ARGUMENTS
297
debauch, it becomes clear that there is not going to be one great "revolu–
tion of the underdeveloped world" leading to one-party nationalist-radical
dictatorships and/or Communist-style expropriations of the land. Some
countries will go that way; others will stumble along with military
regimes; still others will try to break into the twentieth century through
democratic or semi-democratic experiments.
What the recent experiences in Indonesia, Ghana, Algeria and else–
where demonstrate is that the problem of modernization cannot be solved
simply through a forced march to industrialization--often no more than
mere political display. Modernization also requires that certain values
and disciplines, habits of voluntary cooperation, be inculcated. Toward
these ends, at least a measure of democracy may
turn
out to be more
valuable,
if
less "dramatic," than the compulsions of the party-state
dictatorship.
Between the suppression of democratic rights and the rationale for
such acts offered by either indigenous dictators or Western intellectuals
(e.g., industrial development, cultural backwardness, etc.) there is often
a large distance, sometimes a complete lack of connection. Such justifica–
tions tend to be
post hoc,
large rhetorical flourishes ill-related to par–
ticular repressive steps. What
in
actuality did the suppression of demo–
cratic rights by Nkrumah or Sukarno or Castro have to do with the
grandiose economic claims they made for themselves or that were pre–
pared by Western intellectuals who know that to make omelets some–
one's eggs have to be broken? (There's also a strand of social snobbism
in the "left authoritarian" outlook: democracy is all very well for Eng–
land, but really now, those
natives.
... )
If,
indeed, we were to conclude that in some backward countries
there is for a time no alternative to authoritarianism, there would be no
reason for intellectuals, especially those of "the Left," to praise such
regimes or set up their charismatic leaders as models for dissident youth
in the West. As George Lichtheim pungently remarks: "... while the
ruling groups of certain pre-industrial countries may derive an advantage
from pinning the socialist label to themselves, they are not in fact promot–
ing anything connected with the historic aims of either democracy or
the labor movement."
Mr. Caute's opinions about American politics need not long detain
us. Yes, Leroi Jones is a racist demagogue whose bluster, if heeded, would
lead not tp militant struggle by the Negro masses but to isolation, de–
moralization and copping-out. Yes, "delicate nuances" are imperiled by
the politics of coalition; can Mr. Caute tell us of any politics, short of
