than the seed coat’s ingredients, and usually after it hadnalready been changed. While Western observers were stillnreiterating the “changing landmarks” platitudes of de factonSoviet agents about the “Reds,” lo and behold, “RednRussia” returned to “capitalism.” While they talked of then”future of Communism after the death of Lenin,” in camenStalin and unveiled a comprehensive program for democracy,ncomplete with a constitution and ballot boxes by thenbedside of the infirm. While they talked “Stalin’s Constitution,”nStalin created Hitler, defeated him, and won half ofnEurope while preparing to replace “Communism” with —nno more and no less — Russian Orthodox Christianity as thenideological seed coat for his future totalitarian empire. Hownlong would they have talked Christianity? Ten years?nTwenty years?nStalin died and they talked “de-Stalinization” instead,neven as today they talk the “collapse of Communism.”nExcellent subjects for discussion: Stalin has been dead fornalmost forty years, and power has not belonged to thenCommunist Party in Russia for more than ten.nHistorically, totalitarianism’s strategy has worked like anhuman heart. The oligarchy expanded to admit the West innpeacetime, creating an appearance of democracy, a simulacrumnof economic and political freedom, a sense ofnopenness. Thus it prepared for war, while feigning weaknessnand paying homage to Western prosperity, wisdom, andnother inherent or acquired virtues. Then it contracted into andictatorship, to expel the West and mobilize for a war ofnaggression for which internal terror is a prerequisite. Thisnwas a perestroika — Stalin’s favorite word — and then thencycle began anew. The dictatorship expanded into annoligarchy, which it remains today while remaining as totalitariannas it has ever been. It is all but irrelevant that thencomposition of the current oligarchy is unprecedented; fornthe secret police apparatus, like the Communist Party, is anworld unto itself, and there is no reason to believe that itsnmanagement of this, the new cycle of Soviet history, will beninferior to that of its predecessor.nIn the existing political culture of the West, where anRobert Conquest gets a hearing several decades after andozen emigre historians publish their identical findings,nsuch axioms are likely to fall on deaf ears. What, then,ninhibits the emergence of such a culture today? And is therenhope?nI now turn to the other, more problematic aspect of thenwill to knowledge. Again I begin with an axiom: truth cannonly emerge in debate, and it is here that the “will” of andemocracy finds a practical definition.nWhether in Parliament or in the media, concernedncitizens of a democracy can exercise their will. To what end?nHow can one escape the vicious circle of there being nonanswers because there are no questions and no questionsnbecause there are no answers?nBy broadening the debate for the sake of broadening thendebate, I reply. Even a person totally ignorant of finance willnnotice at once if the debate on taxation consists of only twonpoints of view, say, that an Index X should be a function ofnAlpha or that it should be a function of Beta. A concernedncitizen ought to be similarly alerted by the Telegraph’sn”debate” on Lithuania. He should be skeptical when, yearnin and year out, he learns from the Times that the future ofnRussia depends on whether “Corbachev will survive.” Henought to smell a rat when two television “commentators”nargue about whether the Soviet economy is already anshambles or will be a shambles soon.nWishful thinking can sustain two opinions, perhaps evennthree. Feeding on received wisdom, it remains stable so longnas the number of equipotent and independent points of viewnis kept artificially low in the debate that, often withoutnpremeditation, it is effectively controlling. Yet all it takes isnfor five or six individuals — “eccentric” journalists, “maverick”npoliticians, “irresponsible” men-about-town with accessnto the media — to raise their voices in defense of thenprinciple of debate, a principle essentially nonpartisan, and angenuine political culture will be in the making.nThe traditional polarization of the existing political cultureninto the “right” and the “left” inhibits genuine debatenmore than any single factor where the knowledge ofntotalitarian societies and the will to acquire such knowledgenis concerned. The polarization creates an illusion of pluralism,nand it is no exaggeration to say, for instance, that, today,nthe left is pro-Soviet because it is anti-defense (interpretingnthe “collapse of the Soviet Empire” to justify apparentlynunilateral disarmament) while the right is pro-Soviet becausenit is pro-defense (interprehng the “collapse of thenSoviet Empire” to justify apparendy bilateral disarmament).nNow, I ask you: what sort of debate is that?nLet me ask you an even more impertinent question. Whynshould the concerned citizen, whose existence I accept asngiven, be convinced that totalitarianism is incapable ofndeveloping a strategy of deception, complete with a newnideological seed coat, that would appeal to those traditionallyn”on the right” just as easily as in the past it developed suchnstrategies to appeal to those traditionally “on the left”?nSurely Stalin’s secret plans for Orthodox Christianity wouldnhave won over Enoch Powell? Surely an industrialist can benenthusiastic about a new market unconstrained by the neednfor Congressional appropriations approvals and all that redntape? Surely a neoconservative intellectual will find the timenfor an op-ed piece in Moscow News?nThe truth, then, cannot be entrusted to anything savendebate. It will not dawn on a prime minister or a cabinetnmember, nor will it mysteriously appear in the hands of thenopposition. Two points of view will never ensure that thendebate breaks out of the partisan confines, even if these arenbipartisan, and only>the sound of the third, fourth, or fifthnvoice can awaken the voting public to set into motion thenpolitical process by which the West can arrive at a strategy.nThe unchanging aim of totalitarianism is global expansion.nDisarmament is the means to achieve that aim.nJill will try anything to convince Jack. Jack may be annexpert on nutrition, conjecturing that Jill’s stomach is not upnto the task (a “Soviet collapse”), or he may be an internationalnlawyer, determined to persuade her to share the lastnapple with him (a “common European home”), or he maynbe a regular optimist, thinking that she has a hole in hernpocket and will probably lose it anyway (an “ecologicalncatastrophe”). The fact is. Jack has no strategy.nJill will try anything to convince Jack. The totalitariannoligarchy, presently in a phase of expansion similar to that ofnthe early 1920’s (in 1922, for instance, in Moscow alonennnJUNE 1991/19n