ASSESSMENT OF COMMUNIST SUCCESSES, PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80M01009A001402440009-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 20
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 19, 2013
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: February 3, 1956
• Content Type: REPORT

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FIRST DRAFT
DCI Lecture for
National War Coll
3 February 195
14 January 1956
Assessment of Communist Sucoesses,
Probles and Prospects
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After looking over the formidable array of previous lectures and
discussions in this course, I have interpreted my own function as one
of reflection and speculation primarily I shall not attempt to repeat
matters ycu have already considered, except insofar as they contribute to
a broad assessment of where the Communist, Bloc stands and where it is
headed, both in its own eyes and in cur judgment,
I start with the proposition that there has been no basic change
whatever in Soviet obectives. The tactical variations we-have witnessed
over the last five years, and conspicuously within the past year, have
never bcen beyond the bounds of the traditional Communist theory of
alternate advances and retreats initiated by Lenin, and I am sure deeply
grooved in the thinkIng of all the present leaders of the Kremlin.
Indeed, I think it is cf crucial importance for us all to avoid
any sharp swings in our view of soviet activity.. During the past year,
speculation among the public has reached the point of wondering whether
what we called the cold war was at an end,. 6-Ince the second Berlin
conference and the recent statements of Soviet leaders, there has been
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some tendency to swing to an opposite view -- that the cold war far
from being abandoned will be intensified. The difficulty in preventing
such swings in public opinion is a major concern of our policy makers.
There should be no justification for them among groups such as yourselves.
Let me then attempt to give a Soviet view of the world situation,
which I should think would be broadly shared by all the top men in the
Kremlin whatever their personal rivalries or other differences:
First, they must be quite well satisfied with their progress in the
development and production of major military weapons In the nuclear
field, they have advanced to the print where, notwithstanding a
continuing marked superiority in US striking power, particularly over the
next two years, the world generally-3 and our major allies particularly,
believe that a period of nuclear stalemate has already begun. Moreover,
as a result of the first Geneva conference -- and no'6withstanding the
barren results of the second -- the Soviets must be nacre confident than
before that the US will not deliberately precipitate a situation of major
conflict in which nuclear weapons would be used This does not mean that
the Soviets are nut still deterred by our grrn massive nuclear power from.
adventures of their own that would be likely to lead to major conflict.
I am sure they are, and that they are convinced of cur intention to act
if certain lines are crossed or certain boundries of action exceeded. But
they do now have an additional internal feeling of confidence, that "we
have it too."
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As to the future, it is clear that the Soviets are going all out
to achieve the next stages of military power ahead of us if they can.
And in certain fields, notably in medium range guided missiles, we
have had disturbing evidence within the past year that they may reach
the level of operational capability before we do. I do not infer from
this any great, or at least any immediate changes in their intentions
with respect to a major conflict or general war. In intercontinental
missiles, the race now looks about even Nhatever the relative dates
of achievement of the intercontinental missile may be, the .Soviets will
in any case continue to be confronted by massive strategic air power
from bases so dispersed that it is unlikely that they could expect to
knock them out. Ne can never rule out the possibility of a truly decisive
surprise attack capability by the Soviets -- and must obviously- bend every
effort to prevent that coming about -- but I should doubt whether the -
Soviets are now planning to any major degree on such a basis.
Another major question is whether their growing nuclear capabilities
will permit the use of pressure or "blackmail" tactics in support of local
aggression and subversion, This is a more likely possibility than an
achievement of a decisive surprise attack capability, If the United States
and the free world fail to meet Communist expansionist moves effectively
over the next five years, this could become indeed the method by which we
would be nibbled to death. In present Soviet calculations, however, I
think it represents a hope rather than a firm expectation.
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In summary, the Soviet view of the major weapons balance is two
fold: (1) that there is a present balance or near-balance sufficient
to reduce the risks of major conflict to a low point; (2) that there
are hopes that the situation may develop in ways favorable to the
Communist Bloc, either by the pressure possibility or by the more
remote chance of a later surprise attack capability.
This brings us to the second point, the present status of the cold
war struggle.
On this front, the Soviets must consider the prospects for gain to
be considerable -- perhaps less than they were in early 1947, and with
no major area as ripe for the plucking as North Vietnam stood in early
1953, but on an overall basis presenting great opporunities for the
growth of Communist influence.
In the last six months, Soviet intervention in the Middle East and
South Asia has revealed a greater tactical flexibility than in the past,
and in particular the judicious employment of two Soviet assets, a
plentiful supply of obsolescent arms and the ability of a controlled
economy to absorb the critical surpluses of underdeveloped countries at
a relatively small overall cost. In quantitative terms, we estimate
that the aggregate cost of Communist military aid and economic moves in
these areas is on the order of 400 million dollars, most of which is in
the Egyptian arms deal. Objectively however, those surplus arms really
had almost no marginal value at all, and I would have no question that
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the Soviets can maintain and itensify this kind of effort.
When it comes to really useful economic aid, Soviet capabilities
are more limited, but may still be adequate for their present purposes.
The Soviets can spare a million tons of steel for India over a three
year period. They can afford to send commodities to Burma in exchange,
for rice, which they will divert to meet the pressing food problems of
North Vietnam. Perhaps most serious they do have a supply of technicians,
which they can readily train in the local language and then direct to a
country where they can effectively serve Soviet interests.
All in all, the Kremlin may well calculate that it has opened up a
profitable new front on which it may expect to make real progress.
Meanwhile, among our major allies, especially in NATO, the Soviets
must believe that they have been fairly successful in reducing the
"cement of fear" in NATO and that, whether or not Khrushchev and
Bulganin revert to type in the hostile tone of their utterances, it will
remain extremely difficult for these nations to maintain the defence
burdens of the 1949-54 period.
Moreover, the Soviets must be well pleased with the results of the
French elections and by the talk of "openings to the left" in Italy. If
it does nothing more, the renewal of popular front tactics seems sure to
exert a continued disruptive effect on these countries. I do not think
that popular fronts are imminent in either case, but they are surely a
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stronger possibility than at any time since 1948,
Finally, and in my judgment more immediately important than either
Europe or the Middle East and South Asia, there are the two great sore
spots of the current Far East picture, the offshore islands and Laos.
These are not direct Soviet problems, but there is every reason to
believe that the Soviets see clearly the advantages that may come to the
Bloc from them -- and they are of course rendering all possible material
support to the Communist Chinese and the Viet Minh,
There are a few indications that the Soviets exerted a restraining
hand on the Communist Chinese during 1955 on the islands, and also on
the situation in South Vietnam. Yet I have little doubt that, to the
degree this was done, it was accompanied by an assurance to the Communist
Chinese that the taking of the offshore islands would be done more
easily, and to greater advantage to the overall cause) if the will of
the major European nations could be further softened by the general
f'peace offensive" -- as has clearly taken place -- if the US could be
isolated from its allies, and if the major "third-force" nations, notably
India, could be subjected to increased Soviet influence -- as has also
taken place. In short, broadly speaking, what has gone on in the rest
of the world has been a series of "back-of-the-stove" operations, to be
kept going and to be moved up if they came along unexpectedly fast, but
that the front burner has been the Far East -- above all the islands and
to a lesser degree Laos. In the case of Laos, the Communist moves are
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almost certainly designed largely as a balancing operation to offset
the fact that South Vietnam has not developed, or rather deteriorated,
as they anticipated when the Indochina agreements were made in 1954.
But Laos is no more token balancer; while its loss to the free world
would be less serious than that of South Vietnam, the undermining effect
in Thailand -- of which there are already indications -- might in a?
fairly short time virtually outflank even a greatly strengthened and
pro-Western South Vietnam, while the situations in Malaya and Singapore,
which have developed more adversely than we expected during the past
year -- and with too little sign of effective British counteraction --
would be likely to go completely to pot. Whether these grave Communist
threats are realized depends so heavily on US and allied policy that I
can go no further as an intelligence officer. Clearly, there are lively
possibilities that Communist hopes will be fulfilled in this, their area
of maximum present expectation.
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In sum, the Soviet leaders may well feel that they are doing at least
as well as they may have expected in the cold war.
Thirdly, in looking at their oval internal situation, the Kremlin
leaders must find much to be hopeful about. Their over-all economic growth
has continued. 1955 was a good year for agricultural quantitative output.
The burden of military expense has not yet operated seriously to reduce the
large amounts spent for investment, And, although the flow of consumer goods
has been held back, the real income of the Soviet citizen is still rising
at a rate of % per year.
Even more basically, Soviet scientific and technical training continues
to produce ever increasing numbers of oompetent technicians, and secondary
education is being expanded at A rate that will mean that (80%) of Soviet
children will receive such education by (1960). In the use of human raw
material for narrow ends, there is no question that the Soviet system can
produce results.
Moreover, despite the enormous dissatisfactions, particularly among
nationality groups, overall morale in the USSR is almost certainly at a
fairly high point. Whatever his view of the nature and personal
consequences of the system the Soviet citizen appears to be convinced
that it works, and this pride constitutes an enormous cohesive force for
the present,, Moreover, the visits of foreign leaders to the USSR, and the
visits of Soviet leaders abroad as they have been reported to the Russian
people have undoubtedly contributed to a sense of international prestige
and acceptance greater than at any time since the war.
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Fourth, as they look at their relationship with the satellites
and Communist China, the Kremlin leaders can see, on the favorable
side, continued stability in the satellites, with little reduction
in the prospects for effective Soviet control over the next five-
ten years under present conditions., Communist China likewise continues
a firm ally for the present,. 'and Soviet economic aid to Communist China
while substantial, is not in 'aggregate terms a very large burden on the
Soviet economy.
In summary, as the Soviet leaders look at today's balance sheet, as
compared to a year or five years ago, they can see many favorable factors
from their standpoint. In the aggregate, they might well conclude that
the overall power position of the USSR and the Sino-Soviet Bloc is greater
relative to the forces clearly arrayed against it than at any time.
Yet it may be that many of the assets in the balance sheet are not
nearly so substantial as they appear, and that even those which may be
taken at full value are outweighed by other situations or other aspects
of the internal picture. So it is necessary to look closely at the debit
sheet -- the problems that the Soviets still confront externally and
internally.
The first of these on the external front, is that in no major area
of the world has popular support for the Communist form of government
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increased over the past year. The situation in East Germany, and to
some extent in the rest of the satellites, has compelled the Soviets to
make brutally clear at the aecond Berlin conference that they have no
thought of permitting free elections in East Germany, and that they
know the outcome of such elections would be repudiation of Communism.
While I do not look for another June 17, 1953, the Soviets have clearly
found no way to keep East Germany below the simmering point. Just as
one indicator, the number of refugees reaching West Berlin over the past
year has been
, almost twice the level of the preceding year and
with a substantial percentage of military-age youths. Soviet controls can
reduce this flow, but only at the cost of more repression and more
hostility in those forced to remain. Berlin remains a major sore spot to
the Soviets and despite all the harassments-, the Soviets can hardly take
drastic action against it without involving great risks of a major conflict
The key fact is that East Germany simply is not setting into any kind
of satellite mold; on the contrary, to East and West Germans alike, its
condition is a complete condemnation of the Communist system.
Similarly, on the other side of the world, whereas it appeared
probable a year ago that the Communists might win an all-Vietnam election
even if considerable elements of a free election were present (though
perhaps not if a prolonged period of impartial administration preceded
the election), Viet Minh prestige and influence have been sharply reduced
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by the growing strength of the Diem government in the south, and by the
failure to solve the basic food problem in the north. 'Thus, the prospect.
of a Communist victory in what the Verld might have considered a free
election no longer appears substantial. If the Communists are to make
substantial progress in South Vietnam, they will have to come above
ground -- where they can probably be met and where they will in any case
reveal their true subversive nature to the unconvinced leaders of India
and other key neutralist countries of the area.
Elsewhere in the world, there now appears to be no area where the
threat of Communist takeover is as acute as it was in Iran in 1953 or
Guatemala in 1954, where the Communists met their match. The Indonesia
situation is better than it seemed likely to be a year ago, although
still precarious. Latin America has many unstable situations, but there
have been encouraging signs that nations such as Brazil have passed
through inoculation phase with respect to the internal Communist
threat, and are able to generate -- if we play our hand coolly -- their
own corrective forces.
Moreover, even in such countries as Egypt, India, Burma, and
Afghanistan, increases in Soviet state influence have not lead to any
corresponding increase in internal Communist strength as EEL. As they
pursue their programs in these countries, the Soviets will confront an
increasing dilemma. Without continuing or increasing efforts by local
Communist forces, Soviet aid may serve largely to strengthen governments
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that are ultimately anti-Communist. I do not discount the possibility
of growing economic or military dependence on the USSR, or that Nehru
and Nasr will go somewhat further down the road of cooperation with the
Soviets, or the seriousness of the threat posed by the presence of
Soviet agents in these countries. It may be that the Soviets can conceal
their hand and have the best of both approaches for the time being. But
they will be under continual temptation, and perhaps pressure from among
the Soviet leaders themselves, to take a stronger line which would cause
them to be recognized for the modern imperialists they are.
Similarly, the Soviets have the problem of fulfilling the expectation.
of the countries they have now undertaken to assist. Things are now in a
honeymoon period, which may not last long. The experience of such nations
as Argentina and Uruguay with the differences between Soviet promises and
Soviet performance suggests the strong possibility of eventual disillusion-
ment with the superficial character of Soviet action. Moreover, in
countries such as India where the major initial problem is agricultural
productivity, the domestic performance of the USSR hardly suggests that
it has much to offer.
In other areas where the Soviets have made apparent progress during
the past year, they also confront dilemmas. Tito cannot be further wooed
without the danger of inflaming similar "national Communist" sentiments
in the satellites, and without creating even more serious dilemmas for the
Communist party in Italy, which has been substantially weakened over the
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past year by this fact among others . . . In Germany, the Soviets can
push the theme of direct negotiations between Nest Germany and East
Germany to a point, with disruptive effects, but if the West Germans
start to take the possibility of such negotiations seriously, they will
almost certainly pierce the sham issue of "compulsory NATO membership"
and come face to face with the ultimate Soviet position that a unified
Germany should not have free elections and should not be free to determine
its awn foreign policy. Feeler unofficial negotiations between West and
East Germany might well result in A very healthy clearing of the air in
West Germany and in the strengthening of 7lest Germany's ties to the Nest.
Despite some minor economic problems, and slight decline in its
phenomenal rate of economic growth, the fact is that West Germany continues
extremely prosperous and is more and more tied to the Nest in what should
be enduring economic relationships. If we can assist the strengthening of
these ties through NATO or through European integration moves, so much
the better for us and the worse for the Soviets. And, of course, Nest
German rearmament is underway.
Even in those situations where the USSR has made hay by taking sides
in localquarrels -- the Arab-Israeli conflict, Pushtunistan, Kashmir, and
Goa -- the Soviet gains from these positions would tend to diminish over
time in any case, and the same question of fulfillment of expectations is
raised.
In short, even in the situations where one would say the Soviets had
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registered gains, they have in many cases simply cAshed small white
chips without facing the difficult choices required for the red and
blues. In the ebb and flow of the cold war, taken as a whole, the
Soviets would hardly feel themselves compelled to correct, even if they
could, the historic Communist doctrines of the growth of revolutionary
situations, or Stalin's 1952 prophecies of softening and division in the
free world -- but neither will they find any clear proof of the validity
of these basic beliefs. As to the United States itself, and the alleged
"internal contradictions of capitalism," we have had recent evidence that
Communist theoreticians are coming to believe that, while capitalism will
rot in time, it may take a pretty hefty dose of the acid of Communist
disruption to bring on the process.
Turning now to their awn internal picture, the Soviet leaders must
realize that they have not solved two crucial domestic issues: organizing
agriculture and increasing its productivity, and above all the problem of
leadership itself.
I have said that 1955 was statistically a good year for Soviet agri-
culture, and I have little doubt that in the Central Committee meetings
now in process, Khrushchev is as zealous in claiming credit for the results
of good weather in the Ukraine as he was last year in denouncing Malenkov
for the results of bad weather there. The fact is, of course, that
Khrushchev's corn and new lands programs had very little to do with this
year's results. They are not wholly visionary; some useful techniques
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have been employed, and it was a substantial achievement to obtain
even small yields from the new lands in so dry a year. Nonetheless, if
another bad year in the new lands were not compensated by an unusually
good year in the Ukraine, Khrushchevl bold experiment would be exposed
as the risky thing it is. This would not mean that millions of Russians
would starve or that the Soviet economy would be drastically slowed down,
but it surely would mean seriouS damage to Khrushchev's political credit
and standing.
This brings me to the problem of leadership, which of all the Soviet
problems is the one that must hang over the minds of the Kremlin more than
any other.
Predictions on the future holders of power in the Soviet Union are
among the more perishable items on the intelligence shelf, particularly
when made on the eve of a Party Congress. But I think we can be reasonably
confident that power has come to reside over the past two years primarily
in a small group of a half dozen at the top, but, as a close second, also
in the considerably larger Central Committee of the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union. It also seems clear that for the present neither the Army
nor the secret police are in the control of any identifiable individual or
group in the top leadership. Rather they have been in substantial meas'ire
"institutionalized." The prestige of the military forces is unquestionably
greater than under Stalin: they are capable of exerting policy pressure,
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as they almost certainly did at the time of the decision for emphasis
on heavy industry a year ago, and they are capable of negative pressure,
as was almost certainly demonstrated against the secret police in the
removal of Beria. But they do not stand as a separate and manipulatable
element of power.
Perhaps the most striking feature of the present situation is that
the Central Committee of the CPSU is almost certainly used as a forum,
not only for organization and the disposition of personalities, but for
the discuss ion of major policy questions. We know too little about what
went on at its meetings last January and July, but the combination of almost
total silence during these meetings, followed by an outburst of activity
on maw fronts, strongly suggests that if decisions were not actually made
in these meetings, they were at least not valid until ratified therein.
In this situation, it is of course crucial whether Khrushchev and his
friends have obtained or can in the future obtain thoroughgoing control
of the Central Committee. The pattern of personal appointments over the
past year suggests that he has made .efforts in this direction but that
these efforts are a long way from fruition.
One is tempted to draw parallels to the rise of Stalin after Lenin' s
death, and to wonder if we may not be at, say, the 1927 stage of that
process, which will proceed eventually to the conclusion of one-man power.
It may be that this will be the case. Yet there appear to be striking
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differences between the present situation and the earlier succession
problem. Above all the decisions now taken -- apparently after being
thrashed out in the Central Committee -- are vastly more complex and
difficult, and the results come home to roost more quickly than in the
1920's. If Khrushchev, or apy group of leaders, propose a given policy,
either internal or external that policy is tested promptly and its faults
revealed, Moreover, on the internal front, whereas any gain in the 1920's
could not be set against a norm, the very confidence the Soviets have gained;
in the capabilities of their economy, how means that decisions are judged
harshly, by whether they in faCt produce the results claimed for them at
the time of decision. We are all familiar with the enormous political
consequences in a democratic society of even the smallest economic shifts,
which may have been in fact little, if at all, the fault, or the credit,
of the incumbent government. Obviously, not even the Central Committee
taken alone is in any sense comparable to a democracy, but the harshness
and immediacy of its criticisms nonetheless may exert a continuing effect
in preventing the successful rise of any single, supposedly omnipotent
individual.
In short, there is a good case for supposing that the Soviet system
may increasingly lack the strong one-person control under which the system
was created. This does not mean that the system will collapse in the
short or even medium-term. Nor does it mean any conspicuous decline in the
skill with which the Soviets conduct at least limited maneuvers in the
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field of external policy: on the contrary, at several times during
the past year there has been every indication that Soviet footwork
was faster than in the Stalin period, What the continued collective
leadership does mean, however, is that world Communism will lack a
single ideological voice capable of adjusting basic doctrine to
changing demands as Stalin so conspicuously did. And there is at
least a strong'chance that it will mean ever time the development of
very substantial differences among the leadership which will tend to
diminish the effectiveness of Soviet policy, both externally and
internally.
Moreover, in the less likely event that Khrushchev or some other
individual should attempt a drastic seizure of power, the countervailing
forces are now such as to produce a serious internal conflict.
Meanwhile, the broad structure of Soviet society itself is being
drastically changed by the very forces that have contributed to the
growth of Soviet material strength and economic power. I do not suggest
that industrialization, in itself, is in any way fundamentally at odds
with the continuing of a highly centralized and totalitarian form of
government -- Nazi Germany is the obvious example of just such a case.
Nor is it necessarily true that a more highly educated populace will
resist totalitarianism in any short or medium-term period.
Yet, when a people find their living standards substantially
Increasing at the present Soviet rate, and when that same people is
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undergoing an enormous educational revolution at a rate more rapid
than that of any nation in history, these trends must create vast
imponderables in the calculations of Soviet leaders. We have had some
evidence that the improvement in the sciences has been obtained in
part by diminished emphasis on ideology, particularly in the physical
sciences and even recently in the once-strait jacketed field of biology.,
Such trends may well be hard to prevent from expanding to other fields
of study, including history.
In simpler terms, it cannot be so easy for a regime to spread wholly
false views among a generation 80% of which has received a secondary
education.
As you can see, I am not offering firm predictions on these trends.
Certainly they cannot develop in a manner that would tend to make the
Soviet Union an acceptable member of international society unless Soviet
expansion, whether by aggression or subversion or even the growth of
marked influence, can be held in firm check. Plainly, that is not now the
case. But if Soviet confidence in the exportability of their system can
be reduced, it stands to reason that Soviet energies will find increasing
outlet and adequate psychological reward in the internal development of
their society.
If, then, we ask ourselves what are the prospects for the USSR over
the next ten-twenty years, we can be most confident that, barring a major
conflict, the USSR will have attlined great economic and educational
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advances.:,
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Those advances may conceivably be harnessed to the wishes
of a still highly centralized and totalitarian government and that
government may, through subversion, techniques of influence or atomic
blackmail succeed in greatly expanding the territories it controls,
perhaps even to the point of making out own situation desperate.
On the other hand, Soviet techniques of influence such as have
emerged in the past year, may prove as transitory as some of the efforts
of the Czars. If this can be done, while at the same time the threat of
Soviet and Chinese Communist aggression is reduced, the Soviet internal
system could evolve into forms for which I see no real historic parallel
but which offer at least the possibility of a Soviet state that will not
be at rest or without any aggressive designs, but that can be handled by
a continuously Vigilant policy on the part of the rest of the worldi
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