Political strategy and tactics of communism; a study in total power

This essay is an attempt to analyze communism in terms of power. It tries to describe the power machinery of communism and to formulate principles upon which it operates. This description is undertaken in the belief that the great problem of our day is not the communist ideology, but rather the maxims and Imperatives of total power which impel the communist power machinery in its behaviour. This paper develops a thesis that communism is a system of total power, that it is a system which rejects the principle of political equilibrium and operates a centrally-directed and a highly integrated pyramid of social forces. Therefore it is not governed in its behaviour by the free will of its leaders, but rather is driven by an objective law of the necessity of total power, under which the leading communists are only executing its maxims and its imperatives e Its actions are motivated by the iron law of permanent expansion of power through the acquisition of new power areas within and outside its base. To expand within its base, the communist power system makes use of permanently operating tensions generated by the interaction of key social institutions. Further, it utilizes any momentary resentment against governmental and civil authority and uses and converts every social organization within its reach into instruments of expansion. In short, the thesis of this paper is that tyranny must feed on conquest or die. The first part of this work is theoretical and is devoted to problems of power. It opens with an attempt to formulate the general concept of political power. Later, it attempts to describe the communist monopolistic concept of political power and its sources. Finally, it attempts to formulate the pattern of behaviour of the communist power system- its strategy and its tactics. Because of the immense scope of the subject-matter, the first part touches on only some of the most important problems and is inevitably sketchy. The second part of this study deals with the application of the theory of total power. It discusses the origin of the communist system of total power; i.e., how it was established by the Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia in 1917. Further, it describes the machinery of Soviet dictatorship by means of which the communist power system has consolidated and increased its strength. Finally, this second part deals with the methods of expansion - how the communist power system acquired new power areas and advances of strength through the operation of its agencies in various parts of the world. Attempting to be an objective analysis of the communist power system, this study is descriptive rather than critical. Therefore, it does not portray nor does it evaluate the communist power system against the background of our own ethical standards. So far as the sources are concerned, this study relies on the original works of leading Soviet, as well as non-Soviet Marxian theoreticians, rather than, on secondary sources where these works are merely interpreted.Arts, Faculty ofPolitical Science, Department ofGraduat