The revolution is not at hand. Although this fact is no surprise to anyone, it does merit some reflection. At the very moment when the industrialized West faces something akin to those “crises of capitalism” that Marxists have talked about …
A writer named Tang Tao, who came to see us in Peking, presented us with a book of his newly published essays open to a page with a photograph that he eagerly pointed out to me because I was in …
The agenda for the 1984 presidential election has changed suddenly and drastically. What happened was Chicago. Black participation in all aspects of American governance and the continuing problem of equal rights landed in the center of the American political scene. …
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General Jaruzelski’s desperate coup against his own people bought his bankrupt regime some time. It also had the effect, no doubt quite unintended, of freezing Solidarity in time, and of ensuring that movement a permanent place in Poland’s national mythology. …
After recently spending a month in Chile—meeting with teachers, human rights workers and lawyers— it is clear to me that the contradictory maze of constitutional laws, penal codes, executive decrees, and ministerial directives provides the Pinochet regime with a constitutional …
At mid-term, the bellicose momentum of the Reagan administration’s policies toward Nicaragua, and toward Central America as a whole, has stalled. The reactionary impulse behind these policies (in the sense of an attempt to roll back change to the status …
American academia has become the scene of a kind of ideological warfare. Although the confrontation affects the humanities and other disciplines, the principal battlefield is the domain of the empirical social sciences. The self-confidence of the social sciences in the …
Michael Harrington argues persuasively in his article in Dissent, Fall 1982 [“A Path for America”] that we will soon be entering the age of social democracy in America. The failure of Reagan’s policies to end the recession is becoming apparent …
At the start, the uprising of the Afghan population against the Communist regime was a spontaneous movement, centered around the village elders. But very soon and of necessity, the character of the resistance changed: to fight a machine as formidable …
Let us say that you are the editor of a journal that has a fairly explicit political viewpoint, and you decide that along with articles on political and social issues you want to run some pieces on cultural subjects as …
On numerous occasions I’ve seen police cars come to a screeching halt and policemen scatter in apprehending a suspect. Each time, save one, the apprehended black male was dragged along the pavement, smacked in the face, or otherwise abused. This …
The longevity of the East European Communist systems—they have lasted over 35 years—poses a serious question: what are the sources of social stability and legitimacy in these societies? In the late ’40s and early ’50s most specialists assumed that, except …
When Voltaire was asked why he kept a Bible on his night table, he replied: “You have to know your enemies.” I subscribe to Commentary on this Voltairean principle. As a result I got onto the mailing list of Midge …
May 15-20. Dallas. No, not Dallas, a soap opera that holds much of the world’s population in its grip. Same scene, no doubt, but a different cast of characters. On this occasion, 5,000 UAW people, half of them delegates, have …
