U.S. Policy Indecision Suggests Fear of Peace With Soviets

History will find it odd, to say the least, that one of the greatest events of our time is being largely taken for granted. The second Russian Revolution, peacefully unleashed by Mikhail S. Gorbachev, continues to astound its critics by taking dramatic leaps out of a repressive past and into a future important to us all.

Last month I was in Moscow during the special plenum of the Communist Party Central Committee that ousted almost one-fifth of its traditional members in favor of newer perestroika -minded supporters of reform. Upon returning to the United States several days later, I found little continuing news coverage; it was as if this stunning event had hardly occurred.

While we focus on the petty political struggles of the day or on the single issue that seems important to us or our interest group, we are missing the dramatic caravan sweeping across the horizon. There is precious little serious debate or understanding of this latest in a series of unprecedently bold steps by the leader of the communist world. Our own leadership seemingly can’t decide whether it wishes Gorbachev to succeed or to fail, while the world at large is caught up in the drama of a superpower leader who can see a future beyond the Cold War.

For those who anticipate Gorbachev’s failure, can the thought have been fathered by the wish? Can it be that our leaders and we, as a society, have become so addicted to the catechism of the Cold War that we cannot do without it? What happens to a nation when its central organizing principle--fear of communism--erodes before its eyes?

There are only two choices. One is to discover a new and more positive organizing principle for our future. The other is to minimize or ignore reality, to put it aside in favor of more understandable and therefore more manageable issues.

The second Russian Revolution may, in some ways, be more threatening than the first. Human societies find it easier to organize themselves against a common foe than to debate priorities and rationally allocate resources toward a positive agenda.

It seems easier to minimize or ignore Gorbachev’s historic struggle than to ponder seriously its implications for us. Are we genuinely ready for a world beyond the Cold War? If there are plans for economic conversion of our weapons-production facilities to domestic uses, I am not aware of them. If there is a policy for industrial modernization, it is not readily apparent. If we have a comprehensive program to modernize our education system, it is hidden (perhaps in the “education President’s” desk). If we have policies to use unneeded weapons-research money for environmental technologies and health research, why don’t we know of them?

A peaceful revolution in the Soviet Union is, in some strangely ironic way, a threat. It is not only a threat to entrenched, bureaucratic thinking and power structures in Moscow, it is also a threat to entrenched old thinking and power structures in Washington. Perhaps the wait-and-see attitude in the White House and powerful board rooms is really a reflection of our own unwillingness to think about a post-Cold War world.

For that world, for which we clearly are not prepared, may prove to be even more complex and intractable than today’s--tottering, debt-ridden Latin democracies, starving Africans, a unified European market, implacable Japanese trading partners. None of these problems will be solved by propping up the myth of the communist anti-Christ.

Boldness and courage must characterize the thinking of future U.S. leadership. Caution, which has become the excuse for the absence of new policies, must give way to new thinking and fresh approaches on our side. Why not a healthy dose of perestroika and glasnost for the West?

The best, first step would be much more thoughtful, serious and informed understanding of the historic sweep of this new Russian Revolution and its massive implications for us and our future. If the tremendous power of modern communications technology could be focused with the same dramatic intensity on the changes in the Soviet Union as it was, for example, on the Iran-Contra affair or the Vietnam War, we would have a much clearer understanding of these historic events. And a serious debate over our post-Cold War future would inevitably begin.