The extension of Communist Russian domination into Outer Mongolia in 1920 and of Communist Chinese domination over Inner Mongolia as well as Tibet in 1949 and 1951 created the problem of relations between communism and Lamaism, the religion and main cultural force of these areas. Communist policies towards Lamaism provide no exception to Communist religious policies as a whole. Nevertheless, the Communist appeal seems to have found some points of departure in certain Lamaist notions. These Lamaist ideas may, therefore, have a political relevance in the penetration of Communist ideas into the areas of Lamaist culture.

Political theory is not an independent realm of thought. Ultimately it must always refer back to some metaphysical presuppositions of Weltanschauung that is not in itself political. This does not imply that every metaphysical position entails logically necessary political consequences. But it does mean that implicitly or explicitly political theories depend on more general religious, epistemological, and moral considerations. This condition of political thinking serves to explain much of the narrowness of contemporary political theory. For the dominant currents of philosophy neither can, nor wish, to provide a basis for political speculation, which is increasingly regarded as an undisciplined form of self-expression. On the other hand, the naive hope that political studies might fruitfully emulate the methods of the natural sciences, and so share their success, has all but evaporated. The result is that political theory is now concerned to insist on its own limitations, to be critical and even negative in character. This is not a new thing. The lack of philosophical inspiration combined with the decline of “scientific” aspirations has plagued politically sensitive minds at least since the very beginning of the present century. And, from the first, one of the responses to this frustration has been the effort to escape philosophical difficulties by grasping at intuitive short-cuts to truth. The most remarkable of these flights to intuition was political Bergsonism. Moreover, this is not an entirely closed chapter in the history of ideas. Even if Bergson no longer enjoys his earlier popularity, he is still widely read, especially in America. Again, the recent vogue of existentialist “politics” points to an analogous trend, while the penchant for “action,” which is inherent in intuitive politics, is as strong as ever among French intellectuals.