George Kennan (Part IV)

(11) perfect discipline requires recognition of infallibility. Infallibility requires the observance of discipline . . . The fact that the leadership is at liberty to put forward for tactical purposes any particular thesis which it finds useful to the cause at any particular moment . . . require the faithful and unquestioning acceptance of that thesis . . . This means that truth is not a constant but is actually created. . . It may vary from week to week, from month to month.

(12) once a given party line has been laid down . . . the Soviet governmental machine . . . moves inexorably along the prescribed path, like a persistent toy automobile wound up and headed in a given direction, stopping only when it meets with some unanswerable force. The individuals who are the components of this machine are unamenable to argument or reason.

(13) these precepts are fortified by the lessons of Russian history: of centuries of obscure battles between nomadic forces over the stretches of a vast unfortified plan. Here cautions, circumspection, flexibility and deception are the valuable qualities. . . These considerations make Soviet diplomacy at once easier and more difficult to deal with then the diplomacy of individual aggressive leaders like Napoleon and Hitler.

(14) in these circumstance it is clear that the main element of any US policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies. (to be continued)

Reference:
1. [George Kennan]. "The Sources of Soviet Conduct" in Foreign Affairs, 1947.
2. US Department of State, Bureau of International Information Programs.(http://www.america.gov/st/washfile-english/2005/March)
3. Una McGovern ed. Chambers Biographical Dictionary. Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd.,2002.