In answer to the title question, which had been absorbing the foreign-policy establishment ever since the breakup of the Soviet Bloc, Mr. Pipes gives a firm No, Mr. Rodman an equally firm Yes. The points at issue, which emerge from today's discussion: Should we bring in the fledgling democracies of the East, such as Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovenia? Were we wrong to establish the new Russia-NATO Council (the price exacted for NATO expansion), which could have the effect of weakening NATO as a military alliance? And ever in the background, the fact that, as Mr. Pipes puts it, "The majority of Russian people, when polled, feel nostalgia for Communism, even if they don't want it to come back. But they want an authoritarian government."