Imperialism and the Quest for New Ideas

Political thinking, like merchandising, has its fashions.

Political thinking, like merchandising, has its fashions. As Detroit car producers feel that to sell cars new models must be introduced each year, so political theorists have lately felt that to understand the world and sell one’s ideas there must be a regular renewal of theoretical equipment. What retooling is to Detroit, the clamor for “new ideas” is to the higher political thinkers though in both cases there is generally a change in the trimmings, not the chassis.

It is indeed impossible to understand genuinely new problems with antiquated theoretical equipment. The sad fact is, however, that many of the old problems still remain with us. If only we could get rid of them, how happy one would be to discard the theoretical categories pertinent to their analysis.

Take the concept of imperialism. Most liberals profess to believe that one can speak only of imperialism when referring to the bad old days; the term elicits for them an image of the marines landing in a Banana Republic or British troops lording it in India. One detects a kind of word magic in the writings of such liberals: banish the word and thereby abolish the thing.

How refreshing, by contrast is the cynical frankness of a genuine imperialist like Winston Churchill who, in his recently published memoirs, tells of a conference with Stalin in Moscow in 1944, the very year that saw the high point of propaganda about the Four Freedoms, the Atlantic Charter and all that. Writes Churchill:

“The moment was apt for business, so I said “Let us settle about our affairs in the Balkans. We have interests, missions, and agents there. Don’t let us get at cross-purposes in small ways. So far as Britain and Russia are concerned, how would it do for you to have ninety percent predominance in Roumania, for us to have ninety per cent of the say in Greece, and go fifty-fifty about Yugoslavia?” While this was being translated I wrote out on a half-sheet of paper:

Roumania

Russia ……………………………………………………………………………… 90%

The others ………………………………………………………………………… 10%

Greece

Great Britain ……………………………………………………………………… 90%

(in accord with U.S.A.)

Russia ……………………………………………………………………………… 10%

Yugoslavia …………………………………………………………………… 50-50%

Hungary ……………………………………………………………………….. 50-50%

Bulgaria

Russia ……………………………………………………………………………… 75%

The others …………………………�...