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Can Communist Regimes Reform?
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13998 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
2 / 1988 |
3,596 Words |
| Author
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Doan Van Toai
Doan Van Toai, former Vietcong activist and author of
Vietnamese Gulag, is executive director of the Institute for
Democracy in Vietnam. |
Many years ago, the Russian author and human rights activist Andre Malik wrote a book called Can the Soviets Survive Until 1984? Ironically and unfortunately, he died before the question could be answered. We are now three years beyond that significant date, and today, the Soviet Union not only survives but has prospered. Despite a number of setbacks, the Soviets continue to occupy Afghanistan, they have put the Polish challenge to their hegemony behind them, and they stand firm as an imperialist superpower.
The survival of the Soviet regime seems assured, at least for the foreseeable future. That being the case, the question before us is rather: "Can they reform?" It would be pleasant to simply point to glasnost and answer yes, gut if we are to avoid clinging to hopes and illusion, we must look first to the historical development of the communist and anticommunist struggle.
The Soviets have an uninterrupted history of conquest under the banner of liberation, and control under the banner of independence. Communist wars of liberation have succeeded in the postwar era because the United States, the only Western power that could have played a leadership role, ignored the plight of the Third world. The key mistake of the West after the Second World War was its unwillingness to support national liberation movements. In case after case, the United States either stayed neutral in wars of national liberation or took the side of he colonialists. As the British historian Michael Howard writes:
Every State and every regime whose interests coincided with those of the United States automatically became part of the "Free World," honorary democracies whatever the nature of their political system. The criterion of "freedom" rapidly ceased to be that defined by Truman: "free institutions, representative governments, free elections, guarantees of individual liberty, freedom of speech and religion, and freedom from political oppression." It became, rather, accessibility to American influence and willingness to fall in with the wishes of the United States.
This attitude, of course, played right into the hands of the Soviets. While the United States saw the world as divided into two camps--the wicked communists and the freedom-loving anticommunists--many in the Third World saw the division very differently. On one side we saw the national independence movements in former colonies fighting for their freedom with the support of the Soviets, and on the other side the reactionary forces, unpopular and corrupt, supported by the
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