Word: burnham
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...Coming Defeat of Communism has its share of jarring notes; ex-Marxist Burnham can be too pedantic and doctrinaire, sometimes sounds too pleased with his own conspiratorial cunning. Perhaps his most hopeful and least convincing thesis lies in his book's eye-catching title. He argues that it is necessary to believe in and trumpet the coming defeat of Communism-in order to give heart to the anti-Communist Resistance everywhere and to counter the myth of inevitable Red victory. Yet, while believing in the inevitability of its own victory, the Western world must not become complacent...
...Burnham suggests that the "unconventional" offensive against Communism might best be coordinated in a new executive office directly under the U.S. President, with experts supplied by State, Defense and Central Intelligence, and with Congress represented...
Inverse Philistines. Philosopher Burnham berates the American businessman for being "too ignorant, too greedy, too reactionary, and, in a certain sense, too cowardly" in the struggle against Communism. Burnham cites the U.S. businessman's shortsighted eagerness for keeping U.S. tariffs high while preaching free trade to the world; his prejudice against fighting side by side with converts from Marxism, whom Burnham (a convert from Marxism) regards as the most knowing scouts in that fight; his readiness to trade with his Communist enemies any time he can make a fat profit...
...faults, Burnham observes, a little condescendingly, the U.S. businessman is basically loyal to American ideals and will take his proper place in the struggle against Communism. Says Burnham: "I have no sympathy and little patience with those inverse Philistines . . . who sneer so easily at business and businessmen . . . There are motives more injurious than the search for profit; and [businessmen] did not need slave camps to people their frontiers. If this country is 'basely materialistic' in its 'philosophy,' then let it be noted that such materialism is the cause of less suffering and more joy than most...
...Will to Win. Burnham is convinced that full-scale war with Russia can be avoided if the U.S. is firm enough. He scoffs at the timid notion that it is dangerous to provoke the Communists. "Communists are never 'provoked'; if they sometimes seem provoked, that is only a rehearsed bit of acting ... Experience uniformly proves that Communists are always emboldened to further aggression by friendship ... It is from firmness and power that they yield and retreat...