Soviet Expansionism and Expansive Anti-Sovietism

Abstract

Western capitalist societies and socialist societies simply represent different stages of development; there are differences between them, but they are not fundamental differences.' Nowadays, no one would dare to come out with such a statement in a political meeting of any kind. Anyone who did so would be laughed out of court and would look like a schoolboy trying to cause a sensation rather than a responsible adult. Yet it is in fact a fairly accurate summary of the views held by a number of distinguished economists, sociologists and political observers in the sixties and early seventies. Walt Rostow, Jan Tinbergen, and Sorokin all predicted that in economic and social terms the capitalist and socialist systems would converge and that the technological revolution would transcend them both and produce a synthesis of capitalism and socialism: the affluent society. Other famous figures like Galbraith and Marcuse also took a sympathetic view of this thesis, even though the latter did draw pessimistic conclusions from it, and developed it in various ways. Even Sakharov predicted a scientific and technological revolution in both systems which would, by the year 2000, lead to a world government and to the elimination of contradictions between nations. It might seem easy to sneer at the euphoria of such theories. They flourished almost exclusively in capitalist countries and were the product of an extremely favourable historical environment. The golden sixties meant not only full employment and a standard of living that would have been inconceivable only a few years earlier, but also the conquest of space. At least in its early stages, the conquest of space meant that, in scientific and economic terms, the USSR was catching up with the West. At the same time, the long, slow process of detente had produced a whole series of agreements and treaties in a wide range of areas. It was very tempting to interpret what was in fact only an ephemeral trend as an irreversible movement. It would, however, be a mistake to think that the theoreticians of convergence felt any sympathy towards the Soviet Union. In that sense, the early ideologues of the death of ideology were quite clearly products of their own system. We now live in an age of disillusionment. The 'technostructure' simply maximizes austerity. The only growth area is in unemployment, which is quietly ushering in an era of enforced leisure. For many people, there is no longer any possibility of improving their standard of living. Even the crisis itself is in crisis; detente is collapsing under the sudden impact of divergent conceptions of 'security'. It is one of history's ironies that the scientific revolution which gave rise to so many hopes should have been subordinated to the needs of the arms race. Technology is used primarily for the manufacture of armaments. With all due respect to the alchemists of the sixties, the eighties are likely to be an age of lead rather than an age of gold.