standard Operating Procednre The Protracted Conflict

JAMES BURNHAM
/ have translated what follows from a leading article by Georges Albertini in the French magazine, Est & Ouest.of arms. Thus it proves once more a basic rule that distinguishes Communism from other regimes: the Communists have always triumphed at the point of bayonets. This holds true for the countries of Eastern Europe, for Cuba, for North Korea. There is not a single exception. They take power by armed force and keep it by armed force, in 1917 as in 1945 and 1975. And they take power either through the direct intervention of Soviet troops or with the help of weapons and support of all kinds furnished to the Communist insurgents of whatever country it may be. seeing in spectacular display. As soon as the Communists seized power in the south of the Indochina peninsula, censorship was clamped down, and from time to time the regime cuts off all communication with the outer world. What a business there would have been if a rightist dictatorial regime had behaved in this way! When are we going to have a statement by the League for the Rights of Man on the criminal circumstances of the forced evacuation of several million inhabitants of Phnom Penh? A further proof is given by noting how, once more. Communism violates its word and betrays its commitments. This magazine, like a number of others, published some years ago the endless list of all the violations of treaties and pledges by the Communists, in particular by the Soviet Communists. We may now add to the list their conduct in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, under the sign of detente. An accord was signeda mediocre one, perhaps, but it had the merit of existing, and it might have brought peace. The United States respected this accord in spite of the difficulties it had in doing so. It is easy to guess how angered the Secretary of State must have been as he found that Moscow (and Peking) were payii.g no attention to the terms of the accord, were continuing to arm North Vietnam as they had done all along, and then allowed that accord of 1973 to be torn up and ground underfoot in 1975.

HE RECENT VICTORIES in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.are Communism's victories. Whether we like it or not, this is the fact of the matter. The Left intellectuals, as if embarrassed by this fact, try to explain these victories in terms of colonialism, nationalism, corruption, and what not. No doubt such factors played a part in bringing about the result. But the funda"- mental fact is that Communism, in particular Soviet Communism, wanted to win the Indochina peninsula over to its Falling of the Curtain ideology and its regime, and in this it was successful. Tracing all the causes Moreover, when a new country is of the victories is one thing. Facing up conquered, they inflict on the conto the reality, without extenuation or quered population the same punishcamouflage, is another. This is obviously ments they have always inflicted. Everynot" what the readers of Le Monde [sc. one knows what went on when they N.Y. Times] will learn from its allegedly carried through their occupation of East objective articles. Nor will it be'recogGermany and, especially, Berlin in 1945 nized by a certain clique in our Quai the abominations that accompanied d'Orsay [sc. State Dept.], supposedly it, and that did not exist in the zones expert on Asian affairs but remarkably controlled by the American, English, ignorant about the real nature of Comand French armies. It is not a matter munism. of denying the massacres and crimes These victories won by the Commu- committed by Hitler's army in the nists in Indochina prove, once more, Soviet Union during the war; these are that nothing essential has changed in known in detail. But what is striking to Communism. What has just happened realize is the fact that the methods of was willed, planned, and proclaimed for mass deportation used by Stalin in 1945 fifty years by the Indochinese Commu- did not differ in any respect from those nists. The conquest of Indochina from that the Khmer Rouge used in Phnom Hanoi to Saigon was constantly declared Penh. The forced evacuation, in a matto be the goal of Indochinese Commu- ter of minutes and under the most innism by its founder. Ho Chi Minh, who human conditions, of several million Detente Lesson always linked his Bwn fate to that of Cambodians, among them the sick, chilthe Soviet Union. In naming Saigon dren, old people, and womenthe enIn this also Communism proved that "Ho Chi Minh City," his disciples and tire population of the capitalrecalls it has not changed. And in this also we successors only render due homage to precisely the worst excesses of Stalin's may detect the true meaning that the the perseverance- he showed in pursuit regime. And this is iiappening in 1975, word "detente" has for Communism. after everyone in=all political camps has of his plan. For Communism, detente means that But what has happened was not solely been telling us for years that Commu- the West stops struggling and stops the accomplishment of what was nism has changed, that it has become defending its positions. But detente does thought, planned, willed, and executed humanized, etc., e t c not in the least mean that Communism, by Soviet, Chinese, and Indochinese There are other proofs. in return, stops undermining the WestCommunism. The manner in which it First, this simple fact: as soon as ern positions: these it continues attackall has taken place is a demonstration Communism comes to power, freedom ing, by infiltration, demoralization, inof the permanence of the goals and vanishesin 1975 as in 1917, as in tiihidation,. and disruption, and finishes methods of Communism over and above 1948 in Prague or in 1949 in China, as things off by armed force when the time verbal variations and semantic devices, in Cuba ten years later. Personal free- is ripe. This is the lesson, perhaps, on not to speak of colossal lies. dom, it goes without saying. But free- which the leaders of the major Western The conquest was achieved by force doin of information also, as we are now nations might profitably meditate. O
764 NATIONAL REVIEW