Letters to the Editor
COLD WAR FOR EVER ?
Sia,—Mr. Peter Wiles's article in your last number has a refireshing dogmatism which othe'it would-be interpreters of the Soviet Union may well envy. It is clear that the Points he makes about the usual reasons advanced for expecting a change in Russia or in Russian-controlled countries are valid ones. 1 wonder, however, whether he is right to fall back on the idea that anyhow history is bound to produce the unexpected. I am not sure that all historians would agree that it is always the unexpected that happens. Many of the great revolutions in human affairs have been prophesied; the question is by whom and how far the prophets were listened to. It certainly does not seem to me a sufficient excuse for not asking all possible questions about an existing situation. What seems to be missing from Mr. Wiles's argument is any enquiry- about the political as opposed to the economic and administrative foundations of the Soviet regime. After all, even in a Totalitarian society someone, or some group, has to make decisions. If there is no question as to who should make the decisions, then ,F..00 doubt their execution is as easy as Mr. "wiles suggests. I would have thought, how- ever, that since the death of Stalin it has been far from clear how decisions are made, and that this represents the greatest area of ignorance. We have not enough experi- ence of such societies to know what effect the social changes that Mr. Wiles alludes to may have in conditioning the minds of the newcomers to power and of those who may Come to power in the future. Possibly their Postulates will be quite different from those 2f their predecessors bred in revolution. Possibly they will disagree between them- "selves; and what then ? I blame no one for not giving an answer to these questions, but it is really not good enough to stop short of asking them.—Yours faithfully„
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