best military leaders often have thuggish tendencies.
The intellectuals who gain power through revolution usually implement
crackpot economic schemes and are inclined to attribute their failure
to sabotage.  For all these reasons, a communist or even a socialist
regime often faces the stark choice between dictatorship and giving
up power.  Communist doctrine comes down solidly on the side of
dictatorship.

	b. The development of corruption is easy to explain.  Capitalist
society allocates goods and service by money.  There are various ways
of getting money, some of which involve political determination of need
or deserts, but once one has the money, the goods are for sale and
the market determines who gets what.
Socialist doctrine rejects this and therefore allocates many goods
politically.  Moreover, even the goods that are supposed to be allocated
by money are often unavailable, because price controls cause there
to be more money than goods.  Once goods are allocated by political
decision, favoritism, favor-trading, bribery and other forms of
corruption are inevitable.  Society reverts towards feudalism,
because the most effective way to get ahead is to be a follower
of a rising star, a rocket cadre, as the Chinese put it.

	Incidentally, maybe a lot that can be learned by carefully
picking through the debris of the New Jewel Movement in Grenada.
Much of it will be characteristic of that tiny island, but perhaps
something more general about the evolution of communist dictatorships
can be learned.  It's the first one where almost all the principals
are in the hands of the Free World.

What to do?

	The Soviet takeover in Afghanistan was a consequence of the
the earlier Afghan military coup.  This coup was based on leftist
slogans.  The communist success in Latin America depends on communist
ideology primarily and to a very slight degree on Soviet support.
Nicaragua represents an extremely interesting case.  Communist leaning
leftists have power, but are apparently inhibited in the establishment
of a full dictatorship.  A censored opposition paper is grudgingly
tolerated and free elections are still considered a possibility -
partly due to a threat of American intervention.

	While communist takeovers have occurred in some countries,
others have chosen a capitalist path, either democratic or authoritarian.
The above-mentioned faults of communism have limited its success.

	The most effective way of preventing further communist takeovers
is a powerful propaganda campaign against communism and for electoral
democracy.  The idea that electoral democracy is unimportant for poor
countries must be attacked.