  We discuss the observed scaling of the small-x diffractive and total
deep-inelastic structure functions at HERA. We argue that the parton
interpretation of Buchm\"uller and Hebecker can be understood within QCD as the
appearance of the Pomeron in a Super-Critical phase. In diffractive hard
scattering, the Pomeron appears as reggeized gluon exchange in a
color-compensating background field. The formalism can also be applied to
diffractive $W$ production at the Tevatron. If the scaling is a true asymptotic
property then it should anticipate the appearance of a further massive sector
of QCD and associated asymptotic Critical Pomeron behaviour.
