Russia, the West, and World Order

Abstract

There is a feeling abroad today that Western civilization is on trial before history. One of the clearest signs of it is the increasing frequency with which we hear the word “challenge” in connection with the policies and progress of Soviet Russia and the Communist world at large. The challenge of the sputniks, of Soviet science and education, of Soviet economic development—these phrases, and variations on them, have recently grown all too familiar in America and Europe. We realize, of course, that the situation is not wholly a dark one for the West, that our Communist adversaries have serious internal problems of their own to contend with, that they too face some challenges. Still, nowadays few in the West find grounds for complacency in that fact.