COMMUNICATIONS
477
the relationship between democracy and economic and social decision–
making. The interests which are protected by such acts are not those of
the people but of a self-constituted elite-a new social class.
If
the
people are not free to make their own decisions, their welfare will
go unprotected. For the Polish socialists, nationalization without democ–
racy is the antithesis of radical values.
At Berkeley, which has been one of the centers of the American
New Left, almost all members of the anti-war movement have expressed
their sympathy with Hass in a strongly-worded statement protesting the
arrests sent to the Polish government. The statement was signed by
most of the leaders of the 1964 Free Speech Movement, the leaders of
the Vietnam Day Committee, and by many of the political groups which
have been ambivalent in thei r attitude toward the Communist bloc. Most
significantly, the signatories include the Berkeley W. E. B. DuBois Club,
which has a pronounced pro-Russian point of view.
The Hass case is an antidote to the Cold War polarization of poli–
tical opinion. It demonstrates that the struggle against one kind of op–
pression need not rely on the military might of another, but may instead
focus upon the independent struggle of the people. To Hass, to be an
anti-Communist does not mean-as it does to so many American
liberals- to string along with Katzenbach or McNamara.
It
means being
a revolutionist against all oppression and an internationalist who strives
for a society run by the people themselves. The basis of the Berkeley
letter, from those "who ... are engaged even now in defending the civil
liberties of American dissidents ... [and] protest this repression of free–
dom," is a simple one: it demands that the Polish prisoners be released
and that "their political rights, including their right to distribute litera–
ture of protest and organize political opposition, be affirmed."
Michael Shu te
