The Institutionalization of Authoritarianism and Political Economic Prospects
We must ask ourselves if these authoritarian and military states, with all their economic and political repression, are only a passing phenomenon, a nightmare soon to be forgotten. Or are the oppressive organization and the militarization of society in the Third World being institutionalized so that they will likely endure for the foreseeable future? Several considerations oblige us to pose and try to answer this question. On the one hand, President Carter launched a "human rights" campaign, and since 1977 elections have been held or announced in several countries of the Third World. Both of these circumstances have led — and perhaps were meant to lead — many people to believe that political change can be brought about by appeals to goodwill and that there is a renewed trend toward democratization and liberalization of the state and society in many parts of the Third World. On the other hand, the most authoritative spokesmen of almost all shades of the socialist left in the world have been making official declarations to the effect that liberation, revolution, and socialism are on the irresistible offensive all around the Third World (and elsewhere). At every official reception in Peking and in major declarations at the United Nations, the Chinese leadership (irrespective of who it has been each time) has solemnly declared that "the situation in the world is excellent . . . and in China too." The Soviet Union and other East European socialist countries say that imperialism and reaction are on the defensive and losing ground. The Communist parties of Europe at their meeting in Berlin, and those of Latin America at the meeting in Havana, declared that popular democracy, national liberation, and socialist revolution are on the advance in most developed and underdeveloped countries, despite temporary setbacks in Latin America. Trotskyists declare that prerevolutionary situations are in the making in several parts of the world. The same optimism is shared by various shades of socialists and revolutionaries in Latin America, Africa, and South and Southeast Asia. These people have been encouraged by popular mobilization, liberalization, and other events in their respective countries and regions, and consider the time for new political activity to be ripe or ripening. And in fact, since the mid 1970s we have witnessed popular victories in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia (some of whose less salutary results are examined in Chapter 9 and WE: Chapter 4); the defeat of Portuguese colonialism and then of Western attempts to subvert the victory of MPLA, which now governs Angola; the groundswell throughout southern Africa in Zimbabwe, Namibia, and in Soweto, Port Elizabeth, and other cities inside South Africa itself; and progressive advances in Somalia, Ethiopia, and Eritrea in the Horn of Africa (though developments here have also been the subject of concern and doubt) and some revolutionary advances in Central America and the Caribbean. There also appears to be greater room for progressive political mobilization and maneuver in some other regions or countries of South Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
