Nationalism's siren call:
Carlin, David R Jr.
OF SEVERAL MINDS David H. Carlin, Jr. NATIONALISM'S SIREN CALL OLD FEARS & NEW ONES-II Who would ever have imagined that the Soviet Union might be in danger of falling apart? Well, Milovan...
...Maybe they will work harder and more efficiently once they get independence...
...But the nations of the East, particularly the non-Russians of the USSR, are still young in nationalism...
...For at least 200 years, since the age of the French Revolution, nationalism has been an enormous force in the world, an intoxicating force...
...This increased productivity would eventually permit the Soviets to catch up with the Western nations, to become a fully modernized society...
...But every time the Russians make progress in this direction, the West, it turns out, makes further progress, and the goal of catching up remains almost as distant as ever...
...And of course he speaks of "a common European house, from the Atlantic to the Urals...
...he was the author of, among other works, Conversations with Stalin and The New Class, a critique of communism that caused a great sensation when it came out in the mid-1950s...
...it has grown ripe and mellow...
...he then became a critic of communism, even the Titoistic brand, and was rewarded for this insight with many years imprisonment...
...Why can't the two processes-increasing centralization in the West, increasing decentralization in the East-meet one another halfway...
...They can tell them that when it comes to national independence, half a loaf is not only better than none at all-it's even better than a whole loaf...
...But there is a crucial difference, I fear, between the nationalism of the West and that of the East...
...If he can handle this problem, if he can hold the Soviet Union together within a federal framework while continuing to pursue his program of glasnost and perestroika, then he will be one of the great political miracle workers of all time...
...It's not easy for young people to benefit from the wisdom their elders have gained in the college of hard knocks...
...Well, Milovan Djilas, for one...
...The nationalism of the East, alas, is in its exuberant adolescence To date Gorbachev has been a great political miracle worker...
...it has presided over the industrialization of the earth...
...Why indeed, can't this double process eventually lead to a pan-European federation, embracing west, east, and center...
...Years ago Djilas predicted that the centrifugal force of nationalism would eventually endanger the very existence of the Soviet Union...
...You don't have to read them lectures on the dangers of excess...
...they have an economic union that will be significantly strengthened in 1992...
...Unfortunately, we grow too soon old and too late smart...
...they've come home drunk at three in the morning and been sick all the next day...
...it created modern nation-states...
...Through pain they have learned wisdom...
...It has redrawn the map of the world time and again...
...Their long-term goal seems to be nationalism in moderate doses: just enough to preserve a comfortable sense of pride and identity in Europe's constituent parts, but not so much as to disrupt the advantage of transnational order and cooperation...
...In his appeals for patience to the non-Russian nationalities, he promises that the Soviet Union will be transformed from what it has been, a de facto unitary state with a federal veneer, into a genuine confederation-though he is still short on specifics...
...in the twentieth century, rebounding, it led the rest of the world to overthrow the same European dominion...
...Slowly, ever so slowly, the nations of Western Europe creep toward confederation...
...When people are free to choose one or the other, they'll choose the former...
...they've been there...
...I don't see how Gorbachev can have glasnost along with the continued existence of the Soviet Union...
...The Western Europeans have been free to have their fling with nationalism...
...They can tell them that Gorbachev's offer of confederation, as opposed to outright independence, is generous and wise...
...If the Western European states can ascend from anarchy to confederation, why can't the Soviet Union descend from a unitary state to a confederation...
...they haven't been allowed to go out on the town and live riotously...
...The nationalism of Western Europe is now mature...
...Their more experienced brothers and sisters can tell them national independence isn't all it's cracked up to be...
...they've sown their wild oats...
...Something like this is what Gorbachev appears to have in mind...
...After two centuries of playing with this intoxicant, Western Europe shows signs at last of being able to handle it with moderation...
...it has also given us World War I and World War II, not to mention the wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon, the bad angels that presided over its birth...
...They have a popularly elected, though of course very weak, parliament that meets in Strasbourg...
...He made the same prediction for his own multinational Yugoslavia...
...This is the latest version of the dream of westernization that has fascinated Russian rulers since the time of Peter the Great, nearly three centuries ago...
...during the nineteenth century it extended European dominion over much of the rest of the world...
...The young want to have their own experience, commit their own follies, bang their own heads against the wall...
...it has led to recognition of the rights of man and the citizen...
...they haven't had their fling...
...they know all about it...
...I fear Djilas was correct...
...it has also led to brutal totalitarianism...
...Gorbachev's hope, apparently, had been that a more liberal, more democratic Soviet Union would energize individuals, groups, and institutions so that they would become vastly more productive than they had been in recent decades...
...It has given us enormous prosperity...
...But why can't Gorbachev do the same...
...But nationalism is more attractive than hard work...
...in the postwar period he was vice-president of Communist Yugoslavia and one of the chief architects of Tito's successful revolt against Stalin in the late 1940s...
...Djilas, you remember, was Tito's friend and comrade-in-arms during the partisan struggle against the German occupation in World War II...
...It was not difficult to predict that once the conditions and instruments of liberal democracy were presented to the numerous non-Russian national groups in the Soviet Union, these groups would seize the gift, not in order to work harder in their farms, factories, and offices, but to assert national independence...
Vol. 117 • February 1990 • No. 3
