352
PARTISAN REVIEW
dered questionable by reality has not taken hold.
It
hurts us and is
one of the reasons for our underdevelopment. I have arrived at a
fairly dramatic conclusion: Latin American intellectuals are some
of the most powerful agents of Latin American underdevelopment
because they keep us locked into schematic formulas and a black–
and-white Manichaeism in which there are no gradations. An ide–
ology with no shadings is the worst weapon imaginable.
IS:
Don't you think equally serious the confusion we continue to live
in -like those characters in Solzhenitsyn who die shouting "Long
live Stalin!" when it is Stalin who is having them executed?
MVL:
In my opinion, confusion and misunderstanding characterize
politics in our time. And not only in Latin America, but through–
out the world. Poland is an obvious example. How do you explain
that in the name of socialist ideology - an ideology that thinks the
working class will liberate humanity- these things are done? This
is clear proof of our colossal confusion. Things like that are hap–
pening all over Latin America, in my own country, for example.
We have just put a military dictatorship behind us, and we have
reestablished a democratic system that seems more or less genuine.
In our system there is a parliament in which, for the first time, all
Peruvian ideological currents are represented, even the extreme
left, which has its representatives and speakers there. In Peru
there are sporadic outbursts of terrorism, because the government
is supposedly weak. So people attack it as if it were Pinochet's re–
gime. Another example is
EI
Salvador, a really tragic situation be–
cause the military junta is in no way the government I would con–
sider ideal for any Latin American country. I think the junta is
populist, that in fact it is quite similar to Velasco's populist junta
in Peru.
It
just won't work in Latin America. At the same time, I
think that along with repressive military men there are also, doubt–
less, some who are well intentioned, irreproachable from the
point of view of the struggle for liberty. So, to present the problem
of
EI
Salvador as a struggle between good (the guerrilla forces)
and evil (the junta) seems to me a demagogic and false picture. I
think the business is much more complex and that we have to try
to understand the subtleties.
If
we lose sight of the small shades of
difference, we get lost. Just as there are progressive forces that
have a democratic, acceptable program, I think there are also
forces that are totally intransigent and authoritarian. What these
latter want is to establish a radically left-wing dictatorship in
EI
Salvador. As far as I'm concerned, that's no solution at all, not for
EI
Salvador, not for Peru, nor for any Latin American nation. I
