Some Problems of Peaceful Coexistence

STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE COMMUNISM

THE LEGACY OF STALINISM

‘SOME PROBLEMS OF PEACEFUL

COEXISTENCE'

An interview with Gyorgy Lukucs which

was printed in Kortars, May 1968. The translation is by George Schopflin.

The editors of Kortars asked Gyorgy Lukacs for his views on one of the most important, and in the framework of world politics one of the most debated, problems of today, that of peaceful coexistence, together with its implications for Hungarian domestic cultural policy and Hungarian intellectual life. The world- famous Marxist thinker accepted our in- vitation, but in view of his age and other urgent work, he asked to be permitted to offer his thoughts on this important subject in an interview rather than in writing. Therefore, we recorded on tape this conversation between Lukacs, on the one hand, and Istvan Simon, editor in chief of Korturs, and Ervin Gyertyan, a literary critic, on the other. This is the full text of their discussion.

E. Gyertyan: It was Lenin who Brst brought up and worked out the concept of the historical necessity of coexistence. The Twentieth Congress, among other things, revived this Leninist principle. Our introductory question is, what does this concept mean today? Has it changed at all in meaning in relation to the way in which it was understood previously? Are the political and historical conditions of today identical with the earlier period, or have they changed?

G. Lukacs: I would like to take as my starting point the lecture which I gave at the Political Academy in 1956. What I said of coexistence then was that it is a new form of the class struggle, in which the Leninist principle of “who, whom” is equally valid. Today we

148

should bear in mind the essential factor which underlies coexistence, namely, un- interrupted cultural contact. This contact cannot be prevented by any kind of war or prohibition. I want only to mention it, as an example, that despite all Franco- German antagonism, Liebknecht should have had a role to play in Barbusse’s novel; or that at a time when the Soviet Union was threatened by war, and it had received no foreign recognition, the tilm Potemkin should have swept the whole of Europe and excited intellectuals every- where. In other words, the contacts existed.

It was after the Twentieth Congress, and this was a new phenomenon, that U.S. policy was obliged to recognize that “rollback”- the attempt to undo the results of the war through the flaunting of superior force-had failed and, because of the nuclear stalemate, the United States had no option but to seek some kind of peaceful coexistence with the Soviet Union, whether in the short or in the long term. The consequence of this wholly unusual situation is that, on the one hand, the nuclear stalemate makes world war extremely unlikely and, on the other, all the causes of war, like imperialist interventions and the liberation of colonial peoples, remain in being. Hence there is a certain constant tension, while attempts are made to canalize it to avoid world war. It is in this atmosphere that coexistence develops and this also means that cultural contact will be intensified all the time, without the political, economic, cultural and other ditIerences between the socialist and the nonsocialist world coming to an end. That is why I thought in 1956, and think now, that the problem of coexistence can only be regarded as a new form of the class struggle. This does not mean, however,

DOCUMENTS

that one should engage in name-calling with the opposition or that one should falsify his arguments. On the contrary, just as in battle the most successful artillery is the one with the greatest carry- ing power and the best targeting system, so in the field of cultural coexistence, results of real value are achieved only with cultural output of the very highest quality.

Naturally there is nothing to stop us writing in our papers that Dr. X has won thirty-two prizes in America, but what in fact is really more significant is that Bartok’s triumph is a triumph for Hun- gary; whereas I have my doubts, for instance, that certain poets whose work has been declared modern will mean an equal triumph. A genuine lasting success in coexistence can be won only through producing outstanding cultural work -1 am limiting myself to cultural affairs; economics raises other problems. In other words, what is important for us in gaming victory in the class struggle is that the widest possible section of the population of the nonsocialist countries should feel that a life consonant with human dignity is better realized under socialism than under capitalism. It is for this victory that we should be striving and it will have to be fought for within coexistence.

E. Gyertyan: The question arises, how far can this intellectual victory and the superiority of our theory-for which the prospects are strong - influence the chances and the outcome of economic competition?

G. Lukacs: Look, here too the problem differs from period to period. It was highly significant that in the 1920s the unfavorable economic situation in the Soviet Union did not adversely affect the attracting power of Soviet culture. Peo- ple felt that it was socialism which was

capable of giving better answers to their problems than capitalism. Some years ago I was reading a German bourgeois literary historian who was dealing with the literature of the 192Os, and he said that the existence of the Soviet Union was the basis of the real oppositional trends in literature, and by this he did not mean communist literature. He was thinking of writers like Becher or Brecht and, indeed, this atmosphere penetrated deep into bourgeois literature too. He says that now, because so many people have found disappointments in socialism, the German literary opposition has become orphaned and rootless. This is an extremely interesting confession from a man who does not belong to our camp. Among the intellectuals of the 192Os, and I’ve already mentioned Becher and Brecht but could add Arnold Zweig, Anna Seghers, Eluard, or Picasso, the revolutionary elite became communist, whereas if we look at the younger writers today, we find that communists are fewer in number. What is the cause of this? True, the Soviet Union is constantly slandered. But in the ’20s it was slandered even more. The slander cannot be said to have increased. We ourselves should offer self-criticism and investigate our side of things, to discover why our writings do not have the same impact that they had in the ’20s. And we must return to the question of liquidating the personality cult, because it was in Stalin’s time that the European intelligentsia lost its faith in the good intentions and truth- fulness of communists. Just a simple example: what will a Westerner say of a party history which discusses 1917 without mentioning Trotsky and his role? This is impossible. Far be it from me to sympathize with Trotsky, but to deny that he played a major role in the events of 1917 would mean that henceforth whatever we might say about history will lack credibility.

149


I. Simon: I would like to interpose a question, if I may. You regard the liquidation of the personality cult as a funda- mental criterion for our victory in coexistence. Can the general development of democracy be brought into a concrete relationship with the acceptance of the necessity of coexistence?

G. Lukacs: Naturally there is a relationship and we have got as far as realizing the necessity of coexistence. In the same way, we now accept the fact that wex- istence cannot be subjected to bureaucratic direction any more than can, say, domestic public opinion. Because, of wurse, public opinion cannot be subjected to bureaucratic direction either. How can you prevent Aunt Edna from telling Aunt Ethel that such-and-such a film is bad and that it’s not worth seeing, despite the fact that it has had good re- views? It’s just not possible. And anyone who follows the situation in Hun- gary, for example, knows that a film is successful virtually regardless of what the press may write about it. Public opinion is formed purely on this Aunt Edna-Aunt Ethel basis. It is even more difhcult to hinder the development of a critical current of opinion in the West where, though there naturally is an anti- Bolshevik current-as we should be well aware - nonetheless there are also honest people who sympathize with socialism. Their confidence is extremely valuable but they will reject our manipulations just as Brmly.

E. Gyertyan: The cold-war notions de- veloped since World War II have without exception failed, and those political tendencies which are now trying to do justice to the situation as it is are sur- facing only in a hesitant and incomplete and uncertain way. I think it is important that on our side policy should be based on a properly thought-out, ideo-

150

logically correct conception, all the more so since this has always been character- istic of the workers’ movement. I would like to hear some comment on that . . .

G. Lukucs: You’re absolutely right on this. The situation has undergone a major change. It can be said in regard to both Vietnam and the Negro question that the ideology of the American way of life is collapsing. The situation is similar in Britain and elsewhere. The only question is, how capable are we of driving out this ideology and replacing it with a new one? To mention only one example: in the teaching of political economy we are still writing wmmen- taries on Lenin’s book on imperialism and we are still waiting for the great economic crisis to explode in America. This kind of political economy can have no credibility because it goes counter to the facts. We can make a serious impact only if we are capable of explaining the economic situation of today with a Marx- ist methodology. It is my profound conviction that this is possible.

Under present conditions we are not in a position to offer solutions to any of the questions connected with the crises in the West. Without being immodest, we should be aware that however much socialism is derided in the West, anyone dissatisfied with capitalism, whether po- litically, economically or culturally, will instinctively turn toward us for an intelligent solution. If the solution that is given is dictated by momentary tactics or is bureaucratic or happens to be the work of some nonwriter whom we have declared a genius, then it is clear that the prestige of socialism will decline. Gradually a standpoint will emerge-and it is unfortunately growing in the West even among those who make no attempt to defend capitalism because they know capitalism to be indefensible-the essence of which is that the fate of mankind is

fundamentally hopeless and neither capitalism nor socialism can offer any solutions. We bear a great responsibility for this and this responsibility must guide us. A twofold activity is necessary. In methodology we must return to Marx and in the present situation we must go forward to the application of this methodology to actualities. If we can do this, we shall be successful in the struggle about coexistence; if not, then inevitably we shall be worsted. Our self-examina- tion must explore this question. There are, in fact, two tendencies in this which often merge. The bureaucrats think that results can be achieved with somewhat improved and updated dogmas. The other tendency, which arose instinctively after the Twentieth Congress when things eased up a little, is for everyone to go overboard for all the most famous Western fashions. There are still many people who think they can rejuvenate Marxism by feeding their stupid bureaucratic ideas into a computer instead of into a typewriter, as though this would give them a more intelligent answer. Both these extremes must be eliminated. This question is important in Hungary too, because since the Twenty-second Congress especially I’ve been sensing a covert unspoken alliance between the dogmatists and the uncritical modernists. The end result of this is that there are many who are enthusiastically claiming Beckett and Ionesco as the only two great writers while at the same time they are making their obeisances to the one- time uncritically enthusiastic bureaucrats. Interestingly, in literary history they rush back headlong to Elemer Csaszar via Janos Horvath. In this way, there is a harmony between the adherents of Ele- mer Csasxar and Beckett. And now, some people are surprised that all of this has no effect upon coexistence.

I. Simon: All the same, one has the feel- ing that throughout the world there is a burgeoning interest in Marxism. Since the Twentieth Congress a new, thinking generation is really looking for the way out, with the help of Marxist methodology, to give a more clear-cut answer to the future . . .

G. Lukacs: There is no doubt that this is so. I can bear it out from my own experience. When I went out to some international conference in 1956 for the first time, I met a number of old ao quaintances. Their reaction was mostly the same as that described by Montes- quieu in his Persian Lefters. “You are Persian, sir? How can anyone be a Per- sian?” In other words, how can anyone, who is an otherwise educated man, be a Marxist, when Marxism belongs to the long-obsolete ideologies of the nineteenth century? This reaction is now less fre- quent and interest in Marxism is defi- nitely growing in the West. I should add, of course, that this is paralleled by a re- jection of dogmatism. I have been getting innumerable letters from the West saying, “I am very interested in Marx- ism, but not in your ‘official’ Marxism.”

1. Simon: But Comrade Lukacs, you surely regard these new trends rather critically? Under the aegis of Marxism, theories have emerged which are probably very di5cult to place squarely within the framework of Marxism proper. This is an age of restless explo- ration and it has stretched the limits of Marxist principle quite enough. Or, to put it another way, the borderline cases between true and false Marxist principle have been greatly multiplied.

G. Lukacs: I am equally well aware of this. On the other hand, it is impossible to create a real movement by prescrib- ing under what conditions things are to

151


be done. All we can say 1s that there should be a return to the fundamentals of Marxism. The forthcoming period will be one when people will experiment and &bate their problems. I would be the first to protest most strongly if someone were to make my views official dogma, even though I’m convinced that I am right, because it would be danger- ous for future developments.

E. Gyerryon: There is a tendency of this kind in Hungarian intellectual life, though I am not too sure that its adherents happen to be those who stand clos- est to your views, Comrade Lukacs.

G. Lukucs: As far as I’ve been able to, in discussions with responsible comrades, I’ve always propounded the view that a Marxist voice, such as mine, should have the freedom to be heard as one opinion within Marxism. This is an important period in the struggle for the complete reestablishment of the honesty of Marx- ist theory. In this period, anyone with good intentions should have the right to speak freely and we can leave it to history to determine which viewpoints will be crystallized as genuinely Marxist in the long run. Besides, if we do this, then the bare fact of our having done it would raise our prestige in the West. Bear in mind that if we suppress certain cur- rents of opinion, then on the one hand this will by definition lower our prestige in the West in general, and on the other, it will lend an exaggerated signitlcance to what has been prohibited-to which, quite frankly, no one would pay the slightest attention were it not forbidden. Because it is forbidden, something worth- less acquires a rarity value and is taken up with enthusiasm as being from the West. But just as Nagyvilag can now happily publish what it wants, Hun- garian readers are beginning, it seems, to make a distinction between good and

152

bad short stories and not simply con- trasting the home product with the West- ern.

So coexistence, and with it the end of forbidden categories, can have the result of creating a more objective climate of opinion, and the still widespread view that what is Western is better will cease. Because, you see, it is simply untrue that the Western product is better. They know very well in the West just how problematical the situation, before which we bow down and worship, really is. In order to free the forces of the class struggle that are latent within coexistence, proletarian democracy will have to be restored in the field of culture. This is the precondition for our gaining a major advantage and a good result from coexistence.

E. Gyertyan: I originally had two questions, but one-what should be our atti- tude toward potentially debatable West- em works-has been largely answered. The second question, however, I think still needs clarification, dealing as it does with the most essential problems of our era and of the labor movement. To put it crudely, what is your view on the liquidation of dogmatism? What has still to be done, where is socialist self- criticism as yet incomplete? Where do you see these problems?

G. Lukacs: The basic problem lies where Stalin turned Marxism on its head. That is, there have emerged within Marxism the most general laws of socialism and the road to socialism; from these laws the best politicians of each generation derive a strategy and within that strategy tactics are worked out, down to individ- ual strikes, which, of course, change all the time according to circumstance. Stalin turned all this on its head. For him, it was the tactics of the moment that were essential. He made his strategy

depend on the tactics, and then made the general perspectives of socialism depend on the strategy. He declared that the class struggle constantly intensifies in socialism. This was not an obser- vation of general validity but a mere device dreamed up by Stalin to justify the great purges. The purges took place first, the theory was hatched afterwards. . . . Even today it sometimes happens that tactics come into play first and then strategy and general theory are made up later. The value of such a general theory is zero.

It’s very easy to say of the Stalin-type theses, i.e., that the class struggle constantly intensifies, that they are false. But if we fail to draw the right lessons we can come up against major problems. Let me mention one great historical example. At the time of the disagreement between Stalin and Trotsky over the Chinese question, Stalin declared that feudalism ruled in China and that the tactics applied to deal with feudalism were to be the same as those used in Russia. In a word, merely to maintain his tactical superiority, Stalin threw the whole problem of the Oriental system of production right out of Marxism and so made it impossible for Marxists to under- stand Asian developments in a Marxist way. Thus, an issue of some signihcance, the extra which Marxism can contribute to the understanding of colonial revolu- tions in this instance (i.e., the theory of Oriental systems of production), was totally lost for Marxists. I’d like to add in parenthesis that Marx never discussed the development of African peoples in modem conditions. On the basis of a strict analysis of Marxism, one is en- titled to ask: where is it written that the development of African peoples will of necessity follow European or Asian models? It could easily be that African systems of production exist side by side

with European and Asian. Therefore in order to help the peoples of the Third World, the most helpful thing we could do as Marxists would be to explain to them the realities of their situation and and the perspectives of their development. Now as it happens, we know nothing more of this than they do in the West. We Marxists lack a basis for this just as much as they lack a basis. And if we want to gain a leading role in this world-that we have a leading role should be natural-it is vital that there should be Marxist research in that field too. But then there are the problems of Western capitalism as well, to which the capitalist economists have no answer either, and we, with a few exceptions, have not even begun to try to find answers, and those we have are too shallow.

1. Simon: Your argumentation is very clear in questions relating to economic problems, but would you add something on how these relate to intellectual problems?

G. Lukacs: Yes, I limited myself to economics because the proof is clearer and less open to argument than elsewhere. But it does apply to all other fields too, of course. One instance, the echoes of which can still be heard: at the time of Stalin and Zhdanov, the history of intellectual thought was presented as though there existed pre-Marxist thinking, then a great leap and then came Marxism. The essential superiority of Marxism lies in the fact that it took over all that was of value in two thousand years of European intellectual development. It was Lenin who said this in the debates of the 192Os, incidentally, not I. So-to go on-this essential part of Marx- ism fell into complete oblivion. And you can’t polemicim with existentialism or neopositivism by labeling it idle quackery or counterrevolution. There

153


arises in this context, what was said against me in 1950, that in pointing Out

the connections between the birth of French existentialism and the r&stance, 1 was trying to defend “counterrevolutionary” existentialism. Yet this connec- tion is an undeniable fact. Nonetheless, because I “determined” this fact, 1 W&S

condemned as an “opportunist.” The “counterrevolutionary” existentialists, by the way, are not in the least counterrevolutionary, as their rather left-wing behavior in the Algerian question has shown, for example. You know very well, comrades, that I had already spoken out against existentialism in 1947. But my arguments against it can be effective only if I recognize that, regardless of my critique, the existentialists are relatively progressive and that they came from the r&stance, and so on. Maybe in this way an objective debate can emerge and perhaps we can convince someone that we are right. I f we got to extremes, if we consider them purely as counter- revolutionaries, then we shall achieve nothing. But as against this, if we go to the other extreme and adopt existentialism uncritically, we’ll be even less favor- ably placed to achieve anything. We find ourselves in the grotesque situation that a young man here in Hungary would be escaping from Marxism to Sartre and Heidegger, even while Sartre himself senses that existentialism is indeed prob- lematic and is looking for ways toward Marxism, which our young man from Budapest would not be doing, of course. Such grotesque and ridiculous situations can arise in this manner and they can be changed only if we return to Marxist methodology and use it to look at the West critically, but not if we imagine that we can move forward by feeding into computers Stalin% stereotypes.

I’ve already mentioned the example of Bartok conquering the world. But I am

154

equally convinced that socialist culture produces numerous such works which could be of equal value. I don’t want to speak here of the most efficient use of older cultural works in the coexistence struggle. Just think what a splendid weapon would be provided by Russian literature from Pushkin to Chekhov, for this literature is a profoundly democratic fight for freedom. Today in Europe and America the undemocratic nature of manipulated democracy is widely sensed. In the years to come this problem will play an enormous role. Not in such a way that the countries of the West will suddenly choose the road of socialist revolution-that would be laughable day- dreaming-no, rather, it will be that the dissatisfaction with the undemocratic nature of this manipulated democracy will become evident in ever widening circles and attempts will be made to break through to real democracy. We could be the leading ideologists of this movement, but not while, on the one hand there is a highly subtle economic manipulation in the West, and on the other there still are people in our country who wish to maintain a bureaucratic type of manipulation or are at most prepared to give bureaucratization a superficial face-lift. Forgive me, comrades, for expressing myself so brutally but one has to say these things quite openly. Unless we put an end to it [domestic bureaucratic manipulation], we cannot hope to fight effective- ly in the class struggle of coexistence.

I?. Gyertyan: This would then mean, Comrade Lukacs, that you are taking up a position in support of the freedom to pursue separate tendencies within Max- ism?

G. Lukacs: It is my conviction-I said this once with regard to ontology, and I feel rightly-that man is a creature of response. What human culture has SO

DOCUMENTS

far created has originated not from some inner spiritual (or call it what you will) kind of motives, but from the fact that men have tried to find answers to questions arising from their social environ- ment. What we now call human culture is the whole series of such answers. A great deal has disappeared from this culture, because it provided an answer only to some day-to-day problem or it was inadequate. But some things remain valid to this day. If someone today reads the scene in the Iliad where Priam goes to Achilles to ask for the body of Hector, he will find a moral example even now from reading the conversation that took place between them.

This is valid not just for poetry. I f one looks at the history of science, it can be seen that the majority of the greatest discoveries were arrived at simultane- ously. It is still an open question who tirst devised ditIerential equations, New- ton or Leibnitx, and anyone who knows the period will be aware that, apart from others, Pascal was also close to this dis- covery. Why should this have been so? Because the conditions of contemporary production suggested the need for a new physics. The new physics, as laid down by Galileo, made motion of central im- portance and the measurement of motion demanded a new form of mathematics. This need then prompted different people, like Newton and Leibnitz, to look for this new mathematics. They were the ones to tind it, but there were probably thirty or forty others looking for it at the time. In the present instance the problem is the need to acquire a real understanding of Marxism as a requirement of society. And from Amer- ica to Siberia there are people who are trying to satisfy this need. As to which theory will work in reality and which not, the only way to assess this is by mutual criticism; there is no other cri-

terion we can devise. Ultimately, there is and there can be no such thing as the right to declare that X is right and Y is not.

Hence it is my view that in all fields, but especially in those fields where prior criteria are most difficult to establish, this procedure should be followed. A new literature is evolving. And as I have argued-m my article on Solzhenit- syn, for example-this new literature cannot be created without criticizing the period of dogmatism. After all, there is not a man over thirty alive in Hun- gary today in whose life and character there does not exist the decisive question, did he behave as he should have done during that period, what did he do, and so on. . . . Without this, his character and actions of today cannot be por- trayed in literature. Just think of Balzac for a moment. He wrote chiefly of the Restoration. Yet to anyone who knows Balzac it is clear that time and again Balzac returned to the period of the Em- pire, exploring in his characters what an older man had done then or even earlier, during the Revolution, because in the outlook of his characters their behavior during the Revolution played a major role. This sounds perfectly natural, but you will remember, comrades, how I was pilloried for this thesis. Our literature and the totality of literature are full of such problems and because these problems can be solved, they must be solved.

I do not believe, you see, that there can exist a play, the success or failure of which would overthrow the People’s Republic or even shake it. It is ridiculous to suppose that troubles are caused not by mistakes committed, but by reactions to these mistakes, and especially cultural or artistic reactions. This question is closely connected with that of coexistence, because there are a number

155


of phenomena in the socialist countries which prevent those good things we have already achieved from becoming fully effective. Any literary phenomenon is placed in a false light when bureaucratic methods are employed against it. In this way, an incorrect equation can arise in international opinion, when, let’s say, Solzhenitsyn and Pastemak are put on the same political footing. And this is in spite of the fact that Solzhenitsyn is the dia- metric opposite of Pastemak and should have a quite different impact, and would have, were it not for the incorrect practice which equates the two opposites artificial- ly. There is no reason to hinder the coexistence of the different tendencies which arise within the framework of serious debate. You cannot make everyone agree with everyone else and yet it looks as though there were no opposing views at all in the socialist countries. This is no solution either; this is just another form of manipulation. We need incisive debates, debates which will have no organizational consequences. This is the situation which we must reach in culture to enable us to score well in the coexistence struggle.

E. Gyertyan: It is well known that coexistence has its enemies too, and not merely among the ultras, hawks and neo- fascists of the capitalist countries. There is the Chinese example of recent years. And unfortunately, it is a fact that even as we are discussing coexistence at this moment, a cruel war is being waged in Vietnam, although throughout the world the fight against it is ever greater. I would like you, Comrade Lukacs, to ex- press your opinion on the ideologies opposed to coexistence, how they are best overcome and the possibilities of such a struggle. And maybe in relation to Vietnam as well.

156

G. Lukacs: This is a very complex question. You will recall, perhaps, that right at the very beginning I said that the peculiar nature of nuclear war prevents the outbreak of a third world war, but does not end the causes of war. The United States has not ceased to be an imperialist power because it fears nuclear war. American policy- you may have noticed-handles the role of the Soviet Union, and even of China, in the Viet- nam war with extreme caution. Had there not been nuclear weapons, a thiid world war would have broken out long ago over Vietnam. Consequently, we are now in a situation where the scales are constantly shifting and there can be no doubt that we must combat American policy in Vietnam in the most determined way along the most ideological lines. What is it all about in reality? Ever since the British invaded India in the seventeenth century, the essential policy of a colonialist country has been to ally itself with the most reactionary strata in the colony and to oppress local liberation movements with the help of those strata. Now, if you have a look at United States policy in Vietnam, you will find it identical with that of Warren Hastings and others in the seventeenth [sic] century, because a colonizer who is involved in colonial expansion is brutal; he cannot be anything else. I do not think that the question in Vietnam is primarily what form Vietnamese unity should take; rather, the real struggle is about whether a people being liberated will have the freedom to settle its own affairs or not. There is a great deal which we still do not see properly and which will have to be clarified. We shall get nowhere with the purely tactical considerations, that we declare our sympathizers to be progressive and the rest not, or even call them reactionary. Forgive me if I say that in many cases a particular people is just as questionably socialist as an-

DOCUMENTS

other; in reality, there are many problems which arise in these countries and it will take decades or even perhaps cen- turies to solve them. Consider, for example, that the present frontiers of the countries of Africa were determined by former colonialists. The concept and existence of the nation have not crystallized at all with these peoples. Coloniali- zation has dismembered neighboring tribes with similar ways of life. Whether the Somalis of Kenya will unite with Somalia is a question which must be left to the Somalis, because no one else can solve it. The policy of general democratic self-determination should oppose American colonialist policies on a world scale. If we can make up with serious scientific work for what we neglected during the Stalinist period, then we should be capable of giving these peoples economic and political advice. But this must be realistic advice, not something cooked up in this or that European capital. It should be advice which can be the genuine ex- pression of the real needs of the economic development of these peoples. This is our opportunity to gain a greatly increased role in world history. This applies not only to colonial peoples, but also to Europe and America, because new oppositional forces are about to emerge there. The peculiarity of these oppositional forces is that they are virtually Chinese in character. In form, they frequently re- mind one of a “happening.” In their political content, they are to a great extent under the influence of Chinese ideology. What is the source of all this? In 1903, Lenin wrote in his book Whoi Is To Be Done? that anarchism, which was fairly intluential in his time, was the punishment for our own opportunist errors. It is my conviction that Lenin expressed a basic and universal truth in this. The Chinese iniluence, so widespread in Europe, is equally the punish-

ment for our dogmatism, for allowing principle to be determined by tactics. An enthusiastic American of eighteen, or any young man from the West, Can fmd no answer to his oppositional type of questioning in the complexity of foreign policy today and thinks that he’ll find it in Mao. I mention it only as an example, that by settling accounts with our old errors and by returning to the original Marxist methodology, we shall not only increase our direct impact abroad, but we shall also be able to mobilize those forces at home which in a roundabout way can likewise have an impact abroad. I think you can see, comrades, what I’m getting at. I f we can liquidate our old errors, namely, that principle is derived from tactics instead of tactics deduced from Marxist principle, then this will affect our cultural affairs and, even beyond that, numerous aspects of politics too.

E. Gyertyan: The idea was expressed not so long ago, according to which six or eight Vietnams are needed. The Chinese conception, that after a major war a new civilization would be built in a historic- ally brief time, has also been known for some time. What I should like to ask you now is this: does this conception, which for want of a better word I would call adventurism or ultraradicalism and which naturally falls on fertile ground, given the immeasurable misery of the people of the Third World, not pose a threat to the policy of coexistence?

G. Lukocs: I do not believe that it is a serious threat, though people are not especially eager to take account of the wholly new situation which has emerged with the nuclear era. Let me show what I mean by an example. If in old-style wars artillery had a range of, say, ten kilometers and then someone invented artillery which could fire fifteen kilom-

157


eters, he could destroy the artillery with the shorter range and achieve a major victory without great sacrifice. In a nuclear war the situation is quite different. In a nuclear war both sides would be more or less destroyed. Thus we can recognize through rational calculation that a nuclear war between the great powers is beyond the realm of possibility. So, the American press does not mention by SO much as a word that United States air- craft are being shot down in Vietnam with Soviet rockets. The Americans pre- tend that they have not noticed. This is extremely important, because it shows that conflicts today can take place within certain limits, and it need not follow that a world conflict will erupt if there are guerrilla wars in Latin America, for example. I would add that I am extremely skeptical about this slogan of six or eight Vietnams, because you can’t create a real guerrilla War out of mere will power. A guerrilla war will arise when broad strata, principally peasants, see that the life that they have been living is impossible and say that they would rather risk their skins than continue to suffer their existing fate. Without this, there will be a few, very honest, very heroic men, but the struggle can only be ended with guerrilla warfare, not begun that way. Hence guerrilla warfare can only be the climax of a general bourgeois revolution, which in certain cases may even spill Over into socialist revolution. I think that so far as Latin Arner- ica is concerned, revolution is on the agenda and will take place, but not from the initiative of a small group gathered around a hero starting a guerrilla war. Rather, it will come into being from the emergence of reform movements which have the aim of improving the condition of the peasantry and other lower classes, and will then spill over into revolution, in which a guerrilla war could play a major role.

158

The question here is not just that of popular uprisings and colonialist oppression. It is at the same time a general question which today hangs together with our cultural problems too. In the manipulated capitalism of our day, the wages of the laboring classes have increased; their working hours have dropped and, in the meantime, their lives have become more meaningless than under the worst capitalist oppression.

I. Simon: It is precisely because of this that our role in the struggle within coexistence, regarded as a modification of the class struggle, is decisive; for mankind can see that the only road to a meaningful life, and indeed to a life of hope, is in socialism. And this is SO

even if we socialists are timid in saying this out loud.

G. Lukacs: We are beginning to get beyond that these days. The implication of the whole of contemporary Western literature is that people have lost faith in leading a meaningful life in present- day circumstances. As for the belief that mankind has abdicated all hope of leading a meaningful life, this I cannot accept. I am not such a pessimist as that. But until we can clearly contrast the meaninglessness of capitalist life with our meaningful alternative, it will be diEcult for this intellectual movement to acquire momentum. At the beginning I spoke of the 1920s. Why did German intellectuals, say, sympathize with star+ ing Russia? Because they were profoundly convinced that while they were living a life devoid of meaning, those in Russia, though starving, were fighting for something worthwhile and had a life of meaning. This, of course, cannot be the subject of direct propaganda. It’s quite useless for me to write articles that life is meaningful in this way or that; it won’t take me far. When, however, the

DOCUMENTS

peasant aud the worker likewise consider these matters and see that in working for themselves they are also working for the world, and when they see that their self- realization is coupled above all with the general consciousness of a meaningful human life, then we shall be able to show the way out of the Western, capitalist cul-de-sac. And they expect this of us. I believe that this is connected with all questions of art and philosophy and that in the future this problem will

come to the fore. This won’t be the day after tomorrow, I don’t say that, but in five, ten years’ time. And we must pre- pare ourselves to appreciate this great perspective so that in a wholly traus- formed world, in wholly transformed circumstances, we should be able to propa- gate Marxism successfully. For Marxism is the only doctrine which can show us a reliable way out of all these social contradictions.

159

Documents

Some Problems of Peaceful Coexistence