Psychology was something that also interested Keenan, possibly based on his reading of Clausewitz, that forerunner of psychological warfare, but also as a great admirer of Russian culture: he might have reminded analysts of their limitations by citing that aphorism, sometimes used by Turgenev, according to which ‘the human soul is shrouded in darkness’. This is what enabled Kennan to emphasise that the Soviet leaders –and, I would dare to add, all leaders with social engineering in their souls– presumed to understand human nature better than anyone. Nor should the international analyst be altogether unfamiliar with certain notions of psychology, albeit somewhat sketchy. On the basis of such thoughts we might arrive at the conclusion reached by Kennan: in the study of international relations it is not enough to have a knowledge of history, or of political theories, or even of international or domestic judicial systems. Stalin and the majority of his successors were undoubtedly pragmatists.
There is scope therefore for pragmatism in all manner of messianic programmes, and especially in communism. Rather, the leaders manoeuvred in accordance with the circumstances, which were necessarily in flux. The Soviet leaders were the heirs of Marxist-Leninism, but there is no point searching that ideology, or any other of a radical stripe, for a user’s manual, unless one has allowed oneself to be blinded by the propaganda. We have seen this recently in Bridge of Spies, that remarkable film by Steven Spielberg. One of the things Kennan bequeathed to us in his celebrated ‘long telegram’ remains valid in perpetuity: our enemies are humans too. Truman Administration File, Elsey Papers. Telegram, George Kennan to George Marshall, February 22, 1946. Overcoming ideological differences, the day would come when the US would open diplomatic channels with these countries. He sensed the rifts between the USSR and China and other communist countries. Hence, like De Gaulle, Kennan preferred to separate what was Russian from what was Soviet. Soviet communism lacked the high degree of coordination that was ascribed to it. The simplistic brand of anti-communism failed to realise that its opponent was no more than a ragbag of vaguely-defined, obsolete and contradictory theories. For he had no time for broad-brush analyses such as the Truman Doctrine, which seemed to perceive communism as a coherent, unified and self-aware body of thought. In this regard he harboured a loathing for McCarthyism, above all on account of its anti-intellectual bent. The only thing that seemed to matter to Kennan’s contemporaries was the international spread of communism. The fundamental thesis of The Sources of Soviet Conduct is that the USSR’s foreign policy was determined by ideology and by circumstances. With what would George Kennan, having the traits of a poet in the way he analysed reality, furnish a world in which there is no longer a superpower of the USSR’s ilk, an unstable world where nationalism and radical populism are trying to establish themselves? They seek to delve deeper, with resonances from the past and present, by revisiting some of the opinions of that great proponent of the policy of containment. But the reflections contained in what follows do not seek to present a historical analysis. This was a landmark in the history of international relations and established the reputation of its author as one of the main US representatives of political realism. A recapitulation of this document, The Sources of Soviet Conduct, written by the selfsame Kennan under the pseudonym of ‘X’, subsequently appeared in the journal Foreign Affairs in 1947. Kennan, chargé d’affaires at the US embassy in Moscow, sent Washington a memorandum known as the ‘ long telegram’, which was 5,000 words in length. Photo: Harris & Ewing Collection – Library of Congress vía Wikimedia Commons.
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