individuals are likely to misperceive the regime’s tacticalnconcessions to them for their own impact upon the regime’snstrategy is not surprising, since the same misperceptionsndominate the pages of the West’s “quality newspapers” innthe absence of such control. In rare cases, the control isntaken for granted, as for instance in the pages of SergeinGrigoryants’ dissident magazine Glasnost, though it isndoubtful that a Grigoryants will retain his skepticism if, say,ntreated by the regime as a Sakharov. The only incorruptiblensaint is a martyr, and martyrs are rare even among saints.nThus totalitarianism is assured of victory. To misconstruenan English proverb, “A watched pot never boils.” And if itnshould boil, as it did in Hungary in 1956, all one need do isnturn down the heat. It is no coincidence that the Hungariannexperiment was the work of Yuri Andropov: far from beingndemoted and punished for the laboratory accident, he wasnwisely promoted for his contribution to applied sociology,nand rose to become the head of the new oligarchy that rulesnHungary today. Certainly without his other famous experiment,nin Czechoslovakia in 1968, his successors might havenmade mistakes in Narodni Street.nAs for the prospective “civilization” of the victor by thenvanquished, this is, I repeat, the ultimate illusion.n”Modern Germany,” Orwell observed in 1941, “is far morenscientific than England, and far more barbarous.” Today,nultramodern science and technology “in the service of ideasnappropriate to the Stone Age” are joined, in the hands ofntotalitarian oligarchs, by culture — in the broadest, mostncomprehensive sense — in the service of the same ideas.nForeign languages, theology, literature, all play their part innthe grand strategic design.n”What falls off the cart,” says a Russian proverb, “is lostnforever.” Once Western Europe has followed Central andnEastern Europe in surrendering the sovereignty that cannonly be ensured and upheld by the force of arms, it willnnever be able to climb back onto the cart of democracy.nNever is a vague word, and perhaps I should say fornmillennia.nOrwell, an English Socialist, was and remains the subtlestnpolitical thinker the West has produced in our century.nListen to him in 1940:nThe English can probably not be bullied intonsurrender, but they might quite easily be bored,ncajoled or cheated into it, provided that, as atnMunich, they did not know that they werensurrendering. It could happen most easily when thenwar seemed to be going well rather than badly. Thenthreatening tone of so much of German and Italiannpropaganda is a psychological mistake.n”With the general public,” Orwell concludes, “the propernapproach would be ‘Let’s call it a draw.'”nI am re-reading The Lion and the Unicom as the Timesnreports from Washington on a U.S.-Soviet “agreement innprinciple” to sign a long-range nuclear missile accord,nushering in an “irreversible period of peace.” Substitute thenWest as a whole for the English, “Soviet and East European”nfor “German and Italian,” and the new Munich isnbefore us, surpassing Orwell’s prediction in subtlety as wellnas effectiveness. In the same essay:nPerhaps England needs tanks, but perhaps it paysnbetter to manufacture motor cars. To prevent warnmaterial from reaching the enemy is commonnsense, but to sell in the highest market is a businessnduty. Right at the end of August 1939 the Britishndealers were tumbling over one another in theirneagerness to sell Germany tin, rubber, copper, andnshellac.nIn August 1939, however, totalitarianism in both Berlin andnMoscow was avowedly “socialist” or “communist.” Hownmuch louder the tumbling when it jettisons such ideologies,nmisperceived in the West as its essence, and welcomes thendealers with open arms!nOrwell was an English Socialist because he did not wantnto see his country sold down the river. Such idealism is notnincompatible with genius.n”No one is more of a slave,” said Goethe, “than he whonimagines himself free without being so.” The tragedy ofnfreedom — not in a new, improved sense, but in its originalnmeaning of absolute sovereignty of the individual — is thatnthe blinding truth of this Romantic vision is finding fewernand fewer adherents. Thus those in the West who imaginenSoviet slaves of today, or Chinese slaves before June 4,n1989, as more free than they had been under Stalin or Maonare themselves slaves.nThe above paragraph is from an article that appeared in an”quality newspaper.” It ran on the literary page, a book-by anSoviet “perestroika activist” its modest raison d’etre. I deeplynbelieve that had it, or other forays into the subject byn”adherents” of what, in the final analysis, is the will tonknowledge, appeared on the editorial and op-ed pages of ourn”quality newspapers,” a point of departure for a commonnstrategy would begin to emerge. To provoke the West into antruly pluralist debate on the subject must become the dailynand nightly aim of those who would wish to see this happen.nThey must disabuse themselves of partisan, party-political,nestablishmentarian fictions: Goethe was no more of anTory than Orwell. To broaden debate must be their solenconcern, so that a Goethe or an Orwell may be heard. Dr.nDavid Owen has recently managed to creep into the debate,nin a “tabloid newspaper,” with the statement that “what wenhave witnessed in Moscow over the last decade is a transfernof power from the Communist Party to the KGB.” Thisnsingle sentence is worth more than all the verbiage ofnDowning Street. The former Communist and Red ClydesidernJimmy Reid has exposed the secret links betweennMoscow and the Solidarity Movement, in last year’s ScottishnTelevision program “Reid About Poland.” That singlenbroadcast is more welcome than the Tory allegiance of thenTelegraph. Dr. Owen and Mr. Reid have motives of theirnown, no doubt, for contradicting the Tory establishment.nBut those who would exclude them from “serious discussion”nare marginalizing nothing short of the chance for theirnown survival in a free world.nBroaden the debate. Jack. “Knowledge will forever governnignorance: and a people who mean to be their ownngovernours, must arm themselves with the power whichnknowledge gives.” No one remembers if James Madison wasna good conservative. I am not, and hope to be rememberednas such. For argument’s sake at least. nnnJUNE 1991/21n