The Newest Order

ONE advantage which the satirists enjoy over those afflicted with impassioned zeal unmodified by a sense of humor is that they view man with a certain humility. They are distrustful of any attempt to analyze him on a basis of pure logic. This saves them from falling into the trap in which the Marxian thesis of history has been wriggling, rather uncomfortably, for a long time.

During the thirties James Burnham spent the better part of a decade under the spell of revolutionary Communism, which is notably humorless. Then, after imbuing himself thoroughly with the Marxian concept of history, with its dogma of “inexorable” social trends, he fell afoul of Leon Trotsky. He had already tangled with the Stalinist version of what Lenin believed Marx taught. The upshot of this experience was a break, complete in all senses save one, with every variety of communism. The fragment which he has preserved from this experience is abundantly in evidence throughout the pages of his new book. The Struggle for the World (John Day, $3.00). Mr. Burnham appears unable to get away from the conviction that tomorrow’s history can be reduced in advance to a neat, striking blueprint. Nor can he rid himself of the notion that anyone who may question his premises or his dogma is either an ignoramus, foolishly wandering in a world of make-believe, or, more probably, a self-deceiving lunatic.

His thesis is easily stated: Since the recent war left but two major powers in existence, the Soviet Union and the United States, these two must fight it out for supremacy because they represent the only two ways of life in existence. In fact, the struggle has begun. The first sentence in Mr. Burnham’s book says so categorically: “ The third world war began in April, 1944.”

The sands run short, he insists. It is either “we or they.” And since atomic power provides the United States with an incomparable advantage for the moment, the thing to do is to use that, advantage before we lose it.

What sort of empire has Mr. Burnham in mind for us? In the last third of The Struggle for the World, he sets down his prescription without qualms and with complete assurance. We must begin by dropping the idea that peace counts as an objective in foreign policy. The doctrine of the “equality of nations” goes next. Simultaneously, out the window goes the doctrine of “non-intervention in the internal affairs of other nations.”

With the Monroe Doctrine and the Act of Chapultepec thus disposed of, we should launch immediately a vast propaganda to “find the ear of the masses’ all over the world, especially ears in Russia. We should help our friends and refuse all assistance to questionable world associates.

At the same time, if is evident that we must keep both foes and friends alike from finding out what else Mr. Burnham has in store for them, as it is reasonably certain that they might cool toward us were they to read Chapter 15 of Mr. Burnham’s book. In that section, he outlines his program for putting all empires thus far recorded in history into the shade. Since “no world federation will be attained voluntarily,” the U.S.A. must create one by force. To lull the prospective partners, however, we should avoid using the word “empire.” They might take alarm. Presumably, if another word is employed, they will not recognize the tactics.

But it is difficult to imagine that they will be able to remain in doubt, given the rest of Mr. Burnham’s blueprint. While scotching Communism wherever it shows its head, and safeguarding to the United States a complete monopoly of atomic power (one of the key points of the whole program), he proposes that we begin our large-scale operations with frank recognition that an American empire already exists. We are merely remiss in exerting authority over it. Within its confines lie all Latin American states, the Philippines and the isles of the Pacific, Canada, and a number of other outposts where everything is already prepared. If the Canadians do not “freely choose” to recognize the new imperium’s command over their destinies, never mind. When necessary we can make them do so.

Obstacles to the development of Mr. Burnham’s empire there are, of course, and among them is the manifest disrelish of the American public for such adventures. Well, they will have to be cleansed of such “pseudo-moral platitudes.” The conscience of the United States is a great misfortune, in his view.

But let us proceed. Great Britain and her Dominions should be annexed by way of common citizenship, offered by us, not them. Alliances in this matter are of little value. What is needed is absorption. The instrument would be force, if necessary. Of course, Britain would have to accept a junior partner role; she should be permitted no other choice. Europe would be brought into the family by similar pressures, less tenderly applied. “Independence and freedom are after all abstractions” in Mr. Burnham’s view, so why boggle over them?

The only remaining point of possible obstruction to this Utopia of Might is the idea of democracy which seems to persist among t he American people. Since this new policy “could not be United States policy so long as the United States remained a democracy,” the solution is obvious.

To sustain his vigorous proposals Mr. Burnham seeks to marshal a wealth of factual backing. Unfortunately, in this process, another weakness of the method employed in the book confronts the reader. The Struggle for the World is studded with citations which, unhappily, fail to come off. In his first chapter, for instance, he is not content with pointing out that the United States faces its new world role deficient in experience and training. He insists that the desire of the American troops to get home after the war was an illustration of a characteristically provincial national softness, and that “this was not the attitude of the young men of Athens of the 5th century B.C.” Or of other young men in other armies more recently.

Has Mr. Burnham ever read Euripides? Or Aristophanes? Or Thucydides? Or the story of the mutinies of British troops in the Middle East last year? Mr. Burnham is plainly irritated that the American people do not seem to fit into his design as they should. We are, in short, ignoramuses, who have no literature, no art, no original religion as others have, no music, no philosophy. Evidently, we are in a bad way for a people destined to take up the job Mr. Burnham defines for us.

Has it ever occurred to Mr. Burnham that he may not understand the American people?

No one who is aware of the currents flowing in the world today will dispute the desirability of bringing the Communist danger to a halt, ridding nations tending toward the democratic view of life ol the menace it represents, and taking wise, firm precautions to ensure the security of Western ideas and social and cultural institutions. Few will dispute the desirability of building up the federative aspects of the world more strongly at the same time. If, however, the West should espouse Mr. Burnham’s plan, it would in the process leave precious little to differentiate the result from the monolithic power state he quite properly opposes.