attack, as your favored method of increasing your power, or whether you do it by other methods.

I have never felt that the Soviet Government had intentions of embarking on an aggressive path by the same methods that Hitler used. For this reason I felt our responses, too, had to be different ones. I think this has been proven correct over the course of the years. And so far as the Soviet Government is concerned, if we can get through with this present crisis over Vietnam in some way that does not entirely destroy our relations with the Soviet Union, we need not despair of an evolution of their policy, an evolution of the nature of Soviet power, of its attitude toward its world relationships, which would permit an improving relationship with ourselves. That is my feeling.

Since that possibility exists and since it is the only hopeful one that I can see in a world where you have loose such things as nuclear weapons, I think we should be very, very careful not to damage it. Mr. WHALLEY. Mr. Ambassador, some people in the Western World feel the United States should be more friendly with Red China, that we should trade with them, permit them to join the U.N., and this is pretty much on the theory that you catch more flies with sugar than with vinegar. What do you think?

Mr. KENNAN. I don't think it would do us much good in this instance because I think we have, even over and above Vietnam, we have by virtue of Taiwan and Korea real political issues between ourselves and the Chinese Communist government that are so bitter, so difficult of solution today, that efforts to achieve a good relationship, ignoring them, would not appear to be very successful.

This is my own view. I do agree there are other situations where you do catch more with sugar than you do with vinegar.

Mr. ZABLOCKI. I have one further question, Ambassador Kennan. You are quoted at a Princeton lecture as saying:

We must look forward to the day when we come to terms in some way with the prevailing political forces on the Chinese mainland. *

It becomes an urgent requirement of American policy to ease in every proper and constructive way the relationship between the Soviet Union and the United States. ***

It does not appear to me that American policy of recent years stacks up very well in relation to this requirement. Our present involvement in Vietnam is a classic example of the sort of situation we ought to avoid if we do not wish to provoke in Moscow precisely those reactions that are most adverse to our interests.

It is largely as a consequence of these strategic errors that we find ourselves in the dangerous and uncompromising position we occupy today.

What way do you envision that we can come to terms in some way with Communist China? How would it be beneficial within the context of the Sino-Soviet dispute? How would it be in our own country's national interest?

Mr. KENNAN. Mr. Chairman, if I might, if you would permit me, I would like to offer the full text of this lecture to be incorporated into the record here.

Mr. ZABLOCKI. Without objection.

(The full text of the lecture is as follows:)

THE UNITED STATES AND THE COMMUNIST GIANTS

When the invitation to deliver this lecture reached me, some months ago, and I was obliged, according to established custom, to select a title for a lecture I hadn't yet even thought about, the one I selected was the one you see on the program this evening: "The United States and the Communist Giants." What I had in mind, in selecting this title, was a relatively detached and relaxed discourse on the nature of the three great powers: Russia, China, and the United States, at this historical juncture, an examination of their respective ideologies and the compulsions that most strongly affect their Governments, and perhaps the hazarding of some speculative thoughts about how they all related to one another. Little did I realize that by the time the day for delivery of this lecture came around, the Vietnam situation would have brought precisely these relationships to such a state of cruciality as to make them a burning topic of the hour, and would threaten, in fact, to predetermine at any moment, perhaps even beyond the point of no return, the answers to the very questions I had thought to discuss. Things being this way, I hope you will forgive me if I dispense with all the customary academic and forensic preliminaries and proceed at once to the burden of the thesis I have to present.

I want first to ask you to note certain things about the nature and position, at this time, of our two major Communist adversaries. Let me take first the Soviet Union and recall to your minds certain features of this great political society which affect importantly its interests and reactions as a power on the world scene.

First of all, the Soviet regime is a Marxist regime which has now been in power for 47 years, and which has carried its country, during this period, to a fairly advanced, if rather uneven, state of industrial development. One of the things this means is that the weaknesses and contradictions of the Marxist doctrine have now had time to become not only visible but even embarrassingly evident in the experience of the Soviet state. Not only have they had time to become thus evident, but that relative state of industrial advancement to which the Soviet Union has now attained has made these weaknesses and contradictions all the more conspicuous; for insofar as Marxism, or even Marxism-Leninism, still has any relevance in our age, this relevance would be primarily, I should think, to the problems of societies in the same incipient stage of industrialization as was the Germany of Marx' time, or the Russia of Lenin'ssocieties in which the great problem was still that of the distribution of a scarce wealth among individuals, not the social employment of an abundant wealth to the benefit of an entire people. Aside from the fact that the Marxist doctrine has proved wholly inadequate as an approach to the problems of Russian agriculture, even its achievements in respect to the raising of the living standards of the so-called masses (a function which lay, after all, at the very basis of its claim to superiority as a social and political doctrine) compare unfavorably with those of the hated and despised free enterprise systems of the West. All this means not only that the Soviet regime now faces very difficult decisions of domestic policy, in the effort to reconcile its Marxist principles to the demands of an advanced industrial society, but that it cannot easily refrain from looking westward both for trade and ideas. Outside the field of agriculture, where the Russians have a very specific problem partly inherited from the past, Russia's present problems and needs, economic and social, are much more similar to those of the advanced nations of the West than to those of the underdeveloped societies in which Moscow is politically so interested. Secondly, Russia, looking back on these 47 years, faces a serious crisis of conscience arising out of the historic phenomenon of Stalinism and the role it played in the development of Soviet society. This is more than an academic problem; it has serious implications for policy today. The regime is in a difficult situation. It cannot fully condone the excesses of Stalinism without estranging vitally important segments of Soviet society, notably the intellectuals and even certain echelons of the party membership, to whom the memories of Stalinism are humilitating and intolerable. But it also cannot fully condemn Stalinism, either; because to do so would be to destroy the myth of the party's infallibility and thus to provide justification for past movements of internal-party opposition, as well as for present and future ones. This would mean opening up the party to a process of real democratization. But anything of this sort would involve

the forfeiture of that monopolization of power in the name of an allegedly infallible party which has endured since Lenin's days; and for this, the present leaders are wholly unprepared. Out of this dilemma have come serious divisions of educated and authoritative opinion within Soviet society, notably between those who are affected by shame and doubt over the memory of Stalinism, and those who are more affected by anxiety over what would occur should the principles of Stalinism be entirely abandoned. And it is clear that the first of these attitudes-that of the people who cannot stomach the memory of Stalinism—is now associated with a general inability to tolerate the Stalinist pattern of intellectual regimentation. One has to do here with the breakthrough of a new curiosity, powerful and insistent: curiosity about the West, about Russia's own past, about all those areas of reality concerning which the regime has tried in the past to maintain artificial, rigid, and often preposterous official myths. People who have this curiosity turn naturally to the West for its satisfaction. Where else could they turn? It is not that they are enthused over Western values and examples; very often they dislike these and reject them. But they want to know, nevertheless, about Western ideas and conditions; for they find them relevant to their own problems.

A similar influence, we ought to note, is brought to bear on the Soviet leaders by the Eastern European Communist regimes and the European Communist Parties in general. Not only would important elements in these regimes and parties be quite unwilling to see a complete return to Stalinism in the Soviet Union, but to them, too, it is important that intellectual, cultural, and economie contacts be furthered between the Communist countries and he West. Should the Moscow leaders go too far in the direction of a return to Stalinist internal practices, and should they, in particular, try to reimpose the Stalinist system of complete isolation from the West, they would run the risk of alienating these other regimes and parties to a degree which, particularly in the face of the existing disarray in the Communist world, could be very serious indeed.

Returning to the situation within Russia proper, we should not forget that all these divisive tendencies operate within a political system which has important constitutional defects. I cannot take time to describe these defects in detail. They lie largely in the clumsy arrangement of parallel bureaucracies of party and government, and above all in the fact that reasonable provision for the allotment and transfer of supreme personal power exists only in the constitution of the governmental apparatus, where power does not really reside, whereas the constitution of the party, where power does reside, affords no such arrangements and makes provision only for collective leadership. I assure you these are dangerously imperfect arrangements for a great modern society. Their imperfec tion was concealed in earlier years only because the powerful personalities of Lenin and Stalin, and to a certain degree, Khrushchev, were able to transcend them. In the absence of such personalities, they could easily lead at any time to serious troubles. Their importance is already such that the regime is unable to reconcile, on any basis other than that of delicate compromise, the deep division of outlook and opinion that now exists.

Now one more thing. The greatest results the Soviet Government has to show for all the sacrifices and sufferings it has required of the Soviet peoples over these 47 years are to be found in the industries, the cities, the physical installations it has constructed. The standard of living of the people and the power of the regime itself, are dependent on the continued existence and funetioning of all this new plant and infrastructure. A nuclear war that resulted in the large-scale destruction of these things could wipe out at one blow the entire achievements of 47 years of Soviet socialism. Added to this, we have the fact that the Russian people have only the most horrible memories of past wars. Nobody in Russia wants another major war, and the regime has gone very far in assuring the people that it will not start one. All this means that not only does the Soviet regime have every conceivable selfish reason to wish to see a major war avoided, but it has committed itself seriously before its own people, much more seriously than is generally realized in our country, to do all in its power to avoid one.

For all these reasons, the Soviet leaders need both peace and reasonably good relations with Western countries, including outstandingly the United States Not only do they need these things, but they can see, when they look westward alone, no compelling reason why it should not be possible to have them. The great outstanding problems in Russia's relations with the West are those of Germany and nuclear armaments. In both fields, the difficulties are obviously

very great, but the respective positions are not logically irreconcilable, and eventual agreement seems not to be beyond the limits of possibility. Thus the attraction of better relations with the United States, as a force operating on the Soviet leadership, is not only something founded in the deeper requirements of Soviet society and in the self-interest of the regime, but is buttressed by the fact that its realization is theoretically conceivable, even in terms of the present situation.

On the other hand, Moscow is plainly faced today with Chinese pressures of the heaviest possible sort which run in precisely the opposite direction, which not only demand an immediate deterioration in Russia's relations with the West but obviously have as their concealed aim the provocation of actual hostilities between Russia and the West at the earliest possible moment. The Soviet leaders are well aware of this. They understand its dangers. They propose, I am sure, to resist these pressures to the best of their ability. But there is one area of world affairs where they are extremely vulnerable, where the Chinese have important tactical advantages, and where the Soviet leaders can be, and are being, pressed constantly into positions and actions that compromise their relations with the United States in particular. This is the area of the so-called anti-imperialist movement. What is involved here is the question of leadership among the various anti-Western and anti-American political forces now competing for ascendancy in the newer or less developed countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. To the extent these conflicts, these so-called anti-imperialist struggles, are highlighted before world opinion; to the extent they engage the attention of the great powers and become theaters and testing grounds of greatpower rivalries; to the extent that it becomes impossible for the Soviet Union to ignore or remain aloof from them-Moscow sees no choice but to come down strongly on the anti-Western side, even at the cost of damage to its relationswith leading Western countries.

One may well ask why this should be so-what importance these new countries have for Moscow that could justify so costly a reaction. I can give you only a partial answer, because I myself believe this reaction to be exaggerated, oversensitive, and not fully warranted even by the political self-interest of the Soviet regime. Nevertheless, to a certain extent one can see and understand, if not approve, its rationale.

In Europe and North America the Communist movement, as a dynamic advancing political force, is dead. If it has a future anywhere, it is in these developing areas and particularly in the new states, where firm political traditions and institutions have not yet formed; and here the possibilities, from Moscow's standpoint, lie less in the prospect of creating real Communist systems (for this, the prerequisites are lacking) than in the possibility of dominant influence being exerted from some Communist center over these inexperienced regimes, of their being developed as instruments of major Communist policy in the game of international politics. Moscow believes-Moscow is almost obliged by doctrinal conviction to believe that these anti-Western forces, euphonistically referred to as the anti-imperialist ones, are bound to be generally successful politically, on the local scene, at least in the struggle against Western influences; and noting the fumbling, ineffective quality of our own responses. I must say I think they have some reason for this belief, insofar as it is we Americans who are primarily involved at the Western end. The great question, in their view, is, Which Communist center is to preside over these various victories and to reap the various fruits? To abandon this field of political contest, or even to neglect it, means, as they see it, to present it on a silver platter to the Chinese. For this, they are not prepared. Their foreign relations operate in three great areas: the world Communist movement, the underdeveloped and new nations. and the Western World. In the Communist movement, their position is already under heavy and effective Chinese attack. Their relations with the West, while valuable to them, cannot, at this historical juncture at any rate, be expected to carry the entire burden of their international position. A Soviet foreign policy based exclusively on relations with the West would practically undermine the rationale for the maintenance of Soviet power in Russia itself. Aside, therefore, from the fact that they regard the governments of the new nations as their natural and traditional clients, the Soviet leaders cannot afford, for wider reasons, to stand aside from the struggle for predominance over them. Any such passivity could easily be made to look like indifference to the prospering of the Communist cause generally and would at once be exploited by the Chinese as a means of discrediting Soviet policy, and completing the destruction of Mos

cow's influence and leadership in the world Communist movement. And beyond that, it would risk the loss of access to this entire theater of international politics, where a continued Soviet presence could alone make the difference between effective Soviet participation in world affairs and a total and ruinous isolation. In summary, then, we have before us, in the person of the Soviet leadership, a regime enmeshed in a veritable welter of contradictions and problems, internal and external; torn by conflicting compulsions it is unable to resolve or to contain except by the most delicate sort of political compromise; profoundly in need of peace; subject to strong compulsions toward better relations with the West; yet conscious of having an extremely sensitive flank in Asia and Africa which it can protect only at the expense of its relations with the West; walking a very narrow tightrope among these conflicting pressures; vacillating, weaving this way and that; responsive to the shifts in the world scene; its behavior, for this reason, in part the product of the way we ourselves play our hand and in this sense susceptible in some degree to our influence.

Compare this now with what we have before us when we look to the regime in Peiping. Here is a political entity still young to the experience of power. The country it controls is still in an early stage of industrial development. The directing of the Chinese economy by the regime still proceeds in an atmosphere analogous to that which existed in Russia in the early period of the so-called war communism. Primarily concerned, still, with the destruction of every form of opposition to itself, intellectual or spiritual, conscious or subconscious, the Peiping regime requires not war itself, in the physical sense, but the atmosphere of war: a state of tension and of alleged external danger, by which alone this sort of pressure can be justified. So much is the country still involved in the social upheaval occasioned by the transition to a Communist system that the contradictions of the Marxist ideology, as a blueprint for the administration of an advanced economy, have not yet had time to become fully apparent.

By the same token, Communist China has as yet no body of physical achievement comparable to that of Soviet Russia; no great fund of new industrial and urban and technological contsruction to be placed in jeopardy and to constitute a vulnerability in the case of nuclear war. Those interpretations which see Peiping as quite indifferent to nuclear destruction are certainly exaggerated, but the Chinese vulnerability to this kind of destruction is definitely less, and the apprehensions of its leaders presumably that much smaller, than in the case of the Soviet Union.

If there are imperfections in the constitutional setup of the Chinese Communists, which is quite possible, these are so to speak still inoperable and invisible behind the dominating personality of a single great revolutionary leader. And while Mao's regime, to be sure, yields little to that of Stalin in the rigorousness of its political and intellectual discipline, its authority has never assumed those truly pathological and nightmarish forms which characterized that of Stalin after 1934. For this and other reasons, the Peiping regime faces no such crise de conscience as that which racks Soviet officialdom and the Soviet intellectual world. I am sure there is plenty of curiosity among the Chinese about foreigners and about the world outside. But one sees no evidence of anything comparable to that combination of compelling doubt and curiosity— doubt about one's own revoluntionary past and curiosity about the outside world which now so consumes the young people and the intellectuals of Russia. Here, national differences surely play an important part. The Russians have, traditionally, a speies of love-hate complex toward the West. They feel obliged to react in many ways against the West, but it is absolutely essential to them that it be there to be reacted to. It is something to which they have to relate themselves, whether sympathetically or antagonistically. It would be hard, I think, for them to conceive of a world without it.

I see no evidence of anything quite comparable to this in China. China developed, over the centuries, as a far more self-sufficient civilization than did Russia. The decisive phase in Russia's intellectual and cultural develop ment occurred in the 18th and 19th centuries, and it proceeded in close association with similar developments in the West. In China, this appears to be true only in small measure; and there is abundant evidence that the shaking off of western patterns and modes of thought, which Communist power has everywhere involved and demanded, has been far more drastic and effective in China than in the Soviet Union.

For all these reasons, we find in the case of China nothing comparable to those compulsions and interests that determine both Russia's need for peace and her need for better relations with western countries. I do not doubt that over the