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Despite schisms, heresies and fratricidal wars, world Communism remains a Soviet phenomenon in one important respect: all Communist regimes—including those that today defy Moscow, from huge China in the East to tiny Albania in the West—cling to power by relying on variations of the coercive methods and totalitarian precepts that have attained their apotheosis in the U.S.S.R.
France's leading political philosopher, Raymond Aron, has noted that throughout human history those empires or alliances or loose federations of states that enjoyed relatively robust economies at home, and pursued vigorous commerce abroad, automatically had a considerable advantage in political influence and military power over their rivals. Aron finds it ominous that in the last quarter of the 20th century, the time-honored correlation between economic strength on the one hand and military might on the other seems to be breaking down and may even have been reversed. The collective gross national product of the West greatly exceeds that of the Communist world; yet Western leaders, prominently including Reagan, often seem on the defensive in the face of Soviet strength.
That paradox is sometimes noted, in smug but muted tones, by the Soviets. In a conversation with an American official not too long ago, a Soviet general commented, "If someone from Venus were to come look at Earth, he'd have to wonder why a group of countries with a fraction of the wealth of the West is so often getting its way. It must prove the superiority of the Soviet system, plus the will and determination that our system embodies."
The general's choice of Venus, with its benevolent connotations, was no doubt deliberate. The observations of an interplantions, was no doubt deliberate. The observations of an interplanetary visitor from Mars—named after the Roman god of war—might be more to the point. What the Soviet system lacks in economic health it makes up for in brute force. That is the main reason why many in the West who gloat about the imminent death of the Soviet system also warn, often in the next breath, that it kills.
Thus, while events in Poland unquestionably dramatize that a Communist economy does not work, they also remind the world that Communist power still defends itself forcefully, not just against external enemies but against the consequences of its own internal failures as well. That lesson should have been learned vividly enough in Hungary in 1956, in Berlin with the building of the Wall in 1961, and in Czechoslovakia in 1968. If they feel it necessary, the curators of Communist power will not hesitate to teach the world again that they will not give it up.
Two days after he became First Secretary of the Polish Party, General Wojciech Jaruzelski told TIME that the troubles in Poland do not stem from "the system or the ideas on which it is based. Let history show, and let our grandchildren judge, which ideas are better and more effective. Thank goodness we don't live in medieval times when people fight wars over ideas."
No doubt Jaruzelski would like to believe that, but he must realize that what is happening in Poland today is precisely a fight over ideas. At issue is a system that has failed its subjects—a system that is the instrument whereby a large, powerful state dominates a small, weak though