Page 31 - Contrast1967November

The United States is sure that communism is
the "same yesterday, today, and forever." While
we retain a simplistic, monolithic, Leninist-
Stalinist interpretation of communism, many
"communist" countries have moved into a post-
Stalinist era. The differences that exist
between Yugoslavia, Albania, Cuba, Poland, East
Germany, Vietnam and the celebrated Sino-Soviet
split should be evidence enough that contemporary
's Communism is polycentric and that it is coming in
57 varieties. "Communism" simply does not mean

'. what it did in the McCarthy period of the early
fifties.

Anti-communism has taken on the form of a
religion in America and become an obsession with
a large part of the west. It can take the shape
of arrogance in that we perceive ourselves
predestined by God, the new chosen people, to wage
a holy war against communism--an attitude we would
ordinarly find detestable in others.

Our myopia and hysteria have further prevented
us from making a fundamental distinction between
nationalism and communism. Ho is a nationalist.
Vietnam is engaged in a struggle of independence
and has been for hundreds of years--against China,
the French, and now the U.S. Civil wars are never
won by outsiders. We, of all people, should know
this. The colossal irony of our presence there
is put in the words of Thich Nhat Hanh, a
Vietnamese scholar and poet writing earlier this
year,

"The majority of the people in the
Front are not Communists. They are
patriots, and to the extend that they
are under the direction of the Communists,
it is an unconscious acceptance of control,
not allegiance to Communist ideology. I
know it is a hard fact for Americans to
face, but it is a fact that the more
Vietnamese their troops succeed in
killing, and the larger force they
introduce into Vietnam, the more surely
they destroy the very thing they are
trying to build. Not only does the
Front itself gain in power and allegiance,
but communism is increasingly identified
by the peasants with patriotism and takes
an increasingly influential role in the
direction of the Front."

So, how can we conceivably win in Vietnam,
given our reasons for being there, even though we
beat the land to a pulp? The longer we stay, the
more "communists" we create. Wars of ideology are
not won with bullets or atomic warheads. Out of
desperation, Ho may be forced into Peking's arms