296
IRVING HOWE
scarcely requires Mr. Caute to tell us that these are not exactly ideal
settings for stable democracies. (By the same token, enthusiasts for
"Third World revolution" might notice, these countries are not exactly
ideal settings for socialism either.) What urgently matters in such coun–
tries is that, in order to achieve not only a modernized economy but
a humane order of life, there be at least some social space, some political
rights for the competing groups and classes. Do workers in such countries
want to establish unions independent of the state bureaucracy? Do
peasants want to protest against exploitation? Do intellectuals want to
criticize demagogy and corruption? For these elementary purposes, they
need a measure of democratic rights. Not some abstract Western ideology
but a conviction that for the people in these countries to gain a better
life they must have such political rights motivates the socialist critique
of "left authoritarianism."
Hence, my concern with India. Mr. Caute would put in cold storage
my view that India has "a solid democratic tradition." Let him hesitate
a little. I did not say that democracy was the only tradition at work in
India, or that it was beyond criticism or improvement. Look, however,
at the recent election in India where, with a minimum of disorder, the
dominant party was dislodged in several major states; and then compare
this to the recent happenings in China. Isn't there some reason to admire
the Indian people who, despite the most painful circumstances, have
maintained a democratic society these past twenty years?
If
Western
intellectuals were not so bemused-and some of them, corrupted-by
Realpolitik
on the one hand and a sodden nostalgia for the rhetoric of
"revolution" on the other, they would recognize that the survival of
Indian democracy merits our respect. That there are grave criticisms to
be made of India is obvious, but the remarkable thing is that these
criticisms can be made freely
within
India.
Steadily, the "left authoritarians" have had to beat a retreat. Russia
no longer attracts them; Yugoslavia is too liberal and even, perish the
thought, social democratic; China, well that is a bit thick, you know.
What remains for such people-largely contemptuous of the fraternal
vision at the heart of Marxism but still captive to the melodrama of
"revolution"; no longer, if ever, devoted to the proletarian mystique
but still enticed by the schema of a vanguard party's seizure of power
-is an
idea
of the Third World which proves more and more to be
without historical or geographical location. For as the countries of Asia
and Africa go further along their increasingly complex and divergent
lines of development, and as we brush past the slogans of ideological
