MICHAEL HARRINGTON
79
This did not mean a decision to "denigrate all meaningful
criticism of third-world Leninism" (and "third-world Leninism" is a
term with all of the precision and predictive power of "Italian
Catholicism"). The Socialist International communicated with - and
gave critical support to - the Eritrean Liberation Front which was
and is locked in armed struggle with the "Leninist" regime of
Mengistu; it heard representatives from East Timor and their pro–
test against the murderous policies of the Indonesians. Moreover,
the Sandinistas became observers
before
their conquest of power, at a
time when they were supported by democrats of every stripe. Their
first emissary to the International after the victory was Eden
Pastora, who later took up arms against his comrades . And on our
visit to Managua in 1981, Bernt Carlsson, then the Secretary
General of the International , showed his fear of criticizing Marxism–
Leninism by ostentatiously going to the offices of
La
Prensa
and tak–
ing out a subscription .
I could multiply such embarrassing facts
ad
nauseum
but I prefer
to get back to the real reason for the International's shift: not an
imaginary desire to woo Marxist-Leninists (which, in addition to
everything else , would have been political suicide at home) but a real
concern for the wretched of the earth and a policy that might
alleviate the crisis of the welfare state in the North as well as the
misery of the people of the South . Were there risks in such an under–
taking? Of course. Thank God , they were taken.
There is indeed a "third worldism" which holds that the citizens
of imperial powers have no right to criticize the violations of basic
human rights in their ex-colonies. That is, I have argued throughout
my political life , a way of transforming the old imperialist rationale
of
La mission civiLatrice
into an excuse for indigenous authoritarians
who must educate childlike peoples . There is a symmetrical theory
which ignores history just as the third worldists deify it. National
liberation movements and governments are judged by Western stan–
dards as if the latter were not a product of historical conditions and
long, bitter struggles .
If,
it is argued, the Nicaraguan elections were
less than perfect - and they were -
therefore
they were simply a front
for totalitarianism. This is the slippery slope on which Radosh is
now sliding.
This point of view has , however, considerable tolerance for any
third world movement which take an anticommunist oath. The
con–
tras,
initiated by the C .I.A. , organized around a
Somocista
cadre and
