Quite recently the writer had occasion to read an intriguing pamphlet, issued by an anti-Communist organization in 1952, a year before Stalin's death, in which the author dealt with this problem boldly and convincingly.
"Do you want to help the present Russian leaders conquer the world?" asks the writer ironically. "If you do, then here are some of the things you must bear in mind:
"—Lambaste Russia and the Russians when you really mean the Soviet regime and its Politburo; denounce the Russian people casually in phrases about Asiatic hordes and Slav barbarians.
"—Give aid and comfort to racial extremists who hate Russians more than Bolshevism and call for a crusade to crush and Balkanize the country.
"By these and similar means you will rally the Russian people and millions of non-Russians who regard the whole of Russia as theirs no less than the Russians do—around the despotism they hate as the only alternative to utter extinction of the country they love."
This "advice" seems to me to be most pertinent. It can, of course, be applied indiscriminately to any other nation which has fallen a victim to Communism. To accept the subtle insinuation—is not only monumentally tragic and unfair, but plays straight into the hands of the Communists and also into the hands of professional "Russia haters".
The truth is that for the past thirty years the Russian people have been the best allies of the free world. They are the first victims of Communism, and the first people to lay down their lives by the hundreds of thousands in the struggle against Communism.
To forget or ignore this is to do a disservice to our own cause.
Those Russians—and their non-Russian fellow sufferers—who sparked off a series of revolts at the Vorkuta and other Soviet concentration camps in the summer of 1953, are closer to us in spirit than the small handful of "determined anti Communists" whose words do not match their deeds.
The latter are equally quick to find an easy parallel between Communism and traditional "Russian Imperialism" (an imperialism which, incidentally, was no better and certainly no worse than any other). Apart from the historic absurdity of such a parallel, the premise can do us all a great deal of harm if we allow the mistakes and grievances of the past to neutralize and frustrate our common activities in the future.
Moreover, such glib speculations about "Russian Imperialism" can only offend those of our Russian friends who live in exile and who fight by our side—not to mention our friends and allies inside the Soviet Union itself. And we need have no doubt that such allies do exist in the USSR. Nor need we fear that those forces working for the liberation of the Russian people inside the USSR will have any truck with "imperialism" of whatever brand or variety.
Freedom, like peace, is indivisible. A people who fight for their freedom cannot think of subjugating others in the name of some bygone "imperialism".
We ourselves would be considerably shocked and irritated if—in the hypothetical event of an early defeat of Soviet Communism—the Communist regime in Peking would be labelled as an "extension of Chinese imperialism".
Just as we Chinese resent the facile identification with Communism implied in the term "Communist China", so we must understand why our Russian friends take exception to being identified with the Soviet regime.
We must therefore avoid using such terms as "the Russians" when we mean "the Soviets." We must try to throw a lifeline to every Russian fighter for freedom, no matter whether he is a supporter of a united Russia, a federalist or a separatist. These "domestic issues" will be settled by the Russian people themselves when they gain their freedom. We must do all in our power to help those who wish to unite all the fighting forces of a Free Russia, regardless of all political differences, provided that each and everyone genuinely desires to fight the Communists. In helping the Russians to regain their freedom, we underwrite and guarantee our own.