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term "backwardness" is more or less appropriate. But if one goes further
to inquire what precisely constitutes the distinguishing mark of Kemal–
ism, Nasserism, Titoism, Fascism, or the unorthodox Leninism of Com–
rade Gomulka, one begins to see that there are structural factors at
work which favor one solution rather than the other; whatever may
happen in Egypt or Spain or Poland tomorrow, neither country is likely
to evolve political institutions of the Western type, or for that matter
a tradition of liberal nonconformism in thought. Yet it is precisely at
this level that the decisive political choices are made. Mussolini's rise
would not have been possible without the evolution of Italian national–
ism, and this evolution in turn was promoted
by
the decline of European
liberalism after the first world war; to say nothing of Hitler, and the
impact of that catastrophe on the political destinies of half the world.
At this point it becomes even less possible to stay out of contro–
versy. Nowadays we are often told that nationalism is the principal
agent of modernization in backward countries, but there is no indi–
cation as to what kind of nationalism is likely to become predominant
in them, except of course that everyone hopes it won't be the kind that
won out in China. The issue is customarily presented in a somewhat sim–
plified manner, the opposing parties being labelled "Nationalist" and
"Communist," as though it went without saying that these are mutually
exclusive terms, whereas the Chinese experience should have taught
us that this is not so. There is indeed a growing awareness that the
failure of what should perhaps be called "classical" nationalism may
open the way to a second, Communist-led, wave of the revolution, and
the authors just quoted show some grasp of this fact when they re–
mark: "There is little doubt that Moscow and Peking regard Nasser,
Nehru, Soekarno and the other non-Communist leaders of the new
nations as the Chiang Kai-sheks of the future." But it is not made
sufficiently clear that the Communists expect to win this struggle under
the nationalist banner, and not as representatives of some mythical
"proletarian internationalism" that went out of fashion a long time
ago. At most it is conceded that they may try to deceive people into
regarding them as authentic patriots; but where is the deception? Mao
Tse-tung is as genuine a representative of Chinese nationalism as Chiang
Kai-shek. It really is time to dispense with slogans that bear no rela–
tion to any observable reality. There is no such thing as "international
Communism," or at any rate it is no more international than the rival
ideology of Western liberalism. There are two global camps, or parties–
for convenience's sake they might be designated "the American party"
and "the Russian party," just as in the Napoleonic age, people in
