POLITICS OF 1970
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Europe quite naturally referred to "the English party" and "the French
party", meaning the two contesting camps which were then at grips
all over the world. Most countries now group themselves under the
somewhat tattered banners of liberalism and Communism, and in so
doing they automatically qualify for membership of either of the two
"camps" now contending for mastery of the globe. What all this has
to do with "maneuver" or "deception", it is hard to understand.
The chief intellectual fault in this respect lies in the failure to per–
ceive that nationalism can take many forms. There is no such thing
as "pure" nationalism. The nationalism of the
Risorgimento
was liberal,
because liberalism happened to be in the ascendant in mid-nineteenth–
century Europe; half a century later, many of the descendants of these
liberal nationalists turned fascist and followed Mussolini. Germany in
the twentieth century supplies evidence of the same process in a more
disastrous form. The nationalism of France is profoundly marked by
the Jacobin tradition of the Revolution. Modern Russian or Chinese
nationalism represents a synthesis of native patriotism and Leninist
ideology. No one can say with any certainty what the future holds in
store for the Indian sub-continent and the Islamic world, but by a
process of elimination one may easily reach the not very surprising con–
clusion that
their
national evolution will either be democratic or anti–
democratic, and if the latter, probably Communist. This, however, is
not the same as to say that they are having to choose between national–
ism "or" Communism. The notion of such a choice exists only in the
minds of people who have failed to think seriously about the matter.
There is of course also the possibility that the countries in question will
turn away from the threshold of modernity and retain their currently
prevailing conservative and religious outlook; in other words, abandon
the attempt to modernize as hopeless and remain content with the role
of onlookers. But this choice is not a likely one, and in any case it is
not one that the West can afford to promote.
If
we were to adopt the
attitude that the problem presented by these countries is probably hope–
less, and in any case none of our business, it is only too clear what
the result would be. Whether or not one agrees with Mr. Kennan that
morally speaking we owe these people nothing, it is pretty obvious that
to them the
s~tuation
presents itself in an entirely different light.
It
is undoubtedly tempting to decree that the economic problem
facing the countries in question is too big to be solved in this genera–
tion. Specifically, that no government--or at any rate no popularly
controlled government-can cope with the task of simultaneously rais–
ing output and holding down the birthrate. Recent figures show that
