80
PARTISAN REVIEW
trained by fascist officers from the then Argentinian dictatorship, be–
come-obscenely-"freedom fighters." A Jonas Savimbi is forgiven
his alliance with South African
apartheid,
his former Maoism
and . . . Leninism because he fights an Angola supported militarily
by Fidel. Lo, one is on the road to the distinction between tolerable
authoritarianisms and intolerable totalitarianisms (i.e. Communist
regimes, Communist supported regimes, suspected Communist
supported regimes) immortalized by Jeane Kirkpatrick.
Let me be specific . The African National Congress (ANC) con–
tains a not insignificant Communist cadre in an organization which
is composed of many other tendencies. The movement often sees
those Communists as selfless militants with ties to a Soviet Union
which has largely supported the
anti-apartheid
battle. That such sup–
port was cheap for a power that never had African colonies is true; so
is the fact that the Soviets have violently repressed self-determi–
nation in Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan and, by
threats , in Poland. Does that then mean that one should turn one's
back on the ANC , predicting the inevitable Communist domination
of the organization?
The Socialist International supported the ANC's struggle
because the ANC is one of the most effective organizations in a fight
against racism and for basic human rights. And it has given observer
rights to the ANC, even though, some years ago, its representative
delivered a Moscow party-line denunciation of the Chinese Com–
munists. It knows what it is doing and, as Brandt remarked rather
wearily at a meeting in Botswana, does have some serious ex–
perience in dealing with communism. I am also proud that Demo–
cratic Socialists of America sponsored a national tour for an ANC
spokesperson . I even think that democratic socialist solidarity with
the ANC on the basis of a principled opposition to
all
imperialisms
might strengthen the democratic forces in South Africa.
It
was precisely in the name of that principled anti-imperialism
that, at the 1985 DSA Convention in Berkeley alluded to by Radosh,
we did not simply privately communicate our opposition to certain
Sandinista policies and have Barbara Ehrenreich state her own op–
position publicly . De Scoto shared the stage with a representative of
the ANC and of ...
Solidamosc.
(Radosh's questioning of my con–
tinuing support of the Polish struggle is beneath contempt.)
Does my commitment to deal with these moral complexities
lead to difficulties and even mistakes (like not checking out the New
